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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/39689-8.txt b/39689-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d59dbe5 --- /dev/null +++ b/39689-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9637 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Satan Sanderson, by Hallie Erminie Rives, +Illustrated by A. B. Wenzell + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Satan Sanderson + + +Author: Hallie Erminie Rives + + + +Release Date: May 13, 2012 [eBook #39689] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SATAN SANDERSON*** + + +E-text prepared by David Edwards, Martin Pettit, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images +generously made available by Internet Archive (http://archive.org/) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 39689-h.htm or 39689-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/39689/39689-h/39689-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/39689/39689-h.zip) + + + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive. See + http://archive.org/details/satansanderson00riverich + + + + + +SATAN SANDERSON + + * * * * * + +Books by + +HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES (Mrs. Post Wheeler) + + +A FURNACE OF EARTH + +HEARTS COURAGEOUS + Illustrated by A. B. Wenzell + +THE CASTAWAY + Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy + +TALES FROM DICKENS + Illustrated by Reginald B. Birch + +SATAN SANDERSON + Illustrated by A. B. Wenzell + + * * * * * + + +[Illustration] + + +SATAN SANDERSON + +by + +HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES + +Author of +The Castaway, Hearts Courageous, etc. + +With Illustrations by A. B. Wenzell + + + + + + + +Indianapolis +The Bobbs-Merrill Company +Publishers + +Copyright 1907 +The Bobbs-Merrill Company + +August + +Press of +Braunworth & Co. +Bookbinders and Printers +Brooklyn, N. Y. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + I AS A MAN SOWS 1 + + II DOCTOR MOREAU 15 + + III THE COMING OF A PRODIGAL 20 + + IV THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING 32 + + V THE BISHOP SPEAKS 47 + + VI WHAT CAME OF A WEDDING 50 + + VII OUT OF THE DARK 60 + + VIII "AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER?" 68 + + IX AFTER A YEAR 75 + + X THE GAME 85 + + XI HALLELUJAH JONES TAKES A HAND 95 + + XII THE FALL OF THE CURTAIN 105 + + XIII THE CLOSED DOOR 108 + + XIV THE WOMAN WHO REMEMBERED 115 + + XV THE MAN WHO HAD FORGOTTEN 125 + + XVI THE AWAKENING 137 + + XVII AT THE TURN OF THE TRAIL 147 + + XVIII THE STRENGTH OF THE WEAK 155 + + XIX THE EVIL EYE 160 + + XX MRS. HALLORAN TELLS A STORY 167 + + XXI A VISIT AND A VIOLIN 171 + + XXII THE PASSING OF PRENDERGAST 179 + + XXIII A RACE WITH DEATH 187 + + XXIV ON SMOKY MOUNTAIN 198 + + XXV THE OPEN WINDOW 210 + + XXVI LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT 222 + + XXVII INTO THE GOLDEN SUNSET 229 + + XXVIII THE TENANTLESS HOUSE 238 + + XXIX THE CALL OF LOVE 250 + + XXX IN A FOREST OF ARDEN 259 + + XXXI THE REVELATION OF HALLELUJAH JONES 269 + + XXXII THE WHITE HORSE SKIN 277 + + XXXIII THE RENEGADE 282 + + XXXIV THE TEMPTATION 289 + + XXXV FELDER TAKES A CASE 302 + + XXXVI THE HAND AT THE DOOR 305 + + XXXVII THE PENITENT THIEF 311 + +XXXVIII A DAY FOR THE STATE 319 + + XXXIX THE UNSUMMONED WITNESS 331 + + XL FATE'S WAY 335 + + XLI FELDER WALKS WITH DOCTOR BRENT 339 + + XLII THE RECKONING 344 + + XLIII THE LITTLE GOLD CROSS 353 + + XLIV THE IMPOSTOR 360 + + XLV AN APPEAL TO CÆSAR 369 + + XLVI FACE TO FACE 376 + + XLVII BETWEEN THE MILLSTONES 384 + + XLVIII THE VERDICT 390 + + XLIX THE CRIMSON DISK 395 + + L WHEN DREAMS COME TRUE 397 + + + + +SATAN SANDERSON + + + + +CHAPTER I + +AS A MAN SOWS + + +"_To my son Hugh, in return for the care and sorrow he has caused me all +the days of his life, for his dissolute career and his desertion, I do +give and bequeath the sum of one thousand dollars and the memory of his +misspent youth._" + +It was very quiet in the wide, richly furnished library. The May night +was still, but a faint suspiration, heavy with the fragrance of jasmin +flowers, stirred the Venetian blind before the open window and rustled +the moon-silvered leaves of the aspens outside. As the incisive +professional pronouncement of the judge cut through the lamp-lighted +silence, the grim, furrowed face with its sunken eyes and gray military +mustaches on the pillow of the wheel-chair set more grimly; a girl +seated in the damask shadow of the fire-screen caught her breath; and +from across the polished table the Reverend Henry Sanderson turned his +handsome, clean-shaven face and looked at the old man. + +A peevish misogynist the neighborhood labeled the latter, with the +parish chapel for hobby, and for thorn-in-the-flesh this only son Hugh, +a black sheep whose open breaches of decorum the town had borne as best +it might, till the tradition of his forebears took him off to an eastern +university. A reckless life there and three wastrel years abroad, had +sent him back to resume his peccadilloes on a larger scale, to quarrel +bitterly with his father, and to leave his home in anger. In what rough +business of life was Hugh now chewing the cud of his folly? Harry +Sanderson was wondering. + +"Wait," came the querulous voice from the chair. "Write in 'graceless' +before the word 'desertion'." + +"_For his dissolute career and his--graceless--desertion_," repeated the +lawyer, the parchment crackling under his pen. + +The stubborn antagonism that was a part of David Stires' nature flared +under the bushy eyebrows. "As a man sows!" he said, a kind of bitter +jocularity in the tone. "That should be the text, if this sermon of mine +needed any, Sanderson! It won't have as large an audience as your +discourses draw, but it will be remembered by one of its hearers, at +least." + +Judge Conwell glanced curiously at Harry Sanderson as he blotted the +emendation. He knew the liking of the cross-grained and taciturn old +invalid--St. James' richest parishioner--for this young man of +twenty-five who had come to the parish only two months before, fresh +from his theological studies, to fill a place temporarily vacant--and +had stayed by sheer force of personality. He wondered if, aside from +natural magnetic qualities, this liking had not been due first of all to +the curious resemblance between the young minister and the absent son +whom David Stires was disinheriting. For, as far as mold of feature +went, the young minister and the ne'er-do-well might have been twin +brothers; yet a totally different manner and coloring made this likeness +rather suggestive than striking. + +No one, perhaps, had ever interested the community more than had Harry +Sanderson. He had entered upon his duties with the marks of youth, good +looks, self-possession and an ample income thick upon him, and had +brought with him a peculiar charm of manner and an apparent incapacity +for doing things in a hackneyed way. Convention sat lightly upon Harry +Sanderson. He recognized few precedents, either in the new methods and +millinery with which he had invested the service, or in his personal +habits. Instead of attending the meeting of St. Andrew's Guild, after +the constant custom of his predecessor, he was apt to be found playing +his violin (a passion with him) in the smart study that adjoined the +Gothic chapel where he shepherded his fashionable flock, or tramping +across the country with a briar pipe in his mouth and his brown spaniel +"Rummy" nosing at his heels. His athletic frame and clean-chiselled +features made him a rare figure for the reading-desk, as his violin +practice, the cut of his golf-flannels, the immaculate elegance of his +motor-car--even the white carnation he affected in his buttonhole--made +him for the younger men a goodly pattern of the cloth; and it had +speedily grown to be the fashion to hear the brilliant young minister, +to memorize his classical aphorisms or to look up his latest quotation +from Keats or Walter Pater. So that Harry Sanderson, whose innovations +had at first disturbed and ruffled the sensibilities of those who would +have preferred a fogy, in the end had drifted, apparently without +special effort, into a far wider popularity than that which bowed to the +whim of the old invalid in the white house in the aspens. + +Something of all this was in the lawyer's mind as he paused--a +perfunctory pause--before he continued: + +"_... I do give and bequeath the sum of one thousand dollars, and the +memory of his misspent youth._" + +Harry Sanderson's eyes had wandered from the chair to the slim figure +of the girl who sat by the screen. This was Jessica Holme, the orphaned +daughter of a friend of the old man's early years, who had recently come +to the house in the aspens to fill the void left by Hugh's departure. +Harry could see the contour of throat and wrists, the wild-rose mesh of +the skin against the Romney-blue gown, the plenteous red-bronze hair +uncoiled and falling in a single braid, and the shadowy pathos of her +eyes. Clear hazel eyes they were, wide and full, but there was in them +no depth of expression--for Jessica Holme was blind. As the crisp +deliberate accent pointed the judicial period, as with a subterranean +echo of irrefutable condemnation, Harry saw her under lip indrawn, her +hands clasp tightly, then unclasp in her lap. Pliant, graceful hands, he +thought, which even blindness could not make maladroit. In the chapel +porch stood the figure of an angel which she had modelled solely by the +wonderful touch in the finger-tips. + +"Go on," rasped the old man. + +"_The residue of my estate, real and personal, I do give and bequeath to +my ward, Jessica Holme, to be and become--_" + +He broke off suddenly, for the girl was kneeling by the chair, groping +for the restless hand that wandered on the afghan, and crying in a +strained, agitated voice: "No ... no ... you must not! Please, please! I +never could bear it!" + +"Why not?" The old man's irritant query was belligerent. "Why not? What +is there for you to bear, I'd like to know!" + +"He is your son!" + +"In the eyes of the law, yes. But not otherwise!" His voice rose. "What +has he done to deserve anything from me? What has he had all his life +but kindness? And how has he repaid it? By being a waster and a +prodigal. By setting me in contempt, and finally by forsaking me in my +old age for his own paths of ribaldry." + +The girl shook her head. "You don't know where he is now, or what he is +doing. Oh, he was wild and reckless, I have no doubt. But when he +quarrelled and left you, wasn't it perhaps because he was too +quick-tempered? And if he hasn't come back, isn't it perhaps because he +is too proud? Why, he wouldn't be your son if he weren't proud! No +matter how sorry he might be, it would make no difference then. I could +give him the money you had given me, but I couldn't change the fact. +You, his own father, would have disowned him, disinherited him, taken +away his birthright!" + +"And richly he'd deserve it!" he snapped, his bent fingers plucking +angrily at the wool of the afghan. "He doesn't want a father or a home. +He wants his own way and a freedom that is license! I know him. You +don't; you never saw him." + +"I never saw you either," she said, a little sadly. + +"Come," he answered a shade more gently. "I didn't mean your eyes, my +dear! I mean that you never met him in your life. He had shaken off the +dust of his feet against this house before you came to brighten it, +Jessica. I've not forgiven him seven times; I've forgiven him seventy +times seven. But he doesn't want forgiveness. To him I am only 'the old +man' who refused to 'put up' longer for his fopperies and extravagances! +When he left this house six months ago, he declared he would never enter +it again. Very well--let him stay away! He shan't come back when I am in +my grave, to play ducks and drakes with the money he misuses! And I've +fixed it so that you won't be able to give it away either, Jessica. Give +me the pen," he said to the judge, "and, Sanderson, will you ring? We +shall need the butler to witness with you." + +As Harry Sanderson rose to his feet the girl, still kneeling, turned +half about with a hopeless gesture. "Oh, won't you help me?" she said. +She spoke more to herself, it seemed, than to either of the men who +waited. Harry's face was in the shadow. The lawyer with careful +deliberation was putting a new pen into the holder. + +"Sanderson," said the old man with bitter fierceness, lifting his hand, +"I dare say you think I am hard; but I tell you there has never been a +day since Hugh was born when I wouldn't have laid down my life for him! +You are so like! When I look at you, I seem to see him as he might have +been but for his own wayward choice! If he were only as like you in +other things as he is in feature! You are nearly the same age; you went +to the same college, I believe; you have had the same advantages and the +same temptations. Yet you, an orphan, come out a divinity student, and +Hugh--my son!--comes out a roisterer with gambling debts, a member of +the 'fast set,' one of a dissolute fraternity known as 'The Saints,' +whose very existence, no doubt, was a shame to the institution!" + +Harry Sanderson turned slowly to the light. A strange panorama in that +moment had flashed through his brain--kaleidoscopic pictures of an +earlier reckless era when he had not been known as the "Reverend Henry +Sanderson." An odd, sensitive flush burned his forehead. The hand he had +outstretched to the bell-cord dropped to his side, and he said, with +painful steadiness: + +"I think I ought to say that I was the founder, and at the time you +speak of, the Abbot of The Saints." + +The pen rattled against the mahogany, as the man of law leaned back to +regard the speaker with a stare of surprise whetted with a keen edge of +satiric amusement. The old man sat silent, and the girl crouched by the +chair with parted lips. The look in Harry's face was not now that of the +decorative young churchman of the Sabbath surplice. It held a keen +electric sense of the sharp contrasts of life, touched with a wakeful +pain of conscience. + +"I was in the same year with Hugh," Harry went on. "We sowed our wild +oats together--a tidy crop, I fancy, for us both. That page of my life +is pasted down. I speak of it now because it would be cowardly not to. I +have not seen Hugh since college closed four years ago. But then I was +all you have called him--a waster and a prodigal. And I was more; for +while others followed, I led. At college I was known as 'Satan +Sanderson'." + +He stopped. The old man cleared his throat, but did not speak. He was +looking at Harry fixedly. In the pause the girl found his gnarled hand +and laid her cheek against it. Harry leaned an elbow upon the +mantelpiece as he continued, in a low voice: + +"Colleges are not moral strait-jackets. Men have there to cast about, +try themselves and find their bearings. They are in hand-touch with +temptation, and out of earshot of the warnings of experience. The mental +and moral machine lacks a governor. Slips of the cog then may or may not +count seriously to character in the end. They sometimes signify only a +phase. They may be mere idiosyncrasy. I have thought that it stood in +this case," he added with the glimmer of a smile, "with Satan Sanderson; +he seems to me from this focus to be quite another individual from the +present rector of St. James." + +"It is only the Hugh of the present that I am dealing with," interposed +the old man. For David Stires was just and he was feeling a grim respect +for Harry's honesty. + +Harry acknowledged the brusque kindliness of the tone with a little +motion of the hand. As he spoke he had been feeling his way through a +maze of contradictory impulses. For a moment he had been back in that +old irresponsible time; the Hugh he had known then had sprung to his +mind's eye--an imitative idler, with a certain grace and brilliancy of +manner that made him hail-fellow-well-met, but withal shallow, foppish +and incorrigible, a cheap and shabby imitator of the outward manner, not +the inner graces, of good-fellowship. Yet Hugh had been one of his own +"fast set"; they had called him "Satan's shadow," a tribute to the +actual resemblance as well as to the palpable imitation he affected. +Harry shivered a little. The situation seemed, in antic irony, to be +reversing itself. It was as if not alone Hugh, but he, Harry Sanderson, +in the person of that past of his, was now brought to bar for judgment +in that room. For the instant he forgot how utterly characterless Hugh +had shown himself of old, how devoid of all desire for rehabilitation +his present reputation in the town argued him. At that moment it seemed +as if in saving Hugh from this condemnation, he was pleading for himself +as he had been--for the further chance which he, but for circumstances, +perhaps, had needed, too. His mind, working swiftly, told him that no +appeal to mere sentiment would suffice--he must touch another note. As +he paused, his eyes wandered to an oil portrait on the wall, and +suddenly he saw his way. + +"You," he said, "have lived a life of just and balanced action. It is +bred in the bone. You hate all loose conduct, and rightly. You hate it +most in Hugh for the simple reason that he is your son. The very +relation makes it more impossible to countenance. He should be like +you--of temperate and prudent habit. But did you and he start on equal +terms? Your grandfather was a Standish; your ancestry was undiluted +Puritan. Did Hugh have all your fund of resistance?" + +The old man's gaze for the first time left Harry's face. It lifted for +an instant to the portrait at which Harry had glanced--a picture of +Hugh's dark gipsy-like mother, painted in the month of her marriage, and +the year of her death--and in that instant the stern lines about the +mouth relaxed a little. Harry had laid his finger on the deepest cord of +feeling in the old man's gruff nature. The glow that had smoldered in +the cavernous eyes faded and a troubled cloud came to belie their former +wrath. + +"'As a man sows,' you say, and you deny him another seeding and it may +be a better harvest. You shut the door;--and if you shut it, it may not +swing open again! With me it was the turning of a long lane. Hugh +perhaps has not turned--yet." A breath of that past life had swept anew +over Harry, the old shuddering recoil again had rushed upon him. It gave +his voice a curious energy as he ended: "And I have seen how far a man +may go and yet--come back!" + +There was a pause. The judge had an inspiration. He folded the +parchment, and rose. + +"Perhaps it would be as well," he said in a matter-of-fact way, "if the +signing be left open for the present. Last testaments, whatever their +provisions, are more or less serious matters, and in your case,"--he +nodded toward the occupant of the chair--"there is not the element of +necessitous haste. Of course," he added tentatively, "I am at your +service at any time." + +He rose as he spoke, and laid the document on the table. + +For a moment David Stires sat in silence. Then he said, with a glint of +the old ironic fire: "You should have been a special pleader, Sanderson. +There's no client too bad for them to make out a case for! Well ... well +... we won't sign to-night. I will read it over again when I am more +equal to it." + +His visitors made their adieux, and as the door closed upon them, the +girl came to the wheel-chair and wistfully drew the parchment from his +hands. + +"You're a good girl, Jessica," he said, "too good to a rascal you've +never known. But there--go to your room, child. I can ring for Blake +when I want anything." + +For long the old man sat alone, musing in his chair, his eyes on the +painted portrait on the wall. The image there was just as young and fair +and joyous as though yesterday she had stood in bridal white beside +him, instead of so long ago--so long ago! His lips moved. "In return +for the care and sorrow," he muttered, "all the days of his life!" + +At length he sighed and took up a magazine. He was thinking of Harry +Sanderson. + +"How like!" he said aloud. "So Sanderson sowed his wild oats, too!... +When he stood there, with the light on his face--when he talked--I--I +could almost have thought it was Hugh!" + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER II + +DOCTOR MOREAU + + +Harry Sanderson and the judge parted at the gate, and Harry walked +slowly home in the moonlight. + +The youthful follies that he had resurrected when he had called himself +his old nickname of "Satan Sanderson" he had left so far behind him, had +buried so deep, that the ironic turn of circumstance that had dragged +them into view, sorry skeletons, seemed intrusive and malicious. Not +that he was desirous of sailing under false colors; he had brought into +his new career more than a _soupçon_ of the old indifference to popular +estimation, the old propensity to go his own way and to care very little +what others thought of him. The sting was a nearer one; it was his own +present of fair example and good repute that recoiled with a fastidious +sense of abasement from the recollection. + +As he stood in the library, his hand on the mantelpiece, he had been +painfully conscious of detail. He remembered vividly the half amused +smile of the lawyer, the silent, listening attitude of the girl +crouched by the wheel-chair. He had seen Jessica Holme scarcely a +half-dozen times, then only at service, or driving behind the Stires +bays. That moment when she had thrown herself beside the old man's chair +to plead for the son she had never seen--an instant revelation wrought +by the strenuous agitation of the moment--had been illuminative; it had +given him a lightning-like glimpse into the unplummeted deeps of womanly +unselfishness and sympathy. He flushed suddenly. He had not realized +that she was so beautiful. + +What a tragedy to be blind, for a woman with temperament, talent and +heart! To be sightless to the beauty of such a perfect night, with that +silver bridge of stars, those far hills rising like purple tulips--an +alluring night for those who saw! The picture she had made, kneeling +with the lamplight rosying in her hair, hung before him. The +flower-scent with which the room had been full was in his nostrils, and +verses flashed into his mind: + + + And I swear, as I thought of her thus, in that hour, + And of how, after all, old things were best, + That I smelt the smell of that jasmin-flower + Which she used to wear in her breast. + + +Under his thought the lines repeated themselves in a mystical monotone. + +He had saved an old college-mate from possible disinheritance and the +grind of poverty, for David Stires' health was precarious. He thought of +this with a tinge of satisfaction. The least of that peculiar clan, one +who had held his place, not by likable qualities but by a versatile +talent for entertainment, Hugh Stires yet deserved thus much. Harry +Sanderson had never shirked an obligation. "As a man sows"--the old +man's words recurred to him. Did any man reap what he sowed, after all? +Was he, the "Satan Sanderson" that was, getting his deserts? + +"If there is a Providence that parcels out our earthly rewards and +penalties," he said to himself, "it has missed me! If there is any +virtue in example, I ought to be the black sheep. Hugh never influenced +anybody; he was a natural camp-follower. I was in the van. All I said +was a sneer, all I did a challenge to respectability. Yet here I am, a +shepherd of the faithful, a brother of Aaron!" + +Harry stepped more briskly along the gas-lighted square, nodding now and +then to an acquaintance, and bowing on a crossing to a carriage that +bowled by with the wife of the Very Reverend, the Bishop of the Diocese. +As he passed a darkened entrance, a door with a small barred window in +its upper panel opened, and a man came into the street--a man light and +fair with watery blue eyes and a drooping, blond mustache. He lifted his +silk hat with a faded, Chesterfieldian grace as he came down the steps +with outstretched hand. + +"My dear Sanderson!" he said effusively. "In the interest of sweetness +and light, where did you stumble on your new chauffeur? His style is the +admiration of the town. Next to having your gift of eloquence, I can +think of nothing so splendid as possessing such a _tonneau_! The city is +in your debt; you have shown it that even a cleric can be 'fast' without +reproach!" + +Harry Sanderson saw the weak features and ingratiating smile, the +clayey, dry-lined skin and restless eyes, but he did not seem to see the +extended hand. He did not smile at the badinage as he replied evenly: + +"My chauffeur, Doctor, is a Finn; and his style is his own. I see, +however, that I must decrease his speed-limit." + +Doctor Moreau stood a moment looking after him, his womanish hands +clenching and his cynical glance full of an evil light. + +"The university prig!" he said under his breath. "Doesn't he take +himself for the whole thing, with his money and his buttonhole bouquet, +and his smug self-righteousness! He thinks I'm hardly fit to speak to +since I've had to quit the hospital! I'd like to take him down a peg!" + +He watched the alert, ministerial figure till it rounded the corner. He +looked up and down the street, hesitating; then, shrugging his +shoulders, he turned and reëntered the door with the narrow barred +window. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE COMING OF A PRODIGAL + + +The later night was very still and the moon, lifting like a paper +lantern over the aspen tops, silvered all the landscape. In its placid +radiance the white house loomed in a ghostly pallor. The windows of one +side were blank, but behind the library shade the bulbous lamp still +drowsed like a monster glow-worm. From the shadowy side of the building +stretched a narrow L, its front covered by a rose-trellis, whose pale +blossoms in the soft night air mingled their delicate fragrance with +that of the jasmin. + +Save for the one bright pane, there seemed now no life or movement in +the house. But outside, in the moonlight, a lurching, shabbily-clothed +figure moved, making his uncertain way with the deliberation of composed +inebriety. The sash of the window was raised a few inches and he nodded +sagely at the yellow shade. + +"Gay old silver-top!" he hiccoughed; "see you in the morning!" + +He capsized against an althea bush and shook his head with owlish +gravity as he disentangled himself. Then he staggered serenely to the +rose-trellis, and, choosing its angle with an assurance that betrayed +ancient practice, climbed to the upper window, shot its bolt with a +knife, and let himself in. He painstakingly closed both windows and +inner blinds, before he turned on an electric light. + +In the room in which he now stood he had stored his boyish treasures and +shirked his maturer tasks. It should have had deeper human associations, +too, for once, before the house had been enlarged to its present +proportions, that chamber had been his mother's. The _Maréchal Niel_ +rose that clambered to the window-sill had been planted by her hand. In +that room he had been born. And in it had occurred that sharp, corrosive +quarrel with his father on the night he had flung himself from the house +vowing never to return. + +As Hugh Stires stood looking about him, it seemed for an instant to his +clouded senses that the past six months of wandering and unsavory +adventure were a dream. There was his bed, with its clean linen sheets +and soft pillows. How he would like to lie down just as he was and sleep +a full round of the clock! Last night he had slept--where had he slept? +He had forgotten for the moment. He looked longingly at the spotless +coverlid. No; some one might appear, and it would not do to be seen in +his present condition. It was scarcely ten. Time enough for that +afterward. + +He drew out the drawer of a chiffonier, opened a closet and gloated over +the order and plenty of their contents. He made difficult selection from +these, and, steadying his progress by wall and chair, opened the door of +an adjoining bath-room. It contained a circular bath with a needle +shower. Without removing his clothing, he climbed into this, balancing +himself with an effort, found and turned the cold faucet, and let the +icy water, chilled from artesian depths, trickle over him in a hundred +stinging needle-points. + + +It was a very different figure that reëntered the larger room a +half-hour later, from the slinking mud-lark that had climbed the +rose-trellis. The old Hugh lay, a heap of soiled and sodden garments; +the new stood forth shaven, fragrant with fresh linen and clean and fit +apparel. The maudlin had vanished, the gaze was unvexed and bright, the +whole man seemed to have settled into himself, to have grown trim, +nonchalant, debonair. He held up his hand, palm outward, between the +electric globe and his eye--there was not a tremor of nerve or muscle. +He smiled. No headache, no fever, no uncertain feet or trembling hands +or swollen tongue, after more than a week of deep potations. He could +still "sober-up" as he used to do (with Blake the butler to help him) +when it had been a mere matter of an evening's tipsiness! And how fine +it felt to be decently clad again! + +He crossed to a cheval-glass. The dark handsome face that looked out at +him was clean-cut and aristocratic, perfect save for one blemish--a pale +line that slanted across the right brow, a birth-mark, resembling a +scar. All his life this mark had been an eyesore to its owner. It had a +trick of turning an evil red under the stress of anger or emotion. + +On the features, young and vigorous as they were, subtle lines of +self-indulgence had already set themselves, and beneath their +expression, cavalier and caressing, lay the unmistakable stigmata of +inherited weakness. But these the gazer did not see. He regarded himself +with egotistic complacency. Here he was, just as sound as ever. He had +had his fling, and taught "the Governor" that he could get along well +enough without any paternal help if he chose. Needs must when the devil +drives, but his father should never guess the coarse and desperate +expediences that had sickened him of his bargain, or the stringent +calculation of his return. He was no milksop, either, to come sneaking +to him with his hat in his hand. When he saw him now, he would be +dressed as the gentleman he was! + +He attentively surveyed the room. It was clean and dusted--evidently it +had been carefully tended. He might have stepped out of it yesterday. +There in a corner was his banjo. On the edge of a silver tray was a +half-consumed cigar. It crumbled between his fingers. He had been +smoking that cigar when his father had entered the room on that last +night. There, too, was the deck of cards he had angrily flung on to the +table when he left. Not a thing had been disturbed--yes, one thing. His +portrait, that had hung over his bed, was not in its place. A momentary +sense of trepidation rushed through him. Could his father really have +meant all he had said in his rage? Did he really mean to disown him? + +For an instant he faced the hall door with clenched hands. Somewhere in +the house, unconscious of his presence, was that ward of whose coming he +had learned. Moreau was a good friend to have warned him! Was she part +of a plan of reprisal--her presence there a tentative threat to him? +Could his father mean to adopt her? Might that great house, those +grounds, the bulk of his wealth, go to her, and he, the son, be left in +the cold? He shivered. Perhaps he had stayed away too long! + +[Illustration] + +As he turned again, he heard a sound in the hall. He listened. A light +step was approaching--the swish of a gown. With a sudden impulse he +stepped into the embrasure of the window, as the figure of a girl paused +at the door. He felt his face flush; she had thrown a crimson kimono +over her white night-gown, and the apparition seemed to part the dusk of +the doorway like the red breast of a robin. She held in her hands a +bunch of the pale _Maréchal Niel_ roses, and his eye caught the long +rebellious sweep of her bronze hair, and the rosy tint of bare feet +through the worsted meshes of her night-slippers. + +To his wonder the sight of the lighted room seemed to cause her no +surprise. For an instant she stood still as though listening, then +entered and placed the roses in a vase on a reading-stand by the +bedside. + +Hugh gasped. To reach the stand the girl had passed the spot where he +stood, but she had taken no note of him. Her gaze had gone by him as if +he had been empty air. Then he realized the truth; Jessica Holme was +blind! Moreau's letter had given him no inkling of that. So this was the +girl with whom his father now threatened him! Was she counting on his +not coming back, waiting for the windfall? She was blind--but she was +beautiful! Suppose he were to turn the tables on the old man, not only +climb back into his good graces through her, but even-- + +The thin line on his brow sprang suddenly scarlet. What a supple, +graceful arm she had! How adroit her fingers as they arranged the +rose-stems! Was he already wholly blackened in her opinion? What did she +think of him? Why did she bring those flowers to that empty room? Could +it have been she who had kept it clean and fresh and unaltered against +his return? A confident, daring look grew in his eyes; he wished she +could see him in that purple tie and velvet smoking-jacket! What an +opportunity for a romantic self-justification! Should he speak? Suppose +it should frighten her? + +Chance answered him. His respiration had conveyed to her the knowledge +of a presence in the room. He heard her draw a quick breath. "Some one +is here!" she whispered. + +He started forward. "Wait! wait!" he said in a loud whisper, as she +sprang back. But the voice seemed to startle her the more, and before he +could reach her side she was gone. He heard her flying steps descend the +stair, and the opening and closing of a door. + +The sudden flight jarred Hugh's pleasurable sense of novelty. He thrust +his hands deep into his pockets. Now he was in for it! She would alarm +the house, rouse the servants--he should have a staring, domestic +audience for the imminent reconciliation his sobered sense told him was +so necessary. Why could he not slip back into the old rut, he thought +sullenly, without such a boring, perfunctory ceremony? He had intended +to postpone this, if possible, until a night's sleep had fortified him. +But now the sooner the ordeal was over, the better! Shrugging his +shoulders, he went quickly down the stair to the library. + +He had known exactly what he should see there--the vivid girl with the +hue of fright in her cheeks, the shaded lamp, the wheel-chair, and the +feeble old man with his furrowed face and gray mustaches. What he +himself should say he had not had time to reflect. + +The figure in the chair looked up as the door opened. "Hugh!" he cried, +and half lifted himself from his seat. Then he settled back, and the +sunken, indomitable eyes fastened themselves on his son's face. + +Hugh was melodramatic--cheaply so. He saw the girl start at the name, +saw her hands catch at the kimono to draw its folds over the bare white +throat, saw the rich color that flooded her brow. He saw himself +suddenly the moving hero of the stagery, the tractive force of the +situation. Real tears came to his eyes--tears of insincere feeling, due +partly to the cheap whisky he had drunk that day, whose outward +consequences he had so drastically banished, and partly to sheer nervous +excitation. + +"Father!" he said, and came and caught the gaunt hand that shook against +the chair. + +Then the deeps of the old man's heart were suddenly broken up. "My son!" +he cried, and threw his arms about him. "Hugh--my boy, my boy!" + +Jessica waited to hear no more. Thrilling with gladness, and flushing +with the sudden recollection of her bare throat and feet, she slipped +away to her room to creep into bed and lie wide-eyed and thinking. + +What did he look like? Of his face she had never seen even a counterfeit +presentment. Through what adventures had he passed? Now that he had come +home, forgiving and forgiven, would he stay? He had been in his room +when she entered it with the roses--must have guessed, if he had not +already known, that she was blind. Would he guess that she had cared for +that room, had placed fresh flowers there often and often? + +Since she had come to the house in the aspens Jessica had found the +imagined figure of Hugh a dominant presence in a horizon lightened with +a throng of new impressions. The direful catastrophe of her +blindness--it had been the sudden result of an accident--had fallen like +a thunderbolt upon a nature elastic and joyous. It had brought her face +to face with a revelation of mental agony, made her feel herself the +hapless martyr of that curt thing called Chance; one moment seeing a +universe unfolding before her in line and hue, the next feeling it +thrust rudely behind a gruesome blank of darkness. The two years that +followed had been a period when despair had covered her; when +specialists had peered with cunning instruments into her darkened eyes, +to utter hopeful platitudes--and to counsel not at all. Then into her +own painful self-absorption had intruded her father's death, and the +very hurt of this, perhaps, had been a salving one. It had of necessity +changed her whole course of living. In her new surroundings she had +taken up life once more. Her alert imagination had begun to stir, to +turn diffidently to new channels of exploration and interest. She had +always lived largely in books and pictures, and her world was still full +of ideals and of brave adventures. Gratitude had made her love the +morose old invalid with his crabbed tempers; and the wandering son, +choosing for pride's sake a resourceless battle with the world--the +very mystery of his whereabouts--had taken strong hold of her +imagination. Of the quarrel which had preceded Hugh's departure, she had +made her own version. That he should have come back on this very night, +when the disinheritance she had dreaded had been so nearly consummated, +seemed now to have an especial and an appealing significance. + +Presently she rose, slipped on the red kimono, and, taking a key from +the pocket of her gown, stole from the room. She ascended a stairway and +unlocked the door of a wide, bare attic where the moonlight poured +through a skylight in the roof upon an unfinished statue. In this statue +she had begun to fashion, in the imagined figure of Hugh, her conception +of the Prodigal Son; not the battered and husk-filled wayfarer of the +parable, but a figure of character and pathos, erring through youthful +pride and spirit. The unfinished clay no eyes had seen, for those walls +bounded her especial domain. + +Carefully, one by one, she unwound the wet cloths that swathed the +figure. In the streaming radiance of the night, the clay looked white as +snow and she a crimson ghost. She passed her fingers lightly over the +features. Was the real Hugh's face like that? One day, perhaps, her own +eyes would tell her, and she would finish it. Then she might show it to +him, but not now. + +She replaced the coverings, relocked the door, and went softly down to +her bed. + + +When Hugh went shamefacedly up the stair from the library, the +artificial glow that had tingled to his finger-tips had faded. The poise +of mind, the certitude of all the faculties of eye and hand that his icy +bath had given him, were yielding. The penalties he had dislodged were +returning reinforced. He was rapidly becoming drunk. + +He groped his way to his room, turned out the light, threw himself fully +dressed upon the bed, and slept the deep sleep of deferred intoxication. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING + + +On a June day a month later, Harry Sanderson sat in his study, looking +out of the window across the dim summer haze of heat, negligently +smoking. On the distant hill overlooking the town was the cemetery, +flanked by fields of growing corn where sulky, round-shouldered crows +quarrelled and pilfered. He could see the long white marl road, bending +in a broad curve between clover-stippled meadows, to skirt the +willow-green bluff above the river. There, miles away, on the high bank, +he could distinguish the railroad bridge, a long black skeleton spanning +"the hole," a deep, fish-haunted pool, the deepest spot in the river for +fifty miles. From the nearer, elm-shaded streets came the muffled clack +of trade and the discordant treble of a huckster, somewhere a +trolley-bell was buzzing angrily, and the impudent scream of a blue jay +sheared across the monotone. Harry's gaze went past the streets--past +the open square, with its chapel spire lifting from a beryl sea of +foliage--to a white colonial porch, peering from between aspens that +quivered in the tremulous sunlight. + +The dog on the rug rose, stretching, and came to thrust an eager +insinuating muzzle into its master's lap. Rummy whined, the stubby tail +wagged, but his master paid no heed, and with dejected ears, he slunk +out into the sunshine. Harry was looking, with brows gathered to a +frown, at the far-away porch. The look was full of a troubled question, +a vague misgiving, an interrogative anxiety. He was thinking of a night +when he had saved the son of that house from the calamity of +disinheritance--to what end? + +For since that moonlighted evening of the will-making Harry had learned +that the long lane had had no true turning for Hugh. He had sifted him +through and through. At college he had put him down for a +weakling--unballasted, misdemeanant. Now he knew him for what he really +was--a moral mollusk, a scamp in embryo, a decadent, realizing an ugly +propensity to a deplorable _finale_. A consistent career of loose living +had carried Hugh far since those college days when he had been dubbed +"Satan's Shadow." While to Harry Sanderson the eccentric and agnostical +had then been, as it were, the mask through which his temperament looked +at life, to Hugh it had spelled shipwreck. Harry Sanderson had done +broadly as he pleased. He had entertained whom he listed; had gone +"slumming"; had once boxed to a finish, for a wager, a local pugilist +whose acquaintance he affected, known as "Gentleman Jim." He had been +both the hardest hitter and the hardest drinker in his class, yet withal +its most brilliant student. Native character had enabled him to persist, +as the exasperating function of success which dissipation declined to +eliminate. But the same natural gravitation which in spite of all +aberration had given Harry Sanderson classical honors, had brought Hugh +Stires to the imminent brink of expulsion. And since that time, without +the character which belonged to Harry as a possession, Hugh had +continued to drift aimlessly on down the broad lax way of profligacy. + +The conditions he found upon his return, however, had opened Hugh's eyes +to the perilous strait in which he stood. He was a materialist, and the +taste he had had of deprivation had sickened him. In the first +revulsion, when the contrast between recent famine and present plenty +was strong upon him, he had been at anxious pains to make himself secure +with his father--and with Jessica Holme. Harry's mental sight--keen as +the hunter's sight on the rifle-barrel--was sharpened by his knowledge +of the old Hugh, an intuitive knowledge gained in a significant +formative period. He saw more clearly than the townfolk who, in a +general way, had known Hugh Stires all their lives. Week by week Harry +had seen him regain lost ground in his father's esteem; day by day he +had seen him making studious appeal to all that was romantic in Jessica, +climbing to the favor of each on the ladder of the other's regard. Hugh +was naturally a _poseur_, with a keen sense of effect. He could be +brilliant at will, could play a little on piano, banjo and violin, could +sing a little, and had himself well in hand. And feeling the unconscious +cord of romance vibrate to his touch, he had played upon it with no +unskilful fingers. + +Jessica was comparatively free from that coquetry by means of which a +woman's instinct experiments in emotion. Although she had been artist +enough before the cloistered years of her blindness to know that she was +comely, she had never employed that beauty in the ordinary blandishments +of girlish fascination. But steadily and unconsciously she had turned in +her darkness more and more to the bright and tender air with which Hugh +clothed all their intercourse. Her blindness had been of too short +duration to have developed that fine sense-perception with which nature +seeks to supplement the darkened vision. The ineradicable marks which +ill-governed living had set in Hugh's face--the self-indulgence and +egotism--she could not see. She mistook impulse for instinct. She read +him by the untrustworthy light of a colorful imagination. She deemed him +high-spirited and debonair, a Prince Charming, whose prideful rebellion +had been atoned for by a touching and manly surrender. + +All this Harry had watched with a painful sense of impotence, and this +feeling was upon him to-day as he stared out from the study toward the +white porch, glistening in the sun. + +At length, with a little gesture expressive at once of helplessness and +puzzle, he turned from the window, took his violin and began to play. He +began a barcarole, but the music wandered away, through insensible +variations, into a moving minor, a composition of his own. + +It broke off suddenly at a dog's fierce snarl from the yard, and the +rattle of a thrown pebble. Immediately a knock came at the door, and a +man entered. + +"Don't stop," said the new-comer. "I've dropped in for only a minute! +That's an ill-tempered little brute of yours! If I were you, I'd get rid +of him." + +Harry Sanderson laid the violin carefully in its case and shut the lid +before he answered. "Rummy is impulsive," he said dryly. "How is your +father to-day, Hugh?" + +The other tapped the toe of his shining patent-leather with his cane as +he said with a look of ill-humor: + +"About as well as usual. He's planning now to put me in business, and +expects me to become a staid pillar of society--'like Sanderson,' as he +says forty times a week. How do you do it, Harry? There isn't an old +lady in town who thinks her parlor carpet half good enough for you to +walk on! You're only a month older than I am, yet you can wind the whole +vestry, and the bishop to boot, around your finger!" + +"I wasn't aware of the idolatry." Harry laughed a little--a distant +laugh. "You are observant, Hugh." + +"Oh, anybody can see it. I'd like to know how you do it. It was always +so with you, even at college. You could do pretty much as you liked, and +yet be popular, too. Why, there was never a jamboree complete without +you and your violin at the head of the table." + +"That is a long time ago," said Harry. + +"More than four years. Four years and a month to-morrow, since that last +evening of college. Yet I imagine it will be longer before we forget it! +I think of it still, sometimes, in the night--" Hugh went on more +slowly,--"that last dinner of The Saints, and poor Archie singing with +that wobbly smilax wreath over one eye and the claret spilled down his +shirt-front--then the sudden silence like a wet blanket! I can see him +yet, when his head dropped. He seemed to shrivel right up in his chair. +How horrible to die like that! I didn't touch a drink for a month +afterward!" He shivered slightly, and walked to the window. + +Harry did not speak. The words had torn the network of the past as +sheet-lightning tears the summer dusk; had called up a ghost that he had +labored hard to lay--a memory-specter of a select coterie whose wild +days and nights had once revolved about him as its central sun. The +sharp tragedy of that long-ago evening had been the awakening. The +swift, appalling catastrophe had crashed into his career at the pivotal +moment. It had shocked him from his orbit and set him to the +right-about-face. And the moral _bouleversement_ had carried him, in +abrupt recoil, into the ministry. + +An odd confusion blurred his vision. Perhaps to cover this, he crossed +the room to a small private safe which stood open in the corner, in +which he kept his tithes and his charities. When Hugh, shrugging his +shoulders as if to dismiss the unwelcome picture he had painted, turned +again, Harry was putting into it some papers from his pocket. Hugh saw +the action; his eyes fastened on the safe avidly. + +"I say," he said after a moment's pause, as Harry made to shut its door, +"can you loan me another fifty? I'm flat on my uppers again, and the +old man has been tight as nails with me since I came back. I'm sure to +be able to return it with the rest, in a week or two." + +Harry stretched his hand again toward the safe--then drew it back with +compressed lips. He had met Hugh with persistent courtesy, and the other +had found him sufficiently obliging with loans. Of late, however, his +nerves had been on edge. The patent calculation of Hugh's course had +sickened, and his flippant cynicism had jarred and disconcerted him. A +growing sense of security, too, had made Hugh less circumspect. More +than once during the past month Harry had seen him issue from the +shadowed door whose upper panel held the little barred window--the door +at which Doctor Moreau had entrance, though decent doors were closed in +his face. + +Hugh's lowered gaze saw the arrested movement and his cheek flushed. + +"Oh, if it's inconvenient, I won't trouble you for the accommodation," +he said. "I dare say I can raise it." + +The attempt at nonchalance cost him a palpable effort. Comparatively +small as the amount was, he needed it. He was in sore straits. By hook +or crook he must stave off an evil day whose approach he knew not how to +meet. + +"It isn't that it is inconvenient, Hugh," said Harry. "It's that I +can't approve your manner of living lately, and--I don't know where the +fifty is going." + +The mark on Hugh's brow reddened. "I wasn't aware that I was expected to +render you an accounting," he said sulkily, "if I do borrow a dollar or +two now and then! What if I play cards, and drink a little when I'm dry? +I've got to have a bit of amusement once in a while between prayers. You +liked it yourself well enough, before you discovered a sudden talent for +preaching!" + +"Some men hide their talents under a napkin," said Harry. "You drown +yours--in a bottle. You have been steadily going downhill. You are +deceiving your father--and others--with a pretended reform which isn't +skin-deep! You have made them believe you are living straight, when you +are carousing; that you keep respectable company, when you have taken up +with a besotted and discredited gambler!" + +"I suppose you mean Doctor Moreau," returned Hugh. "There are plenty of +people in town who are worse than he is." + +"He is a quack--dropped from the hospital staff for addiction to drugs, +and expelled from his club for cheating at cards." + +"He's down and out," said Hugh sullenly, "and any cur can bite him. He +never cheated me, and I find him better company than your sanctimonious, +psalm-singing sort. I'm not going to give him the cold shoulder because +everybody else does. I never went back on a friend yet. I'm not that +sort!" + +A steely look had come to Harry Sanderson's eyes; he was thinking of the +house in the aspens. While he talked, shooting pictures had been +flashing through his mind. Now, at the boast of this eager protester of +loyalty, this recreant who "never went back on a friend," his face set +like a flint. + +"You never had a friend, Hugh," he said steadily. "You never really +loved anybody or anything but yourself. You are utterly selfish. You are +deliberately lying, every hour you live, to those who love you. You are +playing a part--for your own ends! You were only a good imitation of a +good fellow at college. You are a poor imitation of a man of honor now." + +Hugh rose to his feet, as he answered hotly: "And what are you, I'd like +to know? Just because I take my pleasure as I please, while you choose +to make a stained-glass cherub of yourself, is no reason why I'm not +just as good as you! I knew you well enough before you set up for such a +pattern. You didn't go in much then for a theological diet. Pshaw!" he +went on, snapping his fingers toward the well-stocked book-shelves. "I +wonder how much of all that you really believe!" + +Harry passed the insolence of the remark. He flecked a bit of dust from +his sleeve before he answered, smiling a little disdainfully: + +"And how much do _you_ believe, Hugh?" + +"I believe in running my own affairs, and letting other people run +theirs! I don't believe in talking cant, and posing as a +little-tin-god-on-wheels! If I lived in a glass-house, I'd be precious +careful not to throw stones!" + +Harry Sanderson was staring at him curiously now--a stare of singular +inquiry. This shallow witness of his youthful misconduct, then, judged +him by himself; deemed him a mere masquerader in the domino of decorous +life, carrying the reckless and vicious humors of his nonage into the +wider issues of living, and clothing an arrant hypocrisy under the habit +of one of God's ministers! + +The elastic weight of air in the study seemed suddenly grown +suffocating. He reached and flung open the chapel door, and stood +looking across the choir, through the mellow light of the duskily tinted +nave, solemn as with the hush of past prayer. On this interior had been +lavished the special love of the invalid, who had given of his riches +that this place for the comfort of souls might be. It was an expanse of +dim colors and dark woodwork. At its eastern end was the high altar, +with tall flowers in stately gilt vases on either side, and a brass +lectern glimmered near-by. In the western wall was set a great +rose-window of rich stained glass--a picture of the eternal tragedy of +Calvary. As Harry stood gazing into the mellow light, Hugh paced moodily +up and down behind him. Suddenly he caught Harry's arm and pointed. + +Harry turned and looked. + +Above the mantel was set a mirror, and from where they stood, this +reflected Hugh's face. It startled Harry, for some trick of the +atmosphere, or the sunlight falling through the painted glass, +lightening the sallow face and leaving the hair in deeper shade--as a +cunning painter by a single line will alter a whole physiognomy--had for +the instant wiped out all superficial unresemblance and left a weird +likeness. As Hugh's mocking countenance looked from the oval frame, +Harry had a queer sensation as if he were looking at his own face, with +some indefinable smear of attaint upon it--the trail of evil. As he drew +away from the other's touch, his eye followed the bar of amber light to +the rose-window in the chapel; it was falling through the face of the +unrepentant thief. + +The movement broke the spell. When he looked again the eerie impression +of identity was gone. + +Hugh had felt the recoil. "Not complimented, eh?" he said with a +half-sneer. "Too bad the prodigal should resemble Satan Sanderson, the +fashionable parish rector who waves his arms so gracefully in the +pulpit, and preaches such nice little sermons! You didn't mind it so +much in the old days! Pardon me," he added with malice, "I forgot. It's +the 'Reverend Henry' at present, of course! I imagine your friends don't +call you 'Satan' now." + +"No," returned Harry quietly. "They don't call me 'Satan' now!" + +He went back to the safe. + +The movement set Hugh instantly to regretting his hasty tongue. If he +had only assumed penitence, instead of flying into a passion, he might +have had the money he wanted just as well as not! + +"There's no sense in us two quarrelling," he said hastily. "We've been +friends a long time. I'm sure I didn't intend to when I came in. I +suppose you're right about some things, and probably dropping Moreau +wouldn't hurt me any. I'm sorry I said all I did. Only--the money +seemed such a little thing, and I--I needed it." + +Harry stood an instant with his hand on the knob, then instead of +closing the door, he drew out a little drawer. He lifted a packet of +crisp yellow-backs and slowly counted out one hundred dollars. "I'm +trying to believe you mean what you say, Hugh," he said. + +Hugh's fingers closed eagerly over the crackling notes. "Now that's +white of you, after everything I said! You're a good fellow, Harry, +after all, and I'll always say so. I wish Old Gooseberry was half as +decent in a money way. He seems to think fifty dollars a week is plenty +till I marry and settle down. He talks of retiring then, and I suppose +he'll come down handsomely, and give me a chance to look my debts in the +face." He pocketed the money with an air of relief and picked up his hat +and cane. + +Just then from the dusty street came the sound of carriage-wheels and +the click of the gate-latch. + +"It's Bishop Ludlow," he said, glancing through the window. "He's coming +in. I think I'll slip out the side way. Thanks for the loan and--I'll +think over what you've said!" + +Avoiding the bishop, Hugh stepped toward the gate. The money was in his +pocket. Well, one of these days he would not have to grovel for a +paltry fifty dollars! He would be his own master, and could afford to +let Harry Sanderson and everybody else think what they liked. + +"So I'm playing a part, am I!" he said to himself. "Why should your +Holiness trouble yourself over it, if I am! Not because you're so +careful of the Governor's feelings; not by a long shot! It's because you +choose to think Jessica Holme is too good for me! That's where the shoe +pinches! Perhaps you'd like to play at that game yourself, eh?" + +He walked jauntily up the street--toward the door with the little barred +window. + +"The old man is fond of her. He thinks I mean to settle down and let the +moss grow over my ears, and he'll do the proper thing. It'll be a good +way to put my head above water and keep it there. It must be soon, +though!" A smile came to his face, a pretentious, boastful smile, and +his shining patent-leathers stepped more confidently. "She's the +finest-looking girl in this town, even without her eyes. She may get +back her sight sometime. But even if she doesn't, blindness in a wife +might not be such a bad thing, after all!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE BISHOP SPEAKS + + +Inside the study, meanwhile, the bishop was greeting Harry Sanderson. He +had officiated at his ordination and liked him. His eyes took in the +simple order of the room, lingering with a light tinge of disapproval +upon the violin case in the corner, and with a deeper shade of question +upon the jewel on the other's finger--a pigeon-blood ruby in a setting +curiously twisted of the two initial letters of his name. + +There came to his mind for an instant a whisper of early prodigalities +and wildnesses which he had heard. For the lawyer who had listened to +Harry Sanderson's recital on the night of the making of the will had not +considered it a professional disclosure. He had thought it a "good +story," and had told it at his club, whence it had percolated at leisure +through the heavier strata of town-talk. The tale, however, had seemed +rather to increase than to discourage popular interest in Harry +Sanderson. The bishop knew that those whose approval had been withheld +were in the hopeless minority, and that even these could not have denied +that he possessed desirable qualities--a manner by turns sparkling and +grave, picturesqueness in the pulpit, and the unteachable tone of +blood--and had infused new life into a generally sleepy parish. He had +dismissed the whisper with a smile, but oddly enough it recurred to him +now at sight of the ruby ring. + +"I looked in to tell you a bit of news," said the bishop. "I've just +come from David Stires--he has a letter from Van Lennap, the great +eye-surgeon of Vienna. He disagrees with the rest of them--thinks +Jessica's case may not be hopeless." + +The cloud that Hugh's call had left on Harry's countenance lifted. + +"Thank God!" he said. "Will she go to him?" + +The bishop looked at him curiously, for the exclamation seemed to hold +more than a conventional relief. + +"He is to be in America next month. He will come here then to examine, +and perhaps to operate. An exceptional girl," went on the bishop, "with +a remarkable talent! The angel in the chapel porch, I suppose you know, +is her modelling, though that isn't just masculine enough in feature to +suit me. The Scriptures are silent on the subject of woman-angels in +Heaven; though, mind you, I don't say they're not common on earth!" The +bishop chuckled mildly at his own epigram. + +"Poor child!" he continued more soberly. "It will be a terrible thing +for her if this last hope fails her, too! Especially now, when she and +Hugh are to make a match of it." + +Harry's face was turned away, or the bishop would have seen it suddenly +startled. "To make a match of it!" To hide the flush he felt staining +his cheek, Harry bent to close the safe. A something that had darkled in +some obscure depth of his being, whose existence he had not guessed, was +throbbing now to a painful resentment. Jessica was to marry Hugh! + +"A handsome fellow--Hugh!" said the bishop. "He seems to have returned +with a new heart--a brand plucked from the burning. You had the same +_alma mater_, I think you told me. Your influence has done the boy good, +Sanderson!" He laid his hand kindly on the other's shoulder. "The fact +that you were in college together makes him look up to you--as the whole +parish does," he added. + +Harry was setting the combination, and did not answer. But through the +turmoil in his brain a satiric voice kept repeating: + +"No, they don't call me 'Satan' now!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +WHAT CAME OF A WEDDING + + +The white house in the aspens was in gala attire. Flowers--great banks +of bloom--were massed in the hall, along the stairway and in the +window-seats, and wreaths of delicate fern trembled on the prim-hung +chandeliers. Over all breathed the sweet fragrance of jasmin. Musicians +sat behind a screen of palms in a corridor, and a long scarlet carpet +strip ran down the front steps to the driveway, up which passed bravely +dressed folk, arriving in carriages and on foot, to witness the +completion of a much-booted romance. + +For a fortnight this afternoon's event had been the chat of the town, +for David Stires, who to-day retired from active business, was its +magnate, the owner of its finest single estate and of its most important +bank. From his scapegrace boyhood Hugh Stires had made himself the +subject of uncomfortable discussion. His sudden disappearance after the +rumored quarrel with his father, and the advent of Jessica Holme, had +furnished the community sufficient material for gossip. The wedding had +capped this gossip with an appropriate climax. Tongues had wagged over +its pros and cons--for Hugh's past had induced a wholesome skepticism of +his future. But the carping were willing to let bygones be bygones, and +the wiseacres, to whose experience marriage stood as a sedative for the +harum-scarum, augured well. + +There was an additional element of romance, too, in the situation; for +Jessica, who had never yet seen her lover, would see her husband. The +great surgeon on whose prognostication she had built so much, had +arrived and had operated. He was not alone an eminent consultant in +diagnosis, but an operator of masterly precision, whose daring of +scalpel had made him well-nigh a last resort in the delicate +adventurings of eye surgery. The experiment had been completely +successful, and Jessica's hope of vision had become a sure and certain +promise. + +To see once again! To walk free and careless! To mold the plastic clay +into the shapes that thronged her brain! To finish the statue which she +had never yet shown to any one, in the great sky-lighted attic! To see +flowers, and the sunset, the new green of the trees in spring, and the +sparkle of the snow in winter, and people's faces!--to see Hugh! That +had been at the core of her thought when it reeled dizzily back from +the merciful oblivion of the anesthetic, to touch the strange gauze +wrappings on her eyes--the tight bandage that must stay for so long, +while nature plied her silent medicaments of healing. + +Meanwhile the accepted lover had become the importunate one. The +operation over, there had remained many days before the bandages could +be removed--before Jessica could be given her first glimpse of the world +for nearly three years. Hugh had urged against delay. If he had +stringent reasons of his own, he was silent concerning them. And +Jessica, steeped in the delicious wonder of new and inchoate sensations, +had yielded. + +So it had come about that the wedding was to be on this hot August +afternoon, although it would be yet some time before the eye-bandages +might be laid aside, save in a darkened room. In her girlish, passionate +ideality, Jessica had offered a sacrifice to her sentiment. She had +promised herself that the first form her new sight should behold should +be, not her lover, but her husband! The idea pleased her sense of +romance. So, hugging the fancy, she had denied herself. She was to see +Hugh for the first time in a shaded room, after the glare and nervous +excitement of the ceremony. + +Gossip had heard and had seized upon this tidbit with relish. The blind +marriage--a bride with hoodwinked eyes, who had never seen the man she +was to marry--the moment's imperfect vision of him, a poor dole for +memory to carry into the honeymoon--these ingredients had given the +occasion a titillating sense of the extraordinary and romantic, and +sharpened the buzz of the waiting guests, as they whiled away the +irksome minutes. + +It was a sweltering afternoon, and in the wide east parlor, limp +handkerchiefs and energetic fans fought vainly against the intolerable +heat. There, as the clock struck six, a hundred pairs of eyes galloped +between two centers of interest: the door at which the bride would +enter, and the raised platform at the other end of the room where, +prayer-book in hand, in his wide robes and flowing sleeves, Harry +Sanderson had just taken his stand. Perhaps more looked at Harry than at +the door. + +He seemed his usual magnetic self as he stood there, backed by the +flowers, his waving brown hair unsmoothed, the ruby-ring glowing +dull-red against the dark leather of the book he held. Few felt it much +a matter of regret that the humdrum and less personable Bishop of the +Diocese should be away at convocation, since the young rector furnished +the final esthetic touch to a perfectly appointed function. But Harry +Sanderson was far from feeling the grave, alien, figure he appeared. In +the past weeks he had waged a silent warfare with himself, bitterer +because repressed. The strange new thing that had sprung up in him he +had trampled mercilessly under. From the thought that he loved the +promised wife of another, a quick, fastidious sense in him recoiled +abashed. This painful struggle had been sharpened by his sense of Hugh's +utter worthlessness. To that rustling assemblage, the man who was to +make those solemn promises was David Stires' son, who had had his fling, +turned over his new leaf becomingly, and was now offering substantial +hostages to good repute. To him, Harry Sanderson, he was a _flâneur_, a +marginless gambler in the futures of his father's favor and a woman's +heart. He had shrunk from the ceremony, but circumstances had +constrained him. There had been choice only between an evasion--to which +he would not stoop--and a flat refusal, the result of which would have +been a footless scandal--ugly town-talk--a sneer at himself and his +motives--a quietus, possibly, to his whole career. + +So now he stood to face a task which was doubly painful, but which he +would go through with to the bitter end! + +Only a moment Harry stood waiting; then the palm-screened musicians +began the march, and Hugh took his place, animated and assured, looking +the flushed and expectant bridegroom. At the same instant the +chattering and hubbub ceased; Jessica, on the arm of the old man, erect +but walking feebly with his cane, was advancing down the roped lane. + +She was in simple white, the point-lace on the frock an heirloom. Her +bronze hair was drawn low, hiding much of the disfiguring bandage, under +which her lips were parted in a half-smile, human, intimate and eager, +full of the hope and intoxication of living. + +Harry's eyes dropped to the opened book, though he knew the office by +heart. He spoke the time-worn adjuration with clear enunciation, with +almost perfunctory distinctness. He did not look at Hugh. + +"_If any man can show just cause why they may not lawfully be joined +together, let him speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace._" In +the pause--the slightest pause--that turned the page, he felt an insane +prompting to tear off his robes, to proclaim to this roomful of heated, +gaping, fan-fluttering humanity, that he himself, a minister of the +gospel, the celebrant of the rite, knew "just cause"! + +The choking impulse passed. The periods rolled on--the long white glove +was slipped from the hand, the ring put on the finger, and the pair, +whom God and Harry Sanderson had joined together, were kneeling on the +white satin prie-dieu with bowed heads under the final invocation. As +they knelt, choir voices rose: + + + "O perfect love, all human thought transcending, + Lowly we kneel in prayer before Thy throne--" + + +Then, while the music lingered, the hush of the room broke in a confused +murmur; the white ribbon-wound ropes were let down, and a voluble wave +of congratulators swept over the spot. In a moment more Harry found +himself laying off his robes in the next room. + +With a sigh of relief, he stepped through the wide French window into +the garden, fresh with the scent of growing things and the humid odors +of the soil. The twitter and bustle he had left came painfully out to +him, and a whiff of evening coolness breathed through the oppressive +air. The strain over, he longed for the solitude of his study. But David +Stires had asked him to remain for a final word, since bride and groom +were to leave on an early evening train; the old man was to accompany +them a part of the journey, and "the Stires place" was to be closed for +an indefinite period. Harry found a bench and sat down, where camelias +dropped like blood. + +What would Jessica suffer in the inevitable awakening, when the tinted +petals of her dreams were shattered and strewn? For the first time he +looked down through his sore sense of outrage and protest to deeps in +himself--as a diver peers through a water-glass to the depths of a river +troubled and opaque, dimly descrying vague shapes of ill. Poetry, +passion and dreams had been his also, but he had dreamed too late! + +It was not long before the sound of gay voices and of carriage-wheels +came around the corner of the house, for the reception was to be +curtailed. There had been neither bridesmaids nor groomsmen, and there +was no skylarking on the cards; the guests, who on lesser occasions +would have lingered to throw rice and old shoes, departed from the house +in the aspens with primness and dignity. + +One by one he heard the carriages roll down the graveled driveway. A +bicycle careened across the lawn from a side-gate, carrying a bank +messenger--the last shaft of commerce before old David Stires washed his +tenacious mind of business. A few moments later the messenger reappeared +and rode away whistling. A last chime of voices talking together--Harry +could distinguish Hugh's voice now--and at length quiet told him the +last of the guests were gone. Thinking that he would now see his old +friends for a last farewell, he rose and went slowly back through the +French window. + +The east room was empty, save for servants who were gathering some of +the cut flowers for themselves. He stood aimlessly for a few moments +looking about him. A white carnation lay at the foot of the dais, fallen +from Jessica's shower-bouquet. He picked this up, abstractedly smelled +its perfume, and drew the stem through his buttonhole. Then, passing +into the next room, he found his robes leisurely and laid them by--he +had now only to embellish the sham with his best wishes! + +All at once he heard voices in the library. He opened the door and +entered. + +Harry Sanderson stopped stock-still. In the room sat old David Stires in +his wheel-chair opposite his son. He was deadly pale, and his fierce +eyes blazed like fire in tinder. And what a Hugh! Not the indolently gay +prodigal Harry had known in the past, nor the flushed bridegroom of a +half-hour ago! It was a cringing, a hang-dog Hugh now; with a slinking +dread in the face--a trembling of the hands--a tense expectation in the +posture. The thin line across his brow was a livid pallor. His eyes +lifted to Harry's for an instant, then returned in a kind of fascination +to a slip of paper on the desk, on which his father's forefinger rested, +like a nail transfixing an animate infamy. + +"Sanderson," said the old man in a low, hoarse, unnatural voice, "come +in and shut the door. God forgive us--we have married Jessica to a +common thief! Hugh--my son, my only child, whom I have forgiven beyond +all reckoning--has forged my name to a draft for five thousand dollars!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +OUT OF THE DARK + + +For a moment there was dead silence in the room. In the hall the tall +clock struck ponderously, and a porch blind slammed beneath a +caretaker's hand. Harry's breath caught in his throat, and the old man's +eye again impaled his hapless son. + +Hugh threw up his head with an attempt at jauntiness, but with furtive +apprehension in every muscle--for he could not solve the look he saw on +his father's face--and said: + +"You act as if it were a cool million! I'm no worse than a lot who have +better luck than I. Suppose I did draw the five thousand?--you were +going to give me ten for a wedding present. I had to have the money +then, and you wouldn't have given it to me. You know that as well as I +do. Besides, I was going to take it up myself and you would never have +been the wiser. He promised to hold it--it's a low trick for him to +round on me like this. I'll pay him off for it sometime! I don't see +that it's anybody else's business but ours, anyway," he continued, with +a surly glance at Harry. + +Harry had been staring at him, but with a vision turned curiously +backward--a vision that seemed to see Hugh standing at a carpeted dais +in a flower-hung room, while his own voice said out of a lurid shadow: +"_Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband...._" + +"Stay, Sanderson," said the old man; then turning to Hugh: "Who advanced +you money on this and promised to 'hold it'?" + +"Doctor Moreau." + +"He profited by it?" + +"He got his margin," said Hugh sullenly. + +"How much margin did he get?" + +"A thousand." + +"Where is the rest?" David Stires' voice was like a whip of steel. + +Hugh hesitated a moment. He had still a few hundreds in pocket, but he +did not mention them. + +"I used most of it. I--had a few debts." + +"Debts of honor, I presume!" + +Hugh's sensibility quivered at the fierce, grating irony of the inquiry. + +"If you'd been more decent with spending-money," he said with a flare of +the old effrontery, "I'd have been all right! Ever since I came home +you've kept me strapped. I was ashamed to stick up any more of my +friends. And of course I couldn't borrow from Jessica." + +"Ashamed!" exclaimed the old man with harsh sternness. "You are without +the decency of shame! If you were capable of feeling it, you would not +mention her name now!" + +Hugh thought he saw a glimmer through the storm-cloud. Jessica was his +anchor to windward. What hurt him, would hurt her. He would pull +through! + +"Well," he said, "it's done, and there's no good making such a row about +it. She's my wife and she'll stand by me, if nobody else does!" + +No one had ever seen such a look on David Stires' face as came to it +now--a sudden blaze of fury and righteous scorn, that burned it like a +brand. + +"You impudent blackguard! You drag my name in the gutter and then try to +trade on my self-respect and Jessica's affection. You thought you would +take it up yourself--and I would be none the wiser! And if I did find it +out, you counted on my love for the poor deluded girl you have married, +to make me condone your criminality--to perjure myself--to admit the +signature and shield you from the consequences. You imagine because you +are my son, that you can do this thing and all still go on as before! +Do you suppose I don't consider Jessica? Do you think because you have +fooled and cheated her--and me--and married her, that I will give her +now to a caught thief--a common jailbird?" + +Hugh started. A sickly pallor came to his sallow cheek. That salient +chin, that mouth close-gripped--those words, vengeful, vindictive, the +utterance of a wrath so mighty in the feeble frame as to seem almost +uncouth--smote him with a mastering terror. + +A jailbird! That was what his father called _him_! Did he mean to give +him up, then? To have him arrested--tried--put in prison? When he had +canvassed the risks of discovery, he had imagined a scene, bitter +anger--perhaps even disinheritance. His marriage to Jessica, he had +reckoned, would cover that extremity. But he had never thought of +something worse. Now, for the first time, he saw himself in the grip of +that impersonal thing known as the law--handcuffs on his wrists, riding +through the streets in the "Black-Maria"--standing at the dock an +outcast, gazed at with contempt by all the town--at length sitting in a +cell somewhere, no more pleasures or gaming, or fine linen, but dressed +in convict's dress, loose, ill-shapen, hanging on him like bags, with +broad black-and-white stripes. He had been through the penetentiary +once. He remembered the sullen, stolid faces, the rough, hobnailed +shoes, the cropped heads! His mind turned from the picture with fear and +loathing. + +In the thoughts that were darting through Hugh's mind, there was none +now of regret or of pity for Jessica. His fear was the fear of the +trapped spoiler, who discerns capture and its consequent penalties in +the patrolling bull's-eye flashed upon him. He studied his father with +hunted, calculating eyes, as the old man turned to Harry Sanderson. + +"Sanderson," said David Stires, once more in his even, deadly voice, +"Jessica is waiting in the room above this. She will not understand the +delay. Will you go to her? Make some excuse--any you can think of--till +I come." + +Harry nodded and left the room, shutting the door carefully behind him, +carrying with him the cowering helpless look with which Hugh saw himself +left alone with his implacable judge. What to say to her? How to say it? + +As he passed the hall, the haste of demolition had already begun. +Florists' assistants were carrying the plants from the east room, and +through the open door a man was rolling up the red carpet. The cluttered +emptiness struck him with a sense of fateful symbolism--as though it +shadowed forth the shattering of Jessica's ordered dream of happiness. +He mounted the stair as if a pack swung from his shoulders. He paused a +moment at the door, then knocked, turned the knob, and entered. + +[Illustration] + +There, in the middle of the blue-hung room, in her wedding-dress, with +her bandaged eyes, and her bridal bouquet on the table, stood Jessica. +Twilight was near, but even so, all the shutters were drawn save one, +through which a last glow of refracted sunlight sifted to fall upon his +face. Her hands were clasped before her, he could hear her +breathing--the full hurried respiration of expectancy. + +Then, while his hand closed the door behind him, a thing unexpected, +anomalous, happened--a thing that took him as utterly by surprise as if +the solid floor had yawned before him. Slim fingers tore away the broad +encircling bandage. She started forward. Her arms were flung about his +neck. + +"Hugh!... Hugh!" she cried. "My husband!" + +The paleness was stricken suddenly from Harry's face. An odd, dazed +color--a flush of mortification, of self-reproach, flooded it from chin +to brow. Despite himself, he had felt his lips molding to an answering +kiss beneath her own. He drew a gasping breath, his hand nervously +caught the bandage, replaced it over the eyes, and tied it tightly, +putting down her protesting hands. + +"Oh, Hugh," she pleaded, "not for a moment--not when I am so happy! Your +face is what I dreamed it must be! Why did you make me wait so long? And +I can see, Hugh! I can really see! Let it stay off, just for one little +moment more!" + +He held her hands by force. "Jessica--wait!" he said in a broken +whisper. "You must not take it off again--not now!" + +An incredible confusion enveloped him--his tongue cleaved to the roof of +his mouth. Not only had the painful _contretemps_ nonplussed and +dismayed him; not only had it heightened and horrified the realization +of what she must presently be told. It had laid a careless hand upon his +own secret, touching it with an almost vulgar mockery. It had overthrown +in an instant the barricades he had been piling. The pressure of those +lips on his had sent coursing to the furthest recesses of his nature a +great wave which dikes nor locks might ever again forbid. + +Her look, leaping to his face, had not noted the ministerial dress, nor +in the ecstasy of the moment did she catch the agitation in his voice; +or if she did, she attributed it to a feeling like her own. She was +laughing happily, while he stood, trembling slightly, holding himself +with an effort. + +"What a dear goose you are!" she said. "The light didn't hurt +them--indeed, indeed! Only to think, Hugh! Your wife will have her +sight! Do go and tell your father! He will be waiting to know!" + +Harry made some incoherent reply. He was desperately anxious to get +away--his thought was a snarl of tatters, threaded by one lucid purpose: +to spare her coming self-abasement this sardonic humiliation. He did not +think of a time in the future, when her error must naturally disclose +itself. The tangle spelled _Now_. Not to tell her--not to let her know! + +He almost ran from the room and down the stair. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +"AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER?" + + +At the foot of the landing he paused, drawing a deep breath as if to +lift a weight of air. He needed to get his bearings--to win back a +measure of calmness. + +As he stood there, Hugh came from the library. His head was down and he +went furtively and slinkingly, as though dreading even a casual regard. +He snatched his hat from the rack, passed out of the house, and was +swallowed up in the dusk. David Stires had followed his son into the +hall. He answered the gloomy question in Harry's eyes: + +"He is gone," he said, "and I hope to Heaven I may never see his face +again!" Then, slowly and feebly, he ascended the stair. + +The library windows were shadowed by shrubbery, and the sunset +splintered against the wall in a broad stripe, like cloth of crimson +silk. Harry leaned his hot forehead against the chill marble of the +mantelpiece and gazed frowningly at the dark Korean desk--an antique +gift of his own to David Stires--where the slip of paper still lay that +had spelled such ruin and shame. From the rear of the house came the +pert, tittering laugh of a maid bantering an expressman, and the heavy, +rattling thump of rolled trunks. There was something ghastly in the +incomprehension of all the house save the four chief actors of the +melodrama. The travesty was over, the curtain rung down to clapping of +hands, the scene-shifters clearing away--and behind all, in the wings, +unseen by any spectator, the last act of a living tragedy was rushing to +completion. + +Ten, fifteen minutes passed, and old David Stires reëntered the room, +went feebly to his wheel-chair, and sat down. He sat a moment in +silence, looking at a portrait of Jessica--a painting by Altsheler that +hung above the mantel--in a light fleecy gown, with one white rose in +the bronze hair. When he spoke the body's infirmity had become all at +once pitifully apparent. The fiery wrath seemed suddenly to have burned +itself out, leaving only dead ashes behind. His eyes had shrunk away +into almost empty sockets. The authority had faded from his face. He was +all at once a feeble, gentle-looking, ill, old man, with white mustaches +and uncertain hands, dressed in ceremonial broadcloth. + +"I have told her," he said presently, in a broken voice. "You are kind, +Sanderson, very kind. God help us!" + +"What has God to do with it?" fell a voice behind them. Harry faced +about. It was Jessica, as he had first seen her in the upper room, with +the bandage across her eyes. + +"What has God to do with it?" she repeated, in a hard tone. "Perhaps Mr. +Sanderson can tell us. It is in his line!" + +"Please--" said Harry. + +He could not have told what he would have asked, though the accent was +almost one of entreaty. The harsh satire touched his sacred calling; +coming from her lips it affronted at once his religious instinct and his +awakened love. It was all he said, for he stopped suddenly at sight of +her face, pain-frosted, white as the folded cloth. + +"Oh," she said, turning toward the voice, "I remember what you said that +night, right here in this very room--that you sowed your wild oats at +college with Hugh--that they were 'a tidy crop'! You were strong, and he +was weak. You led, and he followed. You were 'Satan Sanderson,' Abbot of +The Saints, the set in which he learned gambling. Why, it was in your +rooms that he played his first game of poker--he told me so himself! And +now he has gone to be an outcast, and you stand in the pulpit in a +cassock, you, the 'Reverend Henry Sanderson'! You helped to make him +what he has become! Can you undo it?" + +Harry was looking at her with a stricken countenance. He had no answer +ready. The wave of confusion that had submerged him when he had restored +the bandage to her eyes had again welled over him. He stood shocked and +confounded. His hand fumbled at his lapel, and the white carnation, +crushed by his fingers, dropped at his feet. + +"I am not excusing Hugh now," she went on wildly. "He has gone beyond +excuse or forgiveness. He is as dead to me as though I had never known +him, though the word you spoke an hour ago made me his wife. I shall +have that to remember all my life--that, and the one moment I had waited +for so long, for my first sight of his face, and my bride's kiss! I must +carry it with me always. I can never wipe that face from my brain, or +the sting of that kiss from my lips--the kiss of a forger--of my +husband!" + +The old man groaned. "I didn't know he had seen her!" he said +helplessly. "Jessica, Hugh's sin is not Sanderson's fault!" + +In her bitter words was an injustice as passionate as her pain, but for +her life she could not help it. She was a woman wrenched and torn, +tortured beyond control, numb with anguish. Every quivering tendril of +feeling was a live protest, every voice of her soul was crying out +against the fact. In those dreadful minutes when her mind took in the +full extent of her calamity, Hugh's past intimacy and present grim +contrast with Harry Sanderson had mercilessly thrust themselves upon +her, and her agony had seared the swift antithesis on her brain. + +To Harry Sanderson, however, her words fell with a wholly +disproportionate violence. It had never occurred to him that he himself +had been individually and actively the cause of Hugh's downfall. The +accusation pierced through the armor of self-esteem that he had linked +and riveted with habit. The same pain of mind that had spurred him, on +that long-ago night, to the admission she had heard, had started to new +life a bared, a scathed, a rekindling sin. + +"It is all true," he said. It was the inveterate voice of conscience +that spoke. "I have been deceiving myself. I was my brother's keeper! I +see it now." + +She did not catch the deep compunction in the judicial utterance. In her +agony the very composure and restraint cut more deeply than silence. She +stood an instant quivering, then turned, and feeling blindly for the +door, swept from their sight. + +White and breathless, Jessica climbed the stair. In her room, she took +a key from a drawer and ran swiftly to the attic-studio. She unlocked +the door with hurried fingers, tore the wrappings from the tall white +figure of the Prodigal Son, and found a heavy mallet. She lifted this +with all her strength, and showered blow upon blow on the hard clay, her +face and hair and shimmering train powdered with the white dust, till +the statue lay on the floor, a heap of tumbled fragments. + + +Fateful and passionate as the scene in the library had been, her going +left a pall of silence in the room. Harry Sanderson looked at David +Stires with pale intentness. + +"Yet I would have given my life," he said in a low voice, "to save her +this!" + +Something in the tone caught the old man. He glanced up. + +"I never guessed!" he said slowly. "I never guessed that you loved her, +too." + +But Harry had not heard. He did not even know that he had spoken aloud. + +David Stires turned his wheel-chair to the Korean desk, touching the +bell as he did so. He took up the draft and put it into his pocket. He +pressed a spring, a panel dropped, and disclosed a hidden drawer, from +which he took a crackling parchment. It was the will against whose +signing Harry had pleaded months before in that same room. The butler +entered. + +"Witness my signature, Blake," he said, and wrote his name on the last +page. "Mr. Sanderson will sign with you." + + +An hour later the fast express that bore Jessica and David Stires was +shrieking across the long skeleton railroad bridge, a dotted trail of +fire against the deepening night. The sound crossed the still miles. It +called to Harry Sanderson, where he sat in his study with the evening +paper before him. It called his eyes from a paragraph he was reading +through a painful mist--a paragraph under heavy leads, on its front +page: + + + This city has seldom seen so brilliant a gathering as that + witnessed, late this afternoon, at the residence of the groom, the + marriage of Mr. Hugh Stires and Miss Jessica Holme, both of this + place. + + The ceremony was performed by the Reverend Henry Sanderson, rector + of St. James. + + The groom is the son of one of our leading citizens, and the beauty + and talent of the bride have long made her noted. The happy couple, + accompanied by the groom's father, left on an early train, carrying + with them the congratulations and good wishes of the entire + community. + + A full account of the wedding will be given in to-morrow morning's + issue. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +AFTER A YEAR + + +Night had fallen. The busy racket of wheeled traffic was still, the +pavements were garish with electric light, windows were open, and crowds +jostled to and fro on the cool pavements. But Harry Sanderson, as he +walked slowly back from a long ramble in knickerbockers and norfolk +jacket over the hills, was not thinking of the sights and sounds of the +pleasant evening. He had tramped miles since sundown, and had returned +as he set out, gloomy, unrequited, a follower of a baffled quest. Even +the dog at his heels seemed to partake of his master's mood; he padded +along soberly, forging ahead now and again to look up inquiringly at the +preoccupied face. + +Set back from the street in a wide estate of trees and shrubbery, stood +a great white-porched house that gloomed darkly from amid its aspens. +Not a light had twinkled from it for nearly a year. The little city had +wondered at first, then by degrees had grown indifferent. The secret of +that prolonged honeymoon, that dearth and absence, Harry Sanderson and +the bishop alone could have told. For the bishop knew of Hugh's +criminal act; he was named executor of the will that lay in the Korean +chest, and him David Stires had written the truth. His heart had gone +out with pity for Jessica, and understanding. The secret he locked in +his own breast, as did Harry Sanderson, each thinking the other ignorant +of it. + +Since that wedding-day no shred of news had come to either. Harry had +wished for none. To think of Jessica was a recurrent pang, and yet the +very combination of the safe in his study he had formed of the letters +of her name! In each memory of her he felt the fresh assault of a new +and tireless foe--the love which he must deny. + +Until their meeting his moral existence had been strangely without +struggle. When at a single blow he had cut away, root and branch, from +his old life, he had left behind him its vices and temptations. That +life had been, as he himself had dimly realized at the time, a phase, +not a quality, of his development. It had known no profound emotions. +The first deep feeling of his experience had come with that college +catastrophe which had brought the abrupt change to all his habits of +living. He did not know that the impulse which then drew him to the +Church was the gravitational force of an austere ancestry, itself an +inheritance from a long line of sectarian progenitors--an Archbishop of +Canterbury among them--reaching from Colony times, when King George had +sent the first Sanderson, a virile, sport-loving churchman, to the +tobacco emoluments of the Old Dominion. He did not know that in the +reaction the pendulum of his nature was swinging back along an old +groove in obeisance to the subtle call of blood. + +In his new life, problems were already solved for him. He had only to +drift with the current of tradition, whereon was smooth sailing. And so +he had drifted till that evening when "Satan Sanderson," dead and done +and buried, had risen in his grave-clothes to mock him in the person of +Hugh. Each hour since then had sensitized him, had put him through +exercises of self-control. And then, with that kiss of Jessica's, had +come the sudden illumination that had made him curse the work of his +hands--that had shown him what had dawned for him, too late! + +Outcast and criminal as he was, castaway, who had stolen a bank's money +and a woman's love, Hugh was still her husband. Hugh's wife--what could +she be to him? And this fevered conflict was shot through with yet +another pang; for the waking smart of compunction which had risen at +Jessica's bitter cry, "You helped to make him what he has become!" +would not down. That cry had shown him, in one clarifying instant, the +follies and delinquencies of his early career reduplicated as through +the facets of a crystal, and in the polarized light of conscience, +Hugh--loafer, gambler and thief--stood as the type and sign of an +enduring accusation. + +But if the recollection of that wedding-day and its aftermath stalked +always with him--if that kiss had seemed to cling again and again to his +lips as he sat in the quiet of his study--no one guessed. He seldom +played his violin now, but he had shown no outward sign. As time went +on, he had become no less brilliant, though more inscrutable; no less +popular, save perhaps to the parish heresy-hunter for whom he had never +cared a straw. But beneath the surface a great change had come to Harry +Sanderson. + +To-night, as he wended his way past the house in the aspens, through the +clatter and commotion of the evening, there was a kind of glaze over his +whole face--a shell of melancholy. + +Judge Conwell drove by in his dog-cart, with the superintendent of the +long, low hospital. The man of briefs looked keenly at the handsome face +on the pavement. "Seems the worse for wear," he remarked sententiously. + +The surgeon nodded wisely. "That's the trouble with most of you +professional people," he said; "you think too much!" The judge clucked +to his mare and drove on at a smart trot. + +The friendly, critical eye clove to the fact; it discerned the +mental state of which gloom, depression and insomnia were but the +physical reagents. Harry had lately felt disquieting symptoms of +strain--irritable weakness, fitful repose, a sense of vague, mysterious +messages in a strange language never before heard. He had found that the +long walks no longer brought the old reaction--that even the swift rush +of his motor-car, as it bore him through the dusk of an evening, gave +him of late only a momentary relief. To-morrow began his summer +vacation, and he had planned a month's pedestrian outing through the +wide ranch valleys and the further ranges, and this should set him up +again. + +Now, however, as he walked along, he was bitterly absorbed in thoughts +other than his own needs. He passed more than one acquaintance with a +stare of non-recognition. One of these was the bishop, who turned an +instant to look after him. The bishop had seen that look frequently of +late, and had wondered if it betokened physical illness or mental +unquiet. More than once he had remembered with a sigh the old whisper of +Harry Sanderson's early wildness. But he knew youth and its lapses, and +he liked and respected him. Only two days before, on the second +anniversary of Harry's ordination, he had given him for his silken +watch-guard a little gold cross engraved with his name, and containing +the date. The bishop had seen his gift sparkling against Harry's +waistcoat as he passed. He walked on with a puzzled frown. + +The bishop was pursy and prosy, conventional and somewhat stereotyped in +ideas, but he was full of the milk of human kindness. Now he promised +himself that when the hour's errand on which he was hastening was done, +he would stop at the study and if he found Harry in, would have a quiet +chat with him. Perhaps he could put his finger on the trouble. + +At a crossing, the sight of a knot of people on the opposite side of the +street awoke Harry from his abstraction. They had gathered around a +peripatetic street preacher, who was holding forth in a shrill voice. +Beside him, on a short pole, hung a dripping gasoline flare, and the +hissing flame lit his bare head, his thin features, his long hair, and +his bony hands moving in vehement gestures. A small melodeon on four +wheels stood beside him, and on its front was painted in glaring white +letters: + + + "HALLELUJAH JONES." + + "_Suffer me that I may speak; and after + that I have spoken, mock on._" + + Job, xxi, 3 + + +From over the way Harry gazed at the tall, stooping figure, pitilessly +betrayed by the thin alpaca coat, at the ascetic face burned a brick-red +from exposure to wind and sun, at the flashing eyes, the impassioned +earnestness. He paused at the curb and listened curiously, for +Hallelujah Jones with his evangelism mingled a spice of the rancor of +the socialist. In his thinking, the rich and the wicked were mingled +inextricably in the great chastisement. He was preaching now from his +favorite text: _Woe to them that are at ease in Zion_. + +Harry smiled grimly. He had always been "at ease in Zion." He wore +sumptuous clothes--the ruby in his ring would bring what this plodding +exhorter would call a fortune. At this moment, Hede, his dapper Finn +chauffeur, was polishing the motor-car for him to take his cool evening +spin. That very afternoon he had put into the little safe in the chapel +study two thousand dollars in gold, which he had drawn, a part for his +charities and quarterly payments and a part to take with him for the +exigencies of his trip. The street evangelist over there, preaching +paradise and perdition to the grinning yokels, often needed a square +meal, and was lucky if he always knew where he would sleep. Yet did the +Reverend Henry Sanderson, after all, get more out of life than +Hallelujah Jones? + +The thread of his thought broke. The bareheaded figure had ended his +harangue. The eternal fires were banked for a time, while, seated on a +camp-stool at his crazy melodeon, he proceeded to transport his audience +to the heavenly meads of the New Jerusalem. He began a "gospel song" +that everybody knew: + + + "I saw a wayworn traveller, + The sun was bending low. + He overtopped the mountain + And reached the vale below. + He saw the Golden City, + His everlasting home, + And shouted as he journeyed, + 'Deliverance will come! + + "'Palms of Victory, + Crowns of Glory! + Palms of Victory, I shall wear!'" + + +The voice was weather-cracked, and the canvas bellows of the instrument +coughed and wheezed, but the music was infectious, and half from +overflowing spirits, and half from the mere swing of the melody, the +crowd chanted the refrain: + + + "'Palms of Victory; + Crowns of Glory! + Palms of Victory, I shall wear!'" + + +Two, three verses of the old-fashioned hymn he sang, and after each +verse more of the bystanders--some in real earnestness, some in impious +hilarity--shouted in the chorus: + + + "'Palms of Victory, I shall wear!'" + + +Harry walked on in a brown study, the refrain ringing through his brain. +There came to him the memory of Hugh's old sneer as he looked at his +book-shelves--whereon Nietzsche and Pascal sat cheek by jowl with +_Theron Ware_ and _Robert Elsmere_--"I wonder how much of all that you +really believe!" How much _did_ he really believe? "I used to read +Thomas à Kempis then," he said to himself, "and Jonathan Edwards; now I +read Rénan and the _Origins of Christian Mythology_!" + +At the chapel-gate lounged his chauffeur, awaiting orders. + +"Bring the car round, Hede," said Harry, "and I shan't need you after +that to-night. I'll drive her myself. You can meet me at the garage." + +Hede, the dapper, good-looking Scandinavian, touched his glossy straw +hat respectfully. It was a piece of luck that his master had not planned +a motor trip instead of a tour afoot. For a month, after to-night, his +time was his own. His quarter's wages were in his pocket, and he slapped +the wad with satisfaction as he sauntered off to the bowling-alley. + +The study was pitch-dark, and Rummy halted on the threshold with a low, +ominous growl as Harry fumbled for the electric switch. As he found and +pressed it and the place flooded with light, he saw a figure there--the +figure of a man who had been sitting alone--beside the empty hearth, who +rose, shrinking back from the sudden brilliancy. + +It was Hugh Stires. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE GAME + + +Harry Sanderson stared at the apparition with a strange feeling, like +rising from the dead. There flashed into his mind the reflection he had +seen once in the mirror above the mantel--the face on which fell the +amber ray from the chapel window, shining through the figure of the +unrepentant thief--the face that had seemed so like his own! + +The likeness, however, was not so startling now. The aristocratic +features were ravaged like a nicked blade. Dissipation, exposure, shame +and unbridled passion had each set its separate seal upon the handsome +countenance. Hugh's clothes were shabby-genteel and the old slinking +grace of wearing them was gone. A thin beard covered his chin, and his +shifty look, as he turned it first on Harry and then nervously over his +shoulder, had in it a hunted dread, a dogging terror, constant and +indefinable. From bad to worse had been a swift descent for Hugh Stires. + +The wave of feeling ebbed. Harry drew the window-curtains, swung a +shade before the light, and motioned to the chair. + +"Sit down," he said. + +Hugh looked his old friend in the face a moment, then his unsteady +glance fell to the white carnation in his lapel as he said: "I suppose +you wonder why I have come here." + +Harry did not answer the implied question. His scrutiny was deliberate, +critical and inquiring. "What have you been doing the last year?" he +asked. + +"A little of everything," replied Hugh. "I ran a bucket-shop with Moreau +in Sacramento for a while. Then I went over in the mining country. I +took up a claim at Smoky Mountain--that's worth something, or may be +sometime." + +"Why did you leave it?" + +Hugh touched his parched lips with his tongue--again that nervous, +sidelong look, that fearful glance over his shoulder. + +"I had no money to work it. I had to live. Besides, I'm tired of the +whole thing." + +The backward glance, the look of dread, were tangible tokens. Harry +translated them: + +"You are not telling the truth," he said shortly. "What have you +_done_?" + +Hugh flinched, but he made sullen answer: "Nothing. What should I have +done?" + +"That is what I am now inquiring of myself," said Harry. "Your face is a +book for any one to read. I see things written on it, Hugh--things that +tell a story of wrong-doing. You are afraid." + +Hugh shivered under the regard. Did his face really tell so much? + +"I don't care to be seen in town," he said. "You wouldn't either, +probably, under the circumstances." His gaze dropped to his frayed +coat-sleeve. In his craven fear of something that he dared not name even +to himself, and in his wretched need, he remembered a night once before, +when he had sidled into town drunken and soiled--to a luxurious room, a +refreshing bath, clean linen and a welcome. Abject drops of self-pity +started in his eyes. + +"You're the only one in the world I dared come to," he said miserably. +"I've walked ten miles to-day, for I haven't a red cent in my pocket. +Nor even decent clothes," he ended. + +"That can be partly remedied," said Harry after a pause. He took a dark +coat from its hook and tossed it to him. "Put that on," he said. "You +needn't return it." + +Hugh caught the garment. In another moment he had exchanged it for the +one he wore, and was emptying the old coat's pockets. + +"Don't sneak!" said Harry with sudden contempt. "Don't you suppose I +know a deck of cards when I see it?" + +The thin scar on Hugh's brow reddened. He thrust into his pocket the +pasteboards he had made an instinctive move to conceal and buttoned the +coat around him. It fitted sufficiently. His eyes avoided the well-set +figure standing in white negligée shirt, norfolk jacket and leather +belt. As they had been wont to do in the comfortable past, they fixed +themselves on the little safe. + +"Look here, Harry," he began, "you were a good fellow in the old days. +I'm sorry I never paid you the money I borrowed. I would have, but +for--what happened. But you won't go back on me now, will you? I want to +get out of the country and begin over again somewhere. Will you loan me +the money to do it?" + +Hugh was eager and voluble now. The man to whom he appealed was his +forlorn hope. He had come with no intention of throwing himself upon his +father's mercy. He had wished to see anybody in the world but him. In +his urgent need, he had had a wild thought of appealing to Jessica, or +at worst to get speech with Blake, the old butler who many a time of old +had hidden his backslidings from the parental eye. But he had found the +white house in the aspens closed and desolate, the servants gone. Harry +Sanderson was his last resort. + +"If you will, I'll never forget it, Harry!" he cried. "Never, the +longest day I live! I'll use every dollar of it just as I say! I will, +on my honor!" + +But the sight of the poker deck had been steel to Harry's soul. It had +touched an excoriated spot that in the past months had grown as +sensitive as an exposed nerve. The pictured squares were the ironic +badge of Hugh's incorrigibility. They had ruined him, and the ruin had +broken his father's heart, and wrecked the life of Jessica Holme. And +out of this havoc a popular rector named Harry Sanderson had emerged +pitifully the worse. + +"Honor!" he said. "Have you enough to swear by? You are what you are +because you are a bad egg! You were born a gentleman, but you choose to +be a rogue. Do you know the meaning of the word honor, or right, or +justice? Have you a single purpose of mind which isn't crooked?" + +"You're just like the rest, then," Hugh retorted. "Just because I did +that one thing, you'll give me no more chance. Yet the first thing I did +with that money was to square myself. I paid every debt of honor I had. +That's why I'm in the hole now. But I get no credit for it, even from +you. I wish you could put yourself in my place!" + +Harry had been looking steadily at the sallow face with its hoof-print +of the satyr, not seeing it, but hearing his own voice say to Jessica: +"I was my brother's keeper! I see it now." And out of the distance, it +seemed, his voice answered: + +"Put myself in your place! I wish I could! I wish to God I could!" + +The exclamation was involuntary, automatic, the cumulative expression of +every throe of conscience Harry had endured since then, the voice of +that remorse that had cried insistently for reparation, dinning in his +ears the fateful question that God asked of Cain! Suddenly a whirl of +rage seized him, unmeasured, savage, malicious. He had despised Hugh, +now he hated him; hated him because he was Jessica's husband, and more +than all, because he was the symbol of his own self-abasement. A +dare-devil side of the old Satan Sanderson that he had chained and +barred, rose up and took him by the throat. He struck the oak +wainscoting with his fist, feeling a red mist grow before his eyes. + +"So you paid every 'debt of honor' you had, eh? You acknowledge a +gamester's honor, but not the obligation of right action between man +and man! Very well! Give me that pack of cards. You want money--here it +is!" + +He swiftly turned the clicking combination of the safe, wrenched open +the door and took out two heavy canvas bags. He snapped the cord from +the neck of one of these and a ringing stream of double-eagles swept +jingling on the table. He dipped his hand in the yellow pile. A thought +mad as the hoofs of runaway horses was careening through his brain. He +felt an odd lightness of mind, a tense tingling of every nerve and +muscle. + +"Here is two thousand dollars!--yours, if you win it! For you shall play +for it, you gambler who pays his debts of 'honor' and no other! You +shall play fair and straight, if you never play again!" + +Hugh gazed at Harry in a startled way. This was not the ministerial +Harry Sanderson he had known--this _gauche_ figure, with the white +infuriate face, the sparkling eyes and the strange, veiled look. This +reminded him of the reckless spirit of his college days, that he had +patterned after and had stood in awe of. Only he had never seen him look +so then. Could Harry be in earnest? Hugh glanced from him to the pile of +coin and back again. His fingers itched. + +"How can I play," he said, "when you know very well I haven't a _sou +markee_?" + +Harry stuffed the gold back into the bag. He snatched the cards from +Hugh's hand and a box of waxen envelope wafers from his desk. There was +a strange light in his eye, a tremor in his fingers. + +"It is I who play with money!" he said. "My gold against your counters! +Each of those hundred red disks represents a day of your life--a day, do +you understand?--a red day of your sin! A day of yours against a +double-eagle! What you win you keep. But for every counter I win, you +shall pay me one straight, white day, a clean day, lived for decency and +for the right!" + +He was the old Satan Sanderson now, with the blood bubbling in his +veins--the Satan Sanderson who could "talk like Bob Ingersoll or an +angel," as the college saying was--the cool, daring, enigmatical Abbot +of The Saints, primed for any audacity. It was the old character again, +but curiously changed. The new overlaid it. Under the spur of some +driving impulse the will was travelling along a disused and preposterous +channel to a paramount end. + +Hugh's eyes were fastened on the gold in Harry's fingers. Two thousand +dollars! If luck came his way he could go far on that--far enough to +escape the nameless terror that pursued him in every shadow. Money +against red wafers? Why, it was plenty if he won, and if he lost he had +staked nothing. What a fool Harry was! + +Harry saw the shrewd, calculating look that came to his eyes. He caught +his wrist. + +"Not here!" he said hoarsely. He flung open the chapel door and pushed +him inside. He seized one of the altar candles, lit it with a match and +stuck it upright in its own wax on the small communion table that stood +just inside the altar-rail, with the cards, the red wafers and the bags +of coin. He dragged two chairs forward. + +"Now," he said in a strained voice, "put up your hand--your right +hand--and swear before this altar, on the gambler's honor you boast of, +win or lose, to abide by this game!" + +Hugh shrank. He was superstitious. The calculating look had fled. He +glanced half fearfully about him--at Harry's white face--at the high +altar with its vases of August lilies--at the great rose-window, now a +mass of white, opaque blotches on which the three black crosses stood +out with weird distinctness--at the lurking, unlighted shadows in the +corners. He looked longingly at the gold, shining yellow in the +candle-light. It fascinated him. + +He lifted his hand. It was trembling. + +"I swear I will!" he said. "I'll stand by the cards, Harry, and for +every day you win, I'll walk a chalk line--so help me God!" + +Harry Sanderson sat down. He emptied one of the bags at his elbow, and +pushed the box of wafers across the table. He shuffled the cards swiftly +and cut. + +"Your deal!" he said. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +HALLELUJAH JONES TAKES A HAND + + +Hallelujah Jones had finished his labor for the night. The crowd had +grown restive, and finally melted away, and, his audience gone, he +folded the camp-stool, turned off the gasoline flare, shut down the lid +of his melodeon, and trundled it up the street. A goodly number of +coppers had rattled into his worn hat, and to the workman belonged his +wage. There was a little settlement on the river, a handful of miles +away, and the trudge under the stars would be cool and pleasant. If he +grew tired, there was his blanket strapped atop the melodeon, and the +open night was dry and balmy. + +As he pushed up the street he came to a great motor-car standing at the +curb under the maples. There was no one in it, but somewhere in its +interior a muffled whirring throb beat evenly like a double, metallic +heart. He stopped and regarded it inquisitively; a rich man's property, +to be sure! + +He looked up--it was at the gate of the chapel. No doubt it belonged to +the fashionable rector who had been pointed out to him on the street the +day before. He remembered the young, handsome face, the stylish +broadcloth. He thought he would have liked to lean over the Reverend +Henry Sanderson's shoulder and lay his finger on a text: _How hardly +shall a rich man enter into the kingdom of Heaven_. Yet it was a +beautiful edifice that wealth had built there for Christ! He saw dimly +the stone angel standing in the porch, and, leaving his melodeon on the +pavement, entered the gate to examine it. + +He noticed now a dim flicker that lit one corner of the great +rose-window. Moving softly over the cropped grass, he approached, tilted +one of the hinged panels, and peered in. Two men were there, behind the +altar-railing, seated at the communion table. + +Hallelujah Jones started back. There on the table was a bag of coin, +cards and counters. They were playing--he heard the fall of the cards on +the hard wood, saw the gleam of a gold-piece, the smear of melted wax +marring the polished oak. The reddish glow of the candle was reflected +on the players' faces. Well he knew the devil's tools: had he not sung +and exhorted in Black Hill mining camps and prayed in frontier faro +"joints"? They were gambling! At God's holy altar, and on Christ's +table! Who would dare such a profanation? + +He craned his neck. Suddenly he gave a smothered cry. The player facing +him he recognized--it was the rector himself! He bent forward, gazing +with a tense and horrified curiosity. + +In that hazard within the altar-rail strange forces were contending, +whose meaning he could not fathom. Between the two men who played, not a +word had been spoken save those demanded by the exigencies of the game. +Harry had seemed to act almost automatically, but his mind was working +clearly, his hand was firm and cool as the blossom on his coat; he made +his play with that old steely nonchalance with which, once upon a time, +he had staked--and lost--so often. But in his brain a thousand spindles +were whirring, a maze of refractory images was rushing past him into an +eddying phantasmagoria. A kind of exaltation possessed him. He was +putting his past into the dice-box to redeem a soul in pawn, fighting +the devil with his own fire, gambling for God! + +Five times, ten times, the cards had changed hands, and with every deal +he lost. The gold disks had slipped steadily across the table. But Harry +had seemed to be looking beyond the ebb and flow of the jettons and the +pale face opposite him that gloated over its yellow pile. Though that +pile grew larger and larger, Harry's face had never changed. Hugh's was +the shaking hand when he discarded, the convulsed features when he +scanned his draw, the desperate anxiety when for a moment fortune seemed +to waver. He had never in his life had such luck! He swept his winnings +into his pockets with a discordant laugh as he noted that, of the +contents of the opened bag, Harry had but one double-eagle remaining. + +Harry paused an instant. He snapped the little gold cross he wore from +its silken tether and set it upright by him on the table. + +His hand won, and the next, and the next. Hugh hoarded his gold: he +staked the red wafers--each one a day! He had won almost a thousand +dollars, but the second bag had not yet been opened, and the vampire +intoxication was running molten-hot in his veins. The untouched bag drew +him as the magnet mountain drew the adventurous Sindbad--he could have +snatched it in his eagerness. + +But the luck had changed; his red counters diminished, melted; he would +soon have to draw on his real winnings. Cold beads of sweat broke on his +forehead. + +Neither had heard the creak of the rose-window as the hinged panel drew +back. Neither saw the face pressed against the aperture. Neither guessed +the wild and terrible thoughts that were raging through the mind of the +solitary watcher as he peered and peered. + +This minister! This corrupt, ungodly shepherd! He could be neither +hanged nor put in jail, yet he committed a crime for which hell itself +scarce held adequate penalty and punishment! The street preacher's eyes +dilated, the hand that held the panel trembled, spots of unhealthy white +sprang into his burning cheeks. The flaring candles--the table with its +carven legend, _This Do In Remembrance of Me_--the little gold cross, +set there, it seemed to him, in a satanic derision! It was the evil the +Apostle Paul wrestled against, of "wicked spirits in high places." It +was sacrilege! It was blasphemy! It was the Arch-Fiend laughing, making +a mock of God's own altar with the guilty pleasures of the pit--a very +sacrament of the damned! + +Scarce knowing what he did, he closed the panel softly and ran across +the chapel lawn. On the pavement outside he met a man approaching. It +was the bishop, on his way to his contemplated chat with Harry +Sanderson. The excited evangelist did not know the man, but his eye +caught the ministerial dress, the plain, sturdy piety of the face. In +his zeal he saw an instrument to his hand. He grasped the bishop's arm. + +"Quick! Quick!" he gasped. "There's devil's work doing in there! Come +and see!" He fairly pulled him inside the gate. + +The puzzled bishop saw the intense excitement of the other's demeanor. +He saw the faint glow in the corner of the rose-window. Were there +thieves after the altar-plate? + +He shook off the eager hand that was drawing him toward the window. "Not +there--come this way!" he said, and hurried toward the porch. He tried +the chapel door--it was fast. He had a key to this in his pocket. He +inserted it with caution, opened the door noiselessly and went in, the +street preacher at his heels. + +What the bishop saw was photographed instantaneously on his mind in +fiery, indelible colors. It ate into his soul like hot iron into +quivering flesh, searing itself upon his memory. It was destined to +haunt his sleep for many months afterward, a phantom of regret and +shame. He was, in his way, a man of the world, travelled, sophisticated, +acquainted with sin in unexpected forms and places. But this sight, in +all its coarse suggestion of license, in its harrowing implication of +hidden vice and hypocrisy, was damning and appalling. The evangelist of +the pave had been horrified, shocked to word and action; the bishop was +frozen, inarticulate, impaled. For any evil in Hugh Stires he was +prepared--since the forgery. But Hugh's companion now was the man whom +he himself had ordained and anointed, by the laying on of hands, with +the chrism of his holy ministry. + +It was sin, then, that had set the look he had marvelled at in Harry +Sanderson's face--sin, flaunting, mocking and terrible! He whom the +church had ordained to shepherd its little ones, to comfort its +afflicted, to give in marriage and to bless, to hold before the world +the white and stainless banner--a renegade, polluting the sanctuary! A +priest apostate, surprised in a hideous revel, gambling, as the Roman +soldiers gambled for the seamless garment, at the foot of the cross! An +irrepressible exclamation burst from his lips. + +With the sound both men at the table started to their feet. Hugh, with a +single glance behind him, uttering a wild laugh, leaped the railing, +dashed through the study, and vanished into the night; Harry, as though +suddenly turned to stone, stood staring at the accusatory figure, with +the eager form of the evangelist behind it. It was as if the horror on +the stern, set face of the bishop mirrored itself instantaneously upon +his countenance, his imagination opening in a shocked, awed way to the +concentrated light of feeling, so that he stood bewildered in the +paralysis of a like dismay. + +To the bishop it seemed the attitude of guilt detected. + +What was Harry Sanderson thinking, as, under that speechless regard, he +mechanically gathered the scattered cards and lifted the little cross +and the unopened bag of double-eagles from the table? Where was the odd +excitement, the strange exaltation that had possessed him? The spindles +in his brain had stilled, and an algid calm had succeeded, as abrupt as +the quiet, deadly assurance with which his mind now saw the pit into +which his own feet had led him. The paradoxical impulse that had bred +this sinister topsyturvydom had fallen away. The same judicial Harry +Sanderson who had said to Jessica, "I was my brother's keeper," +arraigned and judged himself, and pronounced the sentence on the +bishop's face conclusive, irrefutable, without the power of explanation +or appeal. + +He blew out the candle, replaced it carefully in its altar bracket, made +shift to wipe the wax from the table, and slowly, half blindly, and +without a word, went into the study. + +The bishop came forward, drew the key from the inside of the study door, +closed it and locked it from the chapel side. Harry did not turn, but he +was acutely conscious of every sound. He heard the door shut sharply, +the harsh grate of the key in the lock, and the sound came to him like +the last sentence--the realization of a soul on whom the gate of the +good closes for ever. + +In the dark silence of the chapel Hallelujah Jones smote his thin hands +together approvingly, as he followed the bishop to the outer door. There +the older man laid his hand on his shoulder. + +"_Let him that thinketh he standeth_," he said, "_take heed lest he +fall_! Let not this knowledge be spread abroad that it make the +unrighteous to blaspheme. When you pray for your own soul to-night, pray +for the soul of that man from whom God's face is turned away!" + +Something in the churchless evangelist bowed to the voice of +ecclesiastical authority. He went without a word. + + +In the study Harry Sanderson stood for a moment with the cards and the +bag of double-eagles in his hand. In his soft shirt and disordered hair, +with his preternaturally bright eyes, the white blossom on his lapel, +and the brilliant light upon his face, he might have been that +satin-sleeved colonial ancestor of his, in dissolute maturity, coming +from an unclerical bout at Loo, two hundred years ago. + +Finally he put the cards and the canvas bag methodically into the safe +and closed it. Then he knelt by his desk and said, clearly and aloud--to +that cold inner symbol of consciousness in his soul: + +"O God, I do not know if Thou art, as has been said, a seer of the good +that is in the bad, and of the bad that is in the good, and a lover of +them both. But I know that I am in a final extremity. I can no longer do +my labor consistently before the world and before Thee. If I am +delivered, it must be by some way of Thine own that I can not conceive, +for I can not help myself. Amen." + +He rose to his feet, mechanically put on a coat that was lying on a +chair--Hugh's coat, but he did not notice this--and bareheaded passed +out to the street. The motor-car stood there. He took his place in the +forward seat, and threw on the power. + +Barking joyously, Rummy, the brown spaniel, tore out of the gate, but +his master did not stop. The little creature pursued the moving car, +made a frantic leap to gain his seat, but missed, and the huge armored +wheel struck and hurled him to the gutter. + +Harry did not hear the sharp yelp of pain; his hand was on the lever, +pushing it over, over, to its last notch, and the great mechanism, +responding with a leap, sped away, faster and faster, through the night. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE FALL OF THE CURTAIN + + +Harry Sanderson was acting in a kind of fevered dream. His head and +hands were bare, his face white and immobile, and his eyes stared +straight before him with the persistent fixity of the sleep-walker's. +They did not see a bowed, plodding figure pushing a rickety, wheeled +melodeon, who scurried from before the hurtling weight that had all but +run him down. Nor could they see far behind in the eddying dust a little +dog, moaning, limping piteously on three legs, with tongue lolling and +shaggy coat caked with mud--following the hopeless, bird-like flight. + +One mile, two miles, three miles. The streets were far behind now. The +country road spun before him, a dusty white ribbon, along which the dry +battered corn rattled as if in a surge of torrid wind. The great +motor-car was reeling off the distance like a maddened thing, swooping +through the haloed dark, the throttle out, the lever pushed to its +utmost limit of speed, rocking drunkenly, every inch of tested steel +ringing and throbbing. Yet Harry's fingers had no tremor, no hesitancy, +no lack of cunning. His heart was beating measuredly. He kept the road +by a kind of instinct as rudimentary as that which points the homing +carrier-pigeon. He seemed to be moving in a mental world created by some +significant clairvoyancy, in which the purpose operated without recourse +to the spring of reason. The light of neurasthenia burned behind his +eyelids; he felt at once a consuming flame within, a paralyzing frost +without. The light autumn mist drenched him like a fine, sifting rain; +the wheel-flung dust adhered like yellow mud, and above the clatter of +the exhaust the still air shrieked past like a shrewd wind. + +Five miles, through the dark, under the breathless, expectant stars. The +car was on the broad curve now, where the road bent to the bluff above +the river to pass the skeleton railroad bridge. But Harry knew neither +place nor time. He was conscious only of motion--swift, swallow-like, +irresistible--this, and the racing pictures in his brain, stencilled on +the blur of night that closed around him. These pictures came and went; +the last revel of The Saints when he was Satan Sanderson--Hugh sneering +at his calling--Jessica facing him with unbandaged eyes--Hallelujah +Jones, preaching on the street corner. The figure of the street +evangelist recurred again and again with a singular persistency. It grew +more tangible! It threatened him! + +Something in Harry's brain seemed to snap. A tiny shutter, like that of +a camera, fell down. His hands dropped from the steering-wheel, and, +swaying in his seat, he began to sing, in a voice made high and uneven +by the speed of the car: + + + "Palms of Victory, + Crowns of Glory! + Palms of Victory, I shall wear!" + + +He sang but the three lines. For suddenly the car left the road--the +inflated tires rebounded from the steel ridge of the railroad track--the +forward axle caught an iron signal post--and the great motor-car, its +shattered lamp jingling like a gong, its pistons thrusting in midair, +reared on two wheels, hurling its occupant out like a pebble thrown from +a sling, half-turned, and, leaving a trail of sparks like the tail of a +rocket behind it, plunged heavily over the rim of the bluff into the +river. + +A moment later the deep black waters of "the hole" had closed above the +mass of sentient steel. The swift current had smoothed away every trace +of the strange monster it had engulfed, and there, by the side of the +track, huddled against the broken signal post, his clothing plastered +with mud and grime, motionless, and with a nasty cut on the temple, lay +Harry Sanderson. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE CLOSED DOOR + + +A long saturating peace, a deep and drenching darkness, had folded Harry +Sanderson. Dully at first, at length more insistently and sharply, a +rhythmic pulsing sound began to annoy the quietude. K-track, k-track, +k-track--it grew louder; it grew more momentous and material; it +irritated the calm that had wrapped the animate universe. Shreds of +confusing impression had begun to arrange themselves on a void of +nothingness, blurred inchoate images to struggle through a delicious +sensation of indifference and repose. Outlines were filling, contours +growing distinct; the brain was beginning to resume its interrupted +function. As though from an immeasurable distance he heard a low +continuous roar, and now and again, through the roar, nearer voices. + +Harry awoke. His mind awoke, but his eyes did not open at once, for the +gentle swaying that cradled him was pleasant and the muffled clack and +hum soothed him like opium. He was as serenely comfortable as a +stevedore who dozes out of the long stupefaction of exhaustion to the +realization that the day is a holiday. His blood was coursing like +quicksilver. He felt a buoyancy, a volatile pleasure, a sense of +complete emancipation from all that clogged and cloyed--the sensuous +delight of the full pulse and the perfect bodily mechanism. + +He opened his eyes. + +It was daylight. He was lying on dusty boards that rattled and vibrated +beneath him--the floor of an empty freight car in motion. The sliding +door was part-way open, and through it was borne the moist air of a +river bay and the purring wash of the tide. A small brown dog, an +abject, muddied and shivering morsel, was snuggled close to his side. It +whined, as if with joy to see his eyes opened, and its stubby tail beat +the floor. + +Harry turned his head. Two men in dingy garments were seated on the +floor a little distance away, thumbing a decrepit pack of cards over an +empty box. He could see both side-faces, one weather-beaten and +good-humored, the other crafty--knights of the road. + +The sudden movement had sent a momentary twinge to his temple; he put up +his hand--it touched a coarse handkerchief that had been bound tightly +about it. The corner hung down--it was soiled and stiff with blood. What +was he doing there? Where was he? _Who was he?_ + +It came to him with a start that he actually for the moment did not +know who he was--that he had ridiculously slipped the leash of his +identity. He smiled at his predicament. He would lie quietly for a few +moments and it would come: of course it would come! + +Yet it did not come, though he lay many moments, the fingers of his mind +fumbling for the latch of the closed door. He had waked perfectly +well--all save the slight cut on his temple, and that was clearly +superficial, a mere scratch. Not a trouble or anxiety marred his soul; +his mind was as clear and light as a lark's. Body and brain together +felt as if they had never had a serious ache in the world. But all that +had preceded his awakening was gone from him as completely as though it +had had no existence. His mind, so far as memory of incident was +concerned, was wiped clean, as a wet sponge wipes off a slate. Yet he +felt no trouble or anxiety. That part of his brain which had vibrated to +these emotions was, as it were, under a curious anesthesia. Goaded and +overkeyed into a state of hypertension, it had retaliated with +insensibility. All that had vexed and hurt was gone into the limbo with +its own disturbing memories. + +Stealthily he rose to a sitting posture and, with a frown of humorous +perplexity, took a swift and silent inventory. Here he was, in a +freight car, speeding somewhere or other, with a sore and damaged skull. +The dog clearly belonged to him, or he to the dog--there was an old +intimacy in the fawning fondness of the amber eyes. Yonder were two +tramps, diverting themselves in their own way, irresponsible and +questionable birds of passage. He scanned his own clothing. It was +little better than theirs. His coat was threadbare, and with mud, oil +and coal-dust, was in a more disreputable state. His wristbands were +grimy, and one cuff-link had been torn away. He had no hat. + +He bethought himself of his pockets, and went through them methodically +one by one. They yielded several dollars in coin, a penknife and a tiny +gold cross, but not a letter, not a scrap of paper, nothing to serve +him. The gleam of a ring on his finger caught his eye; he rubbed away +the dirt and carefully examined it, wondering if the stone was real. His +hand was slightly cut and swollen, and the circlet would not come off, +but by shifting it slightly he could see the white depression made by +long wear. The setting was an odd one, formed of the twisted letters H. +S. Those naturally should be his initials, but there he stopped. He +repeated to himself all the names he could think of beginning with S, +but they told him nothing. + +He looked himself over again, carefully, reflectively--many a time of +old he had regarded himself with the same amused, fastidious tolerance +when dressed for a "slumming" expedition--his head a little to one side, +the ghost of a smile on his lips. He put out his hand and laid it on the +spaniel's head. + +Its rough tongue licked his fingers; it held up one forepaw mutely and +lamely. He drew the feverish, dirty little creature into his lap and +examined the limp member. It was broken. + +"Poor little beggar!" said he under his breath. "So you've been knocked +out, too!" With his knife he cut a piece from the lining of his coat and +with a splinter of wood from the floor he set the fractured bone and +wrapped the leg tightly. The dog submitted without a whimper, and when +he set it down, it lay quietly beside him, watching him with +affectionate canine solicitude. + +"I wonder who we are, you and I," muttered Harry Sanderson whimsically. +"I wonder!" + +His gaze turned to where he could see the sunshine dancing and +shimmering from the tremulous water. He sniffed the warm air--it was +clear and sweet. Not a cloud was in the perfect sky. How fine he felt, +broken head and all! + +He looked across the car, where the card players were still absorbed. +Over the shoulder of one he could see the hand he held--a queen, two +aces, a seven and a deuce. For an instant something in his brain snapped +and crackled like the sputtering spark of an incomplete insulation--for +an instant the fingers almost touched the latch of the closed door. Then +the sensation faded, and left a blank as before. He rose to his feet and +walked forward. + +The players looked around. One of them nodded approvingly. + +"Right as a trivet!" he said. "I made a pretty good job of that cut of +yours. Hurt you much?" + +"No," said Harry. "I'm obliged to you for the attention." + +"Foolish to walk on a railroad track," the other went on. "By your +looks, you've been on the road long enough to know better. We figgered +it out that you was just a-going to cross the railroad bridge when the +freight raised merry hell with you. We stopped to tank there and we +picked you up, you and your four-legged mate. Must have been a bit +squiffy, eh?" + +He winked, and took a flask from his pocket. "Have a hair of the dog +that bit you?" he said. + +Harry took the flask, and, wiping the top on his sleeve, uncorked it. +Something in the penetrating odor of the contents seemed to cleave +through far mental wastes to an intimate, though mysterious goal. He put +it to his lips and drank thirstily. + +As the burning liquid scorched his throat, a recrudescence of old +impulses surged up through the crust of more modern usage. Mentally, +characteristically, he was once more the incongruous devil-may-care +figure in whom conspicuous achievement and contradictory excesses had +walked hand in hand. The Harry Sanderson of the new, remorseful, +temperate life, of chastened impulses, of rote and rule and reformed +habit--the rector of St. James--had been lost on that wild night ride. +The man who had awakened in the freight car was the Satan Sanderson of +four years before, who, under stress of mental illness and its warped +purview, in that strenuous scene in the chapel, had regained his ancient +governance. + +Harry handed back the flask with a long breath. There was a composed yet +reckless light in his eye--the old veiled gleam of vagary, and paradox, +and escapade. He seated himself beside them. + +"Thank you," he said. "With your permission, gentlemen, I will take a +hand in the game." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE WOMAN WHO REMEMBERED + + +Since that tragical wedding-day at the white house in the aspens, +Jessica had passed through a confusion of experiences. She had always +lived much in herself, and to her natural reserve her blindness had +added. As a result her knowledge both of herself and of life had been +superficial. She had been drawn to Hugh by both the weakest and the +noblest in her, in a self-obliterating worship that had counted her +restored sight only an ornament and glory for her love. In the baleful +hour of enlightenment she had been lost, whirled away, out into the +storm and void, every landmark gone, every light extinguished, her feet +set in the "abomination of desolation." The first bitter shock of the +catastrophe, however, seemed to burn up in her the very capacity for +further poignant suffering, and she went through the motions of life +apathetically. + +Change of scene and the declining health of David Stires occupied, +fortunately, much of her waking thoughts. After the first few months of +travel he failed steadily. His citric-acid moods were forgotten, his +harsh tempers put aside. Hour after hour he lay in his chair, gazing out +from the wide sun parlor of the sanatorium on the crest of Smoky +Mountain, whither their journeying had finally brought them. He had +never spoken of Hugh. But Jessica, sitting each day beside him, reading +to him till he dropped asleep, seeing the ever-increasing sadness in his +face, knew the hidden canker that gnawed his heart. + +To the northward the slope of the mountain fell gradually to fields of +violet-eyed alfalfa, and twice a day a self-important little +donkey-engine drew a single car up and down between the great glass +building on the ridge and the junction of the northern railroad. This +view did not attract her; she liked best the southern exposure, with its +flushed, serrated snow-peaks in the distance, the warmer brown shadows +of the gulch-seamed hills unrolling at her feet, and at their base the +treeless, busy little county-seat two miles away. In time her fiercer +pain had dulled, and her imagination--naturally so importunate--had +begun to seize upon her surroundings. In the summer season the +sanatorium had few guests, and for this she was thankful. Doctor Brent, +its head, rallying her on her paleness, drove her out of doors with +good-natured severity, and when she was not with David Stires she +walked or rode for hours at a time over the mountain trails. Breathing +in the crisp air of altitude her spirits grew more buoyant. The beauty +of shrub and flower, of cloud and sky, began to call to her, and the +breath of October found a tinge of color in her cheek. She fed the +squirrels, listened to the pert chirp of the whisky-jack and the +whirring drum of the partridge, or sat on a hidden elevation which she +named "The Knob," facing across the shallow valley to the south. + +The Knob overlooked a little grassy shelf a few hundred feet below, +where stood a miner's cabin, with weed-grown gravel heaps near by, in +front of which a tree bore the legend, painted roughly on a board: "The +Little Paymaster Claim." From its point of vantage, too, unobserved, she +could look down into the gulch far below, where yellowish-brown cones +reared like gigantic ant-hills--the ear-marks of the placer miner--and +gray streaks indicated the flumes in which, by tortuous meanderings, the +water descended to do its work in the sluices. She could even watch the +toiling miners, hoisting the gravel by windlasses, or shovelling it into +the long narrow boxes through which the foaming water raced. So limpid +was the air that in the little town she could distinguish each several +building lining the single straight street--a familiar succession of +gilded café, general emporium and drug store, with the dull terra cotta +"depot" at one end, and on the other, on a sunburned acre of its own, +the glaring white court-house, flanked by the post-office and the jail. +She could see the clouds of dust, the wagons hitched at the curb and the +drab figures grouped at the corners or passing in and out of doorways. + +Her interest had opened eagerly to these scenes. The solitudes soothed +and the life of the community below, frankly primitive and +uncomplicated, attracted her. Between the town of Smoky Mountain and the +expensive sanatorium on the ridge a great social gulf was fixed; the +latter's patrons for the most part came and went by the narrow-gage road +that linked with the northern junction; the settlement far below was +only a feature of the panorama for which they paid so well. Even Doctor +Brent--who had perched this place of healing where his patients could +breathe air fresh from the Pacific and cooled by the snow-peaks--knew it +chiefly through two of its citizens, Mrs. Halloran, the capable, +bustling wife of the proprietor of the Mountain Valley House, the town's +single hostelry, who brewed old-fashioned blackberry wine and cordials +for his patients, and Tom Felder, a young lawyer whom he had known on +the coast before ill health had sent him to hang out his shingle in a +more genial altitude. + +The latter sometimes came for a chat with the physician, and on one of +these calls Jessica and he had met. She had liked his keen, good-humored +face and waving, slightly graying hair. She had met him once since on +the mountain road, and he had walked with her and told her quaint +stories of the townspeople. She did not guess that more than once since +then he had walked there hoping to meet her again. He had taken her to +Mrs. Halloran, whose heart she had won by praise of her cherry cordial. + +As Mrs. Halloran said afterward: "'Twas no flirt with the bottle and +make love to the spoon! She ain't a bit set up. Take the word I give +you, Tom Felder, an' go and swap lies with the doctor at the santaranium +soon again. Ye can do worse." + +This had been Jessica's first near acquaintance with the town, but since +that time she had often reined up at the door of the neat hotel to pass +a word with Mrs. Halloran or to ask for another bottle of the cherry +cordial, which the sick man she daily tended found grateful to his jaded +palate. + +"It brings back my boyhood," David Stires said to her one afternoon, +tapping the bottle by his wheel-chair. "That was before the chemist +married the vintner's daughter. Somehow this has the old taste." + +"It is nearly gone," she said. "I'll get another bottle--I am going for +a ride now. I think it does you good." + +"Before you go," he said, "fetch my writing-case and I will dictate a +letter." + +She brought and opened it with a trouble at her heart, for the request +showed his increasing weakness. Until to-day the few letters he had +written had been done with his own hand. Thinking of this as she waited, +her fingers nervously plucked at the inside of the leather cover. The +morocco flap fell and disclosed a slip of paper. It was a canceled +bank-draft. It bore Hugh's name, and across its face, in David Stires' +crabbed hand, written large, was the venomous word _Forgery_. + +The room swam before her eyes. Only by a fierce effort could she compel +her pen to trace the dictated words. Hugh's misdeed, evil as it was, had +been to her but an abstract crime; now it suddenly lay bare before her, +a concrete expression of coarse thievery, a living symbol of crafty +simulation. Scarce knowing why she did it, she drew the draft covertly +from its receptacle, and slipped it into her bosom. Her fingers trembled +as they replaced the flap, and her face was pale when she put away the +writing-case and went to don her habit. + +The evidence of Hugh's sin! As the horse pounded down the winding road, +she held her hand hard against her breast, as though it were a live coal +that she would press into her flesh in self-torture. That paper must +remain, as the sin that made it remained--the sign-manual of her +dishonor and loss! The man whose hand had penned its lying signature was +the man she had thought she loved. By that act he had thrust himself +from her for ever. Yet he lived. Somewhere in the world he walked, in +shame and degradation, beyond the pale of honorable living--and she was +his wife! + +_She was his wife!_ The words hummed in the hoof-beats and taunted her. +The odors of the balsam boughs about her became all at once the scent of +jasmin, the sigh of the wind turned to the chanting of choir voices, and +beneath her closed eyelids came a face seen but once, but never to be +erased or forgotten, a face startled, quivering with a strange, +remorseful flush--which she had not guessed was guilt! + +_She was his wife!_ Though she called herself Jessica Holme, yet, in the +law, his name and fame were hers. There was deep in her the unreasoned, +intuitive regard, handed down through inflexible feminine generations, +for the relentless mandate, "let not man put asunder;" but she had no +finical conception of woman's duty to convention. To break the bond? To +divorce the husband to whom she was wife in name only? That would be to +spread abroad the disgrace under which she cringed! She thought of the +old man she had left--uncomplaining, growing feebler every day. To shame +him before the world, whose ancestors had been upright and clean-handed? +To add the final sting to his sufferings--who had done her only good? +No, she could not do that. Time must solve the problem for her in some +other way. + +The main street of the town was busy, yet quiet withal, with the +peculiar quiet which marks the absence of cobblestone and trolley-bell. +Farmers from outlying fruit ranches gossiped on the court-house square; +here and there a linen collar and white straw hat betokened the +professional man or drummer; and miners in overalls and thong-laced +boots kept a-swing the rattan half-doors of the saloons. + +"Look at that steady hand, now, an' her hair as red as glory!" said Mrs. +Halloran, gazing admiringly from the doorstep where she had been +chatting with Tom Felder. "Ye needn't stare yer gray eyes out though, or +she'll stop at th' joolry shop to buy ye a ring--to shame ye fer jest +hankerin' and sayin' nothin'!" + +Felder laughed as he crossed the street, raising his felt hat gallantly +to the approaching rider. Mrs. Halloran was a privileged character. The +ravage of drudgery had not robbed her of comeliness that gave her face +an Indian summer charm, and she was as kindly as her husband was morose. +It was not Michael Halloran who kept the Mountain Valley House popular! +The old woman hurried to the curb and tied the horse as Jessica +dismounted. + +"How did ye guess I made some more this day?" she exclaimed. "Sure, if +ye drink it yerself, my dearie, them cheeks is all th' trade-mark I +need!" She led the way into the little carpeted side room, by courtesy +denominated "the parlor." "I'll go an' put it up in two shakes," she +said. "Sit ye down an' I'll not be ten minutes." So saying she bustled +away. + +Left alone, Jessica gazed abstractedly about her. Her mind was still +full of the painful reflections of her ride. A door opened from the room +into the office. It was ajar; she stepped close and looked in. + +A group of miners lounged in the space before the front +windows--familiarly referred to by its habitués as "the Amen +Corner"--chatting and watching the passers-by. + +Suddenly she clapped her hand to her mouth to stifle a cry. A name had +been spoken--the name that was in her thought--the name of "Hugh +Stires." She leaned forward, listening breathlessly. + +"I wonder where the young blackleg's been," said one, peering through +the windows. "He'd better have stayed away for good, I'm thinking. What +does he want to come back for, to a place where there aren't three men +who will take a drink with him?" + +The reply was as contemptuous. + +"We get some rare black sheep in the hills!" The voice spoke meaningly. +"If I had my way, he'd leave this region almighty quick!" + +Jessica looked about her an instant wildly, guiltily. She could not be +mistaken in the name! Was Hugh here, whither by the veriest accident she +had come--here in this very town that she had gazed down upon every day +for weeks? _Was he?_ She pressed her cold hands to her colder cheeks. +The contempt in the voices had smitten through her like a sword. + +A revulsion seized her. No, no, it could not be! She had not heard +aright. It was only a fancy! But she had an overwhelming desire to +satisfy herself with her own eyes. From where she stood she could not +see the street. She bethought herself of the upper balcony. + +Swiftly, on tiptoe, she crossed to the hall door, threw it open, and ran +hastily up the stair. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE MAN WHO HAD FORGOTTEN + + +If the man who had been the subject of the observations Jessica had +heard had been less absorbed, as he walked leisurely along on the +opposite side of the street, he would have noticed the look of dislike +in the eyes of those he passed. They drew away from him, and one +spoke--to no one in particular and with an oath offensive and fervid. +But weather-beaten, tanned, indifferently clad, and with a small brown +dog following him, the new-comer passed along, oblivious to the sidelong +scrutiny. He did not stare about him after the manner of a stranger, +though, so far as he knew, he had never been in the place before. So far +as he knew--for Harry Sanderson had no memories save those which had +begun on a certain day a month before in a box-car. He walked with eyes +on the pavement, absorbed in thoughts of his own. + +But Harry Sanderson now was not the man who had ridden into oblivion in +the motor-car. The rector of St. James was in a strange eclipse. +Mentally and externally he had reverted to the old Satan Sanderson, of +the brilliant flashing originality, of the curt risk and daring. The +deeply human and sensitive side, that had developed during his divinity +years, was in abeyance; it showed itself only in the affection he +bestowed on the little nameless dog that followed him like a brown, +shaggy shadow. + +He was like that old self of his, and yet, if he had but known it, he +was wonderfully like some one else, too--some one who had belonged to +the long ago and garbled past that still eluded him; some one who had +been a part also of the life of this very town, till a little over a +month before, when he had left it with dread dogging his footsteps! + +Curious coincidences had wrought together for this likeness. In the past +weeks Harry had grown perceptibly thinner. A spare beard was now on his +chin, and the fiery sun that had darkened his cheeks to sallow had +lightened his brown hair a shade. The cut on his brow had healed to the +semblance of a thin red birth-mark. Most of all, the renaissance of the +old character had given his look, to the casual eye, a certain flare and +jauntiness, which dissipation and license, unclogged now with memory or +compunction, had matured and vitalized. His was now a replica of the +face he had once seen, in that lost life of his, mirrored in his chapel +study--his own face, with the trail of evil upon it, and yet weirdly +like Hugh Stires'. + +Fate--or God!--was doing strange things for Harry Sanderson! + + +Harry's game of cards in the freight-car had been a sequent of the game +in the chapel. It was an instinctive effort of the newly-stirring +consciousness to relink the broken chain, utilizing the mental formula +which had been stamped deeply upon it when the curtain of oblivion +descended--which had persisted, as the photograph of the dead retina +shows the scene upon which the living eye last looked. The weeks that +followed were reversionary. Rebellion against convention, +dissipation--these had been the mask through which the odd temperament +of Satan Sanderson had looked at life. This mask had fallen before a +career of new meanings and motives. These blotted suddenly out with +their inspirations and habits, and, the old spring touched, the mind had +automatically resumed its old viewpoint. + +He had studied himself with a sardonic, _ex parte_ interest. He had +found at his disposal a well-stocked mind, a copious vocabulary. Terms +of science, historic references, the thousand and one allusions of the +daily newspaper that the unlearned pass over, all had their +significance for him. He was no superficial observer, and readily +recognized the evidences of mental culture. But the cord that had bound +all together into character had snapped. He was a ship without a rudder; +a derelict, drifting with the avid winds of chance on the tide of fate. +A thousand ways he had turned and turned. A thousand tricks he had tried +to cajole the unwilling memory. All were vain. When he had awakened in +the freight-car, many miles had lain between him and his vanished +history, between him and St. James parish, the town he had impressed, +the desolate white house in the aspens, the chapel service and surplice, +and the swift and secret-keeping river. Between him and all that these +things had meant, there lay a gulf of silence and blankness as wide as +infinity itself. + +But drifting, adventuring, blown by the gipsy wind of chance, learning +the alphabet and the rule of three of "the road," the man was at once a +part of it and apart from it. The side that rejoiced in the liberty and +madcap adventure was overlaid by another darkling side whose fingers +were ever feeling for the lost latch. In the nomad weeks of wind and +sun, as the tissues of the brain grew slowly back to a state of normal +action, the mind seized again and again upon the bitter question of his +identity. It had obtruded into clicking leagues on steel-rails, into +miles afoot by fruit-hung lanes, on white Pacific shell-roads under +cedar branches, on busy highways. It had stalked into days of labor in +hop-fields, work with hand and foot that brought dreamless sleep and +generous wage; into nights of less savory experience in city purlieus, +where a self-forgotten man gamed and drank, recklessly, audaciously, +forbiddingly. Who was he? From what equation of life had he been +eliminated? Had he loved anything or anybody? Had he a friend, any +friend, in the world? At first it was not often that he cared; only +occasionally some deep-rooted instinct would stir, subtly conscious, +without actual contrast, of the missed and evaded. But he came to ask it +no longer quizzically or sardonically, but gloomily and fiercely. And +lacking answer, the man of no yesterdays had plunged on toward the +ardent, alien to-morrow, and further into audacious folly. He had drunk +deeper, the sign-posts of warning were set in his countenance, and his +smile had grown as dangerous as a sunstroke. + + +The man of no memories gave no heed to the men on the street who looked +at him askance. He sauntered along unconsciously, his hands thrust deep +in his pockets. With a casual glance at the hotel across the way, he +entered a saloon, where a score of patrons were standing at the bar, or +shaking dice noisily at the tables ranged against the wall. The +bartender nodded to his greeting--the slightest possible nod. The dog +who had followed him into the place leaped up against him, its forepaws +on his knee. + +"Brandy, if you please," said the new arrival, and poured indolently +from the bottle set before him. + +The conversation in the room had chilled. To its occupants the man who +had entered was no stranger; he was Hugh Stires, returned unwelcome to a +place from which he had lately vanished. Moreover, what they felt for +him was not alone the crude hatred which the honest toiler feels for the +trickster who gains a living by devious knaveries. There was an uglier +suspicion afloat of Hugh Stires! A blue-shirted miner called gruffly for +his score, threw down the silver and went out, slamming the swing-door. +Another glowered at the new arrival, and ostentatiously drew his glass +farther along the bar. + +The new-comer regarded none of them. He poured his glass slowly full, +sipped from it, and holding it in his hand, turned and glanced +deliberately about the place. He looked at everybody in the room, +suddenly sensible of the hostile atmosphere, with what seemed a careless +amusement. Then he raised his glass. + +"Will you join me, gentlemen?" he said. + +There was but one response. A soiled, shambling figure, blear, +white-haired and hesitating, with a battered violin under its arm, +slouched from a corner and grasped eagerly for the bottle the bartender +contemptuously pushed toward him. No one else moved. + +The man who waited studied the roomful with a disdainful smile, with +eyes sparkling like steel points. He as wholly misunderstood their +dislike as they misconstrued his effrontery--did not guess that to them +he stood as one whom they had known and had good reason to despise. +Their attitude struck him as so manifestly unreasonable and absurd--so +primarily the sulky hatred of the laborious boor for the manifestly more +flippant member of society--that it diverted him. He had drunk at +bar-rooms in many strange places; never before had he encountered a +community like this. His veiled, insolent smile swept the room. + +"A spirit of brotherhood almost Christian!" he said. "If I observe that +the town's brandy is of superior vintage to its breeding, let me not be +understood as complimenting the former without reservation. I have drunk +better brandy; I have never seen worse manners!" + +He looked smilingly at the soiled figure beside him--a fragment of +flotsam tossed on the tide of failure. "I erred in my general +salutation," he said. "Gentility is, after all, less a habit than an +instinct." He lifted his glass--to the castaway. "I drink to the health +of the only other gentleman present," he said, and tossed the drink off. + +A snort and a truculent shuffle came from the standing men. Their faces +were dark. Tom Felder, the lawyer, entered the saloon just in time to +see big Devlin, the owner of the corner dance-hall, rise from a table, +rolling up flannel sleeves along tattooed arms. He saw him stride +forward and, with a well-directed shove, send the shambling inebriate +reeling across the floor. + +"Two curs at the bar are enough at a time!" quoth Devlin. + +Then the lawyer saw an extraordinary thing. The emptied glass rang +sharply on the bar, the arm that held it straightened, the lithe form +behind it seemed to expand--and the big bulk of Devlin went backward +through the doorway, and collapsed in a sprawling heap on the pavement. + +"For my part," said an even, infuriate voice from the threshold, "I +prefer but one." + +The face the roomful saw now as they pushed to the outer air, and which +turned on the flocking crowd, bore anything but the slinking look they +had been used to see on the face of Hugh Stires. The smile that meant +danger played over it; there was both calculation and savagery in it. It +was the look of the man to whom all risks are alike, to whom nothing +counts. In the instant confusion, every one there recognized the element +of hardihood dumfounded. Here was one who, as Barney McGinn, the +freighter, said afterward, "hadn't the sand of a sick coyote," bearding +a bully and the most formidable antagonist the town afforded. Devlin +himself was not overpopular; his action had been plainly enough a play +to the galleries; and courage--that animal attribute which no +circumstance or condition can rob of due admiration--had appeared in an +unexpected quarter. But the man they despised had infuriated them with +insult, and Devlin had the sympathy that clings to a fair cause. An ugly +growl was running through the crowd, and several started forward. Even +when Tom Felder put up his hand with a sharp, indignant exclamation, +they fell back with an unwilling compulsion. + +The prostrate man was on his feet in an instant, wiping the blood from a +cleft lip, and peeled off his vest with a vile epithet. + +"That is incidentally a venturesome word to select from your +vocabulary," said the even voice, a sort of detonation in it. "You will +feel like apologizing presently." + +Devlin came on with a bull-like rush. The lawyer's eye, shrewdly gaging +the situation, gave the slighter man short shrift, and for several +intense seconds every breath stopped. Those seconds called up from some +mysterious covert all the skill and strength of the old hard-hitting +Satan Sanderson, all the science of parry and feint learned in those +bluff college bouts with the gloves with Gentleman Jim. And this hidden +reserve rushed into combat with an avid thirst and wild ferocity as +strange as the steady eye and hand that cloaked them beneath a sardonic +coolness. + +It was a short, sharp contest. Not a blow broke the guard of the man +whose back was to the doorway--on the other hand, Devlin's face was +puffed and bleeding. When for a breath he drew back, gulping, a sudden +glint of doubt and fear had slipped beneath the blood and sweat. + +The end came quickly. Harry stepped to meet him, there was a series of +swift passes--then one, two, lightning-like blows, and Devlin went down +white and stunned in the dust of the roadway. + +So high was the tension and so instantaneous the close, that for a +moment the crowd was noiseless, the spell still upon them. In that +moment Tom Felder came hastily forward, for, though sharing the general +dislike, admiration was strong in him, and, knowing the temper of the +bystanders, he expected trouble. + +The man who had administered Devlin's punishment, however, did not see +his approach. He was looking somewhere above their heads--at the upper +balcony of the hotel opposite--staring, in a kind of strained and +horrified expectancy, at a girl who leaned forward, her hands clenching +the balustrade, her eyes fixed on his face. The late sunlight on her +hair made it gleam like burnished copper over her green riding-habit, +and her cheeks were blanched. + +There was something in that face, in that intense look, that seemed to +cleave the gray veil that swathed Harry Sanderson's past. Somewhere, +buried in some cell of his brain, a forgotten memory tugged at its +shackles--a memory of a time when, thousands and thousands of years ago, +he had been something more than the initials "H. S." The look pierced +through the daredevil present in which the mind astray had roved +reckless and insensate, to a deeper stratum in which slept maturer +qualities of refined taste, of dignity and of repute. It stripped off +the protecting cicatrice and left him enveloped in an odd embarrassment. +A flush burned his face. + +Only an instant the gaze hung between them. It served as a distraction, +for other eyes had raced to the balcony. Loud voices were suddenly +hushed, for there was not wanting in the crowd that instinctive regard +for the proprieties which belongs to communities where gentlewomen are +few. In that instant Felder put his hand on the arm of the staring man +and drew him to the door of the hotel. + +"Inside, quickly!" he said under his breath, for a rumble from the crowd +told him the girl had left the balcony above. He pushed the other +through the doorway and turned for a second on the threshold. + +"Whatever private feelings you may have," he said in a tone that all +heard, "don't disgrace the town. Fair play--no matter who he is! McGinn, +I should think you, at least, were big enough to settle your grudges +without the help of a crowd." + +The freighter reddened angrily for a second, then with a shame-faced +laugh, shrugged his shoulders and turned away. The lawyer went in, +shutting the hotel door behind him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE AWAKENING + + +The man whose part the lawyer had taken had yielded to his touch almost +dazedly as the girl disappeared. The keen, pleasurable tang of danger +which had leaped in his blood when he faced the enmity of the crowded +street--the reckless zest with which he would have met any odds and any +outcome with the same smile, and gone down if need be fighting like the +tiger in the jungle--had been pierced through by that look from the +balcony. His poise for a puzzling moment had been shaken, his +self-command overthrown. Feeling a dull sense of anger at the curious +embarrassment upon him, he went slowly through the office to the desk, +and with his back to the room, lit a cigar. + +The action was half mechanical, but to the men gathered at the windows, +as they got down from the chairs on which they had been standing, +interested spectators of the proceedings outside, it seemed a pose of +gratuitous insolence. Tom Felder, entering, saw it with something of +resentment. + +"That was a close squeak," he said. "Do you realize that? In five +minutes more you'd have been handled a sight worse than you handled your +man, let me tell you!" + +The man of no memories smiled, the same smile that had infuriated the +bar-room--and yet somehow it was more difficult to smile now. + +"Is it possible," he asked, "that through an unlucky error I have +trounced the local archbishop?" + +Felder looked at him narrowly. Beneath the sarcasm he distinguished +unfamiliarity, aloofness, a genuine astonishment. The appearance in the +person of Hugh Stires of the qualities of nerve and courage had +surprised him out of his usual indifference. The "tinhorn gambler" had +fought like a man. His present _sang-froid_ was as singular. Had he been +an absolute stranger in the town he might have acted and spoken no +differently. Felder's smooth-shaven, earnest face was puzzled as he +answered curtly: + +"You've trounced a man who will remember it a long time." + +"Ah?" said the man addressed easily. "He has a better memory than I, +then!" + +He gazed over the heads of the silent roomful to the simmering street +where Devlin, with the aid of a supporting arm, was staggering into the +saloon in which his humiliation had begun. "They seem agitated," he +said. The feeling of embarrassment was passing, the old daring was +lifting. His glance, scanning the room, set itself on a shabby, blear +figure in the background, apologetic yet keenly and pridefully +interested. A whimsical light was in his eye. He crossed to him and, +reaching out his hand, drew the violin from under his arm. + +"Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast," he said, and, opening +the door, he tucked the instrument under his chin and began to play. + +What absolute contempt of danger, what insane prompting possessed him, +can scarcely be imagined. As he stood there on the threshold with that +veiled smile, he seemed utterly careless of consequence, beckoning +attack, flaunting an egregious impertinence in the face of anger and +dislike. Felder looked for a quick end to the folly, but he saw the men +in the street, even as they moved forward, waver and pause. With almost +the first note, it had come to them that they were hearing music such as +the squeaking fiddles of the dance-halls never knew. Those on the +opposite pavement crossed over, and men far down the street stood still +to listen. + +More than the adept's cunning, that had at first tingled in his fingers +at sight of the instrument, was in Harry Sanderson's playing. The +violin had been the single passion which the old Satan Sanderson had +carried with him into the new career. The impulse to "soothe the savage +breast" had been a flare of the old character he had been reliving; but +the music, begun in bravado, swept him almost instantly beyond its +bounds. He had never been an indifferent performer; now he was playing +as he had never played in his life, with inspiration and abandon. There +was a diabolism in it. He had forgotten the fight, the crowd, his own +mocking mood. He had forgotten where he was. He was afloat on a +fluctuant tide of melody that was carrying him back--back--into the +far-away past--toward all that he had loved and lost! + +"It's _Home, Sweet Home_," said Barney McGinn,--"no, it's _Annie +Laurie_. No, it's--hanged if I know what it is!" + +The player himself could not have told him. He was in a kind of tranced +dream. The self-made music was calling with a sweet insistence to buried +things that were stirring from a long sleep. It sent a gulp into the +throat of more than one standing moveless in the street. It brought a +suspicious moisture to Tom Felder's eyes. It drew Mrs. Halloran from the +kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. It called to a girl who crouched +in the upper hall with her miserable face buried in her hands, drew her +down the stair to the office door, her eyes wide with a breathless +wonder, her face glistening with feeling. + +From the balcony Jessica had witnessed the fight without understanding +its meaning. A fascination she could not gainsay had glued her eyes to +the struggle. It was he--it was the face she knew, seen but once for a +single moment in the hour of her marriage, but stamped indelibly upon +her memory. It was no longer smooth-shaven, and it was changed, evilly +changed. But it was the same! There was recklessness and mockery in it, +and yet strength, not weakness. Shunned and despised as he might be--the +chief actor, as it seemed to her, in a cheap and desperate bar-room +affray, a coarse affair of fisticuffs in the public street--yet there +was something intrepid in his bearing, something splendid in his +victory. In spite of the sharp, momentary sense of antagonism that had +bruised her inmost fiber, when the brutal bulk of his opponent fell she +could have wept with relief! Then, suddenly, she had found that look +chaining her own. It had given her a strange thrill, had both puzzled +and touched her. She had dragged her eyes away with a choking sensation, +a sense of helplessness and capture. When the violin sounded, a +resistless rush of feeling had swept her to the lower door, where she +stood behind the spectators, spellbound. + +In the man who played, weird forces were contending. The feel of the +polished wood on his cheek, the odor of the resined catgut in his +nostrils, were plucking, plucking at the closed door. A new note crept +to the strings. They had spoken pathos--now they told of pain. All the +struggle whose very meaning was forgotten, the unrequital, the baffled +quest, the longing of that last year which had been born of a woman's +kiss in a darkened room, never voiced in that lost life, poured forth +broken, inarticulate. + +To Jessica, standing with hands close-clasped, it seemed the agony of +remorse for a past fall, the cry of a forlorn soul, knowing itself cast +out, appealing to its good angel for pity and pardon. Hugh had often +played to her, lightly, carelessly, as he did all things. She had deemed +it only one of his many clever, amateurish accomplishments. Now it +struck her with a pang that there had been in him a deeper side that she +had not guessed. Since her wedding-day she had thought of her marriage +as a loathed bond, from which his false pretense had absolved her. Now a +doubt of her own position assailed her. Had loneliness and outlawry +driven him into the career that had made him shunned even in this rough +town--a course which she, had she been faithful to her vow "for better, +for worse," might have turned to his redemption? God forgave, but she +had not forgiven! Smarting tears scorched her eyelids. + +For Harry Sanderson the music was the imprisoned memory, crying out +strongly in the first tongue it had found. But the ear was alien, the +mind knew no by-path of understanding. It was a blind wave, feeling +round some under-sea cavern of suffering. Beneath the pressure the +closed door yielded, though it did not wholly open. The past with its +memories remained hidden, but through the rift, miraculously called by +the melody, the real character that had been the Reverend Henry +Sanderson came forth. The perplexed phantom that had been moving down +the natural declivity of resurrected predisposition, fell away. The +slumbering qualities that had stirred uneasily at sight of the face on +the balcony, awoke. Who he was and had been he knew no more than before; +but the new writhing self-consciousness, starting from its sleep, with +almost a sense of shock, became conscious of the gaping crowd, the dusty +street, the red sunset, and of himself at the end of a vulgar brawl, +sawing a violin in silly braggadocio in a hotel doorway. + +The music faltered and broke off. The bow dropped at his feet. He picked +it up fumblingly and turned back into the office, as a man entered from +a rear door. The new-comer was Michael Halloran, the hotel's proprietor, +short, thick-set and surly. Asleep in his room, he had neither seen the +fracas nor heard the playing. He saw instantly, however, that something +unusual was forward, and, blinking on the threshold, caught sight of the +man who was handing the violin back to its owner. He clenched his fist +with a scowl and started toward him. + +His wife caught his arm. + +"Oh, Michael, Michael!" she cried. "Say nothing, lad! Ye should have +heard him play!" + +"Play!" he exclaimed. "Let him go fiddle to his side-partner Prendergast +and the other riffraff he's run with the year past!" He turned blackly +to Harry. "Take yourself from this house, Hugh Stires!" he said. +"Whether all's true that's said of you I don't say, but you'll not come +here!" + +Harry had turned very white. With the spoken name--a name how +familiar!--his eyes had fallen to the ring on his finger--the ring with +the initials H. S. A sudden comprehension had darted to his mind. A +score of circumstances that had seemed odd stood out now in a baleful +light. The looks of dislike in the bar-room--the attitude of the +street--this angry diatribe--all smacked of acquaintance, and not alone +acquaintance, but obloquy. His name was Hugh Stires! He belonged to +this very town! And he was a man hated, despised, forbidden entrance to +an uncouth hostelry, an unwelcome visitant even in a bar-room! + +An hour earlier the discovery would not so have appalled him. But the +violin music, in the emergence of the real Harry Sanderson, had, as it +were, flushed the mind of its turgid silt of devil-may-care and left it +quick and quivering. He turned to Felder and said in a low voice--to +him, not to the hotel-keeper, or to the roomful: + +"When I entered this town to-day, I did not know my name, or that I had +ever set foot in it before. I was struck by a train a month ago, and +remember nothing beyond that time. It seems that the town knows me +better than I know myself." + +Halloran looked about him with a laugh of derision and incredulity, but +few joined in it. Those who had heard the playing realized that in some +eerie way the personality of the man they had known had been altered. +Before the painful, shocked intensity of his face, the lawyer felt his +instant skepticism fraying. This was little like acting! He felt an +inclination to hold out his hand, but something held him back. + +Harry Sanderson turned quietly and walked out of the door. Pavement and +street were a hubbub of excited talk. The groups parted as he came out, +and he passed between them with eyes straight before him. + +As he turned down the street, a fragment of quartz, thrown with +deliberate and venomous aim, flew from the saloon doorway. It grazed his +head, knocking off his hat. + +Tom Felder had seen the flying missile, and he leaped to the center of +the street with rage in his heart. "If I find out who threw that," he +said, "I'll send him up for it, so help me God!" + +Harry stooped and picked up his hat, and as he put it on again, turned a +moment toward the crowd. Then he walked on, down the middle of the +street, his eyes glaring, his face white, into the dusky blue of the +falling twilight. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +AT THE TURN OF THE TRAIL + + +The scene in the hotel office had left Jessica in a state of mental +distraction in which reason was in abeyance. In the confusion she had +slipped into the little sitting-room unnoticed, feeling a sense almost +of physical sickness, to sit in the half-light, listening to the +diminishing noises of the spilling crowd. She was wind-swept, +storm-tossed, in the grip of primal emotions. The surprise had shocked +her, and the strange appeal of the violin had disturbed her equipoise. + +The significant words of awakening spoken in the office had come to her +distinctly. In their light she had read the piteous puzzle of that gaze +that had held her motionless on the balcony. Hugh had forgotten the +past--all of it, its crime, its penalty. In forgetting the past, he had +forgotten even her, his wife! Yet in some mysterious way her face had +been familiar to him; it had touched for an instant the spring of the +befogged memory. + +As she spurred through the transient twilight past the selvage of the +town and into the somber mountain slope, she struck the horse sharply +with her crop. He who had entrapped her, who had married her under the +shadow of a criminal act, who had broken her future with his, when his +whole bright life had crashed down in black ruin--could such a one look +as he had looked at her? Could he make such music that had wrung her +heart? + +All at once the horse shied violently, almost unseating her. A man was +lying by the side of the road, tossing and muttering to himself. She +forced the unwilling animal closer, and, leaning from the saddle, saw +who it was. In a moment she was off and beside the prostrate form, a +spasm of dread clutching at her throat at sight of the nerveless limbs, +the chalky pallor of the brow, the fever spots in the cheeks. + +A wave of pity swept over her. He was ill and alone; he could not be +left there--he must have shelter. She looked fearfully about her. What +could she do? In that town, whose intolerance and dislike she had seen +so actively demonstrated, was there no one who would care for him? She +turned her head, listening to a nearing sound--footsteps were plodding +up the road. She called, and presently a pedestrian emerged from the +half-dark and came toward her. + +He bent over the form she showed him. + +"It's Stires," he said with a chuckle. "I heard he'd come back." The +chuckle turned to a cough, and he shook his head. "This is sad! You +could never believe how I have labored with the boy, but"--he turned out +his hands--"you see, there is the temptation. It is his unhappy +weakness." + +Jessica remembered the yellow, smirking face now. She had passed him on +the day Tom Felder had walked with her from the Mountain Valley House, +and the lawyer had told her he lived in the cabin just below the Knob, +where she so often sat. She felt a quiver of repulsion. + +"He is not intoxicated," she said coldly. "He is ill. You know him, +then?" + +"Know him!" he echoed, and laughed--a dry, cackling laugh. "I ought to. +And I guess he knows me." He shook the inert arm. "Get up, Hugh!" he +said. "It's Prendergast!" + +There flashed through her mind the phrase of the surly hotel-keeper: +"His side-partner, Prendergast!" Could it be? Had Hugh really lived in +the cabin on which she had so often peered down during those past weeks? +And with this chosen crony! + +She touched Prendergast's arm. "He is ill, I say," she repeated. "He +must be cared for at once. Your cabin is on the hillside, isn't it?" + +"_His_ cabin," he corrected. "A rough place, but it has sheltered us +both. I am but guide, philosopher and friend." + +She bit her lips. "Lift him on my horse," she said. She stooped and put +her hands under the twitching shoulders. "I will help you. I am quite +strong." + +With her aid he lifted the swaying form on to the saddle and supported +it while Jessica led the way up the darkening road. + +"Here is the cut-off," he said presently. "Ah, you know it!" for she had +turned into the side-path that led along the hill, under the gray, +snake-like flume--the shortest route to the grassy shelf on which the +cabin stood. + +The by-way was steep and rugged, and rhododendron clumps caught at her +ankles, and once she heard a snake slip over the dry rustle of leaves, +but she went on rapidly, dragging at the bridle, turning back now and +then anxiously to urge the horse to greater speed. She scarcely heard +the offensively honied compliments which Prendergast offered to her +courage and resource. Her pulses were throbbing unsteadily, her mind in +a ferment. + +It seemed an eternity they climbed; in reality it was scarcely twenty +minutes before they reached the grassy knoll and the cabin whose crazy +swinging door stood wide to the night air. She tied the horse, went in +and at Prendergast's direction found matches and lit a candle. The bare, +two-room interior it revealed, was unkempt and disordered. Rough bunks, +a table and a couple of hewn chairs were almost its only furniture. The +window was broken and the roof admitted sun and rain. Prendergast laid +the man they had brought on one of the bunks and threw over him a shabby +blanket. + +"My dear young lady," he said, "you are a good Samaritan. How shall we +thank you, my poor friend here and I?" + +Jessica had taken money from her pocket and now she held it out to him. +"He must have a doctor," she said. "You must fetch one." + +The yellow eyes fastened on the bill, even while his gesture protested. +"You shame me!" he exclaimed. "And yet you are right; it is for him." He +folded it and put it into his pocket. "As soon as I have built a fire, I +will go for our local _medico_. He will not always come at the call of +the luckless miner. All are not so charitable as you." + +He untied her horse and extended a hand, but she mounted without his +help. "He will thank you one day--this friend of mine," he said, "far +better than I can do." + +"It is not at all necessary to tell him," she replied frigidly. "The +sick are always to be helped, in every circumstance." + +She gave her horse the rein as she spoke and turned him up the steep +path that climbed back of the cabin, past the Knob, and so by a narrow +trail to the mountain road. + +Emmet Prendergast stood listening to the dulling hoof-beats a moment, +then reëntered the cabin. The man on the bunk had lifted to a sitting +position, his eyes were open, dazed and staring. + +"That's right," the older man said. "You're coming round. How does it +feel to be back in the old shebang? Can't guess how you got here, can +you? You were towed on horseback by a beauty, Hughey, my boy--a +rip-staving beauty! I'll tell you about it in the morning, if you're +good." + +The man he addressed made no answer; his eyes were on the other, +industrious and bewildered. + +"I heard about the row," went on Prendergast. "They didn't think it was +in you, and neither did I." He looked at him cunningly. "Neither did +Moreau, eh, eh? You're a clever one, Hugh, but the lost-memory racket +won't stand you in anything. You hadn't any call to get scared in the +first place--_I_ don't tell all I know!" + +He shoved the candle nearer on the table. "There's a queer look in your +face, Hugh!" he said, with a clumsy attempt at kindness. "That rock they +threw must have hurt you. Feel sort of dizzy, eh? Never mind, I'll show +you a sight for sore eyes. You went off without your share of the last +swag, but I've saved it for you. Prendergast wouldn't cheat a pal!" + +From a cranny in the clay-chinked wall he took a chamois-skin bag. It +contained a quantity of gold-dust and small nuggets, which he poured +into a miner's scales on the table and proceeded to divide in two +portions. This accomplished, he emptied one of the portions on to a +paper and pushed it out. + +"That's yours," he said. + +Harry's eyes were on his with a piercing intensity now, as though they +looked through him to a vast distance beyond. He was staring through a +gray mist, at something far off but significant that eluded his direct +vision. The board table, the yellow gold, the flickering candle-light +recalled something horrifying, in some other world, in some other life, +millions of ages ago. + +He lurched to his feet, overturning the table. The gold-dust rattled to +the floor. + +"Your deal!" he said. Then with a vague laugh, he fell sidewise upon +the bunk. + +Emmet Prendergast stared at him with a look of amazement on his yellow +face. "He's crazy as a chicken!" he said. + +He sat watching him a while, then rose and kindled a fire on the unswept +hearth. From a litter of cans and dented utensils in a corner he +proceeded to cook himself supper, after which he carefully brushed up +the scattered gold-dust and returned it all to its hiding-place. Lastly +he rummaged on a shelf and found a phial; this proved to be empty, +however, and he set it on the table. + +"I guess you'll do well enough without any painkiller," he said to +himself. "Doctors are expensive. Anyway, I'll be back by midnight." + +He threw more wood on the fire, blew out the candle, and, closing the +door behind him, set off down the trail to the town--where a faro-bank +soon acquired the bill Jessica had given him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE STRENGTH OF THE WEAK + + +It was pitch-dark when Jessica reached the sanatorium, though she went +like a whirlwind, the chill damp smell of the dewy balsams in her +nostrils, the dust rising ghost-like behind the rapid hoofs. She found +David Stires anxious and peevish over her late coming. + +Sitting beside him as he ate his supper, and reading to him afterward, +she had little time for coherent thought; all the while she was +maintaining her self-control with an effort. Since she had ridden away +that afternoon, she felt as if years had gone over her with all their +changes. She was oppressed with a new sense of fate, of power beyond and +stronger than herself, and her mind was enveloped in a haze of futurity. +She felt a relief when the old man grew tired and was wheeled to his +bedroom. + +Left alone, her reflections returned. She began to be tortured. She +tried to read--the printed characters swam beyond her comprehension. At +length she drew a hood over her head and stole out on to the wide porch. + +It was only nine o'clock, and along the gravel paths that wound among +the shrubbery a few dim forms were strolling--she caught the scent of a +cigar and the sound of a woman's laugh. The air was crisp and bracing, +with a promise of frost and painted leaves. She gazed down across the +dark gulches toward the town, a straggling design pricked in blinking +yellow points. Halfway between, folded in the darkness, lay the green +shelf and the cabin to which her thought recurred with a kind of +compulsion. + +Her eyes searched the darkness anxiously. He had seemed dangerously ill; +he might die, perhaps. If he did, what would it be for her, his wife, +but freedom from a galling bond? She thought of the violin playing. Had +that been but the soul's swan-song, the last cry of his stained and +desolate spirit before it passed from this world that knew its +temptation and its fall? If she could only know what the doctor had +said! + +There was no moon, but the stars were glowing like tiny, green-gilt +coals, and the yellow road lay plain and clear. With a sudden +determination she drew her light cloak closely about her, stepped down, +sped across the grass to a footpath, and so to the road. + +As she ran on down the curving stretch under the trees, moving like a +hastening, gray phantom through a purple world of shadows, the +crackling slip of bank-paper that lay in her bosom seemed to burn her +flesh. She was stealing away to gaze upon the outcast who had shamed and +humbled her--going, she knew not why, with burning cheeks and hammering +heart. + +She slipped through the side trail to the cabin with a choking +sensation. She stole to the window and peered in--in the firelight she +could see the form on the bunk, tossing and muttering. Otherwise the +place was empty. She lifted the latch softly and entered. + +The strained anxiety of Jessica's look relaxed as she gazed about her. +She saw the phial on the table--the doctor had been there, then. If he +were in serious case, Prendergast would be with him. She threw back her +hood, drew one of the chairs to the side of the bunk and sat down, her +eyes fixed on his face. The weakness and helplessness of his posture +struck through and through her. Two sides of her were struggling in a +chaotic combat for mastery. + +"I hate you! I hate you!" she said under her breath, clenching her cold +hand. "I _must_ hate you! You stole my love and put it under your feet! +You have disgraced my present and ruined my future! What if you have +forgotten the past--your crime? Does that make you the less guilty, or +me the less wretched?" + +But withal a silent voice within her gave the lie to her vehemence. +Some element of her character that had been rigid and intact was +crumbling down. An old, sweet something, that a dreadful mill had ground +and crushed and annihilated, was rising whole and undefiled, superior to +any petty distinction, regardless of all that lifted combative in her +inheritance, not to be gainsaid or denied. + +She leaned closer, listening to the incoherent words and broken phrases +borne on the turbid channels of fever. But she could not link them +together into meaning. Only one name he spoke clearly over and over +again--the name Hugh Stires--repeated with the dreary monotony of a +child conning a lesson. She noted the mark across his brow. Before her +marriage, in her blindness, she had used to wonder what it was like. It +was not in the least disfiguring--it gave a touch of the extraordinary. +It was so small she did not wonder that in that ecstatic moment of her +bride's kiss she had not seen it. + +Slowly, half fearfully, she stretched out her hand and laid it on his. +As if at the touch the mutterings ceased. The eyes opened, and a +confused, troubled look crept to them. Then they closed again, and the +look faded out into a peace that remained. + +Jessica dropped to her knees and buried her face in the blanket, +burning and chilling with an indescribable sensation of mingled pain and +pleasure. She scarcely knew what she was thinking. It seemed to her that +his very weakness and helplessness voiced again the something that had +sounded in the music of the violin, when the buried, forgotten past had +cried out its pain and shame and plea, half unconsciously--to her! A +thrill ran through her, the sense of moral power of the weak over the +strong, of the feminine over the masculine. + +A rising flush stained her cheeks. With a sudden impulse, and with a +guilty backward glance, she bent and touched her lips to his forehead. + +She drew back quickly, her face flooded with color, caught her breath, +then, drawing her hood over her head, went swiftly to the door and was +swallowed up in the darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE EVIL EYE + + +Harry Sanderson, harking back from the perilous pathway of fever, was to +see himself in the light of reawakened instincts. The man of no +memories, in his pointless wanderings, had felt dissatisfaction, a +fierce resentment, a savage unrest, but morally he had not suffered. The +spiritual elements of the maturer growth had slept. At a woman's look +they had awakened, to rise to full stature under the strange spell of +melody. When the real, remorseful nature, newly emerged, found itself an +object of animadversion and contempt, face to face with a past of shame +and reproach, the shock had been profound. The stirring of the old +conscience was as painful as is the first gasp of air to the drowned +lung. It had thrown the brain into a fever to whose fierce onslaught the +body had temporarily succumbed. + +When, toward midnight, the fever ebbed, he had fallen into a deep sleep +of exhaustion, from which he opened his eyes next morning upon the +figure of Prendergast, sitting pipe in mouth in the sunny doorway. + +He lifted himself on his elbow. That crafty face had been inexplicably +woven with the delirious fantasies of his fever. Where and when had he +known it? Then in a great wave welled over him the memory of his last +conscious hours--the scene in the saloon, the fight, the music, the +sudden appalling discovery of his name and repute. He remembered the +sickening wave of self-disgust, the fierce agony of resentment that had +beat in his every vein as he walked up the darkening street. He +remembered the thrown quartz. No doubt another missile had struck home, +or he had been set upon, kicked and pommelled into insensibility. This +old man--a miner probably, for there were picks and shovels in the +corner--had succored him. He had been ill, there was lassitude in every +limb, and shadowy recollections tantalized him. As in the garish day one +mistily recalls a dream of the night before, he retained a dim +consciousness of a woman's face--the face he had seen on the +balcony--leaning near him, bringing into a painful disorder a sense of +grateful coolness, of fragrance, and of rest. + +He turned his head. Through the window he could see the blue, ravined +mountain--a slope of verdure soaked in placid, yellow sunshine, rising +gradually to the ridge, peaceful and Arcadian. + +As he stared again at the seated figure, the grim fact reared like a +grisly specter, deriding, thrusting its haggard presence upon him. In +this little community, which apparently he had forsaken and to which he +had by chance returned, he stood a rogue and a scoundrel, a thing to +point the finger at and to avoid! The question that had burned his brain +to fire flamed up again. The town despised him. What had been his +career? How had he become a pariah? And by what miracle had he been so +altered as to look upon himself with loathing? + +He was dimly conscious withal that some fundamental change had passed +over him, though how or when he could not tell. Some mysterious moral +alchemy had transmuted his elements. What he had been he was no more. He +was no longer even the man who had awakened in the box-car. Yet the +debts of the unknown yesterday must be paid in the coin of the known +to-day! + +He lifted himself upright, dropping his feet to the floor. At the +movement the man on the doorstep rose quickly and came forward. + +"You're better, Hugh," he said. "Take it easy, though. Don't get up just +yet--I'm going to cook you some breakfast." He turned to the hearth, +kicked the smoldering log-ends together and set a saucepan on them. +"You'll be stronger when you've got something between your ribs," he +added. + +"How long have I been lying here?" asked Harry. + +"Only since last night. You've had a fever." + +"Where is my dog?" + +"Dog?" said the other. "I never knew you had one." + +Harry's lips set bitterly. It had fared more hardly, then, than he. It +had been a ready object for the crowd to wreak their hatred upon, +because it belonged to him--because it was Hugh Stires' dog! He leaned +back a moment against the cabin wall, with closed eyes, while +Prendergast stirred the heating mixture, which gave forth a savory +aroma. + +"Is this your cabin, my friend?" + +The figure bending over the hearth straightened itself with a jerk and +the blinking yellow eyes looked hard at him. Prendergast came close to +the bunk. + +"That's the game you played in the town," he said with a surly sneer. +"It's all right for those that take it in, but you needn't try to +bamboozle me, pretending you don't know your own claim and cabin! I'm no +such fool!" + +A dull flush came to Harry's face. Here was a page from that iniquitous +past that faced him. His own cabin? And his own claim? Well, why not? + +"You are mistaken," he said calmly. "I am not pretending. I can not +remember you." + +Prendergast laughed in an ugly, derisive way. "I suppose you've +forgotten the half-year we've lived here together, and the gold-dust +we've gathered in now and again--slipped it all, have you?" + +Harry stood up. The motion brought a temporary dizziness, but it passed. +He walked to the door and gazed out on the pleasant green of the +hillside. On a tree near-by was nailed a rough, weather-beaten board on +which was scrawled "The Little Paymaster Claim." He saw the grass-grown +gravel-trenches, evidence of abandoned work. He had been a miner. That +in itself was honest toil. Across the waving foliage he could look down +to the distant straggling street with its huddles of houses and its +far-off swinging signs. Some of these signs hung above resorts of +clicking wheels and green baize tables; more than once in the past month +on such tables he had doubled many times over a paltry stake with that +satiric luck which smiles on the uncaring. His eye ran back up the +slope. + +"The claim is good, then," he said over his shoulder. "We found the +pay?" + +Prendergast contemplated him a moment in grim silence, with a scowl. +"You're either really fuddled, Hugh," he said then, "or else you're a +star play-actor, and up to something deep. Well, have it your own +way--it's all the same to me. But you can't pull the wool over my eyes +long!" + +There was mockery and threat in his tone, but more than both, the evil +intimacy in his words gave Harry a qualm of disgust. This man had been +his associate. That one hour in the town had shown him what his own life +there had been. + +What should he do? Forsake for ever the neighborhood where he had made +his blistering mark? Fling all aside and start again somewhere? And +leave behind this disgraceful present, with that face that had looked +into his from above the dusty street? + +If fate intended that, why had it turned him back? Why had he been +plucked rudely from his purpose and set once more here, where every +man's hand was against him--every one but this sorry comrade? There was +in him an intuitive obstinacy, a steadfastness under stress which +approved this drastic coercion. If such was the bed he had made, he +would lie in it. He would drink the gall and vinegar without whimpering. +Whatever lay behind, he would live it down. This man at least had +befriended him. + +He turned into the room. "Perhaps I shall remember after a while." He +took the saucepan from Prendergast's hand. "I'll cook the breakfast," he +said. + +Prendergast filled his pipe and watched him. "I guess there _are_ bats +in your belfry, sure enough, Hugh," he said at length. "You never +offered to do your stint before." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +MRS. HALLORAN TELLS A STORY + + +From the moment her kiss fell upon the forehead of the delirious man in +the cabin, Jessica began to be a prey to new emotions, the significance +of which she did not comprehend. She was no longer a child; she had +attained to womanhood on that summer's wedding-day that seemed so far +away. But her woman's heart was untried, and it felt itself opening to +this new experience with a strange confusion. + +That kiss, she told herself that night, had been given to her dead +ideal, that had lain there in its purifying grave-clothes of +forgetfulness. Yet it burned on her lips, as that other kiss in a +darkened room had burned afterward, but with a sense of pleasure, not of +hurt. It took her back into crimson meadows with her lost girlhood and +its opaled outlook--and Hugh. Then the warring emotions racked her +again; she felt a whirl of anger at herself, of hot impatience, of +mortification, of self-pity, and of stifled longing for she knew not +what. + +But largest of all in her mind next day was anxiety. She must know how +he fared. In the open daylight she could not approach the cabin, but she +reflected that the doctor had been there, and no doubt had carried some +report of him to the town. So, as the morning grew, she rode down the +mountain, ostensibly to get the cherry cordial she had left behind her +the day before--really to satisfy her hunger for news. + +As it happened, Mrs. Halloran's first greeting set her anxiety at rest. +Prendergast had bought some tobacco at the general store an hour before, +while she had been making her daily order, and the store-keeper had +questioned him. Prendergast had a fawning liking for the notice of his +fellows--save for his saloon cronies, few enough in the town, where it +was currently reported that he had a prison record in Arkansas, ever +exchanged more than a nod with him--and he had responded eagerly to the +civil inquiries. To an interested audience he had told of the finding of +Hugh on the mountain road in a sort of crazy fever, and enlarged upon +the part the girl on horseback had played. Hugh was all right now, he +said, except that he didn't remember him, or the cabin, or Smoky +Mountain. + +Here was new interest. Though her name was known to few, Jessica had +come to be a familiar figure on the streets--she was the only lady rider +the place knew--and the description was readily recognizable without +the name which Mrs. Halloran supplied. In an hour the story had found a +hundred listeners, and as Jessica rode by that day, many a passer-by had +turned to gaze after her. + +What Prendergast had said Mrs. Halloran told her in a breath. Before she +finished she found that Jessica had not heard of the incident in the +saloon which had precipitated the fight with Devlin, and with +sympathetic rhetoric Mrs. Halloran told this, too. + +"He deserved it, ye see, dearie," she finished. "But no less was it a +brave thing that--what ye did last night, alone on the mountain with +them two, an' countin' yerself as safe as if ye were in God's pocket! To +hear that scalawag Prendergast talk, he's been Hugh Stires' good +angel--the oily hypocrite! An' do ye think it's true that he's lost his +memory--Stires, I mean--an' don't know nothin' that's ever happened with +him? Could that be, do ye think?" + +"I've often heard of such a thing, Mrs. Halloran," responded Jessica. +Her heart was throbbing painfully. "But why does Smoky Mountain hate him +so? What has he done?" + +Mrs. Halloran shook her head. "I never knew anything myself," she said +judiciously. "I reckon the town allus counted him just a general +low-down. The rest is only suspicion an' give the dog a bad name." + +There had been comfort for Jessica in this interview. The burden of that +illness off her mind--she had not realized how great a load this had +been till it was lifted--she turned eagerly toward this rift in the +cloud of infamy that seemed to envelop the reputation of the man whose +life her own had again so strangely touched. She was feeling a new +kinship with the town; it was now not alone a spot upon which she had +loved to gaze from the height; it was the place wherein the man she had +once loved had lived and moved. + +Mrs. Halloran's story had materially increased the poignant force of her +pity. What had seemed to her a vulgar brawl, had been in reality a +courageous and unselfish championship of a defenseless outcast. Thinking +of this, the self-blame and contrition which she had felt when she +listened to the violin assailed her anew, till she seemed a very part of +the guilt, an equal sinner by omission. + +Yet she rode homeward that day with almost a light heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +A VISIT AND A VIOLIN + + +Prendergast's first view had been one of suspicion, but this had been +shaken, and thereafter he had studied Harry with a sneering tolerance. +There had been little talk between them during the meal which the +younger man had cooked, taking the saucepan from the other's hands. +Shrinking acutely from the details of the dismal past which he must +learn, Harry had asked no questions and Prendergast had maintained a +morose silence. The latter had soon betaken himself down the +mountain--to his audience in the general store. + +As Harry stood in the cabin doorway, looking after him, toward the town +glistening far below in the morning sunlight, he thought bitterly of his +reception there. + +"They all knew me," he thought; "every one knew me, on the street, in +the hotel. They know me for what I have been to them. Yet to me it is +all a blank! What shameful deeds have I done?" He shrank from memory +now! "What was I doing so far away, where was I going, on the night when +I was picked up beside the railroad track? I may be a drunkard," he +said to himself. "No, in the past month I have drunk hard, but not for +the taste of the liquor! I may be a gambler--the first thing I remember +is that game of cards in the box-car! I may be a cheat, a thief. Yet how +is it possible for bad deeds to be blotted out and leave no trace? +Actions breed habit, if they do not spring from it, and habit, +automatically repeated, becomes character. I feel no inherent propensity +to rob, or defraud. Shall I? Will these things come back to me if my +memory does? Shall I become once more one with this vile old man, my +'side-partner,' to share the evil secrets that I see in his eyes--as I +must once have shared them?" He shuddered. + +There welled over him again, full force, the passionate resentment, the +agony of protest, that had been the gift of the resuscitated character. +He found himself fighting a wild desire to fling his resolution behind +him and fly from his reputation and its penalties. + +In the battle that he fought now he turned, even in his weakness, to +manual labor, striving to dull his thought with mechanical movement. He +cleaned and put to rights both rooms and sorted their litter of odds and +ends. But at times the inclination to escape became well-nigh +insupportable. When the conflict was fiercest he would think of a +girl's face, once seen, and the thought would restrain him. Who was she? +Why had her look pierced through him? In that hateful career that seemed +so curiously alien, could she have had a part? + +He did not know that she of whom he wondered, in the bitterest of those +hours had been very near him--that on her way up the mountain she had +stolen down to the Knob to look through the parted bushes to the cabin +with the blue spiral rising from its chimney. He could not guess that +she gazed with a strained, agitated interest, a curiosity even more +intense than his own, the look of a heart that was strangely learning +itself with mingled and tremulous emotions. + +Though the homely task to which he turned failed to allay his struggle, +by nightfall Harry had put the warring elements under. When Prendergast +returned at supper-time the candle was lighted in its wall-box, the +dinted tea-kettle was singing over a crackling fire, and Harry was +perspiring over the scouring of the last utensil. + +Prendergast looked the orderly interior over on the threshold with a +contemptuous amusement. "Almost thought I was in church," he said. He +took off his coat and lazily watched the other cook the frugal evening +meal. "Excuse my not volunteering," he observed; "you do it so nicely +I'm almost afraid you'll have another attack of that forgettery of +yours, and go back to the old line." + +Presently he looked at the bunk, clean and springy with fresh cut +spruce-shoots. He went to it, knelt down and thrust an arm into the +empty space beneath it. He got up hastily. + +"What have you done with that?" he demanded with an angry snarl. + +"With what?" Harry turned his head, as he set two tin plates on the bare +table. + +"With what was under here." + +"There was nothing there but an old horse skin," said Harry. "It is +hanging on the side of the cabin." + +With an oath Prendergast flung open the door and went outside. He +reëntered quickly with the white hide in his arms, wrapped it in a +blanket and thrust it back under the bunk. + +"Has any one been here to-day--since you put it out there?" he asked +quickly. + +"No," said Harry, surprised. "Why?" + +Prendergast chuckled. The chuckle grew to a guffaw and he sat down, +slapping his thigh. Presently he went to the wall, took the chamois-skin +bag from its hiding-place and poured some of its yellow contents into +his palm. "That's why. Do you remember that, eh?" + +Harry looked at it. "Gold-dust," he said. "I seem to recall that. I am +going to begin work in the trench to-morrow; there should be more where +that came from." + +Prendergast poured the gold back into the bag with a cunning look. The +other had asked for no share of it. At that moment he decided to say +nothing of the evening before, of the girl or the horseback +journey--lest Hugh, cudgelling his brains, might remember he had been +offered a half. If Hugh's peculiar craziness wanted to dig in the dirt, +very well. It might be profitable for them both. He put the pouch into +his pocket with a grin. + +"There's plenty more where that came from, all right," he said, "and +I'll teach you again how to get it, one of these days." + +Prendergast said little during the meal. When the table was cleared he +lit his pipe and took from a shelf a board covered with penciled figures +and scrutinized it. + +"Hope you remember how to play old sledge," he said. "When we stopped +last game you owed me a little over seventeen thousand dollars. If you +forget it isn't a cash game some day and pay up, why, I won't kick," he +added with rough jocularity. He threw a pack of cards on to the table +and drew up the chairs. + +Harry did not move. As they ate he had been wondering how long he could +abide that sinister presence. The garish cards themselves now smote him +with a shrinking distaste. As he was about to speak a knock came at the +cabin door and Prendergast opened it. + +The visitor Harry recognized instantly; it was the man who had called +for fair play at the fight before the saloon, who had drawn him into the +hotel. + +Felder carried a bundle under his arm. He nodded curtly to Prendergast +and addressed himself to Harry. + +"I am the bearer of a gift from some one in the town," he said. "I have +been asked to deliver this to you." He put the bundle into the other's +hands. + +Harry drew up one of the chairs hastily. "Please sit down," he said +courteously. He looked at the bundle curiously. "_Et eos dona +ferentes_," he said slowly. "A gift from some one in the town!" + +A keen surprise flashed into the lawyer's glance. "The quotation is +classic," he said, "but it need not apply here." He took the bundle, +unwrapped it and disclosed a battered violin. "Let me explain," he +continued. "For the owner of this you fought a battle yesterday. You +tested its tone a little later--it seems that you are a master of the +most difficult of instruments. There was a time, I believe, when the old +man was its master also; he was once, they say, the conductor of an +orchestra in San Francisco. Drink and the devil finally brought him +down. For three years past he has lived in Smoky Mountain. Nobody knows +his name--the town has always called him 'Old Despair.' You did him what +is perhaps the first real kindness he has ever known at its hands. He +has done the only thing he could to requite it." + +Harry had colored painfully as Felder began to speak. The words brought +back that playing and its strange rejuvenescence of emotion, with acute +vividness. His voice was unsteady as he answered: + +"I appreciate it--I am deeply grateful--but it is quite impossible that +I accept it from him." + +"You need not hesitate," said the lawyer. "Old Despair needs it no +longer. He died last night in Devlin's dance-hall, where he played--when +he was sober enough--for his lodging. I happened to be near-by, and I +assure you it was his express wish that I give the violin to you." + +Rising, he held out his hand. "Good night," he said. "I hope your memory +will soon return. The town is much interested in your case." + +The flush grew deeper in Harry's cheek, though he saw there was nothing +ironical in the remark. "I scarcely hope so much," he replied. "I am +learning that forgetfulness has its advantages." + +As the door closed behind the visitor, Prendergast kicked the chair back +to the table. + +"You're getting on!" he sneered, his oily tone forgotten. "Damn his +impertinence! He didn't offer to shake with _me_! Come on and play." + +Harry opened the door again and sat down on the cool step, the violin in +his hands. + +"I think I don't care for the cards to-night," he said. "I'd rather play +this." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE PASSING OF PRENDERGAST + + +The little town had been unconsciously grateful for its new sensation. +The return of Hugh Stires and his apparent curious transformation was +the prime subject of conversation. For a half-year the place had known +but one other event as startling: that was the finding, some months +before, of a dead body--that of a comparative stranger in the +place--thrust beneath a thicket on Smoky Mountain, on the very claim +which now held Prendergast and his partner. + +The "Amen Corner" of the Mountain Valley House had discussed the pros +and cons exhaustively. There were many who sneered at the loss of memory +and took their cue from Devlin who, smarting from his humiliation and +nursing venom, revamped suspicions wherever he showed his battered face. +In his opinion Hugh Stires was "playing a slick game." + +"Your view is colored by your prejudices, Devlin," said Felder. "He's +been a blackleg in the past--granted. But give the devil his due. As +for the other ugly tale, there's no more evidence against him than there +is against you or me!" + +"They didn't find the body on _my_ ground," had been the other's surly +retort, "and _I_ didn't clear out the day before, either!" + +The phenomenon, however, whether credited or pooh-poohed, was a drawing +card. More than a few found occasion to climb the mountain by the +hillside trail that skirted the lonely cabin. These, as likely as not, +saw Prendergast lounging in the doorway smoking, while the younger man +worked, leading a trench along the brow of the hill to bring the water +from its intake--which Harry's quick eye had seen was practicable--and +digging through the shale and gravel to the bed-rock, to the sparse +yellow grains that yielded themselves so grudgingly. Some of the +pedestrians nodded, a few passed the time of day, and to each Harry +returned his exact coin of salutation. + +The spectacle of Hugh Stires, who had been used to pass his days in the +saloons and his nights in even less becoming resorts, turned practical +miner, added a touch of _opera bouffe_ to the situation that, to a +degree, modulated the rigor of dispraise. It was the consensus of +opinion that the new Hugh Stires seemed vastly different from the old; +that if he were "playing a game," it was a curious one. + +The casual espionage Prendergast observed with a scowl, as he watched +Harry's labors--when he was at the cabin, for after the first few days +he spent most of his time in haunts of his own in the town, returning +only at meal-time, gruff and surly. Harry, however, recognized nothing +unusual in the curious glances. He worked on, intent upon his own +problem of dark contrasts. + +On the one side was a black record, exemplified in Prendergast, clouded +infamy, a shuddering abhorrence of his past self as he saw it through +the pitiless lens of public opinion; on the other was a grim constancy +of purpose, a passionate wish to reconstruct the warped structure of +life of which he found himself the tenant, days of healthful, +peace-inspiring toil, a woman's face that threaded his every thought. As +he wielded his pick in the trench or laboriously washed out the few +glistening grains that now were to mean his daily sustenance, he turned +often to gaze up the slope where, set in its foliage, the glass roof of +the sanatorium sparkled softly through the Indian haze. Strange that the +sight should mysteriously suggest the face that haunted him! + + +Emmet Prendergast saw the abstracted regard as he came up the trail +from the town. He was in an ugly humor. The bag of gold-dust which he +had shown to Harry he had not returned to the hiding-place in the wall, +and with this in his pocket the faro-table had that day tempted him. The +pouch was empty now. + +Harry's back was toward him, and the gold-pan in which he had been +washing the gravel lay at his feet. With a noiseless, mirthless laugh +Prendergast stole into the cabin and reached down from the shelf the +bottle into which each day Harry had poured his scanty findings. He +weighed it in his hand--almost two ounces, a little less than twenty +dollars. He hastily took the empty bag from his pocket. + +But just then a shadow darkened the doorway and Harry entered. He saw +the action, and, striding forward, took the bottle from the other's +hand. + +Prendergast turned on him, a sinister snarl under his affectation of +surprise. "Can't you attend to your own rat-killing?" he growled. "I +guess I've got a right to what I need." + +"Not to that," said Harry quietly. "We shall touch the bottom of the +flour sack to-morrow. You expect to get your meals here, I presume." + +"I still look forward to that pleasure," answered Prendergast with an +evil sneer. "Three meals a day and a rotten roof over my head. When I +think of the little I have done to deserve it, the hospitality overcomes +me! All I have done is to keep you from starving to death and out of +quod at the same time. I only taught you a safe way to beat the game--an +easier one than you seem to know now--and to live on Easy Street!" + +"I am looking for no easy way," responded Harry, "whatever you mean by +that. I expect to earn my living as I'm earning it now--it's an honest +method, at all events." + +"You've grown all-fired particular since you lost your memory," retorted +Prendergast, his eyes narrowing. "You'll be turning dominie one of these +days! Perhaps you expect to get the town to take up with you, and to +make love to the beauty in the green riding-habit that brought you here +on her horse the night you were out of your head!" + +Harry started. "What do you mean?" he asked thickly. + +Prendergast's oily manner was gone now. His savage temper came +uppermost. + +"I forgot you didn't know about that," he scoffed. "I made a neat story +of it in the town. They've been gabbling about it ever since." + +Harry caught his breath. As through a mist he saw again that green +habit on the hotel balcony--that face that had haunted his waking +consciousness. It had not been Prendergast alone, then, who had brought +him here. And her act of charity had been made, no doubt, a thing for +the tittering of the town, cheapened by chatter, coarsened by joke! + +"I wonder if she'd done it if she'd known all I know," continued the +other malevolently. "You'd better go up to the sanatorium, Hugh, and +give her a nice sweet kiss for it!" + +A lust of rage rose in Harry's throat, but he choked it down. His hand +fell like iron on Prendergast's shoulder, and turned him forcibly toward +the open door. His other hand pointed, and his suppressed voice said: + +"This cabin has grown too small for us both. The town will suit you +better." + +Prendergast shrank before the wrath-whitened face, the dangerous sparkle +in the eyes. "You've got through with me," he glowered, "and you think +you can go it alone." The old suspicion leaped in the malicious +countenance. "Well, it won't pay you to try it yet. I know too much! Do +you understand? _I know too much!_" + +Harry went out of the cabin. At the door he turned. "If there is +anything you own here," he said, "take it with you. You needn't be here +when I come back." + +His fingers shaking with the black rage in his heart, Prendergast +gathered his few belongings, rolled them in the white horse-skin which +he drew from beneath his bunk, and wrapped the whole in a blanket. He +fastened the bundle in a pack-strap, slung it over his shoulder, and +left the cabin. Harry was seated on one of the gravel-heaps, some +distance away, looking out over the valley, his back toward him. As he +took the steep path leading toward the little town Prendergast shot the +figure an envenomed look. + +"What's your scheme, I wonder?" he muttered darkly. "Whatever it is, +I'll find out, never fear! And if there's anything in it, you'll come +down from that high horse!" He settled his burden and went rapidly down +the trail, turning over in his mind his future schemes. + +As it chanced, there was one who saw his vindictive face. Jessica, +crouched on the Knob, had seen him come and now depart, pack on back, +and guessed that the pair had parted company. Her whole being flamed +with sympathy. She could see his malignant scowl plainly from where she +leaned, screened by the bushes. It terrified her. What had passed +between them in the cabin? She left the Knob wondering. + +All that evening she was ill at ease. At midnight, sleepless, she was +looking out from her bedroom window across the phantom-peopled shadows, +where on the face of the pale sky the stars trembled like slow tears. +Anxiety and dread were in her heart; a pale phantom of fear seemed +lurking in the shadows; the night was full of dread. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +A RACE WITH DEATH + + +On the day following the expulsion of Prendergast, Harry woke restless +and unrefreshed. Fleeting sensations mocked him--a disturbing conviction +that the struggling memory in some measure had succeeded in reasserting +itself in the shadowy kingdom of sleep. Waking, the apparitions were +fled again into their obscurity, leaving only the wraiths of +recollection to startle and disquiet. + +A girl's face hovered always before him--ruling his consciousness as it +had ruled his sleeping thought. "Is it only fancy?" he asked himself. +"Or is it more? It was there--my memory--in shreds and patches, on my +sleep; now when I wake, it is only the fraying mist of dreams.... +Dreams!" He drew a deep breath. "Yet the overmastering sense of reality +remains. Last night I walked in intimate, forgotten ways--and she was in +them--_she!_" He flushed, an odd, sensitive flush. "Dreams!" he said. +"All dreams and fancies!" + +At length he took down from its shelf the bottle he had rescued from +Prendergast's intention and emptied it of its glistening grains--enough +to replenish his depleted stock of provisions. He paused a moment as he +put on his hat, smiling whimsically, a little sadly. He dreaded entering +the town. But there could be no remedy in concealment. If he was to live +and work there, appear he must on the streets sooner or later. Smoky +Mountain must continue to think of him as it might; what he was from +that time on, was all that could count to him. + +If he had but known it, there was good reason for hesitation to-day. +Early that morning an angry rumor had disturbed the town; the sluice of +the hydraulic company had been robbed again. Some two months previously +there had occurred a series of depredations by which the company had +suffered. The boxes were not swept of their golden harvest each day, and +in spite of all precautions, coarse gold had disappeared mysteriously +from the riffles--this, although armed men had watched all night. There +had been much guess-work. The cabin on the hillside was the nearest +habitation--the company's flume disgorged its flood in the gulch beneath +it--and suspicion had eventually pointed its way. The sudden ceasing of +the robberies with the disappearance of Hugh Stires had given focus to +this suspicion. Now, almost coincident with his return, the thievery +had recommenced. It had been a red-letter day for Devlin and his ilk who +cavilled at the more charitable. Of all this, however, the object of +their "I-told-you-so" was serenely ignorant. + +As Harry walked briskly down the mountain, a feeling of unreality stole +upon him. The bell was ringing in the steeple of the little Catholic +church below, and the high metallic sound came to him with a mysterious +and potential familiarity. With the first note, his hand in his pocket +closed upon an object he always carried--the little gold cross he had +found there when he awakened in the freight-car, the only token he +possessed of his vanished past. More than once it had been laid for a +mascot on the faro-table or the roulette-board with his last coin. +Always it had brought the stake back, till he had gained a whimsical +belief in its luck. + +He drew it out now and looked at it. "Strange that the sound of a bell +always reminds me of that," he muttered. "Association of ideas, I fancy, +since there is a cross on the church steeple. And what is there in that +bell? It is a faint sound even from here, yet night after night, up +there in the cabin, that far-off peal has waked me suddenly from sleep. +Why is it, I wonder?" + +Entering the town, there were few stirring on the sunny streets, but he +could not but be aware that those he met stopped to gaze after him. +Some, indeed, followed. His first objective point was a jeweler's, where +he could turn his gold-dust into readier coin for needful purchases. He +saw a sign next the Mountain Valley House, and entered. + +The jeweler weighed the dust with a distrustful frown, but Harry's head +was turned away. He was reading a freshly printed placard tacked on the +wall--an offer of reward for the detection of the sluice thief. He read +it through mechanically, for as he read there came from the street +outside a sound that touched a muffled chord in his brain. It was the +exhaust of a motor-car. + +He thrust the money the goldsmith grudgingly handed him into his pocket +and turned to the door. A long red automobile had stopped at the curb. +Two men whom it carried were just entering the hotel. + +Harry had seen many such machines in his wanderings, and they had +aroused no baffling instinct of habitude. But the old self was stirring +now, every sense alert. Hour by hour he had found himself growing more +delicately susceptible to subtle mental impressions, haunted by shadowy +reminders of things and places. Something in the sight of the long, low +"racer" reminded him--of what? His eye traced its polished lines, +noting its cunning mechanism, its build for silent speed, with the eager +lighting of a connoisseur. He took a step toward it, oblivious to all +about him. + +He did not note that men were gathering, that the nearest saloon was +emptying of its occupants. Nor did he see a girl on horseback, with a +tiny child before her on the saddle, who reined up sharply opposite. + +The rider was Jessica; the child, an ecstatic five-year-old she had +picked up on the fringe of the town, to canter in with her hands +gripping the pommel of the saddle. She saw Harry's position instantly +and guessed it perilous. What did the men mean to do? She leaned +forward, a swift apprehension in her face. + +Harry came back suddenly to a realization of his surroundings. He looked +about him, startled, his cheek darkening its red, every muscle +instinctively tightening. He saw danger in the lowering faces, and the +old lust of daring leaped up instantly to grapple with the rejuvenated +character. + +Devlin's voice came over the heads of the crowd as, burly and +shirt-sleeved, he strode across the street: + +"Hand over the dust you've stolen before you are tarred and feathered, +Hugh Stires!" + +Harry looked at him surprised, his mind instantly recurring to the +placard he had seen. Here was a tangible accusation. + +"I have stolen nothing," he responded quietly. + +"Where did he get what he just sold me?" The jeweler's sour query rose +behind him from the doorway. + +"We'll find that out!" was the rough rejoinder. + +In face of his threatening peril, Jessica forgot all else--the restive +horse, the child. She sprang to the ground, her face pained and +indignant, and started to run across the street. But with a cry of +dismay she turned back. The horse had caught sight of the red +automobile, and, snorting and wild-eyed, had swung into the roadway. + +"It's Devlin's kid!" some one cried out, and Devlin, turning, went +suddenly ashen. The baby was the one soft spot in his ruffianly heart. +He sprang toward the animal, but the movement and the hands clutching at +the bridle sent it to a leaping terror. In another instant it had broken +through the ring of bystanders, and, frenzied at its freedom, dashed +down the long, level street with the child clinging to the +saddle-pommel. + +It was all the work of a moment, one of panic and confusion, through +which rang Jessica's scream of remorse and fright. Torpor held the +crowd--all save one, whose action followed the scream as leap follows +the spur. In a single step Harry gained the automobile. With an +instantaneous movement he pushed the lever down and jerked the throttle +wide. The machine bounded into its pace, the people rolling back before +it, and, gathering headway, darted after the runaway. + +The spectators stood staring. "He'll never catch him," said Michael +Halloran, who had joined the crowd. "Funeral Hollow's only a mile away." +With others he hurried to the hotel balcony, where he could watch the +exciting race. Jessica stood stock-still, as blanched as Devlin, +wringing her hands. + +Harry Sanderson had acted with headlong intention, without calculation, +almost without consciousness of mental process. Standing on the +pavement, with the subtle lure of the motor creeping in his veins, his +whole body responding--as his fingers had tingled at sight of the +violin--to the muffled vibrations of that halted bundle of steel, in the +sharp exigency he had answered an overmastering impulse. In the same +breath he had realized Jessica's presence and the child's peril, both +linked in that anguished cry. With the first bound of the car under him, +as the crowd was snatched behind, a weird, exultant thrill shot through +every nerve. Each bolt and bar he knew as one would tell his fingers. +Somewhere, at some time, he had known such flight--through mellow +sunlight, with the air singing past. Where? When? + +Not for the fraction of a second, however, did his gaze waver. He knew +that the flat on which the town was built fell away in a hollow ravine +to the southward--he could see it from the cabin doorway--a stretch of +breakneck road only a mile ahead. Could the child hold on? Could he +distance those frenzied hoofs in time? The arrow of the indicator stole +forward on the dial. + +Far behind, as the crowd watched, a cry rose from the hotel balcony. It +was Barney McGinn, the freighter, with a glass at his eye. "He's +gaining!" he shouted. "He has almost overtaken the horse!" + +The horse's first fury of speed was tiring. The steel steed was creeping +closer. A thunder of hoofs in pursuit would have maddened the flying +animal, but the gliding thing that was now so close to him came on with +noiseless swiftness. Harry had reserved, with the nicety of a practised +hand, a last increment of speed. With the front wheels at the horse's +flank, he drew suddenly on this. As the car responded, he swerved it +sharply in, and, holding with one hand, leaned far out from the step, +and lifted the child from the saddle. + +The automobile halted again before the hotel amid a hush. The men who a +little while before had been ripe for violence, now stood in shamefaced +silence. It was Jessica who ran forward and took the child, still +sobbing a little, from Harry's hands. One long look passed between +them--a look on her part brimming with a great gratitude for his lifting +of her weight of dread and compunction, and with something besides that +mantled her cheeks with rich color. She kissed the child and placed her +in her father's arms. + +Devlin's countenance broke up. He struggled to speak, but could not, +and, burying his face in the child's dress and crying like a baby, he +crossed the street hastily to his own door. + +Harry stepped to the pavement with a dull kind of embarrassment at the +manifold scrutiny. He had misconstrued Jessica's flushing silence, and +the inference stung. The fierce zest was gone, and the rankling barb of +accusation smarted. He should apologize to the owner, he reflected +satirically, for helping himself to the automobile--he who stole +gold-dust, he at whose door the town laid its unferreted thieveries! He +who was the scapegoat for the town's offenses! + +That owner, in very fact, stood just then in the hotel doorway regarding +him with interest. He was the sheriff of the county. He was about to +step forward, when an interruption occurred. A scuffle and a weak bark +sounded, and a lean brown streak shot across the pavement. + +"Rummy!" cried Harry. "Rummy!" + +Through some chink of the dead wall in his brain the name slipped out, a +tiny atom of flotsam retrieved from the wreck of memory. That was all, +but to the animal which had just found its lost master, the word meant a +sublimation of delight, the clearing of the puzzle of namelessness that +had perplexed its canine brain. The dog's heaven was reached! + +Down on his knees on the pavement went Harry, with his arms about the +starved, palpitating little creature, and his cheek against its shaggy +coat. In another moment he had picked it up in his arms and was walking +up the street. + +Late that night Tom Felder, sitting in his office, heard the story of +the runaway from the sheriff's lips. He himself had been in court at the +time. + +"And the horse?" he asked. + +"In the Hollow, with his back broken," said the sheriff. + +The lawyer sprang from his chair. "Good God!" he exclaimed. "How can a +man like that ever have been a scoundrel?" + +The sheriff relit his dead cigar reflectively. "It's a curious thing," +he said. "They are saying on the street that he's sent Prendergast +packing. He'll have to watch out--the old tarantula will sting him if he +can!" + +Harry Sanderson went back to his cabin with a strange feeling of +exaltation and disappointment--exaltation at the recurrence of something +of his old adventures, disappointment at the flushed silence with which +Jessica had received the child. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +ON SMOKEY MOUNTAIN + + +Jessica bore back from the town that afternoon a spirit of tremulous +gladness. In the few moments of that thrilling ride and rescue, a +mysterious change had been wrought in her. + +In the past days her soul had been possessed by a painful agitation +which she did not attempt to analyze. At moments the ingrained hatred of +Hugh's act, the resentment that had been the result of that year of +pain, had risen to battle for the inherent justice of things. At such +times she was restless and _distraite_, sitting much alone, and puzzling +David Stires by meaningless responses. + +She could not tell him that the son whose name he never took upon his +lips was so near: that he whose crime his father's pride of name had +hidden, through all the months since then, had gone down with the +current, shunned by honest folk, adding to his one dismal act the weight +of persistent repetition! She could not tell him this, even though that +son now lived without memory of the evil he had done; though he +struggled under a cloud of hatred, reaching out to clean deed and high +resolve. + +Now, however, all distrust and trepidation had vanished. Strangely and +suddenly the complex warfare in her mind had stilled. Standing with Mrs. +Halloran, she had listened to the comment with shining eyes. Not that +she distinguished any sudden and violent _volte-face_ of opinion to turn +persecution to popularity and make the reprobate of to-day the favorite +of to-morrow. But in its very reserve she instinctively felt a new +tension of respect. Suspicion and dislike aside, there was none there +who would again hinder the man who had made that race with death! + +For her own part, she only knew that she had no longer fear of soul or +sense of irrevocable loss, or suffering. What were those old Bible words +about being born again? What was that rebirth but a divine forgetting, a +wiping out, a "remembering no more?" If it was the memory of his shame +that had dragged him down, that memory was gone, perhaps for ever. The +Hugh she now loved was not the Hugh who had sinned! + +She sat by David Stires that evening chatting gaily--he had been much +weaker and more nervous of late and she would not have him told of the +runaway--talking of cheerful things, radiating a glow from her own +happiness that warmed the softly-lighted sick-room. All the while her +heart was on the hillside where a rough cabin held him who embodied for +her all the mystery and meaning of life. By a kind of clairvoyance she +saw him sitting in the snug firelight, thinking perhaps of the instant +their eyes had met. She did not guess that for him that moment had held +an added pang. + +So the hours had passed, and the sun, when it rose next day, shone on a +freshly created world. The wind no longer moaned for the lost legends of +the trees. There was a bloom on every flowering bush, a song in the +throat of every bird. She was full of new feelings that yielded in their +sway only to new problems that loomed on her mental horizon. As the +puzzle of the present cleared, the future was become the all-dominating +thing. She knew now that she had never hated, had never really ceased to +love. And Hugh? Love was not a mere product of times and places. It was +only the memory that was gone, his love lived on underneath. Surely that +was what the violin--what the look on his face had said! When the broken +chain was welded, he would know her! Would it be chance--some sudden +mental shock--that would furnish the clue? She had heard of such things. + +But suppose he did not recover his memory. In the very nature of the +case, he must sometime learn the facts of his past. Was it not better to +know the very worst it contained now, to put all behind him, and face a +future that held no hidden menace? She alone could tell him what had +clouded his career--the thing whose sign and symbol was the forged +draft. She carried the slip of paper in the bosom of her dress, and +every day she took it out and looked at it as at some maleficent relic. +It was a token of the old buried misery that, its final purpose +accomplished, should be forgotten for ever. How to convey the truth with +as little pain as might be--this was the problem--and she had found the +solution. She would leave the draft secretly in the cabin, where he must +see it. It bore his own name, and the deadly word David Stires' cramped +fist had written across it, told its significant story. How it got there +Hugh would not question; it would be to him only a detail of his +forgotten life there. + +She was glad when in the late afternoon Doctor Brent came for his chat +with David Stires, and the latter sent her out for a walk. It was a +garlanded day, a day of clear blue spaces between lavender clouds +lolling in the sky, and over all the late summer landscape a dull gold +wash of sun. There had long ceased to be for her any direction save +one--down the mountain road to where a rambling, overgrown path led to +the little grassy plateau with its jutting rock, which was her point of +observation. She did not keep to the main road, but chose a short-cut +through the thick underbrush that brought her more quickly to the Knob. +There she sat down, and, parting the bushes, peered through them. + +All was quiet. No wisp of smoke curled from the cabin chimney, no work +was forward; for Harry had climbed far up the mountain, alone with his +thoughts. It was a favorable opportunity. + +Jessica had the fateful draft in her hand as she ran quickly down the +trail and across the cleared space to the cabin door. It was wide open. +Peering warily she saw that both rooms were empty, and, with a guilty +last glance about her, she entered. A smile curved her lips as she saw +the plain neatness of the interior; the scoured cooking-utensils, the +coarse Mackinaw clothing hung from wooden pegs, the clean bacon +suspended from the rafters. A nail in the wall held an old violin, and +beneath it was a shelf of books. + +To these, battered and dog-eared novels rescued from the mildewed litter +of the cabin, Harry had turned eagerly in the long evenings for lack of +mental pabulum. She took one from the meager row, and opened it +curiously. It was _David Copperfield_, and she saw with kindling +interest that heavy lines were drawn along certain of the pages. The +words that had been marked revealed to the loving woman something of his +soul. + +She looked about her. Where should she put the draft? He had left a +marker in the book; he would open it again, no doubt. She laid the draft +between the printed leaves, beyond the marker. Then, replacing the +volume on the shelf, she ran from the door and hastened back up the +steep trail to the Knob. + +Leaning back against the warm rock, lapped in the serene peacefulness of +the spot, Jessica fell into reverie. Never since her wedding-day had she +said to herself boldly: "I love him!"--never till yesterday. Now all was +changed. Her thought was a tremulous assurance: "I shall stay here near +him day after day, watching. Some day his memory will come back, and +then my love will comfort him. The town will forget it has hated, and +will come to honor him. Sometime, seeing how he is changed, his father +will forgive him and take him back, and we shall all three go home to +the white house in the aspens. If not, then my place will still be with +Hugh! Perhaps we shall live here. Perhaps a cabin like that will be +home, and I shall live with him, and work with him, and care for him." + +Thus she dreamed--a new day-dream, unravaged by the sordid tests of +verity. + +So absorbed was she that she did not hear a step approaching over the +springy moss--a sharply drawn breath, as the intruder stifled an +exclamation. She had drawn her handkerchief across her eyes against the +dancing glimmer of sunlight. Suddenly it dropped to her lap, and she +half turned. + +In the instant of surprise, as Harry's look flashed into hers, a name +sprang unbidden to her lips--a name that struck his strained face to +sudden whiteness, ringing in his ears like the note of a sunken bell. +All that was clamoring in him for speech rushed into words. + +"You call my name!" he cried. "You know me! Have I ever been 'Hugh' to +you? Is that what your look said to me? Is that why your face has +haunted me? Tell me, I pray you!" + +She had struggled to her feet, her hands pressed to her bosom. The +surprise had swung her from her moorings. Her heart had been so full in +her self-communings that now, between the impulse toward revealment and +the warning of caution, she stood confused. + +"I had never seen you in the town before that day," she said. "I am +stopping there"--she pointed to the ridge above, where the roof of the +sanatorium glistened in the sunlight. "I was at the hotel by merest +accident when--you played." + +The light died in his eyes. He turned abruptly and stared across the +foliaged space. There was a moment's pause. + +"Forgive me!" he said at length, in a voice curiously dull. "You must +think me a madman to be talking to you like this. To be sure, every one +knows me. It is not strange that you should have spoken my name. It was +a sudden impulse to which I yielded. I had imagined ... I had dreamed +... but no matter. Only, your face--that white band across your +eyes--your voice--they came to me like something far away that I have +known. I was mistaken. I was crazy to think that you--" + +He stopped. A wave of sympathy passed over her. She felt a mad wish to +throw all aside, to cry to him: "You _did_ know me! You loved me once! I +am Jessica--I am your wife!" So intense was her emotion that it seemed +to her as if she had spoken his name again audibly, but her lips had not +moved, and the tap of a woodpecker on a near-by trunk sounded with harsh +distinctness. + +"I have wanted to speak to you," she said, after an instant in which she +struggled for self-control. "You did a brave thing yesterday--a +splendid thing. It saved me from sorrow all my life!" + +He put aside her thanks with a gesture. "You saved me also. You found me +ill and suffering and your horse carried me to my cabin." + +"I want to tell you," she went on hastily, her fingers lacing, "that I +do not judge you as others do. I know about your past life--what you +have forgotten. I know you have put it all behind you." + +His face changed swiftly. To-day the determination with which he had +striven to put from his mind the problem of his clouded past had broken +down. In the light of the charge which had been flung in his teeth the +afternoon before, his imagination had dwelt intolerably on it. "Better +to have ended it all under the wheels of the freight-engine," he had +told himself. "What profit to have another character, if the old lies +chuckling in the shadow, an old-man-of-the-sea, a lurking thing, like a +personal devil, to pull me down!" In these gloomy reflections her +features had recurred with a painful persistence. He had had a bad +half-hour on the mountain, and now, before her look and tone, the +ever-torturing query burst its bonds. + +"You know!" he said hoarsely. "Yet you say that? They stoned me in the +street the day I came back. Yesterday they counted me a thief. It is +like a hideous nightmare that I can't wake from. Who am I? Where did I +come from? I dare not ask, for fear of further shame! Can you imagine +what that means?" + +He broke off, leaning an unsteady hand against a tree. "I've no excuse +for this raving!" he said, in a moment, his face turned away. "I have +seen you but twice. I do not even know your name. I am a man snatched +out of the limbo and dropped into hell, to watch the bright spirits +passing on the other side of the gulf!" + +Pain lay very deep in the words, and it pierced her like a bodily pang, +so close did she seem to him in spirit. She felt in it unrest, +rebellion, the shrinking sensibility that had writhed in loneliness, and +the longing for new foothold on the submerged causeway of life. + +She came close to him and touched his arm. + +"I know all that you suffer," she said. "You are doing the strong thing, +the brave thing! The man in you is not astray now; it was lost, but it +has found its way back. When your memory comes, you will see that it is +fate that has been leading you. There was nothing in your past that can +not be buried and forgotten. What you have been you will never be again. +I know that! I saw you fight Devlin and I know why you did it. I heard +you play the violin! Whatever has been, I have faith in you now!" + +She spoke breathlessly, in very abandon, carried away by her feeling. As +she spoke he had turned toward her, his paleness flushed, his eyes +leaping up like hungry fires, devouring her face. At the look timidity +rushed upon her. She stopped abruptly and took a startled step from him. + +He turned from her instantly, his hands dropped at his sides. The word +that had almost sprung to speech had slipped back into the void. + +"I thank you for the charity you have for me," he said, "which I in no +way deserve. I ... I shall always remember it." + +She hesitated an instant, made as if to speak. Then, turning, she went +quickly from him. At the edge of the bushes she stopped with a sudden +impulse. She looked at the handkerchief she held in her hand. Some tiny +lettering was embroidered in its corner, the word _Jessica_. She looked +back--he had not moved. Rolling it into a ball, she threw it back, over +the bushes, then ran on hastily through the trees. + +After a time Harry turned slowly, his shoulders lifting in a deep +respiration. He drew his hand across his brow as though to dispel a +vision. This was the first time he had hit upon the place. He saw the +flat ledge, with the bushes twisted before it for a screen. She had +known the place before, then! The white and filmy cambric caught his +eye, lying at the base of the great, knob-like rock. He went to it, +picked it up, and looked at it closely. + +"Jessica!" he whispered. The name clung about him; the very leaves +repeated it in music. He had a curious sensation as if, while she spoke, +that very name had half framed itself in some curtained recess of his +thought. He pressed the handkerchief to his face. The faint perfume it +exhaled, like the dust of dead roses, gave him a ghostly impression of +the familiar. + +He thought of what she had said; she had not known him! And yet that +look, the strange dreaming sense of her presence, his name on her lips +in the moment of bewilderment! + +He struck his forehead sharply with his open hand. + +"Fool!" he said, with a bitter laugh. "Fool!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE OPEN WINDOW + + +Over the sanatorium on the ridge sleep had descended. On its broad +grounds there was no light of moon or stars, and its chamber windows +were dark, save where here and there the soft glow of a night-lamp +sifted through a shutter. The evening had closed gloomily, breeding +storm. The air was sultry and windless, and now and then sheet-lightning +threw into blunt relief the dark bodies of the trees. Inside the +building all slumbered, soundly or fitfully as health or illness +decreed, carrying the humors of the stirring day into the wider realm of +sleep. + +Jessica had closed her eyes, thinking of a time when secrecy would all +be ended, disguise done, when she would wear again the ring she had +taken off in bitterness, when indeed and in name she would be a wife +before the world. She had picked a great bowl of wild star-jasmin and +set it by her bedside and the room was sweet with the delicate scent. +The odor carried her irresistibly back to the far-away mansion that had +since seemed a haunted dwelling, to the days of her blindness and of +Hugh's courtship. Before she extinguished the light she searched in a +drawer and found her wedding-ring--the one she had worn for less than an +hour. It was folded away in a box which she had not opened since the +dreadful day when she had broken in pieces her model of the Prodigal +Son. When she crept into bed, the ring was on her finger. She had fallen +asleep with her cheek resting on it. + +She awoke with a start, with a vague, inexplicable uneasiness, an +instinct that the night had voiced an unusual sound. She sat up in bed, +staring into the dark depths of the room. Her instant thought had been +of David Stires, but the tiny bell on the wall whose wire led to his +bedroom was not vibrating. She listened a moment, but there was only a +deep silence. + +Slipping out of bed, she crossed the room and parted the curtain from +before the tall French window. The room was on the ground floor and the +window gave directly on the lawn. The wind seemed dead, and the world +outside--the broad, cleared expanse of trees and shrubs, and the +descending forest that closed it round--was wrapped in a dense +blackness. While she gazed there came a sudden yellow flare of lightning +and far-distant mutter of thunder spoke behind the hills. + +Still with the unreasoning uneasiness holding her, she groped to the +door, drew the bolt and looked out into the wide, softly carpeted hall, +lighted dimly by a lamp set just at the turn of the staircase. All at +once a shiver ran through her. There, a dozen steps away, the light full +upon him, stood the man who filled her thoughts. + +He stood perfectly still, without movement or gesture, gazing at her. +She could see his face distinctly, silhouetted on the pearl-gray wall. +It wore an expression of strained concern and of deep helplessness. The +instant agitation and surprise blotted the puzzle of his presence there. +She forgot that it was the dead of night, that she was in her nightgown. +It flashed across her mind that some near and desperate trouble had +befallen him. All the protective and maternal in her love welled up. She +went quickly toward him. + +He did not move or stir, and then she realized that though his eyes +seemed to look at her, it was with a passive tranced fixity. They saw +nothing. He was asleep. + +It was the mind which was conscious, the action of the brain was at +rest. The body, through the operation of some irreducible law of the +subjective self, was moving in an automatic somnambulism. The +intermittent memory that had begun to emerge in sleep, that had given +him on waking the eerie impression of a dual identity, had led him, +involuntarily and unerringly, to her. + +She halted, a deep compassion and a painful wonderment holding her, +feeling with a thrill the power she possessed over him. Then, like a +cold wave, surged over her a numbing sense of his position. How had he +entered? Had he broken locks like a burglar? The situation was +anomalous. What should she do? Waked abruptly, the result might be +disastrous. Discovered, his presence there when all slumbered, suspected +as he had been, would be ruinous. She must get him away, out of the +house, and quickly. + +A breath of cool air swept past her, putting out the lamp--an outer door +was open. At the same instant she heard steps beyond the curve of the +hall, Doctor Brent's voice peremptory and inquiring. Her nerves chilled; +he blocked the sole avenue of retreat. No, there was one other, and only +one--a single way to shield him. Quiet and resourceful now, though her +cheeks were hot, she took the hand of the unconscious man, drew him +silent and unresisting into the friendly shadow of her room, closed the +door noiselessly and bolted it. + +For a moment she stood motionless, her heart beating violently. Had he +been seen? Or had the open door created an alarm? Releasing his hand +gently, she found her way softly to a stand, lighted a tiny night-taper, +and threw a shawl about her. Through its ground-glass the light cast a +wan glimmer which showed the shadowy outlines of the room, its white +rumpled bed, its scattered belongings eloquent of a woman's ownership, +and the pallid countenance of the sleeping man. He had stopped still; a +troubled frown was on his face, and his head was bent as if listening. + +A sudden confusion tingled through her veins, a sense of maidenly shame +that she could be there beside him _en déshabille_, opposing the sweet +reminder of their real relationship--was he not in fact her +husband?--that lay ever beneath her thought to justify and explain. He +must wake before he left that room. What would he think? She flushed +scarlet in the semi-darkness; she could not tell him--that! Not there +and then! The blood forsook her heart as footsteps sounded outside the +door. They paused, passed on, returned and died away. + +Suddenly, in the tense silence of the room, the mantel-clock struck +three, a deep chime, like the vibration of a far-off church bell. The +tone was not loud--indeed the low roll of the thunder had been well-nigh +as loud--but there was in the intrusive metallic cadence a peculiar +suggestion to the dormant mind. As the sound of the church bell in the +town had done so often, it penetrated the crust of sleep; it touched the +inner ear of the conscious intelligence that stirred so painfully, +throbbing keenly to sights and sounds and odors that to the wakeful mind +left only a cloudy impression eddying to some unfamiliar center. Harry +started, a shudder ran through his frame, he swayed dizzily, his hand +went to his forehead. + +In the instant of shocked awakening, Jessica was at his side in an agony +of apprehension, her arm thrown about him, her hand pressed across his +lips, her own lips at his ear in an agonized warning: + +"Hush, do not speak! It is I, Jessica. Make no noise." + +She felt her wrist caught in a grasp that made her wince. His whole body +was trembling violently. "Jessica!" he said in a painfully articulated +whisper. "You? Where am I?" + +"This is my room," she breathed. "You have been walking in your sleep. +Make no sound. We shall be heard." + +A low exclamation broke from his lips. He looked bewilderedly about him, +his eyes returning to her face with a horrified realization. "I ... came +here ... to your room?" The voice was scarcely audible. + +"It was I who brought you here. You were in the hall--you would have +been found. The house is roused." + +He turned abruptly to the door, but she caught his arm. "What are you +going to do? You will be seen!" + +"So much the better; it will be at my proper measure--as a prowler, a +housebreaker, a disturber of honest sleep!" + +"No, no!" she protested in a panic. "You shall not; I will not have you +taken for what you are not! I know--but they would not know! No one must +see you leave this room! Do you not think of me?" + +He caught his breath hard. "Think of you!" he repeated huskily. "Is +there ever an hour when I do not think of you? Is there a day when I +would not die to serve you? Yet in my very sleep--" + +He paused, gazing at her where she stood in the half-light, a misty, +uncertain figure. She was curiously happy. The delicious and pangless +sense of guilt, however--the guilt of the hidden, not the blameworthy +thing--that was tingling through her was for him a shrinking and acute +self-reproach. + +"Here!" he said under his breath. "To have brought myself here, of all +places, for you of all women to risk yourself for me! I only know that I +was wandering for years and years in a shadowy desert, searching for +something that would not be found--and then, suddenly I was here and +you were speaking to me! You should have left me to be dragged away +where I could trouble no one again." + +She was silent. "Forgive me," he said, "if you can. I--I can never +forgive myself. How can I best go?" + +For answer she moved to the window, slender and wraith-like. He followed +silently. A million vague new impressions were clutching at him; the +fragrance in the room was like a hypnotic incense veiling shadowy forms. +Lines started from the blank: + + + And I swear, as I thought of her thus, in that hour, + And how, after all, old things were best, + That I smelt the smell of that jasmin-flower + Which she used to wear in her breast! + + +As she parted the curtain, a second of bright lightning revealed the +landscape, the dark hedges and clustered trees. It blackened, and she +drew him back with a hushed word, pointing where a lantern was flashing +through the shrubbery. + +"It is a watchman," she said. "He will be gone presently." + +Looking at her, where she stood in the dim light, half turned away, one +hand against her cheek, there welled through him a wave of that hopeless +longing which her kiss had awakened in that epoch moment of the +Reverend Henry Sanderson. The clinging white gown, with the filmy lace +at its throat, the taper's faint glow glimmering to a numbus in her +loosened hair, the sweet intangible suggestions of the room--all these +called to him potently, through the lines that raced in his brain. + + + But O, the smell of that jasmin-flower! + And O that music! and O the way + That voice rang out from the donjon tower-- + + +"God help me!" he whispered, the pent passion of his dreams rushing to +utterance. "Why did I ever see your face? I was reckless and careless +then. I had damned the decent side of me that now is quivering alive! I +have tried to blot your face from my memory. But it is useless. I shall +always see it." + +A rumble of nearer thunder sounded and a tentative dash of rain struck +the pane. She was shaken to her depths. She stood in a whirlwind of +emotion. She seemed to feel his arms clasping her, his lips on hers, his +adjuring words in her ears. The odor of the flowers wreathed them both. +The beating of her heart seemed to fill all the silent room. + +On the lawn just outside the window, low voices were heard through the +increasing rain. They passed, and after a moment he softly unlatched the +window. + +"Good-by," he said. + +She stretched out her hand. He touched it, then drew the window wide. As +he stepped noiselessly down on to the springy turf, the lightning +flashed again--a pale-green glow that seemed almost before her face. She +drew back, and the same instant, through the thunder, the electric bell +on the wall rang sharply. She threw on her dressing-gown, thrust her +feet into slippers, and hastened from the room. + +The same flash that had startled Jessica lighted brightly the physician +and the watchman, who stood at the corner of the building, having +finished their tour of inspection. It was the latter who had found the +open door and who had aroused the doctor, insisting that he had seen a +man in the hall. The other had pooh-poohed this, but now by the +lightning both saw the figure emerge from the French window and +disappear in the darkness. + +They ran back, the physician ahead. The window was not locked, and they +stepped through it into an empty room. + +"To be sure!" said the doctor disgustedly. "He was here all the +time--heard us searching the halls, and took the first unlocked door he +found. Miss Holme, no doubt, is sitting up with Mr. Stires. Not a word +of this," he added as they walked along the hall. "Unless she misses +something, there is no need of frightening her." + +He barred the outer door behind the watchman and went on. As he reached +David Stires' room, the door opened and Jessica came out. She spoke to +him in a low, anxious voice. "I was coming for you," she said. "I am +afraid he is not so well. I can not rouse him. Will you come in and see +what you can do?" + +The doctor entered, and a glance at his patient alarmed him. Until dawn +he sat with Jessica watching. When the early sunlight was flooding the +room, however, David Stires opened his eyes and looked upon her quite +naturally. + +"Where is Harry Sanderson?" he asked. "I thought he was here." + +She looked at him with a forced smile. "You have been dreaming," she +answered. + +He seemed to realize where he was. "I suppose so," he said with a sigh, +"but it was very real. I thought he came in and spoke your name." + +She stroked his hand. "It was fancy, dear." If he but knew who had +really been there that night! If she could only tell him all the happy +truth! + +He lay silent a moment. Then he said: "If it could only have been Harry +you married instead of Hugh! For he loved you, Jessica." + +She flushed as she said: "Ah, that was fancy, too!" + +It was the first time since the day of her marriage that he had spoken +Hugh's name. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT + + +Dawn had come with an unleashed wind and the crash of thunder. The +electric storm, which had muttered and menaced like a Sabbath of witches +till daylight, had broken at length and turned the world to a raving +turmoil, pitilessly scarring the mountain and deluging the gulches with +cloud-burst. + +In the cabin on the hillside Harry had watched the rage of the elements +with a dull sense of accord; it typified the wild range of feeling in +which his soul had been harried. Battle had been the keynote of a series +of days and doings of which the tense awakening in Jessica's chamber, +with its supreme moment of passion and longing, had been a weird +culmination. + +As he made his way down the mountain in the blank and heavy dark, +correcting his path by the lightning, he had faced squarely the question +that in that dim room had become an imminent demand. + +"_What if I love her!_ What right have I to love her, with a wretched +name like mine? She has refinement, a measure of wealth, no doubt, and +I am poor as poverty, dependent on the day's grubbing in the ditch for +to-morrow's bacon and flour. Yet that would not stand in the way! I am +no venal rogue, angling for the loaves and fishes. Whatever else she +cursed me with, Nature gave me a brain, and culture and experience have +educated it. With hand or brain I can hew my own niche to stand in! Must +I put away the longing that drove me to her in sleep, with her dawning +love that shielded me? And if, knowing all, she love me, must the past, +that is so unreal to me, block my way to happiness? I am putting it deep +underground, and its ghost shall not rise! Time passes, reputations +change. Mine will change. And when I have squared my living here, the +world is wide. What does it matter who she is, if she is the one woman +for me? What does it matter what I have been, if I shall be that no +longer?" + +So he had argued, but his argument ended always with the same stern and +unanswerable conclusion: "To drag her down in order to lift myself! +Because she pities me--pity is akin to love!--shall I take advantage of +her interest and innocence? Shall I play upon divine compassion and +sinister propinquity, like any mean adventurer who inveigles a romantic +girl into marrying a rascal to reform him?" + +In the cabin, through the long hours till the dawn began to infiltrate +the dark hollows of the wood he had lain wide-eyed, thinking. When day +came he had cooked his breakfast and thereafter sat watching the havoc +of the storm through the window. Hours passed thus before the fury of +the wind had spent itself, and with the diminution of the rain, a +crouching mist had crept over the range from the west, from which Smoky +Mountain jutted like a drenched emerald island. At length he rose, threw +open the door and stood looking out upon the wind-whipped foliage and +the drab desolation of the fog. Then he threw on his Mackinaw coat, +picked up his gold-pan and climbed down the slope. Beneath all other +problems must lie the sordid problem of his daily food. He had uncovered +a crevice in the bed-rock at the end of his trench the day before, and +now he scraped a pailful of the soggy gravel it contained and carried it +back to the cabin. A fresh onslaught of rain came just then, and setting +the heaped-up pan on the doorstep, he reëntered the room. + +With a sigh he took off his damp coat and threw a log on the fire. He +abstractedly watched it kindle, then filled and lit his pipe and turned +to the book-shelf. He ran his hand absently along the row. Where had +been that wide, dim expanse of library walls that hovered like a mirage +beyond his visual sight? He chose a volume he had been reading, and +turned the pages. + +All at once his hand clenched. He gave a choked cry. He was staring at a +canceled bank-draft bearing his own name--a draft across whose face was +written, in the cramped hand resembling the signature, a word that +seemed etched in livid characters of shame--_Forgery!_ + +"Pay to Hugh Stires"--"the sum of five thousand dollars"--he read the +phrases in a hoarse, husky monotone, every vein beating fiercely, his +body hot with the heat of a forge. There it was, a hideous chapter of +it, the damnable truth from which he had shrunk! "I may be a thief!"--he +had said that to himself long ago. His mind had revolted at the idea, +yet the thought had clung. It had made him a coward. When the allegation +had passed before the jeweler's shop, it had stung the deeper for his +dread. He had been the beneficiary of that forgery. He alone could have +perpetrated it. The popular suspicion was well grounded: he was a common +criminal! + +Did the town know? He snatched at the draft and read the date. More than +a year ago, and it had been presented for payment in a distant city, the +city near which he had been picked up beside the railroad track. The +forged name was the same as his own. Who was David Stires? His father? +Had that city been his home once, and that infamous act the forerunner +of his flight or exile? He looked at the paper again with painful +intentness. It was canceled--therefore had been paid without question. +Yet the man it had robbed had stamped it with that venomous hall-mark. +Clearly the law had not stepped in--for here he was at liberty, owning +his name. He had been let go, then, disowned, to carry his badge of +crime here into the wilderness! And how had he lived since then? Harry +shuddered. + +What now? It was no longer a question only of his life and repute here +at Smoky Mountain. The trail led infinitely further; it led to the +greater world, into which he had fondly dreamed of going. The words +Jessica had spoken on the hillside sounded in his ears: "_Whatever has +been_ I have faith in you now." His face lightened. That assurance had +swept the past utterly aside, had leaned only on the present. His +present, at least, was clean! + +He drew a sudden breath and the color faded from his cheek; a baleful +suggestion had insinuated itself with a harrowing pain. _Was_ it clean? +He had forced an entrance in the dead of night to tread dark halls like +a thief--and he had laid that flattering unction to his soul! Suppose he +had not gone there innocent of purpose? What if, not alone the memory, +but the lusts and vices of the former man were reasserting themselves in +sleep? What if the new Hugh Stires, unknown to the waking consciousness, +was carrying on the deeds of the old? What if the town was right? What +if there was, indeed, good reason for suspecting him? + +He stumbled to a chair and sat down, his frame rigid. He thought of the +robbed sluice in the gulch below, of his own unhappy adventure of the +night. How could he tell what he had done--what he might do? Minutes +went by as he sat motionless, his mind catching strange kaleidoscopic +pictures that fled past him into the void. At length he rose and went to +the window. Far down the hillside, a faint line through the mist spanned +the gulch bottom. A groan burst from his lips: + +"That is the hydraulic flume," he said aloud. "Gold has been stolen +there in the past, again and again. Some was stolen two nights ago. _How +do I know but that I am the thief?_" Was that what Prendergast had meant +by the "easier way"? A shiver ran over him. "How do I know!" he thought. +"I can see myself--the evil side of me--when the dark had fallen, waking +and active ... I see myself creeping down there, stealing from shadow to +shadow, to scoop the gold from the riffles when the moon is under a +cloud. I see men sitting from dark to daylight, with loaded rifles +across their knees, watching. I see a flash of fire ... I hear a report. +I see myself there by the sluice-boxes, dead, shot down in the act of a +thief, making good the name men know me by!" + +The figure of Jessica came before him, standing in her soft white gown, +her hand against her cheek and the jasmin odors about her. The dream he +had dreamed could not be--never, never, never! All that was left was +surrender, ignominious flight to scenes barren of suggestion. + +To a place where he could work and save and repay! He looked at the slip +of bank-paper in his hand. + +At that instant a shining point caught his eye. It came from the pan of +gravel on the doorstep on which the rain had been beating. He thrust the +draft into his pocket and seized a double handful of the gravel. He +plunged it into a pail of water and held it to the light. It sparkled +with coarse, yellow flakes of gold. He dropped the handful with a sharp +exclamation, threw on his coat and rushed from the cabin. + +All day, alone on the fog-soaked hillside, Harry toiled in the trench +without food or rest. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +INTO THE GOLDEN SUNSET + + +It was a fair, sweet evening, and the room where Jessica sat beside +David Stires' bed, reading aloud to him, was flooded with the failing +sunlight. The height was still in brightness, but the gulches below were +wine-red and on their rims the spruces stood shadow-straight against the +golden ivory of the southern sky. Since the old man's seizure in the +night he had been much worse and she had scarcely left his room. To-day, +however, he had sat propped by pillows, able to read and chat, and the +deep personal anxiety that had numbed her had yielded. She was reading +now from a life of that poetess whose grave has made a lonely Colorado +mountain a place of pilgrimage. She read in a low voice, holding the +page to the dimming light: + + + "The spot she chose was a bare knoll, facing out across the curved + chasm, the wide empty gulf on three sides, a plot hounded by a knot + of noble trees that whispered softly together. Here above the sky + was beautifully blue, the searching fall wind that numbed the + fingers in the draw of the gorge was gone, and the warm sunshine + was mellow and pleasant. It was a spot to dream in, leaning upon + the great facts of God that He teaches best to those who love His + Nature. A spot in which to be laid at last for the long sleep, when + mortal dreams are over and work is done." + + +"That is beautiful," he said. "I should choose a spot like that." He +pointed down the long slope, where a red beam of the sun touched the +gray face of the Knob and turned it to a spot of crimson-lake. "That +must be such a place." + +Her cheeks flushed. She knew what he was thinking. He would not wish to +lie in the far-away cemetery that looked down on the white house in the +aspens, the theater of his son's downfall! The Knob, she thought with a +thrill, overlooked the place of Hugh's regeneration. + +A knock came at the door. It was a nurse with letters for him from the +mail, and while he opened them Jessica laid aside the book and went +slowly down the hall to the sun-parlor, where the doctor stood with the +group gathered after the early supper, chatting of the newest "strike" +on the mountain. + +"We'll be famous if we keep on," he was saying, as she looked out of the +wide windows across the haze where the sunlight drifted down in dust of +gold. "I've a mind to stake out a claim myself." + +"We pay you better," said one of the occupants grimly. "Anyway, the +whole of Smoky Mountain was staked in the excitement a year ago. There's +no doubt about this find, I suppose?" + +"It's on exhibition at the bank," the doctor replied. "More than five +thousand dollars, _cached_ in a crevice in the glacial age, as neat as a +Christmas stocking!" + +"Wish it was _my_ stocking," grunted the other. "It would help pay my +bill here." + +The man of medicine laughed and nodded to Jessica where she stood, her +cheeks reddened by the crimsoning light. She had scarcely listened to +the chatter, or, if she did, paid little heed. All her thoughts were +with the man she loved. Watching the luminous purple shadows grow slowly +over the landscape, she longed to run down to the Knob, to sit where she +had first spoken to him, perhaps by very excess of yearning to call him +to her side. She had a keen sense of the compunction he must feel, and +longed, as love must, to reassure him. + +The talk went on about her. + +"Where is the lucky claim?" some one asked. + +"Just below this ridge," the doctor replied. "It is called the 'Little +Paymaster.'" + +The name caught her ear now. The Little Paymaster? That was the name on +the tree--on Hugh's claim! At that instant she thought she heard David +Stires calling. She turned and ran quickly up the long hall to his open +door. + +The sight of his face at first startled her, for it was held captive of +emotion; but it was an emotion of joy, not of pain. A letter fluttered +in his grasp. He thrust it into her hands. + +"Jessica!" he exclaimed. "Hugh has paid it! He has sent the five +thousand dollars, interest and principal, to the bank, to my account." + +For a moment she stood transfixed. The talk she had mechanically heard +leaped into significance, and her mind ran back to the hour when she had +left the draft at the cabin. She caught the old man's hand and knelt by +his chair, laughing and crying at once. + +"I knew--oh, I knew!" she cried, and hid her face in the coverlet. + +"It is what I have prayed for," he said, after a moment, in a shaking +voice. "I said I hoped I would never see his face again, but I was +bitter then. He was my only son, after all, and he is your husband. I +have thought it all over lying here." + +Jessica lifted her eyes, shining with a great thankfulness. During these +last few days the impulse to tell all that she had concealed had been +almost irresistible; now the barrier had fallen. The secret she had +repressed so long came forth in a rush of sentences that left him mute +and amazed. + +"I should have told you before," she ended, "but I didn't know--I wasn't +sure--" She broke down for very joy. + +He looked at her with eyes unnaturally bright. "Tell me everything, +Jessica!" he said. "Everything from the beginning!" + +She drew the shade wider before the open window, where he could look +down across the two miles of darkening foliage to the far huddle of the +town--a group of toy houses now hazily indistinct--and, seated beside +him, his hand in hers, poured out the whole. She had never framed it +into words; she had pondered each incident severally, apart, as it were, +from its context. Now, with the loss of memory and the pitiful struggle +of recollection as a background, the narrative painted itself in vivid +colors to whose pathos and meaning her every instinct was alive. Her +first view of Hugh, the street fight and the revelation of the +violin--the part she and Prendergast had taken--the rescue of the +child--the leaving of the draft in the cabin, and the strange +sleep-walking that had so nearly found a dubious ending--she told all. +She did not realize that she was revealing the depths of her own heart +without reserve. If she omitted to tell of his evil reputation and the +neighborhood's hatred, who could blame? She was a woman, and she loved +them both. + +Dusk came before the moving recital was finished. The rose of sunset +grew over the trellised west, faded, and the gloom deepened to darkness, +pricked by stars. The old man from the first had scarcely spoken. When +she ended she could hardly see his face, and waited anxiously to hear +what he might say. Presently he broke the silence. + +"He was young and irresponsible, Jessica," he said. "Money always came +so easily. He didn't realize what he was doing when he signed that +draft. He has learned a lesson out in the world. It won't hurt his +career in the end, for no one but you and I and one other knows it. +Thank God! If his memory comes back--" + +"Oh, it will!" she breathed. "It must! That day on the Knob he only +needed the clue! When I tell him who I am, he will know me. He will +remember it all. I am sure--sure! Will you let me bring him to you?" she +added softly. + +"Yes," he said, pressing her hand, "to-morrow. I shall be stronger in +the morning." + +She rose and lighted the lamp, shading it from his eyes. + +"Do you remember the will, Jessica?" he asked her presently. "The will +I drew the day he came back? You never knew, but I signed it--the night +of your wedding. Harry Sanderson was right, my dear, wasn't he? + +"I wish now I hadn't signed it, Jessica," he added. "I must set it +right--I must set it right!" He watched her with a smile on his face. "I +will rest now," he said, and she adjusted the pillows and turned the +lamp low. + +Crossing the room, she stepped through the long window on to the porch, +and stood leaning on the railing. From the dark hedges where the brown +birds built came a drowsy twitter as from a nest of dreams. A long time +she stood there, a thousand thoughts busy in her brain--of Hugh, of the +beckoning future. She thought of the day she had destroyed the model +that her fingers longed to remold, now that the Prodigal was indeed +returned. The words of the biblical narrative flashed through her mind: +_And he arose and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way +off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his +neck, and kissed him._ So Hugh's father would meet him now! The dewed +odors of the jasmin brought the memory of that stormy night when he had +come to her in his sleep. She imagined she heard again his last +word--his whispered "Good-by" in the sound of the rain. + +She thought it a memory, but the word that flashed into her mind was +carried to her from the shadow, where a man stood in the shrubbery +watching her dim figure and her face white and beautiful in the light +from a near-by window, with a passionate longing and rebellion. + +Harry was seeing her, he told himself, for the last time. He had made up +his mind to this on that stormy morning when he had found the lucky +crevice. For days he had labored, spurred by a fierce haste to make +requital. Till the last ounce of the rich "pocket" had been washed, and +the whole taken to the bank in the town, no one had known of the find. +It had repaid the forgery and left him a handful of dollars over--enough +to take him far away from the only thing that made life worth the +effort. He had climbed to the ridge on the bare chance of seeing +Jessica--not of speaking to her. Watching her, it required all his +repression not to yield to the reckless desire that prompted him to go +to her, look into her eyes, and tell her he loved her. He made a step +forward, but stopped short, as she turned and vanished through the +window. + +Standing on the porch, a gradual feeling of apprehension had come to +Jessica--an impression of blankness and chill that affected her +strangely. Inside the room she stood still, frightened at the sudden +sense of utter soundlessness. + +She caught up the lamp, and, turning the wick, approached the bed. She +put out her hand and touched the wasted one on the coverlet. Then a +sobbing cry came from her lips. + +David Stires was gone. A crowning joy had goldened his bitterness at the +last moment, and he had gone away with his son's face in his heart and +the smile of welcome on his lips. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THE TENANTLESS HOUSE + + +Dark was falling keen and cool, for frost was in the air, touching the +fall foliage on the hills to crimson and amber, silvering the long +curving road that skirted the river bluff, and etching delicate hoar +tracery on the spidery framework of the long black railroad bridge that +hung above "the hole." The warning light from a signal-post threw a +crimson splash on the ground. Its green pane cast a pallor on a bearded +face turned out over the gloomy water. + +The man who had paused there had come from far, and his posture +betokened weariness, but his features were sharp and eager. He turned +and paced back along the track to the signal-post. + +"It was here," he said aloud. He stood a moment, his hands clenched. +"The new life began here. Here, then, is where the old life ended." From +where he stood he could see blossoming the yellow lights of the little +city, five miles away. He set his shoulders, whistled to the small dog +that nosed near-by, and set off at a quick pace down the road. + +What had brought him there? He scarcely could have told. Partly, +perhaps, a painful curiosity, a flagellant longing to press the iron +that had seared him to his soul. So, after a fortnight of drifting, the +dark maelstrom of his thoughts had swept him to its dead center. This +was the spot that held the key to the secret whose shame had sent him +hither by night, like a jailbird revisiting the haunts that can know him +no more. He came at length to a fork in the road; he mechanically took +the right, and it led him soon to a paved road and to more cheerful +thoroughfares. + +Once in the streets, a bar to curious glances, he turned up his coat +collar and settled the brim of his felt hat more closely over his eyes. +He halted once before a shadowed door with a barred window set in its +upper panel--the badge of a gambling-house. As he had walked, baffling +hints of pictures, unfilled outlines like a painter's studies had been +flitting before him, as faces flit noiselessly across the opaque ground +of a camera-obscura. Now, down the steps from that barred door, a filmy, +faded, Chesterfieldian figure seemed to be coming toward him with +outstretched hand--one of the ghosts of his world of shadows. + +He walked on. He crossed an open square and presently came to the gate +of a Gothic chapel, set well back from the street. Its great +rose-window was alight, for on this evening was to be held a memorial +service for the old man whose money had built the pile, who had died a +fortnight before in a distant sanatorium. A burnished brass plate was +set beside the gate, bearing the legend: "St. James Chapel. Reverend +Henry Sanderson, Rector." The gaze with which the man's eye traced the +words was as mechanical as the movement with which his hand, in his +pocket, closed on the little gold cross; for organ practice was +beginning, and the air, throbbing to it, was peopled with confused +images--but no realization of the past emerged. + +He turned at the sound of wheels, and the blur shocked itself apart to +reveal a kindly face that looked at him for an instant framed in the +window of a passing carriage. With the look a specter plucked at the +flesh of the wayfarer with intangible fingers. He shrank closer against +the palings. + +Inside the carriage Bishop Ludlow settled back with a sigh. "Only a face +on the pavement," he said to his wife, "but it reminded me somehow of +Harry Sanderson." + +"How strange it is!" she said--the bishop had no secrets from his +wife--"never a word or a sign, and everything in his study just as he +left it. What can you do, John? It is four months ago now, and the +parish needs a rector." + +He did not reply for a moment. The question touched the trouble that was +ever present in his mind. The whereabouts of Harry Sanderson had caused +him many sleepless hours, and the look of frozen realization which had +met his stern and horrified gaze that unforgetable night--a look like +that of a tranced occultist waked in the demon-constrained commission of +some rueful impiety--had haunted the good man's vigils. He had knowledge +of the by-paths of the human soul, and the more he reflected the less +the fact had fitted. The wild laugh of Hugh's, as he had vanished into +the darkness, had come to seem the derisive glee of the tempter +rejoicing in his handiwork. Recollection of Harry's depression and the +insomnia of which he had complained had deepened his conviction that +some phase of mental illness had been responsible. In the end he had +revolted against his first crass conclusion. When the announced vacation +had lengthened into months, he had been still more deeply perplexed, for +the welfare of the parish must be considered. + +"I know," he said at length. "I may have failed in my whole duty, but I +haven't known how to tell David Stires, especially since we heard of his +illness. I had written to him--the whole story; the ink was not dry on +the paper when the letter came from Jessica telling us of his death." + +Behind them, as they talked, the man on the pavement was walking on +feverishly, the organ music pursuing him, the dog following with a +reluctant whine. + +At last he came to a wide, dark lawn set thick with aspens clustering +about a white house that loomed grayly in the farther shadow. He +hesitated a moment, then walked slowly up the broad, weed-grown garden +path toward its porch. In the half light the massive silver door-plate +stood out clearly. He had known instinctively that that house had been a +part of his life, and yet a tremor caught him as he read the +name--STIRES. The intuition that had bent his steps from the street, the +old stirring of dead memory, had brought him to his past at last. This +house had been his home! + +He stood looking at it with trouble in his face. He seemed now to +remember the wide colonnaded porch, the tall fluted columns, the green +blinds. Clearly it was unoccupied. He remembered the scent of jasmin +flowers! He remembered-- + +He started. A man in his shirt-sleeves was standing by a half-open side +door, regarding him narrowly. + +"Thinking of buying?" The query was good-humoredly satiric. "Or maybe +just looking the old ranch over with a view to a shake-down!" + +The trespasser smiled grimly. It was not the first time he had seen that +weather-beaten face. "You have given up surgery as a profession, I see," +he said. + +The other came nearer, looked at him in a puzzled way, then laughed. + +"If it isn't the card-sharp we picked up on the railroad track!" he +said, "dog and all! I thought you were far down the coast, where it's +warmer. Nothing much doing with you, eh?" + +"Nothing much," answered the man he addressed. Others might recognize +him as the black sheep, but this nondescript watchman whom chance had +set here could not. He knew him only as the dingy vagabond whose broken +head he had bandaged in the box-car! + +"I'm in better luck," went on the man in shirt-sleeves. "I struck this +about two months ago, as gardener first, and now I'm a kind of a sort of +a watchman. They gave me a bunk in the summer-house there"--he jerked +his thumb backward over his shoulder--"but I know a game worth two of +that for these cold nights. I'll show you. I can put you up for the +night," he added, "if you like." + +The wayfarer shook his head. "I must get away to-night, but I'm much +obliged." + +"Haven't done anything, have you?" asked his one-time companion +curiously. "You didn't seem that sort." + +The bearded face turned away. "I'm not 'wanted' by the police, no. But +I'm on the move, and the sooner I take the trail the better. I don't +mind night travel." + +"You'd be better for a rest," said the watchman, "but you're the doctor. +Come in and we'll have a nip of something warm, anyhow." + +He led the way to the open door and beckoned the other inside, closing +it carefully to. "It's a bully old hole," he observed, as he lit a brace +of candles. "It wasn't any trick to file a key, and I sleep in the +library now as snug as a bug in a rug." He held the light higher. "You +look a sight better," he said. "More flesh on your bones, and the beard +changes you some, too. That scar healed up fine on your forehead--it's +nothing but a red line now." + +His guest followed him into a spacious hall, scarce conscious of what he +did. A double door to the left was shut, but he nevertheless knew +perfectly that the room it hid had a tall French window, letting on to a +garden where camelias had once dropped like blood. The open door to the +right led to the library. + +There the yellow light touched the dark wainscoting, the marble +mantelpiece, dim paintings on the wall, and a great brass-bound Korean +desk in a corner. What black thing had once happened in that room? What +face had once looked at him from that wheel-chair? It was an old face, +gray and lined and passionate--his father, doubtless. He told himself +this calmly, with an odd sense of apartness. + +The other's glance followed his pridefully. "It's a fine property," he +said. "The owner's an invalid, I hear, with one leg in the grave. He's +in some sanatorium and can't get much good of it. Nice pictures, them," +he added, sweeping a candle round. "That's a good-looker over +there--must be the old man's daughter, I reckon. Well, I'll go and get +you a finger or two to keep the frost out of your lungs. It'll be cold +as Billy-be-dam to-night. Make yourself at home." The door closed behind +him. + +The man he left was trembling violently. He had scarcely repressed a +cry. The portrait that hung above the mantelpiece was Jessica's, in a +house-dress of soft Romney-blue and a single white rose caught in her +hair. "The old man's daughter!"--the words seemed to echo and reëcho +about the walls, voicing a new agony without a name. Then Jessica was +his sister! + +The owner of the house, his father, an invalid in a sanatorium? It was a +sanatorium on the ridge of Smoky Mountain where she had stayed, into +which he had broken that stormy night! Had his father been there then, +yearning in pain and illness over that evil career of his in the town +beneath? Was relationship the secret of Jessica's interest, her +magnanimity, that he had dreamed was something more? A dizzy sickness +fell upon him, and he clenched his hands till the nails struck purple +crescents into the palms. + +As he stared dry-eyed at the picture in the candle-light, the misery +slowly passed. He must _know_. Who she was, what she was to him, he must +learn beyond peradventure. He cast a swift glance around him; orderly +rows of books stared from the shelves, the mahogany table held only a +pile of old magazines. He strode to the desk, drew down its lid and +tried the drawers. They opened readily and he rapidly turned over their +litter of papers, written in the same crabbed hand that had etched the +one damning word on the draft he had found in the cabin on Smoky +Mountain. + +This antique desk, with its crude symbols and quaint brass-work, a gift +to him once upon a time from Harry Sanderson, had been David Stires' +carry-all; he had been spending a last half-hour in sorting its contents +when the bank-messenger, on that fateful day, had brought him the slip +of paper that had told his son's disgrace. Most of the papers the +searcher saw at a glance were of no import, and they gave him no clue to +what he sought. Then, mysteriously guided by the subtle memory that +seemed of late to haunt him, though he was but half conscious of its +guidance, his nervous fingers suddenly found and pressed a spring--a +panel fell down, and he drew out a folded parchment. + +Another instant and he was bending over it with the candle, his fingers +tracing familiar legal phrases of a will laid there long ago. He read +with the blood shrinking from his heart: + +"_To my son Hugh, in return for the care and sorrow he has caused me all +the days of his life, for his dissolute career and his graceless +desertion, I do give and bequeath the sum of one thousand dollars and +the memory of his misspent youth. The residue of my estate, real and +personal, I do give and bequeath to my ward, Jessica Holme_--" + +The blood swept back to his heart in a flood. Ward, not daughter! He +could still keep the one sweet thing left him. His love was justified. +Tears sprang to his eyes, and he laid the parchment back and closed the +desk. He hastily brushed the drops away, as the rough figure of the +watchman entered and set down two glasses and a bottle with a flourish. + +"There you are; that'll be worth five miles to you!" He poured noisily. +"Here's how!" he said. + +His guest drank, set down the glass and held out his hand. "Good luck," +he said. "You've got a good, warm berth here; maybe I shall find one, +too, one of these days." + +The dog thrust a cold muzzle into his hand as he walked down the gravel +path slowly, feeling the glow of the liquor gratefully, with the +grudging release it brought from mental tension. He had not consciously +asked himself whither now. In some subconscious corner of his brain this +had been asked and answered. He was going to his father. Not to seek to +change the stern decree; not to annul those bitter phrases: _his +dissolute career--the memory of his misspent youth!_ Only to ask his +forgiveness and to make what reparation was possible, then to go out +once more to the world to fight out his battle. His way was clear before +him now. Fate had guided him, strangely and certainly, to knowledge. He +was thankful for that. He had come a silent shadow; like a shadow he +would go. + +He retraced his steps, and again stood on the square near where the +rose-window of the Gothic chapel cast a tinted luster on the clustering +shrubbery. The audience-room was full now, a string of carriages waited +at the curb, and as he stood on the opposite pavement the treble of the +choir rose full and clear: + + + "Lead, kindly Light, amid th' encircling gloom, + Lead Thou me on; + The night is dark, and I am far from home, + Lead Thou me on! + Keep Thou my feet! I do not care to see + The distant scene; one step enough for me." + + +He drew his hat-brim over his eyes, and mingled with the hurrying +street. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE CALL OF LOVE + + +The bell was tapping in the steeple of the little Catholic church on the +edge of the town, and the mellow tone came clearly up the slope of the +mountain where once more the one-time partner of Prendergast stood on +the threshold of the lonely cabin, sentinel over the mounds of yellow +gravel that marked his toil. + +The returned wanderer had met with a distinct surprise in the town. As +he passed through the streets more than one had nodded, or had spoken +his name, and the recognition had sent a glow to his cheek and a +lightness to his step. + +Since the daring feat in the automobile, the tone of the gossip had +changed. His name was no longer connected with the sluice robberies. The +lucky find, too, constituted a material boom for Smoky Mountain and +bettered the stock in its hydraulic enterprises, and this had been +written on the credit side of the ledger. Opinion, so all-powerful in a +new community, had altered. Devlin had abruptly ordered from his place +one who had done no more than to repeat his own earlier gibes, and even +Michael Halloran, the proprietor of the Mountain Valley House, had given +countenance to the more charitable view championed by Tom Felder. All +this he who had been the outcast could not guess, but he felt the change +with satisfaction. + +As he gazed up the slope, all gloriously afire with the marvellous +frost-hues of the autumn--dahlia crimsons, daffodil golds and maple +tints like the flames of long-sought desires--toward the glass roof that +sparkled on the ridge above, one comfort warmed his breast. If it had +been the subtle stirring of blood kinship, the blind instinct of love, +that had drawn him to that nocturnal house-breaking, not the lawless +appetence of the natural criminal! Whether his father was indeed there +he must discover. + +Till the sun was low he sat in the cabin thinking. At length he called +the dog and fastened it in its accustomed place, and began slowly to +climb the steep ascent. When he came to a certain vine-grown trail that +met the main path, he turned aside. Here lay the spot where he had first +spoken with her, face to face. Here she had told him there was nothing +in his past which could not be buried and forgotten! + +As he parted the bushes and stepped into the narrow space beside the +jutting ledge, he stopped short with an exclamation. The place was no +longer a tangle of vines. A grave had been lately made there, and behind +it, fresh-chiseled in the rock, was a statue: a figure seated, chin on +hand, as if regarding the near-by mound. As in a dream he realized that +its features were his own. Awestruck, the living man drew near. + +It was Jessica's conception of the Prodigal Son, as she had modelled it +in Aniston in her blindness, after Hugh's early return to the house in +the aspens. That David Stires should have pointed out the distant Knob +as a spot in which he would choose to be buried had had a peculiar +significance to her, and the wish had been observed. Her sorrow for his +death had been deepened by the thought that the end had come too +suddenly for David Stires to have reinstated his son. This sorrow had +possessed one comfort--that he had known at the last and had forgiven +Hugh. Of this she could assure him when he returned, for she could not +really believe--so deep is the heart of a woman--that he would not +return. In the days of vigil she had found relief in the rough, hard +work of the mallet. None had intruded in that out-of-the-way spot, save +that one day Mrs. Halloran, led by curiosity to see the grave of the +rich man whose whim it had been to be buried on the mountain side, had +found her at her work, and her Jessica had pledged to silence. She was +no fool, was Mrs. Halloran, and to learn the name of the dead man was to +put two and two together. The guess the good woman evolved undershot the +mark, but it was more than sufficient to summon all the romance that +lurked beneath that prosaic exterior; nevertheless she shut her lips +against temptation, and all her motherly heart overflowed to the girl +who worked each day at that self-appointed task. Only the afternoon +before Jessica had finished carving the words on the base of the statue +on which the look of the startled man was now resting: _I will arise and +go unto my father_. + +The gazer turned from the words, with quick question, to the mound. He +came close, and in the fading light looked at the name on the low +headstone. So he had come too late! + +_And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in +thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son._ Though for him +there could have been no robe or ring, or fatted calf or merriment, yet +he had longed for the dearer boon of confession and understanding. If he +could only have learned the truth earlier! If he might only put back the +hands of the clock! + +Hours went by. The shadows dreamed themselves away and dark fell, +cloudless and starry. The half-moon brightened upon him sitting moveless +beside the stone figure. At length he rose to his feet, his limbs +cramped and stiffened, and made his way back to the lonely cabin on the +hillside. + +There he found fuel, kindled a blaze in the fireplace and cooked his +frugal supper. The shock of surprise past, he realized his sorrow as a +thing subjective and cerebral. The dead man had been his father; so he +told himself, but with an emotion curiously destitute of primitive +feeling. The very relationship was a portion of that past that he could +never grasp; all that was of the present was Jessica! + +He thought of the losing battle he had fought there once before, when +tempest shrieked without--the battle which had ended in _débacle_ and +defeat. He thought of the will he had seen, now sealed with the Great +Seal of Death. He was the shorn beggar, she the beneficiary. What duty +she had owed his father was ended now. Desolate she might be--in need of +a hand to guide and guard--but she was beyond the reach of penury. This +gave him a sense of satisfaction. Was she there on the mountain at that +moment? There came upon him again the passionate longing that had held +him in that misty sanatorium room when the odor of the jasmin had +wreathed them both--when she had protected and saved him! + +At last he took Old Despair's battered violin from the wall, and, +seating himself in the open doorway, looking across the mysterious +purple of the gulches to the skyline sown with pale stars, drew the bow +softly across the strings. In the long-past days, when he had been the +Reverend Henry Sanderson, in the darker moods of his study, he had been +used to seek the relief to which he now turned. Never but once since +then had he played with utter oblivion of self. Now his struggle and +longing crept into the music. The ghosts that haunted him clustered +together in the obscurity of the night, and stood between his opening +future and her. + +Through manifold variations the music wandered, till at length there +came from the hollowed wood an air that was an unconscious echo of a +forgotten wedding-day--"O perfect love, all human thought transcending." +After the fitful medley that had spoken, the placid cadence fell with a +searching pathos that throbbed painfully on the empty silence of the +mountain. + +Empty indeed he thought it. But the light breeze that shook the +pine-needles had borne the sound far to an ear that had grown tense with +listening--to one on the ridge above to whom it had sounded the supreme +call of youth and life. He did not feel her nearer presence as she +stole breathless across the dark path, and stood there behind him with +outstretched hands, her whole being merged in that mute appeal. + +The music died, the violin slipped from beneath his chin, the bow +dropped and his head fell on his arms. Then he felt a touch on his +shoulder and heard the whisper: "Hugh! Hugh!" + +"Jessica!" he cried, and sprang to his feet. + +In those three words all was asked and answered. It did not need the low +cry with which she flung herself on her knees beside the rough-hewn +steps, or the broken sentences with which he poured out the fear and +hope that he had battled with. + +"I have watched every day and listened every night," she said. "I knew +that you would come--that you _must_ come back!" + +"If I had never gone, Jessica!" he exclaimed. "Then I might have seen my +father! But I didn't know--" + +She clasped her hands together. "You know now--you remember it all?" + +He shook his head. "I have been there"--he pointed to the hillside--"and +I have guessed who it is that lies there. I know I sinned against him +and against myself, and left him to die unforgiving. That is what the +statue said to me--as he must have said: _I am no more worthy to be +called thy son_." + +"Ah," she cried, "he knew and he forgave you, Hugh. His last thought was +of your coming! That is why I carved the figure there." + +"You carved it?" he exclaimed. She bent her forehead to his hands, as +they clasped her own. + +"The prodigal is yourself," she said. "I modelled it once before when +you came back to him, in the time you have forgotten. But I destroyed +it,"--the words were very low now--"on my wedding-day." + +His hands released hers, and, looking up, she saw, even in the +moonlight, that with the last word his face had gone ghastly white. At +the sight, timidity, maidenly reserve, fell, and all the woman in her +rushed uppermost. She lifted her arms and clasped his face. + +"Hugh," she cried, "can't you remember? Don't you understand? Think! I +was blind, dear, blind--a white bandage was across my eyes, and you came +to me in a shaded room! Why did you come to me?" + +A spark seemed to dart through his brain, like the prickling discharge +from a Leyden jar. A spot of the mental blackness visualized, and for an +instant sprang out in outlines of red. He smelled the odor of jasmin +flowers. He saw himself standing, facing a figure with bandaged eyes. +He saw the bandage torn off, felt that yielding body in his arms, heard +a voice--her voice--crying, "Hugh--Hugh! My husband!" and felt those +lips pressed to his own in the tense air of a darkened room. + +A cry broke from his lips: "Yes, yes! I remember! Jessica, my wife!" His +arms went round her, and with a little sob she nestled close to him on +the doorstep. + +The blank might close again about him now! He had had that instantaneous +glimpse of the past, like lightning through a rifted pall, and in that +glimpse was joy. For him there was now no more consciousless past or +remorseful present. No forgery or exile, no Prendergast, or hatred, or +evil repute. For her, all that had embittered, all that stood for loss +and grieving, was ended. The fire on the hearth behind them domed and +sank, and far below the lights of the streets wavered unheeded. + +The shadowed silence of the cathedral pines closed them round. Above in +the calm sky the great constellations burned on and swung lower, and in +that dim confessional she absolved him from all sin. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +IN A FOREST OF ARDEN + + +Keen, morning sunlight, a sky clean as a hound's tooth, and an air cool +and tinctured with the wine of perfect autumn! Jessica breathed it +deeply as her buoyant step carried her along the mountain trails, brave +in the pageant of the passing year. Her face reflected the rich color +and her eyes were deep as the sky. + +Only last night had been that sweet unfolding in which the past had been +swept away for ever. To-day her heart was almost too full to bear, +beating to thought of the man to whose arms the violin had called her. +That had been the hour of confidence, of love's sacrament, the closure +of all her distrust and agony. Now she longed inexpressibly for the +further assurance she knew would look from his eyes to hers; yet her joy +was so poignant that it was near to pain, and withal was so enwound with +maidenly consciousness that, knowing him near, she must have fled from +him. She walked rapidly on, losing herself in the windings of blind +wood-paths, revelling in the beauty of the silent, empty forest. + +The morning had found the man whose image filled her mental horizon no +less a prey to conflicting emotions than herself. That hour on the +mountain-side, under the stars, had left Harry possessed of a mêlée of +perplexing emotions. Dreaming and waking, Jessica's face hung before his +eyes, her voice sounded in his ear. Yet over his happiness more than +once a chill had fallen, an odd shrinking, an unexplainable sense of +flush, of fastidiousness, of mortification. This subtle conflict of +feeling, not understood, had driven him, in sheer nervousness, to the +peaceful healing of the solitudes. + +The future held no longer any doubt--it held only her. Where was that +future to be? Back in the city to which his painful curiosity had so +lately driven him? This lay no longer in his own choice; it was for her +to decide now, Jessica--his wife. He said the word softly, under his +breath, to the sweet secret grasses, as something mysterious and sacred. +How appealing, how womanly she was--how incommunicably dear, how-- + +He looked up transfixed, for she stood there before him, ankle-deep in a +brown whirlwind of leaves from a frost-stung oak, her hand to her cheek +in an adorable gesture that he knew, her lips parted and eager. She said +no word, nor did he, but he came swiftly and caught her to him, and her +face buried itself on his breast. + +As he looked down at her thus folded, the trouble, the sense of vexing +complexity vanished, and the primitive demand reasserted its sway. +Presently he released her, and drew her gently to a seat on the +sprawling oak roots. + +"I wanted so to find you," she said. "I have so many, many things to +say." + +"It is all wonderfully strange and new!" he said. "It is as though I had +rubbed Aladdin's lamp, and suddenly had my heart's desire." + +"Ah," she breathed, "am I that?" + +"More than that, and yet once I--Jessica, Jessica! When I woke this +morning in the cabin down there, it seemed to me for a moment that only +last night was real, and all the past an ugly dream. How could you have +loved me? And how could I have thrown my pearl away?" + +"We are not to think of that," she protested, "never, never any more." + +"You are right," he rejoined cheerfully; "it is what is to come that we +must think of." He paused an instant, then he said: + +"Last night, when you told me of the white house in the aspens, I did +not tell you that I had just come from there--from Aniston." + +She made an exclamation of wonder. "Tell me," she said. + +Sitting with her hand in his, he told of that night's experiences, the +fear that had held him as he gazed at her portrait in the library, the +secret of the Korean desk that had solaced his misery and sent him back +to the father he was not to see. + +At mention of the will she threw out her hand with a passionate gesture. +"The money is not mine!" she cried. "It is yours! He intended to change +it--he told me so the day he died. Oh, if you think I--" + +"No, no," he said gently. "There is no resentment, no false pride in my +love, Jessica. I am thinking of you--and of Aniston. You would have me +go back, would you not?" + +She looked up smiling and slowly shook her head. "You are a blind +guesser," she said. "Don't you think I know what is in your mind? Not +Aniston, Hugh. Sometime, but not now--not yet. It is nearer than that!" + +His eyes flowed into hers. "You understand! Yes, it is here. This is +where I must finish my fight first. Yesterday I would have left Smoky +Mountain for ever, because you were here. Now--" + +"I will help you," she said. "All the world besides counts nothing if +only we are together! I could live in a cabin here on the mountain +always, in a Forest of Arden, till I grow old, and want nothing but +that--and you!" She paused, with a happy laugh, her eye turned away. + +[Illustration] + +A log cabin, but a home glorified by her presence! In a dozen words she +had sketched a sufficient Paradise. As he did not answer, she faced him +with crimsoning cheeks, then reading his look she suddenly threw her +arms about his neck. + +"Hugh," she cried, "we belong to each other now. There is no one else to +consider, is there? I want to be to you what I haven't been--to bear +things with you, and help you." + +He kissed her eyes and hair. "You _have_ helped, you _do_ help me, +Jessica!" he urged. "But I am jealous for your love. It must not be +offended. The town of Smoky Mountain must not sneer--and it would sneer +now." + +"Let it!" she exclaimed resentfully. "As if I would care!" + +"But _I_ would care," he said softly. "I want to climb a little higher +first." + +She was silent a moment, her fingers twisting the fallen leaves. "You +don't want them to know that I am your wife?" + +"Not yet--till I can see my way." + +She nodded and smiled and the cloud lifted from her face. "You must know +best," she said. "This is what I shall do, then. I shall leave the +sanatorium to-morrow. The people there are nothing to me, but the town +of Smoky Mountain is yours, and I must be a part of it, too. I am going +to the Mountain Valley House. Mrs. Halloran will take care of me." She +sprang to her feet as she added: "I shall go to see her about it now." + +He knew the dear desire her determination masked--to do her part in +softening prejudice, in clearing his way--and the thought of her +great-heartedness brought a mist to his eyes. He rose and walked with +her through the bracken to the road. They came out to the driveway just +below the trail that led to the Knob. The bank was high, and leaping +first he held up his arms to her and lifted her lightly down. In the +instant, as she lay in his arms, he bent and kissed her on the lips. + +Neither noted two figures walking together that at that moment rounded +the bend of the road a little way above. They were Tom Felder and Doctor +Brent, the latter swinging a light suit-case, for he was on his way to +the station of the valley railroad. He had chosen to walk that he might +have a longer chat with his friend. Both men saw the kiss and +instinctively drew back, the lawyer with a sudden color on his face, +the doctor with a look of blank astonishment. + +The latter, in one way, knew little about the town. Beside Felder and +Mrs. Halloran, whose surly husband he had once doctored when the town's +practitioner was away--thereby earning her admiration and +gratitude--there were few with whom he had more than a nodding +acquaintance. He had liked David Stires, and Jessica he genuinely +admired, though he had thought her at times somewhat distant. He himself +had introduced Felder to her, on one of the latter's visits. He had not +observed that the young lawyer's calls had grown more frequent, nor +guessed that he had more than once loitered on the mountain trails +hoping to meet her. + +The doctor noted now the telltale flush on his companion's face. + +"We have surprised a romance," he said, as the two unconscious figures +disappeared down the curving stretch. "Who is the man?" + +"He is the one we have been talking about." + +The other stared. "Not your local Jekyll and Hyde, the sneak who lost +his memory and found himself an honest man?" + +Felder nodded. "His cabin is just below here, on the hillside." + +"Good Lord!" ejaculated the doctor. "What an infernal pity! What's his +name?" + +"Hugh Stires." + +"Stires?" the other repeated. "Stires? How odd!" He stood a moment, +tapping his suit-case with his stick. Suddenly he took the lawyer's arm +and led him into the side-path. + +"Come," he said, "I want to show you something." + +He led the way quickly to the Knob, where he stopped, as much astonished +as his companion, for he had known nothing of the statue. They read the +words chiselled on its base. "The prodigal son," said Felder. + +"Now look at the name on the headstone," said the physician. + +Felder's glance lifted from the stone, to peer through the screening +bushes to the cabin on the shelf below, and returned to the other's face +with quick comprehension. "You think--" + +"Who could doubt it? _I will arise and go unto my father._ The old man's +whim to be buried here had a meaning, after all. The statue is Miss +Holme's work--nobody in Smoky Mountain could do it--and I've seen her +modelling in clay at the sanatorium. What we saw just now is the key to +what might have been a pretty riddle if we had ever looked further than +our noses. It's a case of a clever rascal and damnable propinquity. The +ward has fallen in love with the black sheep!" + +They betook themselves down the mountain in silence, the doctor +wondering how deep a hurt lay back of that instant's color on his +friend's now imperturbable face, and more than disturbed on Jessica's +account. Her care for the cross-grained, likable invalid had touched +him. + +"A fine old man to own a worthless son," he said at length, musingly. "A +gentleman of the old school. Your amiable blackleg has education and +good blood in him, too!" + +"I've wondered sometimes," said Felder, "if the old Hugh Stires, that +disreputable one that came here, wasn't the unreal one, and the Hugh +Stires the town is beginning to like, the real one, brought back by the +accident that took his memory. You medical men have cases of such double +identity, haven't you?" + +"The books have," responded the other, "but they're like Kellner's +disease or Ludwig's Angina--nobody but the original discoverer ever sees +'em." + +As they parted at the station the doctor said: "We needn't take the town +into our confidence, eh? Some one will stumble on the statue sooner or +later, but we won't help the thing along." He looked shrewdly in the +other's face as they shook hands. + +"You know the old saying: There's as many good fish in the sea as ever +were caught." + +The lawyer half laughed. "Don't worry," he said. "If I had been in +danger, the signal was hung out in plenty of time!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +THE REVELATION OF HALLELUJAH JONES + + +Hallelujah Jones was in his element. With his wheezy melodeon, his +gasoline flare and his wild earnestness, he crowded the main street of +the little mining-town, making the engagement of the "San Francisco +Amazons" at the clapboard "opera house" a losing venture. The effete +civilization of wealthy bailiwicks did not draw forth his powers as did +the open and unveneered debaucheries of less restricted settlements. +Against these he could inveigh with surety, at least, of an appreciative +audience. + +He had not lacked for listeners here, for he was a new sensation. His +battered music-box, with its huge painted text, was far and away more +attractive than the thumping pianolas of the saloons or the +Brobdignagian gramophone of the dance-hall, and his old-fashioned songs +were enthusiastically encored. When he lit his flare in the court-house +square at dusk on the second evening, the office of the Mountain Valley +House was emptied and the bar-rooms and gaming-tables well-nigh +deserted of their patrons. + +Jessica had seen the mustering crowd from the hotel entrance. Mrs. +Halloran had welcomed her errand that day and given her her best room, a +chamber overlooking the street. She had persuaded her visitor to spend +the afternoon and insisted that she stay to supper, "just to see how she +would like it for a steady diet." Now, as Jessica passed along toward +the mountain road, the spectacle chained her feet on the outskirts of +the gathering. She watched and listened with a preoccupied mind; she was +thinking that on her way to the sanatorium she would cross to the cabin +for a good-night word with the man upon whom her every thought centered. + +As it happened, however, Harry was at that moment very near her. Alone +on the mountain, the perplexing conflict of feeling had again descended +upon him. He had fought it, but it had prevailed, and at nightfall had +driven him down to the town, where the street preacher now held forth. +He stood alone, unnoted, a little distance away, near the court-house +steps, where, by reason of the crowd, Jessica could see neither him nor +the dog which sniffed at the heels of the circle of bystanders as if to +inquire casually of salvation. + +Numbers were swelling now, and the street preacher, shaking back his +long hair, drew a premonitory, wavering chord from his melodeon, and +struck up a gospel song: + + + "My days are gliding swiftly by, + And I, a pilgrim stranger, + Would not detain them as they fly, + These hours of toil and danger. + For Oh, we tread on Jordan's strand, + Our friends are passing over, + And just before the shining shore + We may almost discover." + + +The song ended, he mounted his camp-stool to propound his usual fiery +text. + +The watcher by the steps was gazing with a strange, alert intentness. +Something in the scene--the spluttering, dripping flame, the music, the +forensic earnestness of the pilgrim--held him enthralled. The dormant +sense that in the recent weeks had again and again stirred at some +elusive touch of memory, was throbbing. Since last night, with its +sudden lightning flash of the past that had faded again into blankness, +he had been as sensitive as a photographic plate. + +Hallelujah Jones knew the melodramatic value of contrast. As his mood +called, he passed abruptly from exhortation to song, from prayer to +fulmination, and he embellished his harangue with anecdotes drawn from +his lifelong campaign against the Arch-Enemy of Souls. Of what he had +said the solitary observer had been quite unconscious. It was the +_ensemble_--the repetition of something experienced somewhere +before--that appealed to him. Suddenly, however, a chance phrase pierced +to his understanding. + +Another moment and he was leaning forward, his eyes fixed, his breath +straining at his breast. For each word of the speaker now was knocking a +sledge-hammer blow upon the blank wall in his brain. Hallelujah Jones +had launched into the recital of an incident which had become the _chef +d'ouvre_ of his repertory--a story which, though the stern charge of a +bishop had kept him silent as to name and locality, yet, possessing the +vividness of an actual experience, had lost little in the telling. It +was the tale of an evening when he had peered through the tilted window +of a chapel, and seen its dissolute rector gambling on the table of the +Lord. + +Back in the shadow the listener, breathless and staring, saw the scene +unroll like the shifting slide of a stereopticon--the epitaph on his own +dead self. Nerve and muscle and brain tightened as if to withstand a +shock, for the man who moved through the pictures was himself! He saw +the cards and counters falling on the table, the entrance of the two +intruding figures, heard Hugh's wild laugh as he fled, and the grate of +the key in the lock behind him as he stood in his study. He heard the +rush of the wind past the motor-car, the rustle of dry corn in the +hedges, and felt the mist beating on his bare head-- + + + "Palms of Victory, + Crowns of Glory! + Palms of Victory + I shall wear!" + + +He did not know that it was the voice of the street preacher which was +singing now. The words shrieked themselves through his brain. Harry +Sanderson, not Hugh Stires! Not an outcast! Not criminal, thief and +forger! The curtain was rent. The dead wall in his brain was down, and +the real past swept over him in an ungovernable flood. Hallelujah Jones +had furnished the clue to the maze. His story was the last great wave, +which had crumbled, all at once, the cliff of oblivion that the normal +process of the recovered mind had been stealthily undermining. The +formula, lost so long in the mysterious labyrinth of the brain, had +reëstablished itself, and the thousand shreds of recollection that he +had misconstrued had fallen into their true place in the old pattern. +Harry Sanderson at last knew his past and all of puzzlement and distress +that it had held. + +Shaking in every limb and feeling all along the court-house wall like a +drunken man, he made his way to the further deserted street. A passer-by +would have shrunk at sight of his face and his burning eyes. + +For these months, he, the Reverend Henry Sanderson, disgraced, had +suffered eclipse, had been sunk out of sight and touch and hearing like +a stone in a pool. For these months--through an accidental facial +resemblance and a fortuitous concurrence of circumstances--he had owned +the name and ignominy of Hugh Stires. And Jessica? Deceived no less than +he, dating her piteous error from that mistaken moment when she had torn +the bandage from her eyes on her wedding-day. She had never seen the +real Hugh in Smoky Mountain. She must learn the truth. Yet, how to tell +her? How could he tell her _all_? + +At any hour yesterday, hard as the telling must have been, he could have +told her. Last night the hour passed. How could he tell her now? Yet she +was the real Hugh's wife by law and right; he himself could not marry +her! If God would but turn back the universe and give him yesterday! + +Why not _be_ Hugh Stires? The wild idea came to him to throw away his +own self for ever, never to tell her, never to return to Aniston, to +live on here or fly to some distant place, till years had made +recognition impossible. He struck his forehead with his closed hand. He, +a priest of God, to summon her to an illegal union? To live a serial +story of hypocrisy, with the guilty shadow of the living Hugh always +between them, the sword of Damocles always suspended above their heads, +to cleave to the heart of his Fool's Paradise? The mad thought died. Yet +what justice of Heaven was it that Jessica, whose very soul had been +broken on the wheel, should now, through no conscious fault, be led by +his hand through a new Inferno of suffering? + +His feet dragging as though from cold, he climbed the mountain road. As +he walked he took from his pocket the little gold cross, and his +fingers, numb with misery, tied it to his thong watch-guard. It had been +only a bauble, a pocket-piece acquired he knew not when or how; now he +knew it for the badge of his calling. He remembered now that, pressed a +certain way, it would open, and engraved inside were his name and the +date of his ordination. + +He might shut the cabin door, but he could not forbid the torturer that +came with him across the threshold. He might throw himself upon his +knees and bury his face in the rough skin of the couch, but he could not +shut out words that blent in golden-lettered flashes across his +throbbing eyeballs: _Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife_. + +So he crouched, a man under whose feet life had crashed, leaving him +pinned beneath the wreck, to watch the fire that must creep nearer and +nearer. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +THE WHITE HORSE SKIN + + +Curiosity held Jessica until the evangelist closed his melodeon +preparatory to a descent upon the dance-hall. Then, thinking of the +growing dark with some trepidation--for the recent "strike" had brought +its influx of undesirable characters to the town--she started toward the +mountain. + +Ahead of her a muffled puff-puff sounded, and the dark bulk of an +automobile--the sheriff's, the only one the town of Smoky Mountain +boasted--was moving slowly in the same direction, and she quickened her +pace, glad of this quasi-company. It soon forged ahead, but she had +passed the outskirts of the town then and was not afraid. + +A little way up the ascent a cumbrous shadow startled her. She saw in a +moment that it was the automobile, halted at the side of the road. Her +footsteps made no sound and she was close upon it when she saw the three +men it had carried standing near-by. She made to pass them, and had +crossed half the intervening space, when some instinct sent her to the +shade of the trees. They had stopped opposite the hydraulic concession, +where a side path left the main road--it was the same path by which she +and Emmet Prendergast had taken their unconscious burden on a night long +ago--leading along the hillside, overlooking the snake-like flume, and +forming a steeper short-cut to the cabin above. They were conversing in +low tones, and as they talked they pointed, she thought toward it. + +Jessica had never in her life been an eavesdropper, but her excited +senses made her anxious. Moreover, she was in a way committed, for she +could not now emerge without being seen. As she waited, a man came from +the path and joined the others. The sky had been overcast and gloomy, +but the moon drew out just then and she saw that the new-comer, +evidently a patrol, carried a rifle in the hollow of his arm. She also +saw that one of the first three was the automobile's owner. + +For some minutes they conversed in undertones, whose very secrecy +inflamed her imagination. It seemed to her that they made some reference +to the flume. Had there been another robbery of the sluice-boxes, and +could they still suspect Hugh? + +Dread and indignation made her bold. When they turned into the path she +followed, treading noiselessly, till she was close behind them. They +had stopped again, and were looking intently at a shadowy gray something +that moved in the bottom below. + +She heard the man who carried the rifle say, with a smothered laugh: + +"It's only Barney McGinn's old white horse taking a drink out of the +sluice-box. He often does that." + +Then the sheriff's voice said: "McGinn's horse is in town to-night, with +Barney on her back. Horse or no horse, I'm going to"--the rest was lost +in the swift action with which he snatched the firearm from the first +speaker, sighted, and fired. + +In the still night the concussion seemed to rock the ground, and roused +a hundred echoes. It startled and shocked the listening girl, but not so +much as the sound that followed it--a cry that had nothing animal-like, +and that sent the men running down the slope toward an object that lay +huddled by the sluice-box. + +In horrified curiosity Jessica followed, slipping from shadow to shadow. +She saw the sheriff kneel down and draw a collapsed and empty horse's +skin from a figure whose thieving cunning it would never cloak again. + +"So it was you, after all, Prendergast!" the sheriff said +contemptuously. + +The white face stared up at them, venomous and writhing, turning about +the circle as though searching for some one who was not there. + +"How did--you guess?" + +The sheriff, who had been making a swift examination, answered the +panted question. "You have no time to think of that now," he said. + +A sinister look darted into the filming yellow eyes, and hatred and +certainty rekindled them. Prendergast struggled to a sitting posture, +then fell back, convulsed. "Hugh Stires! He was the only--one who +knew--how it was done. He's clever, but he can't get the best of +Prendergast!" A spasm distorted his features. "Wait--wait!" + +He fumbled in his breast and his fingers brought forth a crumpled piece +of paper. He thrust it into the sheriff's hands. + +"Look! Look!" he gasped. "The man they found murdered on the claim +there"--he pointed wildly up the hillside--"Doctor Moreau. I found +him--dying! Stires--" + +Strength was fast failing him. He tried again to speak, but only +inarticulate sounds came from his throat. + +A blind terror had clutched the heart of the girl leaning from the +shadow. "Doctor Moreau"--"murdered." Why, he had been one of Hugh's +friends! Why did this man couple Hugh's name with that worst of crimes? +What dreadful thing was he trying to tell? She hardly repressed a desire +to scream aloud. + +"Be careful what you say, Prendergast," said the sheriff sternly. + +The wretched man gathered force for a last effort. His voice came in a +croaking whisper: + +"It was Stires killed him. Moreau wrote it down--and I--kept the paper. +Tell Hugh--we break--even!" + +That was all. His head fell back with a shiver, and Emmet Prendergast +was gone on a longer journey than ever his revenge could warm him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +THE RENEGADE + + +While the man whom the town knew as Hugh Stires listened to the tale of +the street preacher, another, unlike yet curiously like him in feature, +had slowly climbed the hilly slope from the north by the sanatorium +road. He walked with a jaunty swagger bred of too frequent applications +to a flask in his pocket. + +Since the evening of the momentous scene in the chapel with Harry +Sanderson, Hugh had had more and more recourse to that black comforter. +It had grown to be his constant companion. When, late on the night of +the game, some miles away, he had gloatingly counted the money in his +pockets, he had found nearly a thousand dollars in double-eagles, and a +single red counter--the last he had had to stake against Harry's gold. +He put the crimson disk into his pocket, "to remember the bishop by," he +thought with a chuckle, but the fact that for each of the counters Harry +had won he had sworn to render a day of clean and decent living, he +straightway forgot. For the other's position he had wasted no pity. +Harry would find it difficult to explain the matter to the bishop! Well, +if it "broke" him, served him right! What business had he to set himself +so far above every one else? + +For some time thereafter Hugh had seriously contemplated going abroad, +for a wholesome fear had dogged him in his flight from Smoky Mountain. +For weeks he had travelled by night, scanning the daily newspapers with +a desperate anxiety, his ears keen for hue and cry. But with money in +his pocket, courage returned, and in the end fear lulled. There had been +no witness to that deed on the hillside. There might be suspicion, but +no more! At length the old-time attraction of the race-course had +absorbed him. He had followed the horses in "the circuit," winning and +losing, consorting with the tipsters, growing heavier with generous +living, and welcoming excitement and change. But the ghost of Doctor +Moreau haunted him, and would not be exorcized. + +Money, however, could not last always, and a persistent run of ill luck +depleted his store. When poverty again was at his elbow a vagrant rumor +had told him, with the usual exaggerations, of the rich "find" on the +Little Paymaster Claim on Smoky Mountain. Too late he cursed the +reasonless panic that had sent him into flight. Had the ground been +"jumped" by some one who now profited? Nevertheless, it was still his +own to claim; miners' law gave him a year, and he had left enough +possessions in the cabin, he thought cunningly, to disprove abandonment. +He dreaded a return, but want and cupidity at length overcame his fears. +He had arrived at Smoky Mountain on this night to claim his own. + +As he walked unsteadily along, Hugh drank more than once from the flask +to deaden the superstitious dread of the place which was stealing over +him. On the crest of the ridge he skirted the sanatorium grounds and at +length gained the road that twisted down toward the lights of the town. +In the dubious moonlight he mistook the narrow trail to the Knob for the +lower path to the cabin. As he turned into it, the report of a rifle +came faintly from the gulch below. It seemed to his excited senses like +the ghostly echo of a shot he had himself fired there on a night like +this long before--a hollow echo from another world. + +He quickened his steps and stumbled all at once into the little clearing +that held the new-made grave and Jessica's statue. The sight terrified +his intoxicated imagination. His hair rose. The name on the headstone +was STIRES, and there was himself--no, a ghost of himself!--sitting +near! He turned and broke into a run down the steep slope. In his +fear--for he imagined the white figure was pursuing him--he tripped and +fell, regained his feet, rushed across the level space, threw his weight +against the cabin door, and burst into the room. + +A dog sprang up with a growl, and in the light of the fire that burned +on the hearth, a man sitting at the rough-hewn table lifted a haggard +face from his arms and each recognized the other. + +The ghost was gone now before firelight and human presence, and Hugh, +with a loud laugh of tipsy incredulity, stood staring at the man before +him. + +"Harry Sanderson!" he cried. "By the great horn spoon!" His shifty eyes +surveyed the other's figure--the corduroys, the high laced boots, the +soft blue flannel shirt. "Not exactly in purple and fine linen," he +said--the impudent swagger of intoxication had slipped over him again, +and his boisterous laugh broke with a hiccough. "I thought the gospel +game was about played out that night in the chapel. And now you are +willing to take a hint from the prodigal. How did you find my nest? And +perhaps you can tell me who has been making himself so infernally at +home here lately?" + +"_I_ have," said Harry evenly. + +Hugh's glance, that had been wavering about the neat interior, returned +to Harry, and knowledge and anger leaped into it. "So it was you, was +it? You are the one who has been trying his hand as a claim-jumper!" He +lurched toward the table and leaned upon it. "I've always heard that the +devil took care of his own. The runaway rector stumbles on my manor, and +with his usual luck--'Satan's luck' we called it at college--steps in +just in time to strike it rich!" + +He stretched his hand suddenly and caught a tiny object that glittered +against Harry's coat--the little gold cross, which the other had tied to +his watch-guard. The thong snapped and Hugh sent the pendant rattling +across the doorway. + +"You were something of a howling swell as a parson," he said insolently, +"but you don't need the jewelry now!" + +Harry Sanderson's eyes had not left Hugh's face; he was thinking +swiftly. The bolt from the blue had been so recent that this sudden +apparition seemed a natural concomitant of the situation. Only the +problem was no longer imminent; it was upon him. Jessica was not for +him--he had accepted that. Though the clock might not turn backward, +this man must stand between them. Yet his presence now in the +predicament was intolerable. This drunken, criminal maligner had it in +his power to precipitate the climax for her in a coarse and brutal +_exposé_. Hugh had no idea of the true tangle, else he had not been seen +in the town. But if not to-night, then to-morrow! Harry's heart turned +cold within him. If he could eliminate Hugh from the problem till he +could see his way! + +"Well," said Hugh with a sneer, "what have you got to say?" + +Harry rose slowly and pushed the door shut. "When we last met," he said, +"what you most wanted was to leave the country." + +"I changed my mind," retorted Hugh. "I've got a right to do that, I +suppose. I've come back now to get what is mine, and I'll have it, too!" +He rapped the table with his knuckles. + +Hugh had no recollection now of past generosities. His selfish +materialism saw only money that might be his. "I know all about the +strike," he went on, "and there's no green in my eye!" + +"How much will you take for the property?" + +Hugh laughed again jeeringly. "That's your game, is it? But I'm not such +a numskull! Whatever you could offer, it's worth more to me. You've +found a good thing here, and you'd like to skin me as a butcher skins a +sheep." In the warmer air of the cabin the liquor he had drunk was +firing his brain, and an old suspicion leaped to his tongue. + +"I know you, Satan Sanderson," he sneered. "You were always the same +precious hypocrite in the old days, pretending to be so almighty +virtuous, while you looked out for number one. I saw through you then, +too, when you were posing as my friend and trying your best all along to +queer me with the old man! I knew it well enough. I knew what the reason +was, too! You wanted Jessica! You--" + +Self-control left Harry suddenly, as a ship's sail is whipped from its +gaskets in a white squall. Before the words could be uttered, his +fingers were at Hugh's throat. + +At that instant there was the sound of running feet outside, a hurried +knock at the door and an agitated voice that chilled Harry's blood to +ice. + +His hands relaxed their hold; he dragged Hugh to the door of the inner +room, thrust him inside, shut and bolted it upon him. + +Then he went and opened the outer door. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +THE TEMPTATION + + +Jessica's eyes met Harry's in a look he could not translate, save that +it held both yearning and anguish. + +The accusation of Prendergast had stunned her faculties. As in an evil +dream, with the low breeze murmuring by and the fitful moon overhead, +she had seen the sheriff rise to his feet and methodically put the +fragment of paper into his pocket-book. A moment later she was running +up the dark path, her thoughts a confusion in which only one coherent +purpose stood distinct--to warn him. They would know no need to hasten. +If the man she loved had reached the cabin, she would be before them. + +Not that she believed him guilty; in his lost past there could be no +stain so dark as that! She recalled the look of personal hatred she had +once surprised on Prendergast's face. He hated Hugh, and dying, had left +this black lie behind to do him a mischief. He was innocent, innocent! +But would the charge not be believed? They would arrest him, drag him +down to the town, to the brick jail on the court-house square. The +community was prejudiced. Innocent men had been convicted before of +crimes they never committed. In those breathless minutes she did not +reason further; she knew only that a vital danger threatened him, and +that he must fly from it. The lighted pane had told her the occupant of +the cabin had returned. + +She stood before the door, her hands clasped tightly, her eyes on +Harry's face, even in this crucial moment drinking in thirstily what she +saw there; for in this crisis, hanging on the narrow verge of +catastrophe, when he had need to summon all his store of poise and +contained strength, his look melted over her in a mist of tenderness. + +"What has happened?" he asked. + +He did not offer to touch or to kiss her, but this she did not remember +till afterward. In what words could she tell him? Would he think she +believed him guilty when she besought him to fly? She answered simply, +directly, with only a deep appeal in her eyes: + +"Men will be here soon--men from the town. I overheard them. I wanted to +let you know!" she hesitated; it had grown all at once difficult to put +into words. + +"Coming here? Why?" + +"To arrest a man who is accused of murder." + +If her eyes could have pierced the bolted door a few feet away! If she +could have seen that listening face behind it, as her clear tones fell, +grow instinct with recognition, amazement, and evil suspicion--a look +that her last word swept into a sickly gray terror! If she could have +heard the groan from the wretched man beyond! + +"Whose murder?" + +"Doctor Moreau's." + +In all Harry Sanderson's life was to be never such a moment of +revealment. He knew that she meant himself. The murderer of Doctor +Moreau--Hugh's one-time crony and loose associate, who had shared in the +plunder of the forged draft, and had then abandoned his cat's-paw to +discovery! The man Hugh had promised to "pay off for it some time!" Had +Moreau also made this his stamping-ground? A swift memory swept him of +Hugh's hang-dog look, his nervous dread when he had begged in the chapel +study for money with which to leave the country. It did not need the +smothered gasp from behind the bolted door to point the way to the swift +conclusion Harry's mind was racing to. A dull flush spread to his +forehead. + +Jessica waited with caught breath, searching his countenance. It was +told now, but he must know that she had not credited it--that "for +better, for worse," she must believe in him now. "I knew, oh, I knew!" +she cried. "You need not tell me!" + +The hell of two passions that were struggling within him--a savage +exultation and a submerging wave of pity for her utter ignorance, her +blind faith, for the painful dénouement that was rushing upon her--died, +and left him cold and still. "No," he said gravely, "I am not the man +they want. It has all come back to me--the past that I had lost. Such a +crime has no part in it." + +At another time the abrupt news of this retrieval must have affected her +strangely, for she had wondered much concerning the return of that +memory that held alike their early love and his own tragedy and shame. +Now, however, a greater contingency absorbed her. He must go, and +without delay. Her lips were opened to speak when he closed the door +behind him and stepped quickly down toward her. At all odds, he was +thinking, she must not see the man in that inner room! If she remained +he could not guess what shock might result. + +"Jessica," he said, "you have tried to save me from danger to-night. I +need a greater service of you now; it is to ask no questions, but to go +at once. I can not explain why, but you must not stay here a moment." + +"Oh," she cried bitterly, "you don't intend to leave! You choose to face +it, and you want to spare me. If you really want to spare me, you will +go! Why, you would have no chance where they have hated you so. +Prendergast was killed robbing the sluice to-night, and he +lied--lied--lied! He swore you did it, and they will believe it!" + +He put back her beseeching hands. How could he explain? Only to get her +away--to gain time--_to think_! + +"Listen!" she went on wildly. "They will wait to carry him to the town. +I can go and bring my horse here for you. There is time! You have only +to send me word, and I will follow you to the end of the world! Only say +you will go!" + +He caught at the straw. The expedient might serve. + +"Very well," he said; "bring him to the upper trail, and wait there for +me." + +She gave a sob of relief at his acquiescence. "I will hurry, hurry!" she +cried, and was gone, swift as a swallow-flight, into the darkness. + +As he reëntered the cabin, the calmness fell from Harry Sanderson as a +mask drops, and the latent passion sprang in its place. He crossed the +room and drew the bolt for the wretched man who, after one swift glance +at his face, grovelled on his knees before him, sobered and shivering. + +"For God's sake, Harry, you won't give me up?" Hugh cried. "You can't +mean to do that! Why, we were in college together! I'd been drinking +to-night, or I wouldn't have talked to you as I did. I'm sober enough +now, Harry! You can have the claim. I'll give it to you and all you've +got out of it. Only let me go before they come to take me!" + +Harry drew his feet from the frantic hands that clasped them. "Did you +kill Moreau?" he asked shortly. + +"It was an accident," moaned Hugh. "I never intended to--I swear to +Heaven I didn't! He hounded me, and he tried to bleed me. I only meant +to frighten him off! Then--then--I was afraid, and I ran for it. That +was when I came to you at Aniston and--we played." Hugh's breath came in +gasps and drops of sweat stood on his forehead. + +A weird, crowding clamor was sweeping through Harry's brain. When, at +the sound of Jessica's voice, he had thrust Hugh into the inner room, it +had been only to gain time, to push further back, if by but a moment, +the shock which was inevitable. Then, in the twinkling of an eye, Fate +had swept the board. Hugh's worthless life was forfeit. He would stand +no longer between him and Jessica! The enginery of the law would be +their savior. + +Neither crime nor penalty was of his making. He owed Hugh nothing--the +very money he had taken from the ground, save a bare living, had gone to +pay his thievery. He could surrender him to the law, then take Jessica +far away where the truth would come mercifully softened by distance and +lightened by future happiness. It was not his to intervene, to cozen +Justice, to compound a felony and defeat a righteous Providence! He owed +mercy to Jessica. He owed none to this cringing, lying thing before him, +who now reminded him of that chapel game that had ruined the Reverend +Henry Sanderson! + +"When we played!" he echoed. "How have you settled your debt--the 'debt +of honor' you once counted so highly? How have you lived since then? +Have you paid me those days of decent living you staked, and lost?" + +Hugh looked past him with hollow, hunted gaze. There was no escape, no +weapon to his hand, and those eyes were on him like unwavering sparks of +iron. + +"But I will!" he exclaimed desperately. "If you'll only help me out of +this, I'll live straight to my dying day! You don't know how I've +suffered, Harry, or you'd have some mercy on me now! I can never get +away from it! That's why I was drunk to-day. Night and day I see +him--Moreau, as I saw him lying here that night on the hillside. He +haunts me! You don't know what it means to be always afraid, to wake up +in the night with the feel of handcuffs on your wrists, to know that +such a thing is behind you, following you, following you, never letting +you rest, never forgetting!" A choking sob burst from his lips. "Let me +go, Harry," he pleaded; "for my father's sake!" + +"Your father is dead," said Harry. + +"Then for old-time's sake!" He tried to clasp Harry's knees. "They may +be here at any minute! I must have been seen as I crossed the mountain! +I thought it would never come out, or I wouldn't have come! I'll go far +enough away. I'll go to South America, and you will never see me alive +again, neither you nor Jessica! I knew her voice just now--I know she's +here. I don't care how or why! You don't need to give me up to get her! +I'll give her to you! For God's sake, Harry, listen! Jessica wouldn't +want to see me hung! For _her_ sake!" + +Harry caught his breath sharply. The thrust had gone deep; it had +sheared through the specious arguments he had been weaving. The +commandment that an hour before had etched itself in letters of fire +upon his eyelids hung again before him. He had coveted his neighbor's +wife. This man, felon as he was--pitiful hound to whom the news of his +father's death brought no flicker of sorrow or remorse, who now offered +to barter Jessica for his own safety!--he himself, however unwittingly, +had irreparably wronged. Between them stood the accusing wraith of one +immortal hour, when the heart of love had beat against his own. If he +delivered Hugh to the hangman, would it be for justice's sake? + +The scales fell from his eyes. For him, loving Jessica, it could be only +a dastard act. Yet if he aided the real Hugh to escape, he, the +supposititious Hugh who had played his rôle, must continue it. He must +second the villainy, and in so doing play the cheaply tragic part. He +must pose as an accused murderer before the town whose good opinion he +had longed to gain--before Jessica!--until Hugh had had time to win safe +away! He might do even more. The real Hugh would stand small chance; +even were the evidence not flawless, the old record would condemn him. +But he himself had lightened that record. He had gained liking and +sympathy; there might be a chance for him of acquittal. + +If this might only be! The truth then need never be known and Hugh +Stires, to all belief having been put once in jeopardy, need fear no +more. Life would be before him again, to pay the days of righteous +living he had played for in the chapel game, to reverse the record of +his selfish and remorseless career. If the trial went against him--Hugh +would have had his chance, would be far away. He, Harry Sanderson, would +not have betrayed him. A hundred people, if he chose to summon them, +would establish his own identity. It would be cheating justice, making a +mock of law, but he was in a position where human statute must yield to +a higher rule of action. The law might punish, but he would have been +true to his own soul. Jessica would understand. The truth held pain and +shame for her, but he would have tried to save her from a greater. And +he would have cancelled his debt to Hugh! + +It was the Harry Sanderson of St. James parish, of the scrupulous +conscience--whose college career as Satan Sanderson had come to be a +fiery sore in his breast--who now spoke: + +"Get up!" he said. "Have you any money?" + +Hugh rose, trembling and ashen. "Hardly ten dollars," he answered. + +Harry considered hastily. He was almost penniless; nearly all his share +of the strike had gone to repay the forged draft. "I have no ready +cash," he said, "but the night we played in the chapel, I left a +thousand dollars in my study safe. I have not been there since." He +took pencil and paper from his pocket and wrote down some figures +hastily. "Here is the combination. You must try to get that money." + +"Wait," he added, as Hugh's hand was on the latch. He must risk nothing; +he could make assurance doubly sure. "A half-mile from the foot of the +mountain, where the road comes in from Funeral Hollow, wait for me. I +will bring a horse there for you." + +Hugh crushed the paper into his pocket and opened the door. "I'll wait," +he said. He darted out, slipped around the corner of the cabin, and +stealthily disappeared. + +Harry sat down upon the doorstep. The strain had been great; in the +reaction, he was faint, and a mist was before his eyes. The die was +cast. Hugh could easily escape; until he himself spoke, he would not +even be hunted. He, Harry Sanderson, was the scapegoat, left to play his +part. + +How long he sat there he did not know. He sprang up at a muffled sound. +He had still a work to do before they came--for Hugh! He saw in an +instant, however, that it was Jessica, leading her horse by the bridle. + +"I could not wait," she breathed. "You did not come, and I was afraid!" + +Mounting, he leaned from the saddle and took both her hands in +his--still he did not kiss her. + +"Jessica, you believe I am innocent?" he asked anxiously. + +"Yes--yes!" + +"Will you believe what I am doing is for the best?" + +"Always, always!" she whispered, her voice vibrating. "Only go!" + +"Whatever happens?" + +"Whatever happens!" + +He released her hands and rode quickly up the grassy path. + +As she stood looking after him, a dog's whine came from the cabin. She +ran and released the spaniel and took him up in her arms. + +As she did so a sparkle caught her eye. It came from the tiny gold cross +lying where Hugh had flung it, near the lighted doorway. She picked it +up, looked at it a moment abstractedly and thrust it into her +pocket--scarce consciously, for her heart was keeping time to the +silenced hoof-beat that was bearing the man she loved from danger. + + +Where the way opened into the gloomy cut of Funeral Hollow, Harry +dismounted and went forward slowly afoot, leading the horse, till a +figure stepped from a clump of bushes to meet him with an exclamation of +relief. Hugh had waited at the rendezvous in shivering apprehension and +dismal suspicion of Harry's intentions, and had not approached till he +had convinced himself that the other came alone. He wrung Harry's hand +as he said: + +"If I get out of this, I'll do better the rest of my life, I will, upon +my soul, Harry!" + +"You may not be able to get into the chapel," said Harry; "my rooms"--he +felt his cheek burn as he spoke--"may be occupied. On the chance that +you fail, take this." He took off the ruby ring, whose interlaced +initials had once fortified him in his error of identity. "The stone is +worth a good deal. It should be enough to take you anywhere." + +Hugh nodded, slipped the ring on his finger, and rode quickly off. Then +Harry turned and walked rapidly back toward the town. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +FELDER TAKES A CASE + + +The sheriff stopped his automobile before the dingy telegraph office. +The street had been ringing that evening with more exciting events than +it had known in a year. + +"He's off," he said disgustedly to the men who had curiously gathered. +"He must have got wind of it somehow, and he had a horse ready. We +traced the hoof-prints from the cabin as far as the Hollow. I'm going to +use the wire." + +"That's a lie!" rumbled an angry voice behind him, as Devlin strode into +the crowd. "Hugh Stires gave himself up fifteen minutes ago at the +jail." + +"How do you know that?" demanded the sheriff, relieved but chagrined at +his fool's-errand. + +"Because I saw him do it," answered Devlin surlily. "I was there." + +"Well, it saves trouble for me. That'll tickle you, Felder," the sheriff +added satirically, turning toward the lawyer. "You're a sentimentalist, +and he's been your special fancy. What do you think now, eh?" + +"I'll tell you what _I_ think," said Devlin, his big hands working. "I +think it's a damned lie of Prendergast's!" + +"Oh, ho!" exclaimed the sheriff amusedly. "You once danced to a +different tune, Devlin!" + +The blood was in the big, lowering face. "I did," he admitted. "I went +up against him when the liquor was in me, and by the same token he wiped +this street with me. He stood me fair and he whipped me, and I needed +it, though I hated him well enough afterwards. An'--an'--" + +He gulped painfully. No one spoke. + +"It's many's the time since then I've wished the hand was shrivelled +that heaved that rock at him in the road! The day when I saw my bit of a +lass, holdin' to the horse's mane, ridin' to her death in the +Hollow--an'--when he brought her back--" He stopped, struggling with +himself, tears rolling down his cheeks. + +"No murderer did that!" he burst out. "We gave him the back of the hand +an' the sole of the foot, an' we kept to it, though he fought it down +an' lived straight an' decent. He never did it! I don't care what they +say! I'll see Prendergast in hell before I'll believe it, or any dirty +paper he saved to swear a man's life away." + +The listeners were silent. No one had ever heard such a speech from the +huge owner of the dance-hall. The sheriff lighted a cigar before he +said: + +"That's all right, Devlin. We all understand your prejudices, but I'm +afraid they haven't much weight with legal minds, like Mr. Felder's +here, for instance." + +"Excuse me," said Felder. "I fear my prejudices are with Devlin. Good +night," he added, moving up the street. + +"Where are you bound?" asked the other casually. + +"To the jail," answered the lawyer, "to see a client--I hope." + +The sheriff emitted a low whistle. "_I_ hope there'll be enough sane men +left to get a jury!" he said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +THE HAND AT THE DOOR + + +At the sound of steps in the jail corridor and the harsh grating of the +key in the lock, Harry rose hastily from the iron cot whereon he had +been sitting and took a step forward. + +"Jessica!" he exclaimed. + +She came toward him, her breath hurried, her cheek pale. Tom Felder's +face was at her shoulder. "I have a little matter to attend to in the +office," he said, nodding to Harry. "I shall wait for you there, Miss +Holme." + +She thanked him with a grateful look, and as he vanished, Harry took her +hand and kissed it. He longed to take her in his arms. + +"I heard of it only at noon," she began, her voice uncertain. "I was +afraid they would not let me see you, so I went to Mr. Felder. They were +saying on the street that he had offered to defend you." + +"I had not been here an hour when he came," he said. + +"I know you have no money," she went on; "I know what you did with the +gold you found. And I have begged him to let me pay for any other +counsel he will name. I have not told him--what I am to you, but I have +told him that I am far from poor, and that nothing counts beside your +life. He says you have forbidden him to do this--forbidden him to allow +any help from any one. Hugh, Hugh! Why do you do this? The money should +be yours, not mine, for it was your father's! It _is_ yours, for I am +your wife!" + +He kissed her hand again without answering. + +"Haven't I a right now to be at your side? Mayn't I tell them?" + +He shook his head. "Not yet, Jessica." + +"I must obey you," she said with a wan smile, "yet I would share your +shame as proudly as your glory! You are thinking me weak and despicable, +perhaps, because I wanted you to go away. But women are not men, and +I--I love you so, Hugh!" + +"I think you are all that is brave and good," he protested. + +"I want you to believe," she went on, "that I knew you had done no +murder. If an angel from Heaven had come to declare it, I would not have +believed it. I only want now to understand." + +"What do you not understand?" he asked gently. + +She half turned toward the door, as she said, in a lower key: "Last +night I was overwrought. I had no time to reason, or even to be glad +that you had recovered your memory. I thought only of your escaping +somewhere--where you would be safe, and where I could follow. But after +you had gone, many things came back to me that seemed strange--something +curious in your manner. You had not seemed wholly surprised when I told +you you were accused. Why did you shut the cabin door, and speak so low? +Was there any one else there when I came?" + +He averted his face, but he did not answer. She was treading on near +ground. + +"My horse came back this afternoon," she continued. "He had been ridden +hard in the night and his flanks were cut cruelly with a whip. You did +not use him, but some one did." + +She waited a moment, still he made no reply. + +"I want to ask you," she said abruptly, "do you know who killed Doctor +Moreau?" + +His blood chilled at the question. He looked down at her speechless. +"You must let me speak," she said. "You won't answer that. Then you do +know who really did it. Oh, I have thought so much since last night! For +some reason you are shielding him. Was it the man who was in the +cabin--who rode my horse? If he is guilty, why do you help him off, and +so make yourself partly guilty?" + +He looked down at her and put a finger on her lips. "Do you remember +what you told me last night--that you would believe what I did was for +the best?" + +"But I thought then you were going away! How can I believe it now? Why, +they hang men who murder, and it is you who are accused! If you protect +the real murderer, you will have to stand in his place. The whole town +believes you are guilty--I see it in all their faces. They are sorry, +many of them, for they don't hate you as they did, but they think you +did it. Even Mr. Felder, though I have told him what I suspect, and +though he is working now to defend you!" + +"Jessica," he urged, "you must trust me and have faith in me. I know it +is hard, but I can't explain to you! I can't tell you--yet--why I do as +I am doing, but you must believe that I am right." + +She was puzzled and confused. When she had put this and that together, +guided by her intuition, the conclusion that he knew the guilty one had +brought a huge relief. Now this fell into disarray. She felt beneath his +manner a kind of appeal, a deprecation, almost a hidden pity for her--as +though the danger were hers, not his, and she the one caught in this +catastrophe. She looked at him pale and distraught. + +"You speak as if you were sorry for me," she said, "and not for +yourself. Is it because you know you are not in real danger--that you +know the truth must come out, only you can't tell it yourself, or tell +me either? Is that it?" + +A wave of feeling passed over Harry, of hopeless longing. Whichever way +the issue turned there was anguish for her--for she loved him. If he +were acquitted, she must learn that past love between them had been +illicit, that present love was shame, and future love an impossibility. +Convicted, there must be added to this the bitter knowledge that her +husband in very truth was a murderer, doomed to lurk in hiding so long +as he might live. Yet not to reassure her now was cruelty. + +"It is not that, Jessica," he said gravely; "yet you must not fear for +me--for my life. Try to believe me when I say that some time you will +understand and know that I did only what I must." + +"Will that be soon?" she asked. + +"I think it may be soon," he answered. + +Her face lighted. The puzzle and dread lifted. "Oh, then," she +said--"oh, then, I shall not be afraid. I can not share your thoughts, +nor your secret, and I must rebel at that. You mustn't blame me--I +wouldn't be a woman if I did not--but I love you more than all the +world, and I shall believe that you know best. Hugh," she added softly, +"do you know that--you haven't kissed me?" + +Before her upturned, pleading eyes and trembling lips, the iron of his +purpose bent to the man in him, and he took her into his arms. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +THE PENITENT THIEF + + +A frosty gloom was over the city of Aniston, moon and stars hidden by a +cloudy sky, from which a light snow--the first of the season--was +sifting down. The streets were asleep; only occasional belated +pedestrians were to be seen in the chilly air. These saw a man, his face +muffled from the snowflakes, pass hurriedly toward the fountained +square, from whose steeple two o'clock was just striking. The wayfarer +skirted the square, keeping in cover of the buildings as though avoiding +chance observation, till he stood on the pavement of a Gothic chapel +fronting the open space. + +Here he paused and glanced furtively about him. He could see the +entrance to the minister's study, at which he had so often knocked and +the great rose-window of the audience-room where he had once gamed with +Harry Sanderson. This was the building he must enter like a thief. + +On the night of his flight from Smoky Mountain, Hugh had ridden hard +till dawn, abandoning the horse to find its way back as best it might. +Hidden in a snug retreat, he had slept through the next day, to +recommence his journeying at nightfall. He had thus been obliged to make +haste slowly and had lost much valuable time. For two days after his +arrival, he had hung about outside the town in a fever of impatience; +for though he had readily ascertained that the premises were unoccupied, +the first night he had been frightened away by the too zealous scrutiny +of a policeman, and on the next he had been unable to force the door. +That morning he had secured a skeleton-key, and now the weather was +propitious for his purpose. + +After a moment's reconnoitering, he scaled the frost-fretted iron +palings and gained the shelter of the porch. He tried the key anxiously; +to his relief it fitted. Another minute and he stood in the study, the +door locked behind him, his veins beating with excitement. + +He felt along the wall, drawing his hand back sharply as it encountered +the electric switch. He struck a wax _fusée_ and by its feeble ray gazed +about him. The room looked as it had always looked, with Harry's books +on the shelves, and his heavy walking-stick in the corner, and there +against the wall stood the substantial iron safe that held his own +ransom. Crouching down before it, he took from his pocket the paper upon +which was written the combination; ten to the right, five to the left, +twice nineteen to the right-- + +The match scorched his fingers, and he lighted another and began to turn +the knob. The lock bore both figures and letters in concentric rings, +and he saw that the seven figures Harry had written formed a word. Hugh +dropped the match with a smothered exclamation, for the word was +Jessica! So Harry really had loved her in the old days! Had he profited +by that wedding-day expulsion to make love to her himself? Yet on the +night of the game with Harry in the chapel the house in the aspens had +been closed and dark. How had she come to be in Smoky Mountain? His +father was dead--so Harry had said. If so, the money had gone to her, no +doubt. Well, at any rate, she had never been anything to him and he was +no dog-in-the-manger. What he needed now was the thousand dollars, and +here it was. He swung the massive door wide and took out the canvas bag. +With this and the ruby ring--it must easily be worth as much again--he +could put the round world between himself and capture. + +He closed the safe, and with the bag of coin in his hand, groped his way +to the door of the chapel. It was less dark there, for the snow was +making a white night outside, and the stained glass cast a wan glimmer +across the aisles. He could almost see himself and Harry Sanderson +sitting in the candle-light at the communion table inside the +altar-rail, almost hear the musical chink of the gold! His hand wandered +to his pocket, where lay the one wax wafer he had kept as a +pocket-piece. At that altar he had sworn to pay a day of clean living +for each of the counters he had lost. He had not kept that oath, and now +vengeance was near to overtaking him. He shuddered. He had turned over a +new leaf this time in earnest, and he would make up for the broken vow! + +But meanwhile he greatly needed sleep, and to-night in the open that was +out of the question. He could gain several good hours' rest where he +was, and still get away before daybreak. He drew together the +altar-cushions and lay down, the canvas bag beside him, but he was cold, +and at length he rose and went into the vestry for a surplice. He +wrapped this about him, and, lighting a cigarette, lay down again. He +was very tired, but his limbs twitched from nervousness. He lighted one +cigarette after another, but sleep was coy. He tried to woo it with +nonsense rhymes, but the lines ran together. He tried the remedy of his +restless, precocious childhood--the counting of innumerable sheep as +they leaped the hurdle one by one; but now all of the sheep were black. +There came before his eyes, uncalled, the portrait of his dead mother, +that had always hung at home in the wainscoted library. In her memory +his father had built this very chapel. He wondered again whether she had +looked like the picture. + +A softer feeling came to him. She would be sorry if she could know his +plight. Perhaps if she had lived his life might have been different. +Slow tears stole down his cheeks--not now of affected sentimentalism, or +of hysterical self-pity, but warmer drops from some deeper well that had +not overflowed since he was a little boy. If he had the chance he would +live from now on so that if she were alive she need not be ashamed! The +promise he made himself at that moment was an honester one than all his +selfish years had known, for it sprang not from dread, but from the +better feeling that his maturity had trampled and denied. He felt a kind +of peace--the first real peace he had known since his school-days--and +with it drowsiness came at last. With the drops wet on his cheek, +forgetfulness found him. In a few minutes he was sleeping heavily. + +The last half-consumed cigarette dropped from his relaxing fingers to +the cushion, where it made a smoldering nest of fire. A tiny tongue of +flame caught the edge of a wall-hanging, ran up to the dry oaken rafters +and speedily ignited them. In fifteen minutes the interior of the +chapel was a mass of flame, and Hugh woke gasping and bewildered. + +With a cry of alarm he sprang to his feet, seized the bag of coin and +ran to the door of the study. In his haste he stumbled against it, and +the dead-lock snapped to. He was a prisoner now, for he had left the +skeleton-key in the inside of the outer door. Clutching his treasure, he +ran to the main entrance; it was fast. He tried the smaller windows; +iron bars were set across them. He made shift to wrap the surplice about +his mouth, against the stifling smoke and fiery vapors. The bag dropped +from his hand and the gold rolled about the floor. He stooped and +clutched a handful of the coins and crammed them into his pocket. Was he +to die after all like this, caught like a rat in a trap? In his panic of +terror he forgot all necessity of concealment; he longed for nothing so +much as discovery by those whose cries he now heard filling the waking +street. Many voices were swelling the clamor there. Bells were pealing a +terror-tongued alarm, but those on the spot saw that the structure was +doomed. Hugh screamed desperately, but the roar of the flames overhead +and the angry crackling of the woodwork drowned all else. The roof +timbers were snapping, the muffling surplice was scorching, a thousand +luminous points about him were bursting into fire in the sickening +heat. He pounded with all his might upon the door panels, but in vain. +Who outside could have imagined that a human being was pent within that +fiery furnace? + +Uttering a hoarse cry, with the strength of despair, Hugh wrenched a pew +from the floor and made of it a ladder to reach the rose-window. +Mounting this, he beat frantically with his fist upon the painted glass. +The crystal shivered beneath the blows, and clinging to the iron +supports, his beard burnt to the skin, he set his face to the aperture +and drew a gulping breath of the sweet, cold air. In his agony, with +that fiery hell opening beneath him, he could see the massed people +watching from the safety that was so near. + +"Look! Look!" The sudden cry went up, and a thrill of awe ran through +the crowd. The glass Hugh had shattered had formed the face of the +Penitent Thief in the window-design, and his outstretched arms fitted +those of the figure. It was as though by some ghastly miracle the +painted features had suddenly sprung into life, the haggard eyes opened +in appeal. The watchers gasped in amazement. + +The flame was upon him now. He was going to his last account--with no +time to alter the record. But had not his sleeping vow been one of +reformation? He tried to shriek this to the deaf heavens, but all the +spellbound watchers heard was the cry: "Lord, Lord, remember--" And this +articulate prayer from the crucified malefactor filled them with a +superstitious horror. In the crowd more than one covered his face with +his hands. + +All at once there came a shout of warning. The wall opened outward, +tottered and fell. + +Then it was that they saw the writhing figure, tangled in the twisted +lead bars of the wrecked rose-window. Shielding their faces from the +unendurable heat, they reached and bore it to safety, laying it on the +crisp, snowy grass, and tearing off the singed and smoking ministerial +robes. + +Judge Conwell was one of these. In the flaring confusion he leaned over +the figure--the gleam of the ruby ring on the finger caught his eye. He +bent forward to look into the drawn and distorted face. + +"Good God!" he said. "It's Harry Sanderson!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +A DAY FOR THE STATE + + +In communities such as Smoky Mountain the law moves with fateful +rapidity. Harry had been formally arraigned the second morning after his +self-surrender and had pleaded not guilty. The Grand Jury was in +session--indeed, had about finished its labors--and there had been no +reason for delay. All necessary witnesses for the state were on the +ground, and Felder for his part had no others to summon. So that when +Doctor Brent, one keen forenoon, swung himself off a Pullman at the +station, returning from his ten days' absence, he found the town +thrilling with the excitement of the first day of the trial. Before he +left the station, he had learned of Prendergast's death and accusation +and knew that Tom Felder had come to the prisoner's defense. + +Doctor Brent had taken no stock in the young lawyer's view of Hugh +Stires. The incident that they had witnessed on the mountain road--it +had troubled him during his trip--had been to him only another chapter +in the hackneyed tragedy of romantic womanhood flattered by a rascal. +He was inclined now to lay the championship as much to interest in +Jessica as in the man who had won her love. + +He walked thoughtfully to his friend's deserted office, and leaving his +suit-case there, betook himself to the filled court-room, where Smoky +Mountain had gathered to watch Felder's fight for the life and liberty +of the man who for days past had been the center of interest. The court +had opened two hours before and half the jury had been selected. He +found a seat with some difficulty, and thereafter his attention was +given first to the bench where the prisoner sat, and second to a chair +close to the railing beside Mrs. Halloran's, where a girl's face +glimmered palely under a light veil. + +Toward this chair the hundreds of eyes in the room that morning had +often turned. Since the day Mrs. Halloran had surprised Jessica at work +upon the rock statue, she had kept her counsel, but as the physician had +conjectured, the monument had been stumbled upon and had drawn curious +visitors. Thus the name on the grave had become common property and the +coincidence had been chattered of. That Jessica had chiselled the statue +was not doubted--she had bought the tools in town, and old Paddy Wise, +the blacksmith, had sharpened them for her. The story Prendergast had +told in the general store, too, had not been forgotten, and the aid she +had given the fever-stricken man had acquired a new significance in face +of the knowledge that she had more than once been admitted to the jail +with Felder. No one in Smoky Mountain would have ventured to "pump" the +lawyer, and the town had been too mindful of its manners to catechize +her, but it had buzzed with theories. From the moment of the opening of +the trial she had divided interest with the prisoner. + +The first appearance of the latter, between two deputies, had caused a +murmur of surprise. In the weeks of wholesome toil and mountain air, the +sallow, haggard look that Harry had brought to the town had gradually +faded; his step had grown more elastic, his cheek ruddier, his eye a +clearer blue. The scar on his temple had become less noticeable. Day by +day, he had been growing back to the old look. The beard and mustache +now were gone; the face they saw was smooth-shaven, calm, alien and +absorbed. He had bowed slightly to the judge, shaken hands gravely with +Felder and sat down with a quick, flashing smile at the quivering face +behind the veil. He had seemed of all there the one who had least +personal concern in the deliberations that were forward. Yet beneath +that mask of calmness Harry's every nerve was stretched, every sense +restive. + +In the interviews he had had with his client, Felder had been puzzled +and nonplussed. To tell the truth, when he had first come to his defense +it had been not with a conviction of his innocence, but with a belief in +the present altered character that made the law's penalty seem excessive +and supererogatory; in fine, that whatever he might have deserved when +he did it--assuming that he did it--he did not deserve hanging now. But +the man's manner had made him lean more and more upon an assumption of +actual innocence. In the end, while discarding Jessica's reasoning, he +had accepted her conclusion. The man was certainly guiltless. Since this +time, he had felt his position keenly. It had been one thing to do the +very best possible for a presumptively guilty man--to get him off +against the evidence if he could; it was a vastly different thing to +defend one whom he believed actually guiltless against damning +circumstance. + +With the filling of the jury-box the court adjourned for an hour and +Doctor Brent saw the two women's figures disappear with Felder into a +side room, while the prisoner was taken in charge by the deputies. The +doctor lunched hastily at the Mountain Valley House, irritated out of +his usual urbanity by the chatter of the crowded dining-room, realizing +then how busy gossip had been with Jessica's name. He walked back to +the court-room moodily smoking. + +The afternoon session commenced with a concise opening by the district +attorney; Felder's reply was as brief, and the real business of the day +began with the witnesses for the state. + +Circumstantially speaking, the evidence was flawless. Doctor Moreau, +while little known and less liked, had figured in the town as a promoter +and an inventor of "slick" stock schemes. He had come there with Hugh +Stires, from Sacramento, where they had had a business partnership--of +short duration. There had been bad blood between them there, as the +latter had once admitted. The prisoner had preëmpted the claim on Smoky +Mountain in an abortive "boom" which Moreau had engineered, and over +whose proceeds the pair, it was believed, had fallen out. He had then, +to use the attorney's phrase, "swapped the devil for the witch," and had +taken up with Prendergast, who by the manner of his taking off had +finally justified a jail record in another state. Soon after this break +Hugh Stires had vanished. On the day following his last appearance in +the town, the body of Moreau had been found on the Little Paymaster +Claim, shot by a cowardly bullet through the back--a fact which +precluded the possibility that the deed had been done in self-defense. +There was evidence that he had died a painful and lingering death. +Suspicion had naturally pointed to the vanished man, and this suspicion +had grown until, after some months' absence, he had returned, alleging +that he had lost his memory of the past, to resume his life in the cabin +on the mountain and his partnership with the thief Prendergast. The two +had finally quarrelled and Prendergast had taken up his abode in the +town. Subsequent to this, the latter had been heard to make dark +insinuations, unnoted at the time but since grown significant, hinting +at criminal knowledge of the prisoner. The close of this chapter had +been Prendergast's dismal end in the gulch, when he had produced the +scrap of paper which was the crux of the case. He declared he had found +Moreau dying; that the latter had traced with his own hand the +accusation which fastened the crime upon Hugh Stires. Specimens of +Moreau's handwriting were not lacking and seemed to prove beyond +question its authenticity. + +Such were the links of the coil which wound, with each witness, closer +and closer--none knew better how closely than Harry Sanderson himself. +As witness succeeded witness, his heart sank. Jessica's burden was not +to be lightened; Hugh must remain a Cain, a dweller in the dark places +of the earth. In the larger part, his own sacrifice was to fail! + +In his cross-examination Felder had fought gamely to lighten the weight +of the evidence: The prisoner's old associations with Moreau had been +amicable, else they would not have come to Smoky Mountain together; if +he had been disliked and avoided, the circumstance was referable rather +to his companionships than to his own actions; whatever the pervasive +contempt, there had been nothing criminal on the books against him. The +lawyer's questions touched the baleful whisper that had become +allegation and indictment, a prejudged conviction of guilt. They made it +clear that the current belief had been the fruit of antipathy and bias; +that it had been no question of evidence; so far as that went, he, +Felder, might have done the deed, or Prendergast, or any one there. But +Smoky Mountain would have said, as it did say, "It was Hugh Stires!" He +compelled the jury to recognize that but one bit of actual evidence had +been offered--there had been no eye-witness, no telltale incident. All +rested upon a single scrap of paper, a fragment of handwriting in no way +difficult of imitation, and this in turn upon the allegation of a thief, +struck down in an act of crime, whose word in an ordinary case of fact +would not be worth a farthing. No motive had been alleged for the +killing of Moreau by the prisoner, but Prendergast had had motive enough +in his accusation. It had been open knowledge that he hated Hugh Stires, +and his own character made it evident that he would not have scrupled to +fasten a murder upon him. + +But as Felder studied the twelve grave faces in the jury-box, who in the +last analysis were all that counted, he shared his client's +hopelessness. Judgment and experience told him how futile were all +theories in the face of that inarticulate but damning witness that +Prendergast had left behind him. So the afternoon dragged through, a day +for the State. + +Sunset came early at that season. Dark fell and the electric bulbs made +their mimic day, but no one left the room. The outcome seemed a foregone +conclusion. The jurymen no longer gazed at the prisoner, and when they +looked at one another, it was with grim understanding. As the last +witness for the State stepped down and the prosecutor rested, the judge +glanced at the clock. + +"There is a bare half-hour," he said tentatively. "Perhaps the defense +would prefer not to open testimony till to-morrow." + +Felder had risen. He saw his opportunity--to bring out sharply a +contrasting point in the prisoner's favor, the one circumstance, +considered apart, pointing toward innocence rather than guilt--to leave +this for the jury to take with them, to off-set by its effect the weight +of the evidence that had been given. + +"I will proceed, if your Honor pleases," he said, and amid a rustle of +surprise and interest called Jessica to the stand. + +As she went forward to the witness chair, she put back the shielding +veil, and her face, pale as bramble-bloom under her red-bronze hair, +made an appealing picture. A cluster of white carnations was pinned to +her coat and as she passed Harry she bent and laid one in his hand. The +slight act, not lost upon the spectators, called forth a sibilant +flutter of sympathy. For it wore no touch of designed effect; its +impulse was as pure and unmistakable as its meaning. + +Harry had started uncontrollably as she rose, for he had had no inkling +of the lawyer's intention, and a flush darkened his cheek at the cool +touch of the flower. But this faded to a settled pallor, as under +Felder's grave questioning she told in a voice as clear as a child's, +yet with a woman's emotion struggling through it, the story of her +disregarded warning. While she spoke pain and shame travelled through +his every vein, for--though technically she had not brought herself into +the perplexing purview of the law--she was laying bare the secret of +her own heart, which now he would have covered at any cost. + +"That is all, your Honor," said Felder, when Jessica had finished her +story. + +"Do you wish to cross-examine?" asked the judge perfunctorily. + +The prosecutor looked at her an instant. He saw the faintness in her +eyes, the twitching of the gloved hand on the rail. "By no means," he +said courteously, and turned to his papers. + +At the same moment, as Jessica stepped into the open aisle, the ironic +chance which so often relieves the strain of the tragic by a breath of +the banal, treated the spellbound audience to a novel sensation. Every +electric light suddenly went out, and darkness swooped upon the town and +the court-room. A second's carelessness at the power-house a half-mile +away--the dropping of a bit of waste into a cog-wheel--and the larger +mechanism that governed the issues of life and death was thrown into +instant confusion. Hubbub arose--people stood up in their places. + +The judge's gavel pounded viciously and his stentorian voice bellowed +for order. + +"Keep your seats, everybody!" he commanded. "Mr. Clerk, get some +candles. This court is not yet adjourned!" + +To Jessica the sudden blankness came with a nervous shock. Since that +first meeting in the jail she had pinned her faith on the reassurance +that had been given her. She had fought down doubt and questioning and +leaned hard upon her trust. But in her overwrought condition, as the end +drew near with no solution of the enigma, this faith sometimes faltered. +The mystery was so impenetrable, the peril so imminent! To-day, in the +court-room, her subtle sense had told her that, belief and conviction +aside, a pronounced feeling of sympathy existed for the man she loved. +She had not needed Mrs. Halloran's comforting assurances on this score, +for the atmosphere was surcharged with it. She had felt it when she laid +the carnation in his hand, and even more unmistakably while she had +given her testimony. She had realized the value of that one unvarnished +fact, introduced so effectively--that he had had time to get away, and +instead had chosen to surrender himself. + +Yet even as she thrilled to the responsive current, Jessica had not been +deceived. She felt the pitiful impotence of mere sympathy against the +apparent weight of evidence that had frightened her. Surely, surely, if +he was to save himself, the truth must come out speedily! But the end of +it all was in sight and he had not spoken. To-day as she watched his +face, the thought had come to her that perhaps his reassurance had been +given only to comfort her and spare her anguish. The thought had come +again and again to torture her; only by a great effort had she been able +to give her testimony. As the pall of darkness fell upon the court-room, +it brought a sense of premonition, as though the incident prefigured the +gloomy end. She turned sick, and stumbled down the aisle, feeling that +she must reach the outer air. + +A pushing handful opened the way to the corridor, and in a moment more +she was in the starlit out-of-doors, fighting down her faintness, with +the babble of talk behind her and the cool breeze on her cheek. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +THE UNSUMMONED WITNESS + + +In the room Jessica had left, the turmoil was simmering down; here and +there a match was struck and showed a circle of brightness. The glimmer +of one of them lit the countenance of a man who had brushed her sleeve +as he entered. It was Hallelujah Jones. The evangelist had prolonged his +stay at Smoky Mountain, for the town, thrilling to its drama of crime +and judgment, had seemed a fruitful vineyard. He had no local interest +in the trial of Hugh Stires, and had not attended its session; but he +had been passing the place when the lights went out and in curiosity had +crowded into the confusion, where now he looked about him with eager +interest. + +A candle-flame fluttered now, like a golden butterfly, on the judge's +desk, another on the table inside the bar. More grew along the walls +until the room was bathed in tremulous yellow light. It touched the +profile of the prisoner, turned now, for his look had followed Jessica +and was fixed questioningly on her empty seat. In the unseeing darkness +Harry had held the white carnation to his lips before he drew its stem +through his lapel. + +The street preacher's jaw dropped in blank astonishment, for what he saw +before him brought irresistibly back another scene that, months before, +had bit into his mind. The judge's high desk turned instantly to a +chapel altar, and the table back of the polished railing to a communion +table. The minister that had looked across it in the candle-light had +worn a white carnation in his buttonhole. His face-- + +Hallelujah Jones started forward with an exclamation. A thousand times +his zealot imagination had pictured the recreant clergyman he had +unmasked as an outcast, plunging toward the lake of brimstone. Here it +was at last in his hand, the end of the story! The worst of criminals, +skulking beneath an alias! He sprang up the aisle. + +"Wait! wait!" he cried. "I have evidence to give!" He pointed excitedly +toward Harry. "This man is not what you think! He is not--" + +Forensic thunder loosed itself from the wrathful judge's desk, and +crashed across the stupefied room. His gavel thumped upon the wood. "How +dare you," he vociferated, "break in upon the deliberations of this +court! I fine you twenty dollars for contempt!" + +Felder had leaped to his feet, every sense on the _qui vive_. Like a +drowning man he grasped at the straw. What could this man know? He took +a bill from his pocket and clapped it down on the clerk's desk. + +"I beg to purge him of contempt," he said, "and call him as a witness." + +The district attorney broke in: + +"Your Honor, I think I am within my rights in protesting against this +unheard-of proceeding. The man is a vagrant of unknown character. His +very action proclaims him mentally unbalanced. Beyond all question he +can know nothing of this case." + +"I have not my learned opponent's gift of clairvoyance," retorted Felder +tartly. "I repeat that I call this man as a witness." + +The judge pulled his whiskers and looked at the evangelist in severe +annoyance. "Take the stand," he said gruffly. + +Hallelujah Jones snatched the Bible from the clerk's hands and kissed +it. Knowledge was burning his tongue. The jury were leaning forward in +their seats. + +"Have you ever seen the prisoner before?" asked Felder. + +"Yes." + +"When?" + +"When he was a minister of the gospel." + +Felder stared. The judge frowned. The jury looked at one another and a +laugh ran round the hushed room. + +The merriment kindled the evangelist's distempered passion. Sudden anger +flamed in him. He leaned forward and shook his hand vehemently at the +table where Harry sat, his face as colorless as the flower he wore. + +"That man's name," he blazed, "is not Hugh Stires! It is a cloak he has +chosen to cover his shame! He is the Reverend Henry Sanderson of +Aniston!" + + + + +CHAPTER XL + +FATE'S WAY + + +Harry's pulses had leaped with excitement when the street preacher's +first exclamation startled the court-room; now they were beating as +though they must burst. He was not to finish the losing struggle. The +decision was to be taken from his hands. Fate had interfered. This bigot +who had once been the means of his undoing, was to be the _deus ex +machina_. Through the stir about him he heard the crisp voice of the +district attorney: + +"I ask your Honor's permission, before this extraordinary witness is +examined further," he said caustically, "to read an item printed here +which has a bearing upon the testimony." He held in his hand a newspaper +which, earlier in the afternoon, with cynical disregard of Felder's +tactics, he had been casually perusing. + +"I object, of course," returned Felder grimly. + +"Objection overruled!" snapped the irritated judge. "Read it, sir." + +Holding the newspaper to a candle, the lawyer read in an even voice, +prefacing his reading with the journal's name and date: + + + "This city, which was aroused in the night by the burning of St. + James Chapel, will be greatly shocked to learn that its rector, the + Reverend Henry Sanderson, who has been for some months on a + prolonged vacation, was in the building at the time, and now lies + at the city hospital, suffering from injuries from which it is + rumored there is grave doubt of his recovery." + + +In the titter that rippled the court-room Harry felt his heart bound and +swell. Under the succinct statement he clearly discerned the fact. He +saw the pitfall into which Hugh had fallen--the trap into which he +himself had sent him on that fatal errand with the ruby ring on his +finger. "Grave doubt of his recovery!"--a surge of relief swept over him +to his finger-tips. Dead men can not be brought to bar--so Jessica would +escape shame. With Hugh passed beyond human justice, he could declare +himself. The bishop had guarded his secret, and saved the parish from an +unwelcome scandal. He could explain--could tell him that illness and +unbalance lay beneath that chapel game! He could take up his career! He +would be free to go back--to be himself again--to be Jessica's--if Hugh +died! The reading voice drummed in his ears: + + + "The facts have not as yet been ascertained, but it seems clear + that the popular young minister returned to town unexpectedly last + night, and was asleep in his study when the fire started. His + presence in the building was unguessed until too late, and it was + by little short of a miracle that he was brought out alive. + + "As we go to press we learn that Mr. Sanderson's condition is much + more hopeful than was at first reported." + + +Harry's heart contracted as if a giant hand had clutched it. His elation +fell like a rotten tree girdled at the roots. If Hugh _did not_ die! He +chilled as though in a spray of liquid air. Hugh's escape--the chance +his conscience had given him, was cut off. He had not betrayed him when +the way was open; how could he do so now when flight was barred? If to +deliver him then to the hangman would have been cowardice, how much more +cowardly now, when it was to save himself, and when the other was +helpless? And the law demanded its victim! + +As a drowning man sees flit before him the panorama of his life, so in +this clarifying instant these lurid pictures of the tangle of his past +flashed across Harry's mental vision. + +The judge reached for the newspaper the lawyer held, ran his eye over +it, and brought his gavel down with an angry snort. + +"Take him away," he said. "His testimony is ordered stricken from the +records. The fine is remitted, Mr. Felder--we can't make you responsible +for lunatics. Bailiff, see that this man has no further chance to +disturb these proceedings. The court stands adjourned." + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + +FELDER WALKS WITH DOCTOR BRENT + + +Felder had been among the last to leave the court-room. He was +discomfited and angry. He had meant to make a telling point for the +defense, and the unbalanced imagination of a strolling, bigot gospeller +had undone him. His own precipitate and ill-considered action had +uncovered an idiotic mare's-nest, to taint his appeal with bathos and +open his cause with a farcical anti-climax. He glumly gathered his +scattered papers, put with them the leaf of the newspaper from which the +district attorney had read, and despatched the lot to his office by a +messenger. + +At the door of the court-house Doctor Brent slipped an arm through his. + +"Too bad, Tom," he said sympathizingly. "I don't think you quite +deserved it." + +Felder paced a moment without speaking. "I need evidence," he said then, +"--anything that may help. I made a mistake. You heard all the +testimony?" + +The other nodded. + +"What did you think of it?" + +"What could any one think? I give all credit to your motive, Tom, but +it's a pity you're mixed up in it." + +"Why?" + +"Because, if there's anything in human evidence, he's a thoroughly +worthless reprobate. He lay for Moreau and murdered him in cold blood, +and he ought to swing." + +"The casual view," said the lawyer gloomily. "Just what I should have +said myself--if this had happened a month ago." + +His friend looked at him with an amused expression. "I begin to think he +must be a remarkable man!" he said. "Is it possible he has really +convinced you that he isn't guilty?" + +Felder turned upon the doctor squarely. "Yes," he returned bluntly. "He +has. Whatever I may have believed when I took this case, I have come to +the conclusion--against all my professional instincts, mind you--that he +never killed Moreau. I believe he's as innocent as either you or I!" + +The physician looked puzzled. "You believe Moreau's hand didn't write +that accusation?" + +"I don't know." + +"Do you think he lied?" + +"I don't know what to think. But I am convinced Hugh Stires isn't +lying. There's a mystery in the thing that I can't get hold of." He +caught the physician's half-smile. "Oh, I know what you think," he said +resentfully. "You think it is Miss Holme. I assure you I am defending +Hugh Stires for his own sake!" + +"She played you a close second to-day," observed the doctor shrewdly. +"That carnation--I never saw a thing better done." + +Felder drew his arm away. "Miss Holme," he said almost stiffly, "is as +far from acting--" + +"My dear fellow!" exclaimed the other. "Don't snap me up. She's a +gentlewoman, and everything that is lovely. If she were the reason, I +should honor you for it. I'm very deeply sorry for her. For my part, I'm +sure I wish you might get him off. She loves him, and doesn't care who +sees it, and if he were as bad as the worst, a woman like that could +make a man of him. But I know juries. In towns like this they take +themselves pathetically in earnest. On the evidence so far, they'll +convict fast enough." + +"I know it," said the lawyer despondently. "And yet he's innocent. I'd +stake my life on it. It's worthless as evidence and I shan't introduce +it, but he has as good as admitted to her that he knows who did it." + +"Come, come! Putting his neck into the noose for mere Quixotic feeling? +And who, pray, in this Godforsaken town, should he be sacrificing +himself for?" the doctor asked satirically. + +"That's the rub," said the lawyer. "Nobody. Yet I hang by my +proposition." + +"Well, he'll hang by something less tenuous, I'm afraid. But it won't be +your fault. The crazy evangelist was only an incident. He merely served +to jolt us back to the normal. By the way, did you hear him splutter +after he got out?" + +"No." + +"You remember the story he told the other night of the minister who was +caught gambling on his own communion table? Well, Hugh Stires is not +only the Reverend Henry Something-or-other, but he is that man, too! The +crack-brained old idiot would have told the tale all over again, only +the crowd hustled him. + +"There he is now," he said suddenly, as a light sprang up and voices +broke out on the opposite corner. "The gang is standing by. I see your +friend Barney McGinn," he added, with a grim enjoyment. "I doubt if +there are many converts to-night." + +Even as he spoke, there came a shout of laughter and warning. The +spectators scattered in all directions, and a stream of water from a +well-directed hose deluged the itinerant and his music-box. + +Ten minutes later the street preacher, drenched and furious, was +trundling his melodeon toward Funeral Hollow, on his way to the coast. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + +THE RECKONING + + +As Harry stood again in the obscure half-darkness of his cell, it came +to him that the present had a far-reaching significance--that it was but +the handiwork and resultant of forces in his own past. He himself had +brewed the bitter wormwood he must drink. Jessica's quivering +arraignment on that lurid wedding-day in the white house in the +aspens--it had been engraven ever since on his buried memory!--rang in +his mind: + +_You were strong and he was weak. You led and he followed. You were +"Satan Sanderson," Abbot of the Saints, the set in which he learned +gambling. You helped to make him what he has become!_ + +They had made variant choice, and that choice had left Harry Sanderson +in training for the gaiters of a bishop, and Hugh Stires treading the +paths of dalliance and the gambler. But he himself had set Hugh's feet +on the red path that had pointed him to the shameful terminus. He had +gambled for Hugh's future, forgetting that his past remained, a thing +that must be covered. He had won Hugh's counters, but his own right to +be himself he had staked and lost long before that game on the communion +table under the painted crucifixion. + +The words he had once said to Hugh recurred to him with a kind of awe: +"Put myself in your place? I wish to God I could!" + +Fate--or was it God?--had taken him at his word. He had been hurled like +a stone from a catapult into Hugh's place, to bear his knavery, to +suffer his dishonor, and to redeem the baleful reputation he had made. +He had been his brother's keeper and had failed in the trust; now the +circle of retribution, noiseless and inexorable as the wheeling of that +vast scorpion cluster in the sky, evened the score and brought him again +to the test! And, in the supreme strait, was he, a poor poltroon, to +step aside, to cry "enough," to yield ignobly? Even if to put aside the +temptation might bring him face to face with the final shameful penalty? + +This, then, was the meaning of the strange sequence of events through +which he had been passing since the hour when he had awakened in the +box-car! Living, he was not to betray Hugh; the Great Purpose behind all +meant that he should go forward on the path he had chosen to the end! + +A step outside the cell, the turning of the key. The door opened, and +Jessica, pale and trembling, stood on the threshold. + +"I can not help it," she said, as she came toward him, "though you told +me not to come. I have trusted all the while, and waited, and--and +prayed. But to-day I was afraid." + +She paused, locking her hands before her, looking at him in an agony of +entreaty. When she had fled from the court-room to the open air, she had +walked straight away toward the mountain, struggling in the cool wind +and motion against the feeling of physical sickness and anguish. But she +had only partly regained her self-possession. Returning, the thinning +groups about the dim-lit door had made it clear that the session was +over. In her painful confusion of mind she had acted on a peremptory +impulse that drove her to the jail, where her face had quickly gained +her entrance. + +"Surely, surely," she went on, "the man you are protecting has had time +enough! Hasn't he? Won't you tell them the truth now?" + +He knew not how to meet the piteous reproach and terror of that look. +She had not heard the street preacher's declaration, he knew, but even +if she had, it would have been to her only an echo of the old mooted +likeness. He had given her comfort once--but this was no more to be. No +matter what it meant to him, or to her! + +"Jessica," he said steadily, "when you came to me here that first day, +and I told you not to fear for me, I did not mean to deceive you. I +thought then that it would all come right. But something has happened +since then--something that makes a difference. I can not tell who was +the murderer of Moreau. I can not tell you or any one else, either now +or at any time." + +She gazed at him startled. She had a sudden conception of some element +hitherto unguessed in his make-up, something inveterate and adamant. +Could it be that he did not intend to tell at all? The very idea was +monstrous! Yet that clearly was his meaning. She looked at him with +flashing eyes. + +"You mean you will not?" she exclaimed bitterly. "You are bent on +sacrificing yourself, then! You are going to take this risk because you +think it brave and noble, because somehow it fits your man's gospel! +Can't you see how wicked and selfish it is? You are thinking only of +him, and of yourself, not of me!" + +"Jessica, Jessica!" he protested with a groan. But in the self-torture +of her questionings she paid no heed. + +"Don't you think I suffer? Haven't I borne enough in the months since I +married you, for you to want to save me this? Do you owe me nothing, me +whom you so wronged, whose--" + +She stopped suddenly at the look on his face of mortal pain, for she had +struck harder than she knew. It pierced through the fierce resentment to +her deepest heart, and all her love and pity gushed back upon her in a +torrent. She threw herself on her knees by the bare cot, crying +passionately: + +"Oh, forgive me! Forget what I said! I did not mean it. I have forgiven +you a thousand times over. I never ceased to love you. I love you now, +more than all the world." + +"It is true," he said, hoarse misery in his tone. "I have wronged you. +If I could coin my blood drop by drop, to pay for the past, I could not +set that right. If giving my life over and over again would save you +pain, I would give it gladly. But what you ask now is the one thing I +can not do. It would make me a pitiful coward. I did not kill Moreau. +That is all I can say to you or to those who try me." + +"Your life!" she said with dry lips. "It will mean that. That counts so +fearfully much to me--more than my own life a hundred times. Yet there +is something that counts more than all that to you!" + +His face was that of a man who holds his hand in the fire. "Jessica," +he said, "it is like this with me. When you found me here--the day I saw +you on the balcony--I was a man whose soul had lost its compass and its +bearings. My conscience was asleep. You woke it, and it is fiercely +alive now. And now with my memory has come back a debt of my past that I +never paid. Whatever the outcome, for my soul's sake I must settle it +now and wipe it from the score for ever. Nothing counts--nothing can +count--more than you! But I must sail by the needle; I must be truthful +to the best that is in me." + +She rose slowly to her feet with a despairing gesture. + +"'_He saved others_,'" she quoted in a hard voice, "'_himself he could +not save!_' I once heard a minister preach from that text at home; it +was your friend, the Reverend Henry Sanderson. I thought it a very +spiritual sermon then--that was before I knew what his companionship had +been to you!" + +In the exclamation was the old bitterness that had had its spring in +that far-away evening at the white house in the aspens, when Harry +Sanderson had lifted the curtain from his college career. In spite of +David Stires' predilection, since that day she had distrusted and +disliked, at moments actively hated him. His mannerisms had seemed a +pose and his pretensions hypocrisy. On her wedding-day, when she lashed +him with the blame of Hugh's ruin, this had become an ingrained +prejudice, impregnable because rooted deeper than reason, in the +heritage of her sex, the eternal proclivity, which saw Harry Sanderson, +his motley covered with the sober domino of the Church, standing +self-righteously in surplice and stole, while Hugh slid downward to +disgrace. + +"If there were any justice in the universe," she added, "it should be he +immolating himself now, not you!" + +His face was not toward her and she could not see it go deadly white. +The sudden shift she had given the conversation had startled him. He +turned to the tiny barred window that looked out across the court-yard +square--where such a little time since he had found his lost self. + +"I think," he said, "that in my place, he would do the same." + +"You always admired him," she went on, the hard ring of misery in her +tone. "You admire him yet. Oh, men like him have such strange and wicked +power! Satan Sanderson!--it was a fit name. What right has he to be +rector of St. James, while you--" + +He put out a hand in flinching protest. "Jessica! Don't!" he begged. + +"Why should I not say it?" she retorted, with quivering lips. "But for +him you would never be here! He ruined your life and mine, and I hate +and despise him for a selfish hypocrite!" + +That was what he himself had seemed to her in those old days! The edge +of a flush touched his forehead as he said slowly, almost appealingly: + +"He was not a hypocrite, Jessica. Whatever he was it was not that. At +college he did what he did too openly. That was his failing--not caring +what others thought. He despised weakness in others; he thought it none +of his affair. So others were influenced. But after he came to see +things differently, from another standpoint--when he went into the +ministry--he would have given the world to undo it." + +"That may have been the Harry Sanderson you knew," she said stonily. +"The one I knew drove an imported motor-car and had a dozen fads that +people were always imitating. You are still loyal to the old college +worship. As men go, you count him still your friend!" + +"As men go," he echoed grimly, "the very closest!" + +"Men's likings are strange," she said. "Because he never had temptations +like yours, and has never done what the law calls wrong, you think he is +as noble as you--noble enough to shield a murderer to his own danger." + +"Ah, no, Jessica," he interposed gently. "I only said that in my place, +he would do the same." + +"But _you_ are shielding a murderer," she insisted fiercely. "You will +not admit it, but I know! There can be no justice or right in that! If +Harry Sanderson is all you think him--if he stood here now and knew the +whole--he would say it was wicked. Not brave and noble but wicked and +cruel!" + +He shook his head, and the sad shadow of a bitter smile touched his +lips. "He would not say so," he said. + +A dry sob answered him. He turned and leaned his elbows on the narrow +window-sill, every nerve aching, but powerless to comfort. He heard her +step--the door closed sharply. + +Then he faced into the empty cell, sat down on the cot and threw out his +arms with a hopeless cry: + +"Jessica, Jessica!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + +THE LITTLE GOLD CROSS + + +Jessica left the jail with despair in her heart. The hope on which she +had fed these past days had failed her. What was there left for her to +do? Like a swift wind she went up the street to Felder's office. + +A block beyond the court-house a crowd was enjoying the watery +discomfiture of Hallelujah Jones, and shrinking from recognition even in +the darkness--for the arc lights were still black--she crossed the +roadway and ran on to the unpretentious building where the lawyer had +his sanctum. She groped her way up the unlighted stair and tapped on the +door. There was no answer. She pushed it open and entered the empty +outer room, where a study lamp burned on the desk. + +A pile of legal looking papers had been set beside it and with them lay +a torn page of a newspaper whose familiar caption gave her a stab of +pain. Perhaps the news of the trial had found its way across the ranges, +to where the names of Stires and Moreau had been known. Perhaps every +one at Aniston already knew of it, was reading about it, pitying her! +She picked it up and scanned it hastily. There was no hint of the trial, +but her eye caught the news which had played its rôle in the court-room, +and she read it to the end. + +Even in her own trouble she read it with a shiver. Yet, awful as the +fate which Harry Sanderson had so narrowly missed, it was not to be +compared with that which awaited Hugh, for, awful as it was, it held no +shame! + +In a gust of feeling she slipped to her knees by the one sofa the room +contained and prayed passionately. As she drew out her handkerchief to +stanch the tears that came, something fell with a musical tinkle at her +feet. It was the little cross she had found in front of the hillside +cabin, that had lain forgotten in her pocket during the past anxious +days. She picked it up now and held it tightly in her hand, as if the +tangible symbol brought her closer to the Infinite Sympathy to which she +turned in her misery. As she pressed it, the ring at the top turned and +the cross parted in halves. Words were engraved on the inside of the +arms--a date and the name _Henry Sanderson_. + +The recurrence of the name jarred and surprised her. Hugh had dropped +it--an old keepsake of the friend who had been his _beau idéal_, his +exemplar, and whose ancient influence was still dominant. He had clung +loyally to the memento, blind in his constant liking, to the wrong that +friend had done him. She looked at the date--it was May 28th. She +shuddered, for that was the month and day on which Doctor Moreau had +been killed--the point had been clearly established to-day by the +prosecution. To the original owner of that cross, perhaps, the date that +had come into Hugh's life with such a sinister meaning, was a glad +anniversary! + +Suddenly she caught her hand to her cheek. A weird idea had rushed +through her brain. The religious symbol had stood for Harry Sanderson +and the chance coincidence of date had irresistibly pointed to the +murder. To her excited senses the juxtaposition held a bizarre, uncanny +suggestion. This cross--the very emblem of vicarious sacrifice!--suppose +Harry Sanderson had never given it to Hugh! Suppose he had lost it on +the hillside himself! + +She snatched up the paper again: "Who has been for some months on a +prolonged vacation"--the phrase stared sardonically at her. That might +carry far back--she said it under her breath, fearfully--beyond the +murder of Doctor Moreau! Her face burned, and her breath came sharp and +fast. Why, when she brought her warning to the cabin, had Hugh been so +anxious to get her away, unless to prevent her sight of the man who was +there--to whom he had taken her horse? Who was there in Smoky Mountain +whom he would protect at hazard of his own life? Yet in this crisis, +even, her appeal to his love had been fruitless. He had called Harry +Sanderson his closest friend, had said that in his place Harry would do +the same. She remembered his cry: "What you ask is the one thing I can +not do. It would make me a pitiful coward!" She had asked only that he +tell the truth. To protect a vulgar murderer was not courageous. But +what if they were bound by ties of old friendship and college +_camaraderie_? Men had their standards. + +Jessica's veins were all afire. A rector-murderer? A double career? Was +it beyond possibility? At the sanatorium she had re-read _The Mystery of +Edwin Drood_; now she thought of John Jasper, the choir-master, stealing +away from the cathedral to the London opium den to plan the murder of +his nephew. The mad thought gripped her imagination. Harry Sanderson had +been wild and lawless in his university days, a gamester, a skeptic--the +Abbot of the Saints! To her his pretensions had never seemed more than a +graceful sham, the generalities of religion he spread for the +delectation of fashionable St. James only "as sounding brass and a +tinkling cymbal." He had been a hard drinker in those days. What if the +old desire had run on beneath the fair exterior, denied and repressed +till it had burst control--till he had fled from those who knew him, to +Hugh, in whose loyalty he trusted, to give it rein in a debauch? Say +that this had happened, and that in the midst of it Moreau, whom he had +known in Aniston, had come upon him. Anticipating recognition, to cover +his own shame and save his career, in drunken frenzy perhaps, he might +have fired the shot on the hillside--that Moreau, taken unawares, had +thought was Hugh's! + +It came to her like an impinging ray of light--the old curious likeness +that had sometimes been made a jest of at the white house in the aspens. +Moreau and Prendergast had believed it to be Hugh! So had the town, for +the body had been found on his ground! But on the night when the real +murderer came again to the cabin--perhaps it was his coming that had +brought back the lost memory!--Hugh had known the truth. In the light of +this supposition his strained manner then, his present determination not +to speak, all stood plain. + +What had he meant by a debt of his past that he had never paid? He could +owe no debt to Harry Sanderson. If he owed any debt, it was to his dead +father, a thousand times more than the draft he had repaid. Could he be +thinking in his remorse that his father had cast him off--counting +himself nothing, remembering only that Harry Sanderson had been David +Stires' favorite, and St. James, which must be smirched by the odium of +its rector, the apple of his eye? + +Jessica had snatched at a straw, because it was the only buoyant thing +afloat in the dragging tide; now with a blind fatuousness she hugged it +tighter to her bosom. The joints of her reasoning seemed to dovetail +with fateful accuracy. She was swayed by instinct, and apparent +fallacies were glozed by old mistrust and terror of the outcome which +was driving her to any desperate expedient. Beside Hugh's salvation the +whole universe counted as nothing. She was in the grip of that fierce +passion of love's defense which feeds the romance of the world. One +purpose possessed her: to confront Harry Sanderson. What matter though +she missed the remainder of the trial? She could do nothing--her hands +were tied. If the truth lay at Aniston she would find it. She thought no +further than this. Once in Harry Sanderson's presence, what she should +say or do she scarcely imagined. The horrifying question filled her +thought to the exclusion of all that must follow its answer. It was +surety and self-conviction she craved--only to read in his eyes the +truth about the murder of Moreau. + +She suddenly began to tremble. Would the doctors let her see him? What +excuse could she give? If he was the man who had been in Hugh's cabin +that night, he had heard her speak, had known she was there. He must not +know beforehand of her coming, lest he have suspicion of her errand. +Bishop Ludlow--he could gain her access to him. Injured, dying perhaps, +maybe he did not guess that Hugh was in jeopardy for his crime. Guilty +and dying, if he knew this, he would surely tell the truth. But if he +died before she could reach him? The paper was some days old; he might +be dead already. She took heart, however, from the statement of his +improved condition. + +She sprang to her feet and looked at her chatelaine watch. The +east-bound express was overdue. There was no time to lose--minutes might +count. She examined her purse--she had money enough with her. + +Five minutes later she was at the station, a scribbled note was on its +way to Mrs. Halloran, and before a swinging red lantern, the long +incoming train was shuddering to a stop. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + +THE IMPOSTOR + + +In the long hospital the air was cool and filtered, drab figures passed +with soft footfalls and voices were measured and hushed. But no sense of +coolness or repose had come to the man whose racked body had been +tenderly borne there in the snowy dawn which saw the blackened ruins of +Aniston's most perfect edifice. + +Because of him tongues clacked on the street corner and bulletins were +posted in newspaper windows; carriages of tasteful equipment halted at +the hospital porte-cochère, messages flew back and forth, and the +telephone in the outer office whirred busily at unseasonable hours; but +from the clean screened room where he lay, all this was shut out. Only +the surgeons came and went, deftly refreshing the bandages which swathed +one side of his face, where the disfiguring flame had smitten--the other +side was untouched, save for a line across the brow, seemingly a thin, +red mark of excoriation. + +Hugh had sunk into unconsciousness with the awestruck exclamation +ringing in his ears: "Good God! It's Harry Sanderson!" He had drifted +back to conscious knowledge with the same words racing in his brain. +They implied that, so far as capture went, the old, curious resemblance +would stand his friend till he betrayed himself, or till the existence +of the real Harry Sanderson at Smoky Mountain did so for him. The +delusion must hold till he could have himself moved to some place where +his secret would be safer--till he could get away! + +This thought grew swiftly paramount; it overlapped the rigid agony of +his burns that made the bed on which he lay a fiery furnace; it gave +method to his every word and look. He took up the difficult part, and +after the superficial anguish dulled, complained no more and +successfully counterfeited cheerfulness and betterment. He said nothing +of the curiously recurrent and sickening stab of pain, searching and +deep-seated, that took his breath and left each time an increasing +giddiness. Whatever inner hurt this might betoken, he must hide it, the +sooner to leave the hospital, where each hour brought nearer the +inevitable disclosure. + +He thanked fortune now for the chapel game; few enough in Aniston would +care to see the unfrocked, disgraced rector of St. James! He did not +know that the secret was Bishop Ludlow's own, until the hour when he +opened his eyes, after a fitful sleep, upon the latter's face. + +The bishop was the first visitor and it was his first visit, for he had +been in a distant city at the time of the fire. Waiting the waking, he +had been mystified at the change a few months had wrought in the +countenance of the man whose disappearance had cost him so many +sleepless hours. The months of indulgence and rich living--on the money +he had won from Harry--had taken away Hugh's slightness, and his fuller +cheeks were now of the contour of Harry's own. But the bishop +distinguished new lines in the face on the pillow, an expression +unfamiliar and puzzling; the firmness and strength were gone, and in +their place was a haunting something that gave him a flitting suggestion +of the discarded that he could not shake off. + +Waking, the unexpected sight of the bishop startled Hugh; to the good +man's pain he had turned his face away. + +"My dear boy," the bishop had said, "they tell me you are stronger and +better. I thank God for it!" + +He spoke gently and with deep feeling. How could he tell to what extent +he himself, in mistaken severity, had been responsible for that +unaccustomed look? When Hugh did not answer, the bishop misconstrued the +silence. He leaned over the bed; the big cool hand touched the fevered +one on the white coverlid, where the ruby ring glowed, a coal in snow. + +"Harry," he said, "you have suffered--you are suffering now. But think +of me only as your friend. I ask no questions. We are going to begin +again where we left off." + +The words and tone had shown Hugh the situation and given him his cue. +He could put himself fairly in Harry's place, and with the instinct of +the actor he did so now, meeting the other's friendliness with a +hesitant eagerness. + +"I would like to do that," he said, "--to begin again. But the chapel is +gone." + +"Never mind that," said the bishop cheerfully. "You are only to get +well. We are going to rebuild soon, and we want your judgment on the +plans. Aniston is hanging on your condition, Harry," he went on. +"There's a small cartload of visiting-cards down-stairs for you. But I +imagine you haven't begun to receive yet, eh?" + +"I--I've seen nobody." Hugh spoke hurriedly and hoarsely. "Tell the +doctor to let no one come--no one but you. I--I'm not up to it!" + +"Why, of course not," said the bishop quickly. "You need quiet, and the +people can wait." + +The bishop chatted a while of the parish, Hugh replying only when he +must, and went away heartened. Before he left Hugh saw his way to hasten +his own going. On the next visit the seed was dropped in the bishop's +mind so cleverly that he thought the idea his own. That day he said to +the surgeon in charge: + +"He is gaining so rapidly, I have been wondering if he couldn't be taken +away where the climate will benefit him. Will he be able to travel +soon?" + +"I think so," answered the surgeon. "We suspected internal injury at +first, but I imagine the worst he has to fear is the disfigurement. +Mountain or sea air would do him good," he added reflectively; "what he +will need is tonic and building up." + +The bishop had revolved this in his mind. He knew a place on the coast, +tucked away in the cypresses, which would be admirable for +convalescence. He could arrange a special car and he himself could make +the journey with him. He proposed this to the surgeon and with his +approval put his plan in motion. In two days more Hugh found his going +fully settled. + +The idea admirably fitted his necessity. The spot the bishop had +selected was quiet and retired, and more, was near the port at which he +could most readily take ship for South America. Only one reflection made +him shiver: the route lay through the town of Smoky Mountain. Yet who +would dream of looking for a fugitive from the law in the secluded car +that carried a sick man? The risk would be small enough, and it was the +one way open! + +On the last afternoon before the departure, Hugh asked for the clothes +he had worn when he was brought to the hospital, found the gold-pieces +he had snatched in the burning chapel and tied them in a handkerchief +about his neck. They would suffice to buy his sea-passage. The one red +counter he had kept--it was from henceforth to be a reminder of the good +resolutions he had made so long ago--he slipped into a pocket of the +clothes he was to wear away, a suit of loose, comfortable tweed. + +Waiting restlessly for the hour of his going, Hugh asked for the +newspapers. Since the first he had had them read to him each day, +listening fearfully for the hue and cry. But to-day the surgeon put his +request aside. + +"After you are there," he said, "if Bishop Ludlow will let you. Not now. +You are almost out of my clutches, and I must tyrannize while I can." + +A quick look passed from him to his assistant as he spoke, for the +newspapers that afternoon had worn startling head-lines. The sordid +affairs of a mining town across the ranges had little interest for +Aniston, but the names of Stires and Moreau on the clicking wire had +waked it, thus late, to the sensation. The professional caution of the +tinker of human bodies wished, however, that no excitement should be +added to the unavoidable fatigue of his patient's departure. + +This fatigue was near to spelling defeat, after all, for the exertion +brought again the dreadful, stabbing pain, and this time it carried Hugh +into a region where feeling ceased, consciousness passed, and from which +he struggled back finally to find the surgeon bending anxiously over +him. + +"I don't like that sinking spell," the latter confided to his assistant +an hour later as they stood looking through the window after the +receding carriage. "It was too pronounced. Yet he has complained of no +pain. He will be in good hands at any rate." He tapped the glass +musingly with his forefinger. "It's curious," he said after a pause; "I +always liked Sanderson--in the pulpit. Somehow he doesn't appeal to me +at close range." + +The special car which the bishop had ready had been made a pleasant +interior; fern-boxes were in the corners, a caged canary swung from a +bracket, and a softly cushioned couch had been prepared for the sick +man. A moment before the start, as it was being coupled to the rear of +the resting train, while the bishop chatted with the conductor, a +flustered messenger boy handed him a telegram. It read: + + + I arrive Aniston to-morrow five. Confidential. Must see + you. Urgent. JESSICA. + + +The bishop read it in some perplexity. It was the first word he had +received from her since her marriage, but, aware of Hugh's forgery and +disgrace, he had not wondered at this. Since the news of David Stires' +death, he had looked for her return, for she was the old man's heir and +mistress now of the white house in the aspens. But he realized that it +would need all her courage to come back to this town whence she had fled +with her trouble--to lay bare an unsuspected and shameful secret, to +meet old friends, and answer questions that must be asked. The +newspapers to-day pictured a still worse shame for her, in the position +of the man who, in name still, was her husband--who had trod so swiftly +the downward path from thievery to the worst of crimes. Could Jessica's +coming have to do with that? He must see her, yet his departure could +not now be delayed. He consulted with the conductor and the latter pored +over his tablets. + +As a result, his answering message flashed along the wires to Jessica's +far-away train: + + + Sanderson injured. Taking him to coast train forty-eight due Twin + Peaks two to-morrow afternoon. + + +And thus the fateful moment approached when the great appeal should be +made. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV + +AN APPEAL TO CÆSAR + + +The evidence of the first day's trial of the case of the People against +Hugh Stires was the all-engrossing topic that night in Smoky Mountain. +In the "Amen Corner" of the Mountain Valley House it held sway. Among +the sedate group there gathered, there seemed but one belief: that the +accused man was guilty--but one feeling: that of regret. Gravity lay so +heavily upon the atmosphere there that when Mrs. Halloran momentarily +entered the discussion to declare fiercely that "if Hugh Stires was a +murderer, then they were all thieves and she a cannibal" she aroused no +smile. Barney McGinn perhaps aptly expressed the consensus of opinion +when he said: "I allow we all know he's guilty, but nobody believes it." + +Late as Smoky Mountain sat up that night, however, it was on hand next +morning, rank and file, when the court convened. + +All the previous evening, save for a short visit to the cell of his +client, Felder had remained shut in his office, thinking of the morrow. +In his talk with Harry he had not concealed his deep anxiety, but to +his questions there was no new answer, and he had returned from the +interview more nonplussed than ever. He had wondered that Jessica, on +this last night, did not come to his office, but had been rather +relieved than otherwise that she did not. He had gone to bed heavy with +discouragement and had waked in the morning with foreboding. + +As he shook hands with the prisoner in the packed court-room, Felder +felt a keen admiration that his sense of painful impotence could not +overlay. He read in the composed face the same prescience that possessed +him, but it held no fear or shadow of turning. He was facing the +scaffold; facing it--if the woman he loved was right in her +conclusions--in obedience to a set idea of self-martyrdom and with +indomitable spirit. It was inconceivable that a sane man would do this +for a sneaking assassin. It was either aberration or a relentless +purpose so extraordinary that it lay far removed from the ordinary +courses of reasoning. Felder's own conviction had no bolstering of fact, +no logical premise; indeed, as he had admitted to Doctor Brent, it was +thoroughly unprofessional. Even to cite the circumstances on which +Jessica based her belief that Hugh knew the real murderer would weaken +his case. The suggestion would seem a mere bungling expedient to inject +the tantalizing fillip of mystery and unbelievable Quixotic motive, +and, lacking evidence to support it, would touch the whole fabric with +the taint of the meretricious. The sense of painful responsibility and +hopelessness oppressed him, for, so far as real evidence went, he had +entered on this second day of the struggle without a tangible theory of +defense. + +As he turned from greeting his client, Felder noted with surprise that +Jessica was not in her place. Not that he needed her further testimony, +for he had drawn from her the day before all he intended to utilize, but +her absence disturbed him, and instinctively he turned and looked across +the sea of faces toward the door. + +Harry's glance followed his, and a deeper pain beleaguered it as his +eyes returned to the empty chair. He saw Mrs. Halloran whisper eagerly +with the lawyer, who turned away with a puzzled look. In his bitterness +the thought came to him that the testimony had sapped her conviction of +his innocence--that his refusal to answer her entreaties had been the +last straw to the load under which it had gone down--that she believed +him indeed the murderer of Moreau. To seem the cringing criminal, the +pitiful liar and actor in her eyes! The thought stung him. Her faith had +meant so much! + +The ominous feeling weighed heavily on Felder when he rose to continue +the testimony for the prisoner, so rudely disturbed the evening before. +In such a community pettifogging was of no avail. Throwing expert dust +in jurors' eyes would be worse than useless. In his opening words he +made no attempt to conceal the weakness of the defense, evidentially +considered. Stripped of all husk, his was to be an appeal to Cæsar. + +Through a cloud of witnesses, concisely, consistently--yet with a +winning tactfulness that disarmed the objections of the prosecution--he +began to lead them through the series of events that had followed the +arrival of the self-forgotten man. Out of the mouths of their own +neighbors--Devlin, Barney McGinn, Mrs. Halloran, who came down +weeping--they were made to see, as in a cyclorama, the struggle for +rehabilitation against hatred and suspicion, the courage that had dared +for a child's life, the honesty of purpose that showed in +self-surrender. The prisoner, he said, had recovered his memory before +the accusation and asserted his absolute innocence. Those who believed +him guilty of the murder of Doctor Moreau must believe him also a vulgar +liar and _poseur_. He left the inference clear: If the prisoner had +fired that cowardly shot, he knew it now; if he lied now he had lied all +along, and the later life he had lived at Smoky Mountain--eloquent of +fair-dealing, straightforwardness of purpose, kindliness and +courage--had been but hypocrisy, the bootless artifice of a shallow +buffoon. + +It was an appeal sustained and moving, addressed to folk who, +untrammelled by a complex and variform convention, felt simply and +deeply the simplest and deepest passions of human kind. Often, as the +morning grew, Felder's glance turned toward the empty chair near-by, and +more than once, though his active thought never wavered from the serious +business in hand, his subconscious mind wondered. Mrs. Halloran had told +him of the note from Jessica--it had said only that she would return at +the earliest possible moment. The wonder in Felder's mind was general +throughout the court-room, for none who had listened to Jessica's +testimony--and the whole town had heard it--could doubt the strength of +her love. The eyes that saw the empty chair were full of pity. Only the +knot of serious faces in the jury-box was seldom turned that way. + +The session was prolonged past the noon hour, and when Felder rested his +case it seemed that all that was possible had been said. He had done his +utmost. He had drawn from the people of Smoky Mountain a dramatic story, +and had filled in its outlines with color, force and feeling. And yet, +as he closed, the lawyer felt a sick sense of failure. + +Court adjourned for an hour, and in the interim Felder remained in a +little room in the building, whither Doctor Brent was to send him +sandwiches and coffee from the hotel. + +"You made a fine effort, Tom," the latter said, as they stood for a +moment in the emptying court-room. "You're doing wonders with no case, +and the town ought to send you to Congress on the strength of it! I +declare, some of your evidence made me feel as mean as a dog about the +rascal, though I knew all the time he was as guilty as the devil." + +The lawyer shook his head. "I don't blame you, Brent," he said, "for you +don't know him as I do. I have seen much of him lately, been often with +him, watched him under stress--for he doesn't deceive himself, he has no +thought of acquittal! We none of us knew Hugh Stires. We put him down +for a shallow, vulgar blackleg, without redeeming qualities. But the man +we are trying is a gentleman, a refined and cultivated man of taste and +feeling. I have learned his true character during these days." + +"Well," said the other, "if you believe in him, so much the better. +You'll make the better speech for it. Tell me one thing--where was Miss +Holme?" + +"I don't know." + +The doctor raised his eyebrows. "Good-by," he said. "I'll send over the +coffee and sandwiches," he added as he turned away. + +"She thinks he is guilty!" he said to himself as he walked up the +street. "She thinks he is guilty, too!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI + +FACE TO FACE + + +To stand face to face with Harry Sanderson--that had been Jessica's sole +thought. The news that the bishop, with the man she suspected, was +speeding toward her--to pass the very town wherein Hugh stood for his +life--seemed a prearrangement of eternal justice. When the telegram +reached her, she had already gone by Twin Peaks. To proceed would be to +pass the coming train. At a farther station, however, she was able to +take a night train back, arriving again at Twin Peaks in the gray dawn +of the next morning. At the dingy station hotel there she undressed and +lay down, but her nerves were quivering and she could not close her +eyes. Toward noon she dressed and forced herself to breakfast, realizing +the need of strength. She spent the rest of the time of waiting walking +up and down in the crisp air, which steadied her nerves and gave her a +measure of control. + +When the train for which she waited came in, the curtained car at its +end, she did not wait for the bishop to find her on the platform, but +stepped aboard and made her way slowly back. It started again as she +threaded the last Pullman, to find the bishop on its rear platform +peering out anxiously at the receding station. + +He took both her hands and drew her into the empty drawing-room. He was +startled at her pallor. "I know," he said pityingly. "I have heard." + +She winced. "Does Aniston know?" + +"Yes," he answered. "Yesterday's newspapers told it." + +She put her hand on his arm. "Can you guess why I was coming home?" she +asked. "It was to tell Harry Sanderson! I know of the fire," she went on +quickly, "and of his injury. I can guess you want to spare him strain or +excitement, but I must tell him!" + +"It is a matter of physical strength, Jessica," he said. "He has been a +sick man. Forgive my saying it, child, but--what good could it do?" + +"Believe, oh, you must believe," she pleaded, "that I do not ask this +lightly, that I have a purpose that makes it necessary. It means so +much--more than my life to me! Why, I have waited here at Twin Peaks all +through the night, till now, when this very day and hour they are trying +him there at Smoky Mountain! You must let me tell him!" + +He reflected a moment. He thought he guessed what was in her mind. If +there was any one who had ever had an influence over Hugh for good, it +was Harry Sanderson. He himself, he thought, had none. Perhaps, +remembering their old comradeship, she was longing now to have this +influence exerted, to bring Hugh to a better mind--thinking of his +eternal welfare, of his making his peace with his Maker. Beneath his +prosy churchmanship and somewhat elaborate piety, the bishop had a +spirituality almost medieval in its simplicity. Perhaps this was God's +way. His eyes lighted. + +"Very well," he said. "Come," and led the way into the car. + +Jessica followed, her hands clenched tightly. She saw the couch, the +profile on its cushions turned toward the window where forest and stream +slipped past--a face curiously like Hugh's! Yet it was different, +lacking the other's strength, even its refinement. And this man had +molded Hugh! These vague thoughts lost themselves instantly in the +momentous surmise that filled her imagination. The bishop put out his +hand and touched the relaxed arm. + +The trepidation that darted into the bandaged face as it turned upon the +girlish figure, the frosty fear that blanched the haggard countenance, +spoke Hugh's surprise and dread. It was she, and she knew the real +Harry Sanderson was in Smoky Mountain. Had she heard of the chapel fire, +guessed the imposture, and come to denounce him, the guilty husband she +had such reason to hate? The twitching limbs stiffened. "Jessica!" he +said in a hoarse whisper. + +For an instant a fierce sense of triumph flamed through her every nerve. +But a cold doubt chilled it. Her suspicion might be the veriest chimera. +It seemed suddenly too wild for belief. She sat down abruptly and for a +fleeting moment hid her face. The bishop touched the bowed, brown head. + +"Harry," he said, "Jessica is in great trouble. She has come with sad +news. Hugh, her husband, your old college mate, is in a terrible +position. He is accused of murder. I kept the newspapers from you to-day +because they told of it." + +She had caught the meaning of the pity in his tone--for her, not for +Hugh! "Ah," she cried passionately, lifting her head, "but they did not +tell it all! Did they tell you that he is unjustly, wickedly accused by +an enemy? That, though they may convict him, he is innocent--innocent?" + +The bishop looked at her in surprise. In spite of all the past--the +shameful, conscienceless past and her own wrong--she loved and believed +in her husband! + +Hugh's hand lifted, wavered an instant before his brow. Did she say he +was innocent? "I don't--understand," he said hoarsely. + +Jessica's wide eyes fastened on his as though to search his secret soul. +"I will tell it all," she said, "then you will understand." The bishop +drew a chair close, but her gaze did not waver from the face on the +cushions--the face which she must read! + +As she told the broken tale the car was still, save for the labored, +irregular breathing of the prostrate man, and the muffled roar that +penetrated the walls, a multitudinous, elfin din. Once the swinging +canary broke forth into liquid warbling, as though in all the world were +no throe of body or dolor of mind. In that telling Jessica's mind +traversed wastes of alternate certainty and doubt, as she hung upon the +look of the man who listened--a look that merged slowly into a fearful +understanding. Hugh understood now! + +Jessica had believed him to be her husband, and she believed so still. +And Harry did not intend to tell. He was safe ... safe! In the reaction +from his fear, Hugh felt sick and faint. + +The bishop had been listening in some anxiety, both for her and for his +charge. There was a strained intensity in her manner now that betokened +almost unbalance--so it seemed to him. The side-lights he had had of +Hugh's career led him to believe him incapable of such a self-sacrifice +as her tale recited. A strange power there was in woman's love! + +"You see," she ended, "that is why I know he is innocent. _You_ can +not"--her eyes held Hugh's--"_you_ can not doubt it, can you?" + +Hugh's tongue wet his parched lips. A tremor ran through him. He did not +answer. + +Jessica started to her feet. Self-possession was falling from her; she +was fighting to seize the vital knowledge that evaded her. She held out +her hand--in the palm lay a small emblem of gold. + +"By this cross," she cried with desperate earnestness, "I ask you for +the truth. It is his life or death--Hugh's life or death! He did not +kill Doctor Moreau. _Who did?_" + +Hugh had shrunk back on the couch, his face ghastly. "I know +nothing--nothing!" he stammered. "Do not ask me!" + +The bishop had risen in alarm; he thought her hysterical. "Jessica! +Jessica!" he exclaimed. He threw his arm about her and led her from the +couch. "You don't know what you are saying. You are beside yourself." He +forced her into the drawing-room and made her sit down. She was tense +and quivering. The cross fell from her hand and he stooped and picked it +up. + +"Try to calm yourself," he said, "to think of other things for a few +moments. This little cross--I wonder how you come to have it? I gave it +to Sanderson last May to commemorate his ordination." He twisted it +open. "See, here is the date, May twenty-eighth--that was the day I gave +it to him." + +She gave a quick gasp and the last vestige of color faded from her +cheek. She looked at him in a stricken way. "_Last_ May!" she said +faintly. Harry Sanderson had been in Aniston, then, on the day Doctor +Moreau had been murdered. Her house of cards fell. She had been +mistaken! She leaned her head back against the cushion and closed her +eyes. + +Presently she felt a cold glass touch her lips. "Here is some water," +the bishop's voice said. "You are better, are you not? Poor child! You +have been through a terrible strain. I would give the world to help you +if I could!" + +He left her, and she sat dully trying to think. The regular jar of the +trucks had set itself to a rhythm--no hope, no hope, no hope! She knew +now that there was none. When the bishop reëntered she did not turn her +head. He sat beside her a while and she was aware again of his voice, +speaking soothingly. At moments thereafter he was there, at others she +knew that she was alone, but she was unconscious of the flight of time. +She knew only that the day was fading. On the chilly whirling landscape +she saw only a crowded room, a jury-box, a judge's bench, and Hugh +before it, listening to the sentence that would take him from her for +ever. The bright sunlight was mercilessly, satanically cruel, and God a +sneering monster turning a crank. + +Into her conscious view grew distant snowy ranges, hills unrolling at +their feet, a straggling town, a staring white court-house and a grim +low building beside it. She rose stumblingly, the train quivering to the +brakes, as the bishop entered. + +"This is Smoky Mountain," she said with numb lips. "That is the building +where he is being tried. I am going there now." + +The bishop opened the door. "We stop here twenty minutes," he said. "I +will walk a little way with you." + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII + +BETWEEN THE MILLSTONES + + +Hugh's haggard face peered after them through a rift in a window +curtain. What could she have suspected? Not the truth! And only that +could betray him. Presently the bishop would return, the train would +start again, and this spot of terror would be behind him. What had he to +do with Harry Sanderson? + +He bethought himself suddenly of the door--if some one should come in +upon him! With a qualm of fear he stood up, staggered to it and turned +the key in the lock. There was not the wonted buzz about the station; +the place was silent, save for the throb of the halted engine, and the +shadow of the train on the frosty platform quivered like a criminal. A +block away he saw the court-house--knots of people were standing about +its door, waiting for what? A fit of trembling seized him. + +All his years Hugh had been a moral coward. Life to him had been sweet +for the grosser, material pleasures it held. He had cared for nobody, +had held nothing sacred. When his sins had found him out, he had not +repented; he had only cursed the accident of discovery. The sincerest +feeling of regret he had known had been in the chapel when he had +thought of his dead mother. Since one dismal night on Smoky Mountain, +dread, dogging and relentless, had been his hateful bedfellow. He had +now only to keep silence, let Harry Sanderson pay the penalty, and he +need dread no more. Hugh Stires, to the persuasion of the law, would be +dead. As soon as might be he could disappear--as the rector of St. James +had disappeared before. He might change his name and live at ease in +some other quarter of the world, his alarm laid for ever. + +But a worse thing would haunt him, to scare his sleep. He would be +doubly blood-guilty! + +In the awful moment while he clung to the iron bars of the collapsing +rose-window, with the flames clutching at him, Hugh had looked into +hell, and shivered before the judgment: _The wages of sin is death_. In +that fiery ordeal the cheapness and swagger, the ostentation and +self-esteem had burned away, and his soul had stood naked as a winter +wood. Dying had not then been the Austere Terror. What came after--that +had appalled him. Yet Harry Sanderson was not afraid of the hereafter; +he chose death calmly, knowing that he, Hugh, was unfit to die! + +He thought of the little gold cross Jessica had held before him. The +last time he had seen it was during that memorable game when Harry had +set it on the table. In his pocket was a battered red disk--a reminder +of the days that Harry had won, which had never been rendered. He +thought of the stabbing agony that had come and come again, to strike +each time more deeply. The death that he had cheated in the chapel might +be near him now. But whenever death should come, what should he say when +he stood before his Judge, with such a fearful double burden on his +soul? He was horribly afraid! + +Suppose he waited. Harry might be convicted, sentenced, but he could +save him at the last moment. When he was safe on his way to South +America, he could write the bishop--beg him to go to Smoky Mountain and +convince himself. But how soon would that be? It would be long, +long--and justice was swift. And what if death should take him unawares +beforehand? It would be too late then, too late for ever and ever! + +Suppose he told the truth now and saved Harry. He had never done a brave +deed for the sake of truth or righteousness, or for the love of any +human being, but he could do one now. For the one red counter that had +been a symbol of a day of evil living, he could render a deed that would +make requital for those unpaid days! He would not have played the +coward's part. It would repair the wrong he had done Jessica. He would +have made expiation. Forgiveness and pity, not reproaches and shame, +would follow him. And it would balance, perhaps, the one dreadful count +that stood against him. He thought of the scaffold and shivered. Yet +there was a more terrible thought: _It is a fearful thing to fall into +the hands of the living God!_ + +He made his way again to the door and unlocked it. It was only to cross +that space, to speak, and then the grim brick building--and the penalty. + +With a hoarse cry he slammed the door to and frantically locked it. The +edge of the searching pain was upon him again. He stumbled back to the +couch and fell across it face down, dragging the cushions in frantic +haste over his head, to shut out the sick throbbing of the steam, that +seemed shuddering at the fate his cowering soul dared not face. + + +The groups outside of the court-house made way deferentially for +Jessica, but she was unconscious of it. Some one asked a question on the +steps, and she heard the answer: "The State has just finished, and the +judge is charging." + +The narrow hall was filled, and though all who saw gave her instant +place, the space beyond the inner door was crowded beyond the +possibility of passage. She could see the judge's bench, with its sedate +gray-bearded figure, the jury-box at the left, the moving restless faces +about it, set like a living mosaic. Only the table where the lawyers and +the prisoner sat she could not see, or the empty chair where she had sat +yesterday. What had Hugh thought, she wondered dully, when he had not +seen her there that day? Had he thought that her trust had failed? + +She became aware suddenly that the figure at the high bench was +speaking, had been speaking all along. She could not think clearly, and +her brain struggled with the incisive matter-of-fact sentences. + +"With the prisoner's later career in Smoky Mountain they had nothing to +do, nor had the law. The question it asked--the only question it +asked--was, did he kill Moreau? They might be loath to believe the same +man capable of such contradictory acts--the courageous saving of a child +from death, for example, and the shooting down of a fellow-mortal in +cold blood--but it had been truly said that such contrasts were not +impossible, nay, were even matters of common observation. Prejudice and +bias aside, and sympathy and liking aside, they constituted a tribunal +of justice. This the State had a right to demand, and this they, the +jury, had made solemn oath to give." + +The words had no meaning for her ears. "What did he say?" she whispered +to herself piteously. + +In her abyss of torture she felt the tense expectancy stirring audibly +in the room like a still breeze in forest leaves--saw the averted faces +of the jury as they rose to file out. She caught but a glimpse of the +prisoner, as the sheriff touched his arm and led the way quickly to the +door through which he had been brought. + +It opened and closed upon them, and the tension of the packed room broke +all at once in a great respiration of relief and a buzz of conversation. + +A voice spoke beside her. It was Doctor Brent. "Come with me," he said. +"Felder asked me to watch for you. We can wait in the judge's room." + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII + +THE VERDICT + + +Meanwhile in the narrow cell Harry was alone with his bitterness. His +judicial sense, keenly alive, from the very first had appreciated the +woeful weakness, evidentially speaking, of his position. He had no +illusions on this score. A little while--after such deliberation as was +decent and seemly--and he would be a condemned criminal, waiting in the +shadow of the hempen noose. In such localities justice was swift. There +would be scant time between verdict and penalty--not enough, doubtless, +for the problem to solve itself. For the only solution possible was +Hugh's dying in the hospital at Aniston. So long as the other lived, he +must play out the rôle. + +And if Hugh did die, but died too late? What a satire on truth and +justice! The same error which put the rope about his own neck would fold +the real Hugh in the odor of sanctity. He would lie in the little jail +yard in a felon's grave, and Hugh in the cemetery on the hill, beneath a +marble monument erected by St. James Parish to the Reverend Henry +Sanderson. He was in an _impasse_. In the dock, or in the cell with the +death-watch sitting at its door, it was all one. He had elected the +path, and if it led to the bleak edge of life, to the barren abyss of +shame, he must tread it. + +His own life--he had come in his thinking to a point where that mattered +least of all. Harry Sanderson, the vanished rector of St. James, +mattered. And Jessica! On the cot lay a slender blue-bound +book--Tennyson's _Becket_. She had sent it to him, in a hamper of her +favorites, some days before. He picked it up and held it in his hand, +touching the limp leather gently. It was as soft as her cheek, and there +was about the leaves a hint of that intangible perfume that his mind +always associated with her-- + + + ... the smell of the jasmin-flower + That she used to wear in her breast! + + +Far more than his life, more than the name and fame of the Reverend +Henry Sanderson, she mattered! Could he write it for her eye, the whole +truth, so that sometime--afterward--the bishop might know, and the blot +be erased from his career? Impossible! With Hugh buried in Aniston and +he in Smoky Mountain, who was there but would smile at such a tale? She +might shout it to the world, and it would answer with derision. And +what comfort would the truth be to her? + +Could he say to her: "Your husband lies dead under my tombstone, not +innocent, but unregenerate and vile. I, who you think am your husband, +am not and never was. You have come to my call--but I am nothing to you. +You are the wife of the guilty murderer of Moreau!" Could he leave this +behind him, and, passing from her life for ever, turn the memory of +their love into an irremediable bitterness? No--no! Better never to tell +her! Better to let her live her life, holding her faith and dream, +treasuring her belief in his regeneration and innocence! + +He thought of the closing chapter in his life at Aniston, when in that +hour of his despair he had prayed by his study desk. The words he had +then said aloud recurred to him: "If I am delivered, it must be by some +way of Thine Own that I can not conceive, for I can not help myself." He +was powerless to help himself still. He had given over his life into the +keeping of a Power in which his better manhood had trusted. If it +exacted the final tribute for those ribald years of Satan Sanderson, the +price would be paid! + +A step came in the corridor--a voice spoke his name. The summons had +come. As he laid the blue book back on the cot, its closing words--the +dying utterance of the martyred Becket--flashed through his mind, the +personal cry of his own soul: + +"Into Thy hands, O Lord--into Thy hands!" + + +Before the opening door the hum of voices in the court-room sank to +stillness itself. The jury had taken their places; their looks were +sober and downcast. The judge was in his seat, his hand combing his +beard. Harry faced him calmly. The door of a side room was partly open +and a girl's white face looked in, but he did not see. + +"Gentlemen of the jury, have you arrived at a verdict?" + +"We have." + +There was a confusion in the hall--abrupt voices and the sound of feet. +The crowd stirred and the judge frowningly lifted his gavel. + +"What say you, guilty or not guilty?" + +The foreman did not answer. He was leaning forward, looking over the +heads of the crowd. The judge stood up. People turned, and the room was +suddenly a-rustle with surprised movement. The crowd at the back of the +room parted, and up the center aisle, toward the judge's desk, staggered +a figure--a man whose face, ghastly and convulsed, was partly swathed +in bandages. At the door of the judge's room a girl stood transfixed and +staring. + +The crowd gasped. They saw the familiar profile, a replica of the +prisoner's--the mark that slanted across the brow--the eyes +preternaturally bright and fevered. + +A pale-faced, breathless man in clerical dress pushed forward through +the press, as the figure stopped ... thrust out his hands blindly. + +"Not--guilty, your Honor!" he said. + +A cry came from the prisoner at the bar. He leaped toward him as he fell +and caught him in his arms. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX + +THE CRIMSON DISK + + +The group in the judge's room was hushed in awestruck silence. The door +was shut, but through the panels, from the court-room, came the murmur +of many wondering voices. By the sofa on which lay the man who had made +expiation stood the bishop and Harry Sanderson. Jessica knelt beside it, +and the judge and those who stood with him in the background knew that +the curtain was falling upon a strange and tangled drama of life and +death. + +After the one long, sobbing cry of realization, throughout the +excitement and confusion, Jessica had been strangely calm. She read the +swift certainty in Doctor Brent's face, and she felt a painful +thankfulness. The last appeal would not be to man's justice, but to +God's mercy! The memories of the old blind days and the knowledge that +this man--not the one to whom she had given her love at Smoky Mountain, +at whom she dared not look--had then been her lover, rolled about her in +a stinging mist. But as she knelt by the sofa the hand that chafed the +nerveless one was firm, and she wiped the cold lips deftly and tenderly. + +Hugh's eyes were filming. That harrowing struggle of soul, that +convulsive effort of the injured body, had demanded its price. The +direful agony and its weakness had seized him--his stiffening fingers +were slipping from the ledge of life, and he knew it. + +He heard the bishop's earnest voice speaking from the void: "_Greater +love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his +friends!_" The words roused his fading senses, called them back to the +outpost of feeling. + +"Not because I--loved," he said. "It--was because--I--was afraid!" + +False as his habit of life had been, in that moment only the bare truth +remained. With a last effort the dying man thrust his hand into his +pocket, drew out a small, battered, red disk, and laid it in the other's +hand. He smiled. + +"Satan--" he whispered, as Harry bent over him, and the flicker of light +fell in his eyes, "do you--think it will--count--when I cash in?" + +But Harry's answer Hugh did not hear. He had passed out of the sound of +mortal speech for ever. + + + + +CHAPTER L + +WHEN DREAMS COME TRUE + + +There came a day when the brown ravines of Smoky Mountain laughed in +genial sunshine, when the tangled thickets, and the foliaged reaches, +painted with the cardinal and bishop's-purple of late autumn, flushed +and stirred to the touch of their golden lover, and the silver water +gushing through the flumes sang to a quicker melody. There was no wind; +everywhere, save for the breathing life of the forest, was dreamy beauty +and waiting peace. + +In the soft stillness Harry stood on the doorstep of the hillside +cabin--for the last time. Below him in the gulch the light glanced and +sparkled from the running flume, and beyond glimmered the long street of +the town where the dead past of Satan Sanderson had been buried for ever +and the old remorseful pain of conscience had found its surcease. In +that last lack-luster year before the rector of the old St. James had +been snuffed out in the wild motor-ride, he had come to doubt the +ultimate Prescience and Purpose. How small and futile now seemed those +doubts in face of the new conception he had apprehended, in the tacit +acceptance of a watchful Will and Plan not his own. + +Here had been the theater of his pain and his temptation. Sitting on +that very spot, with the wise stars overhead, he had drawn from Old +Despair's violin the strain that had brought him Jessica, her hand in +his, her head upon his breast! In the far distance, a tender haze +softening their outline, stood the violet silhouette of the enduring +ranges, and far beyond them lay Aniston, where waited his newer life, +his newer, better work--and the hope that was the April of his dreams. + +Since that tragic day in the court-room he had seen Jessica once +only--in the hour when the bishop's solemn "dust to dust" had been +spoken above the man who had been her husband. One thought had comforted +him--the town of Smoky Mountain had never known, need never know, the +secret of her wifehood. And Aniston was far away. About the coming of +Hugh injured and dying to his rescue, would be thrown a glamour of +knight-errantry that would bespeak charity of judgment. When Jessica +went back to the white house in the aspens she would meet only +tenderness and sympathy. And that was well. + +He shut the door of his cabin and, whistling to his dog, climbed the +steep path, where the wrinkled creeper flung its new splash of scarlet, +and along the trail to the Knob, under the needled song of the redwoods. +There in the dappled shade stood Jessica's rock-statue, and now it +looked upon two mounds. The Prodigal had returned at last, father and +son rested side by side, and that, too, was well. + +He went slowly through the brown hollows to the winding mountain road, +crossed it, and entered the denser forest. He wanted to see once more +the dear spot where he and Jessica had met--that deep, sweet day before +the rude awakening. He walked on in a reverie; his thoughts were very +far away. + + +He stopped suddenly--there before him was the little knoll where she had +stood waiting, on the threshold of his Palace of Enchantment, that one +roseate morning. And she was there to-day--not standing with parted lips +and eager eyes under the twittering trees, but lying face down on the +moss, her red bronze hair shaming the gold of the fallen leaves. + +There was a gesture in the outstretched arms that caught at his heart. +He stepped forward, and at the sound she looked up startled. + +He saw the creeping color that mounted to her brow, the proud yet +passionate hunger of her eyes. He dropped on his knees and took her +hands and kissed them: + +"My dear love that is!" he whispered. "My dearer wife that is to be!" + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SATAN SANDERSON*** + + +******* This file should be named 39689-8.txt or 39689-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/9/6/8/39689 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. 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B. Wenzell</h1> +<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a +href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></p> +<p>Title: Satan Sanderson</p> +<p>Author: Hallie Erminie Rives</p> +<p>Release Date: May 13, 2012 [eBook #39689]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SATAN SANDERSON***</p> +<p> </p> +<h4>E-text prepared by David Edwards, Martin Pettit,<br /> + and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br /> + from page images generously made available by<br /> + Internet Archive<br /> + (<a href="http://archive.org">http://archive.org</a>)</h4> +<p> </p> +<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10"> + <tr> + <td valign="top"> + Note: + </td> + <td> + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive. See + <a href="http://archive.org/details/satansanderson00riverich"> + http://archive.org/details/satansanderson00riverich</a> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class="center"><a name="cover.jpg" id="cover.jpg"></a><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="cover" /></div> + +<hr /> + +<p class="bold2">SATAN SANDERSON</p> + +<hr /> + +<h2><span>Books by<br />HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES<br />(Mrs. Post Wheeler)</span></h2> + +<p class="center">A FURNACE OF EARTH<br /> +<br />HEARTS COURAGEOUS<br />Illustrated by A. B. Wenzell<br /><br /> +THE CASTAWAY<br />Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy<br /><br /> +TALES FROM DICKENS<br />Illustrated by Reginald B. Birch<br /><br /> +SATAN SANDERSON<br />Illustrated by A. B. Wenzell</p> + +<hr /> + +<div class="center"><img src="images/frontis.jpg" alt="Illustration" /></div> + +<hr /> + +<h1><span>SATAN SANDERSON</span><br /><span id="id1"><i>By</i></span> <span>HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES</span></h1> + +<p class="center">Author of<br />The Castaway, Hearts Courageous, etc.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center">With Illustrations by<br />A. B. WENZELL</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> +<p> </p> + +<p class="center">INDIANAPOLIS<br />THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY<br />PUBLISHERS</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright 1907<br /> +The Bobbs-Merrill Company</span><br />——<br /><span class="smcap">August</span></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p class="center">PRESS OF<br />BRAUNWORTH & CO.<br /> +BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS<br />BROOKLYN, N. Y.</p> + +<hr /> + +<h2><span>CONTENTS</span></h2> + +<table summary="CONTENTS"> + <tr> + <td colspan="2" class="left"><span class="smaller">CHAPTER</span></td> + <td><span class="smaller">PAGE</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>I</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">As a Man Sows</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>II</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Doctor Moreau</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>III</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Coming of a Prodigal</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>IV</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Lane That Had No Turning</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>V</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Bishop Speaks</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>VI</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">What Came of a Wedding</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>VII</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Out of the Dark</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_60">60</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>VIII</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Am I My Brother's Keeper?</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>IX</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">After a Year</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>X</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Game</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XI</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Hallelujah Jones Takes a Hand</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_95">95</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XII</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Fall of the Curtain</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XIII</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Closed Door</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_108">108</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XIV</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Woman Who Remembered</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XV</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Man Who Had Forgotten</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XVI</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Awakening</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_137">137</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XVII</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">At the Turn of the Trail</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_147">147</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XVIII</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Strength of the Weak</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XIX</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Evil Eye</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_160">160</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XX</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Mrs. Halloran Tells a Story</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_167">167</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XXI</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">A Visit and a Violin</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XXII</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Passing of Prendergast</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_179">179</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XXIII</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">A Race With Death</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_187">187</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XXIV</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">On Smoky Mountain</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_198">198</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XXV</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Open Window</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_210">210</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XXVI</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Like a Thief in the Night</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_222">222</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XXVII</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Into the Golden Sunset</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_229">229</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XXVIII</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Tenantless House</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_238">238</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XXIX</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Call of Love</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_250">250</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XXX</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">In a Forest of Arden</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_259">259</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XXXI</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Revelation of Hallelujah Jones</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_269">269</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XXXII</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The White Horse Skin</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_277">277</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XXXIII</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Renegade</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_282">282</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XXXIV</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Temptation</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_289">289</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XXXV</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Felder Takes a Case</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_302">302</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XXXVI</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Hand at the Door</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_305">305</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XXXVII</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Penitent Thief</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_311">311</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XXXVIII</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">A Day for the State</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_319">319</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XXXIX</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Unsummoned Witness</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_331">331</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XL</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Fate's Way</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_335">335</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XLI</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Felder Walks With Doctor Brent</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_339">339</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XLII</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Reckoning</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_344">344</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XLIII</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Little Gold Cross</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_353">353</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XLIV</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Impostor</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_360">360</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XLV</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">An Appeal to Cæsar</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_369">369</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XLVI</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Face to Face</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_376">376</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XLVII</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">Between the Millstones</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_384">384</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XLVIII</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Verdict</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_390">390</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XLIX</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">The Crimson Disk</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_395">395</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>L</td> + <td class="left"> <span class="smcap">When Dreams Come True</span></td> + <td><a href="#Page_397">397</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<hr /> + +<p class="bold2">SATAN SANDERSON</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + +<p class="bold2">SATAN SANDERSON</p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER I</span> <span class="smaller">AS A MAN SOWS</span></h2> + +<p>"<i>To my son Hugh, in return for the care and sorrow he has caused me all +the days of his life, for his dissolute career and his desertion, I do +give and bequeath the sum of one thousand dollars and the memory of his +misspent youth.</i>"</p> + +<p>It was very quiet in the wide, richly furnished library. The May night +was still, but a faint suspiration, heavy with the fragrance of jasmin +flowers, stirred the Venetian blind before the open window and rustled +the moon-silvered leaves of the aspens outside. As the incisive +professional pronouncement of the judge cut through the lamp-lighted +silence, the grim, furrowed face with its sunken eyes and gray military +mustaches on the pillow of the wheel-chair set more grimly; a girl +seated in the damask shadow of the fire-screen caught her breath; and +from across the polished table the Reverend Henry Sanderson turned his +handsome, clean-shaven face and looked at the old man.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p><p>A peevish misogynist the neighborhood labeled the latter, with the +parish chapel for hobby, and for thorn-in-the-flesh this only son Hugh, +a black sheep whose open breaches of decorum the town had borne as best +it might, till the tradition of his forebears took him off to an eastern +university. A reckless life there and three wastrel years abroad, had +sent him back to resume his peccadilloes on a larger scale, to quarrel +bitterly with his father, and to leave his home in anger. In what rough +business of life was Hugh now chewing the cud of his folly? Harry +Sanderson was wondering.</p> + +<p>"Wait," came the querulous voice from the chair. "Write in 'graceless' +before the word 'desertion'."</p> + +<p>"<i>For his dissolute career and his—graceless—desertion</i>," repeated the +lawyer, the parchment crackling under his pen.</p> + +<p>The stubborn antagonism that was a part of David Stires' nature flared +under the bushy eyebrows. "As a man sows!" he said, a kind of bitter +jocularity in the tone. "That should be the text, if this sermon of mine +needed any, Sanderson! It won't have as large an audience as your +discourses draw, but it will be remembered by one of its hearers, at +least."</p> + +<p>Judge Conwell glanced curiously at Harry Sanderson as he blotted the +emendation. He knew the liking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> of the cross-grained and taciturn old +invalid—St. James' richest parishioner—for this young man of +twenty-five who had come to the parish only two months before, fresh +from his theological studies, to fill a place temporarily vacant—and +had stayed by sheer force of personality. He wondered if, aside from +natural magnetic qualities, this liking had not been due first of all to +the curious resemblance between the young minister and the absent son +whom David Stires was disinheriting. For, as far as mold of feature +went, the young minister and the ne'er-do-well might have been twin +brothers; yet a totally different manner and coloring made this likeness +rather suggestive than striking.</p> + +<p>No one, perhaps, had ever interested the community more than had Harry +Sanderson. He had entered upon his duties with the marks of youth, good +looks, self-possession and an ample income thick upon him, and had +brought with him a peculiar charm of manner and an apparent incapacity +for doing things in a hackneyed way. Convention sat lightly upon Harry +Sanderson. He recognized few precedents, either in the new methods and +millinery with which he had invested the service, or in his personal +habits. Instead of attending the meeting of St. Andrew's Guild, after +the constant custom of his predecessor, he was apt to be found <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>playing +his violin (a passion with him) in the smart study that adjoined the +Gothic chapel where he shepherded his fashionable flock, or tramping +across the country with a briar pipe in his mouth and his brown spaniel +"Rummy" nosing at his heels. His athletic frame and clean-chiselled +features made him a rare figure for the reading-desk, as his violin +practice, the cut of his golf-flannels, the immaculate elegance of his +motor-car—even the white carnation he affected in his buttonhole—made +him for the younger men a goodly pattern of the cloth; and it had +speedily grown to be the fashion to hear the brilliant young minister, +to memorize his classical aphorisms or to look up his latest quotation +from Keats or Walter Pater. So that Harry Sanderson, whose innovations +had at first disturbed and ruffled the sensibilities of those who would +have preferred a fogy, in the end had drifted, apparently without +special effort, into a far wider popularity than that which bowed to the +whim of the old invalid in the white house in the aspens.</p> + +<p>Something of all this was in the lawyer's mind as he paused—a +perfunctory pause—before he continued:</p> + +<p>"<i>... I do give and bequeath the sum of one thousand dollars, and the +memory of his misspent youth.</i>"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p><p>Harry Sanderson's eyes had wandered from the chair to the slim figure +of the girl who sat by the screen. This was Jessica Holme, the orphaned +daughter of a friend of the old man's early years, who had recently come +to the house in the aspens to fill the void left by Hugh's departure. +Harry could see the contour of throat and wrists, the wild-rose mesh of +the skin against the Romney-blue gown, the plenteous red-bronze hair +uncoiled and falling in a single braid, and the shadowy pathos of her +eyes. Clear hazel eyes they were, wide and full, but there was in them +no depth of expression—for Jessica Holme was blind. As the crisp +deliberate accent pointed the judicial period, as with a subterranean +echo of irrefutable condemnation, Harry saw her under lip indrawn, her +hands clasp tightly, then unclasp in her lap. Pliant, graceful hands, he +thought, which even blindness could not make maladroit. In the chapel +porch stood the figure of an angel which she had modelled solely by the +wonderful touch in the finger-tips.</p> + +<p>"Go on," rasped the old man.</p> + +<p>"<i>The residue of my estate, real and personal, I do give and bequeath to +my ward, Jessica Holme, to be and become—</i>"</p> + +<p>He broke off suddenly, for the girl was kneeling by the chair, groping +for the restless hand that wandered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> on the afghan, and crying in a +strained, agitated voice: "No ... no ... you must not! Please, please! I +never could bear it!"</p> + +<p>"Why not?" The old man's irritant query was belligerent. "Why not? What +is there for you to bear, I'd like to know!"</p> + +<p>"He is your son!"</p> + +<p>"In the eyes of the law, yes. But not otherwise!" His voice rose. "What +has he done to deserve anything from me? What has he had all his life +but kindness? And how has he repaid it? By being a waster and a +prodigal. By setting me in contempt, and finally by forsaking me in my +old age for his own paths of ribaldry."</p> + +<p>The girl shook her head. "You don't know where he is now, or what he is +doing. Oh, he was wild and reckless, I have no doubt. But when he +quarrelled and left you, wasn't it perhaps because he was too +quick-tempered? And if he hasn't come back, isn't it perhaps because he +is too proud? Why, he wouldn't be your son if he weren't proud! No +matter how sorry he might be, it would make no difference then. I could +give him the money you had given me, but I couldn't change the fact. +You, his own father, would have disowned him, disinherited him, taken +away his birthright!"</p> + +<p>"And richly he'd deserve it!" he snapped, his bent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> fingers plucking +angrily at the wool of the afghan. "He doesn't want a father or a home. +He wants his own way and a freedom that is license! I know him. You +don't; you never saw him."</p> + +<p>"I never saw you either," she said, a little sadly.</p> + +<p>"Come," he answered a shade more gently. "I didn't mean your eyes, my +dear! I mean that you never met him in your life. He had shaken off the +dust of his feet against this house before you came to brighten it, +Jessica. I've not forgiven him seven times; I've forgiven him seventy +times seven. But he doesn't want forgiveness. To him I am only 'the old +man' who refused to 'put up' longer for his fopperies and extravagances! +When he left this house six months ago, he declared he would never enter +it again. Very well—let him stay away! He shan't come back when I am in +my grave, to play ducks and drakes with the money he misuses! And I've +fixed it so that you won't be able to give it away either, Jessica. Give +me the pen," he said to the judge, "and, Sanderson, will you ring? We +shall need the butler to witness with you."</p> + +<p>As Harry Sanderson rose to his feet the girl, still kneeling, turned +half about with a hopeless gesture. "Oh, won't you help me?" she said. +She spoke more to herself, it seemed, than to either of the men who +waited.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> Harry's face was in the shadow. The lawyer with careful +deliberation was putting a new pen into the holder.</p> + +<p>"Sanderson," said the old man with bitter fierceness, lifting his hand, +"I dare say you think I am hard; but I tell you there has never been a +day since Hugh was born when I wouldn't have laid down my life for him! +You are so like! When I look at you, I seem to see him as he might have +been but for his own wayward choice! If he were only as like you in +other things as he is in feature! You are nearly the same age; you went +to the same college, I believe; you have had the same advantages and the +same temptations. Yet you, an orphan, come out a divinity student, and +Hugh—my son!—comes out a roisterer with gambling debts, a member of +the 'fast set,' one of a dissolute fraternity known as 'The Saints,' +whose very existence, no doubt, was a shame to the institution!"</p> + +<p>Harry Sanderson turned slowly to the light. A strange panorama in that +moment had flashed through his brain—kaleidoscopic pictures of an +earlier reckless era when he had not been known as the "Reverend Henry +Sanderson." An odd, sensitive flush burned his forehead. The hand he had +outstretched to the bell-cord dropped to his side, and he said, with +painful steadiness:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I think I ought to say that I was the founder, and at the time you +speak of, the Abbot of The Saints."</p> + +<p>The pen rattled against the mahogany, as the man of law leaned back to +regard the speaker with a stare of surprise whetted with a keen edge of +satiric amusement. The old man sat silent, and the girl crouched by the +chair with parted lips. The look in Harry's face was not now that of the +decorative young churchman of the Sabbath surplice. It held a keen +electric sense of the sharp contrasts of life, touched with a wakeful +pain of conscience.</p> + +<p>"I was in the same year with Hugh," Harry went on. "We sowed our wild +oats together—a tidy crop, I fancy, for us both. That page of my life +is pasted down. I speak of it now because it would be cowardly not to. I +have not seen Hugh since college closed four years ago. But then I was +all you have called him—a waster and a prodigal. And I was more; for +while others followed, I led. At college I was known as 'Satan +Sanderson'."</p> + +<p>He stopped. The old man cleared his throat, but did not speak. He was +looking at Harry fixedly. In the pause the girl found his gnarled hand +and laid her cheek against it. Harry leaned an elbow upon the +mantelpiece as he continued, in a low voice:</p> + +<p>"Colleges are not moral strait-jackets. Men have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> there to cast about, +try themselves and find their bearings. They are in hand-touch with +temptation, and out of earshot of the warnings of experience. The mental +and moral machine lacks a governor. Slips of the cog then may or may not +count seriously to character in the end. They sometimes signify only a +phase. They may be mere idiosyncrasy. I have thought that it stood in +this case," he added with the glimmer of a smile, "with Satan Sanderson; +he seems to me from this focus to be quite another individual from the +present rector of St. James."</p> + +<p>"It is only the Hugh of the present that I am dealing with," interposed +the old man. For David Stires was just and he was feeling a grim respect +for Harry's honesty.</p> + +<p>Harry acknowledged the brusque kindliness of the tone with a little +motion of the hand. As he spoke he had been feeling his way through a +maze of contradictory impulses. For a moment he had been back in that +old irresponsible time; the Hugh he had known then had sprung to his +mind's eye—an imitative idler, with a certain grace and brilliancy of +manner that made him hail-fellow-well-met, but withal shallow, foppish +and incorrigible, a cheap and shabby imitator of the outward manner, not +the inner graces, of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>good-fellowship. Yet Hugh had been one of his own +"fast set"; they had called him "Satan's shadow," a tribute to the +actual resemblance as well as to the palpable imitation he affected. +Harry shivered a little. The situation seemed, in antic irony, to be +reversing itself. It was as if not alone Hugh, but he, Harry Sanderson, +in the person of that past of his, was now brought to bar for judgment +in that room. For the instant he forgot how utterly characterless Hugh +had shown himself of old, how devoid of all desire for rehabilitation +his present reputation in the town argued him. At that moment it seemed +as if in saving Hugh from this condemnation, he was pleading for himself +as he had been—for the further chance which he, but for circumstances, +perhaps, had needed, too. His mind, working swiftly, told him that no +appeal to mere sentiment would suffice—he must touch another note. As +he paused, his eyes wandered to an oil portrait on the wall, and +suddenly he saw his way.</p> + +<p>"You," he said, "have lived a life of just and balanced action. It is +bred in the bone. You hate all loose conduct, and rightly. You hate it +most in Hugh for the simple reason that he is your son. The very +relation makes it more impossible to countenance. He should be like +you—of temperate and prudent habit.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> But did you and he start on equal +terms? Your grandfather was a Standish; your ancestry was undiluted +Puritan. Did Hugh have all your fund of resistance?"</p> + +<p>The old man's gaze for the first time left Harry's face. It lifted for +an instant to the portrait at which Harry had glanced—a picture of +Hugh's dark gipsy-like mother, painted in the month of her marriage, and +the year of her death—and in that instant the stern lines about the +mouth relaxed a little. Harry had laid his finger on the deepest cord of +feeling in the old man's gruff nature. The glow that had smoldered in +the cavernous eyes faded and a troubled cloud came to belie their former +wrath.</p> + +<p>"'As a man sows,' you say, and you deny him another seeding and it may +be a better harvest. You shut the door;—and if you shut it, it may not +swing open again! With me it was the turning of a long lane. Hugh +perhaps has not turned—yet." A breath of that past life had swept anew +over Harry, the old shuddering recoil again had rushed upon him. It gave +his voice a curious energy as he ended: "And I have seen how far a man +may go and yet—come back!"</p> + +<p>There was a pause. The judge had an inspiration. He folded the +parchment, and rose.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it would be as well," he said in a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>matter-of-fact way, "if the +signing be left open for the present. Last testaments, whatever their +provisions, are more or less serious matters, and in your case,"—he +nodded toward the occupant of the chair—"there is not the element of +necessitous haste. Of course," he added tentatively, "I am at your +service at any time."</p> + +<p>He rose as he spoke, and laid the document on the table.</p> + +<p>For a moment David Stires sat in silence. Then he said, with a glint of +the old ironic fire: "You should have been a special pleader, Sanderson. +There's no client too bad for them to make out a case for! Well ... well +... we won't sign to-night. I will read it over again when I am more +equal to it."</p> + +<p>His visitors made their adieux, and as the door closed upon them, the +girl came to the wheel-chair and wistfully drew the parchment from his +hands.</p> + +<p>"You're a good girl, Jessica," he said, "too good to a rascal you've +never known. But there—go to your room, child. I can ring for Blake +when I want anything."</p> + +<p>For long the old man sat alone, musing in his chair, his eyes on the +painted portrait on the wall. The image there was just as young and fair +and joyous as though yesterday she had stood in bridal white beside +him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> instead of so long ago—so long ago! His lips moved. "In return +for the care and sorrow," he muttered, "all the days of his life!"</p> + +<p>At length he sighed and took up a magazine. He was thinking of Harry +Sanderson.</p> + +<p>"How like!" he said aloud. "So Sanderson sowed his wild oats, too!... +When he stood there, with the light on his face—when he talked—I—I +could almost have thought it was Hugh!"</p> + +<div class="center"><img src="images/i001.jpg" alt="Illustration" /></div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER II</span> <span class="smaller">DOCTOR MOREAU</span></h2> + +<p>Harry Sanderson and the judge parted at the gate, and Harry walked +slowly home in the moonlight.</p> + +<p>The youthful follies that he had resurrected when he had called himself +his old nickname of "Satan Sanderson" he had left so far behind him, had +buried so deep, that the ironic turn of circumstance that had dragged +them into view, sorry skeletons, seemed intrusive and malicious. Not +that he was desirous of sailing under false colors; he had brought into +his new career more than a <i>soupçon</i> of the old indifference to popular +estimation, the old propensity to go his own way and to care very little +what others thought of him. The sting was a nearer one; it was his own +present of fair example and good repute that recoiled with a fastidious +sense of abasement from the recollection.</p> + +<p>As he stood in the library, his hand on the mantelpiece, he had been +painfully conscious of detail. He remembered vividly the half amused +smile of the lawyer, the silent, listening attitude of the girl +crouched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> by the wheel-chair. He had seen Jessica Holme scarcely a +half-dozen times, then only at service, or driving behind the Stires +bays. That moment when she had thrown herself beside the old man's chair +to plead for the son she had never seen—an instant revelation wrought +by the strenuous agitation of the moment—had been illuminative; it had +given him a lightning-like glimpse into the unplummeted deeps of womanly +unselfishness and sympathy. He flushed suddenly. He had not realized +that she was so beautiful.</p> + +<p>What a tragedy to be blind, for a woman with temperament, talent and +heart! To be sightless to the beauty of such a perfect night, with that +silver bridge of stars, those far hills rising like purple tulips—an +alluring night for those who saw! The picture she had made, kneeling +with the lamplight rosying in her hair, hung before him. The +flower-scent with which the room had been full was in his nostrils, and +verses flashed into his mind:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>And I swear, as I thought of her thus, in that hour,</div> +<div class="i1">And of how, after all, old things were best,</div> +<div>That I smelt the smell of that jasmin-flower</div> +<div class="i1">Which she used to wear in her breast.</div> +</div></div> + +<p>Under his thought the lines repeated themselves in a mystical monotone.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p><p>He had saved an old college-mate from possible disinheritance and the +grind of poverty, for David Stires' health was precarious. He thought of +this with a tinge of satisfaction. The least of that peculiar clan, one +who had held his place, not by likable qualities but by a versatile +talent for entertainment, Hugh Stires yet deserved thus much. Harry +Sanderson had never shirked an obligation. "As a man sows"—the old +man's words recurred to him. Did any man reap what he sowed, after all? +Was he, the "Satan Sanderson" that was, getting his deserts?</p> + +<p>"If there is a Providence that parcels out our earthly rewards and +penalties," he said to himself, "it has missed me! If there is any +virtue in example, I ought to be the black sheep. Hugh never influenced +anybody; he was a natural camp-follower. I was in the van. All I said +was a sneer, all I did a challenge to respectability. Yet here I am, a +shepherd of the faithful, a brother of Aaron!"</p> + +<p>Harry stepped more briskly along the gas-lighted square, nodding now and +then to an acquaintance, and bowing on a crossing to a carriage that +bowled by with the wife of the Very Reverend, the Bishop of the Diocese. +As he passed a darkened entrance, a door with a small barred window in +its upper panel opened, and a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> man came into the street—a man light and +fair with watery blue eyes and a drooping, blond mustache. He lifted his +silk hat with a faded, Chesterfieldian grace as he came down the steps +with outstretched hand.</p> + +<p>"My dear Sanderson!" he said effusively. "In the interest of sweetness +and light, where did you stumble on your new chauffeur? His style is the +admiration of the town. Next to having your gift of eloquence, I can +think of nothing so splendid as possessing such a <i>tonneau</i>! The city is +in your debt; you have shown it that even a cleric can be 'fast' without +reproach!"</p> + +<p>Harry Sanderson saw the weak features and ingratiating smile, the +clayey, dry-lined skin and restless eyes, but he did not seem to see the +extended hand. He did not smile at the badinage as he replied evenly:</p> + +<p>"My chauffeur, Doctor, is a Finn; and his style is his own. I see, +however, that I must decrease his speed-limit."</p> + +<p>Doctor Moreau stood a moment looking after him, his womanish hands +clenching and his cynical glance full of an evil light.</p> + +<p>"The university prig!" he said under his breath. "Doesn't he take +himself for the whole thing, with his money and his buttonhole bouquet, +and his smug self-righteousness! He thinks I'm hardly fit to speak to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> +since I've had to quit the hospital! I'd like to take him down a peg!"</p> + +<p>He watched the alert, ministerial figure till it rounded the corner. He +looked up and down the street, hesitating; then, shrugging his +shoulders, he turned and reëntered the door with the narrow barred window.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER III</span> <span class="smaller">THE COMING OF A PRODIGAL</span></h2> + +<p>The later night was very still and the moon, lifting like a paper +lantern over the aspen tops, silvered all the landscape. In its placid +radiance the white house loomed in a ghostly pallor. The windows of one +side were blank, but behind the library shade the bulbous lamp still +drowsed like a monster glow-worm. From the shadowy side of the building +stretched a narrow L, its front covered by a rose-trellis, whose pale +blossoms in the soft night air mingled their delicate fragrance with +that of the jasmin.</p> + +<p>Save for the one bright pane, there seemed now no life or movement in +the house. But outside, in the moonlight, a lurching, shabbily-clothed +figure moved, making his uncertain way with the deliberation of composed +inebriety. The sash of the window was raised a few inches and he nodded +sagely at the yellow shade.</p> + +<p>"Gay old silver-top!" he hiccoughed; "see you in the morning!"</p> + +<p>He capsized against an althea bush and shook his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> head with owlish +gravity as he disentangled himself. Then he staggered serenely to the +rose-trellis, and, choosing its angle with an assurance that betrayed +ancient practice, climbed to the upper window, shot its bolt with a +knife, and let himself in. He painstakingly closed both windows and +inner blinds, before he turned on an electric light.</p> + +<p>In the room in which he now stood he had stored his boyish treasures and +shirked his maturer tasks. It should have had deeper human associations, +too, for once, before the house had been enlarged to its present +proportions, that chamber had been his mother's. The <i>Maréchal Niel</i> +rose that clambered to the window-sill had been planted by her hand. In +that room he had been born. And in it had occurred that sharp, corrosive +quarrel with his father on the night he had flung himself from the house +vowing never to return.</p> + +<p>As Hugh Stires stood looking about him, it seemed for an instant to his +clouded senses that the past six months of wandering and unsavory +adventure were a dream. There was his bed, with its clean linen sheets +and soft pillows. How he would like to lie down just as he was and sleep +a full round of the clock! Last night he had slept—where had he slept? +He had forgotten for the moment. He looked longingly at the spotless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> +coverlid. No; some one might appear, and it would not do to be seen in +his present condition. It was scarcely ten. Time enough for that +afterward.</p> + +<p>He drew out the drawer of a chiffonier, opened a closet and gloated over +the order and plenty of their contents. He made difficult selection from +these, and, steadying his progress by wall and chair, opened the door of +an adjoining bath-room. It contained a circular bath with a needle +shower. Without removing his clothing, he climbed into this, balancing +himself with an effort, found and turned the cold faucet, and let the +icy water, chilled from artesian depths, trickle over him in a hundred +stinging needle-points.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>It was a very different figure that reëntered the larger room a +half-hour later, from the slinking mud-lark that had climbed the +rose-trellis. The old Hugh lay, a heap of soiled and sodden garments; +the new stood forth shaven, fragrant with fresh linen and clean and fit +apparel. The maudlin had vanished, the gaze was unvexed and bright, the +whole man seemed to have settled into himself, to have grown trim, +nonchalant, debonair. He held up his hand, palm outward, between the +electric globe and his eye—there was not a tremor of nerve or muscle. +He smiled. No headache, no fever, no <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>uncertain feet or trembling hands +or swollen tongue, after more than a week of deep potations. He could +still "sober-up" as he used to do (with Blake the butler to help him) +when it had been a mere matter of an evening's tipsiness! And how fine +it felt to be decently clad again!</p> + +<p>He crossed to a cheval-glass. The dark handsome face that looked out at +him was clean-cut and aristocratic, perfect save for one blemish—a pale +line that slanted across the right brow, a birth-mark, resembling a +scar. All his life this mark had been an eyesore to its owner. It had a +trick of turning an evil red under the stress of anger or emotion.</p> + +<p>On the features, young and vigorous as they were, subtle lines of +self-indulgence had already set themselves, and beneath their +expression, cavalier and caressing, lay the unmistakable stigmata of +inherited weakness. But these the gazer did not see. He regarded himself +with egotistic complacency. Here he was, just as sound as ever. He had +had his fling, and taught "the Governor" that he could get along well +enough without any paternal help if he chose. Needs must when the devil +drives, but his father should never guess the coarse and desperate +expediences that had sickened him of his bargain, or the stringent +calculation of his return. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> was no milksop, either, to come sneaking +to him with his hat in his hand. When he saw him now, he would be +dressed as the gentleman he was!</p> + +<p>He attentively surveyed the room. It was clean and dusted—evidently it +had been carefully tended. He might have stepped out of it yesterday. +There in a corner was his banjo. On the edge of a silver tray was a +half-consumed cigar. It crumbled between his fingers. He had been +smoking that cigar when his father had entered the room on that last +night. There, too, was the deck of cards he had angrily flung on to the +table when he left. Not a thing had been disturbed—yes, one thing. His +portrait, that had hung over his bed, was not in its place. A momentary +sense of trepidation rushed through him. Could his father really have +meant all he had said in his rage? Did he really mean to disown him?</p> + +<p>For an instant he faced the hall door with clenched hands. Somewhere in +the house, unconscious of his presence, was that ward of whose coming he +had learned. Moreau was a good friend to have warned him! Was she part +of a plan of reprisal—her presence there a tentative threat to him? +Could his father mean to adopt her? Might that great house, those +grounds, the bulk of his wealth, go to her, and he, the son, be left in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> +the cold? He shivered. Perhaps he had stayed away too long!</p> + +<div class="center"><img src="images/i002.jpg" alt="Illustration" /></div> + +<p>As he turned again, he heard a sound in the hall. He listened. A light +step was approaching—the swish of a gown. With a sudden impulse he +stepped into the embrasure of the window, as the figure of a girl paused +at the door. He felt his face flush; she had thrown a crimson kimono +over her white night-gown, and the apparition seemed to part the dusk of +the doorway like the red breast of a robin. She held in her hands a +bunch of the pale <i>Maréchal Niel</i> roses, and his eye caught the long +rebellious sweep of her bronze hair, and the rosy tint of bare feet +through the worsted meshes of her night-slippers.</p> + +<p>To his wonder the sight of the lighted room seemed to cause her no +surprise. For an instant she stood still as though listening, then +entered and placed the roses in a vase on a reading-stand by the +bedside.</p> + +<p>Hugh gasped. To reach the stand the girl had passed the spot where he +stood, but she had taken no note of him. Her gaze had gone by him as if +he had been empty air. Then he realized the truth; Jessica Holme was +blind! Moreau's letter had given him no inkling of that. So this was the +girl with whom his father now threatened him! Was she counting on his +not coming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> back, waiting for the windfall? She was blind—but she was +beautiful! Suppose he were to turn the tables on the old man, not only +climb back into his good graces through her, but even—</p> + +<p>The thin line on his brow sprang suddenly scarlet. What a supple, +graceful arm she had! How adroit her fingers as they arranged the +rose-stems! Was he already wholly blackened in her opinion? What did she +think of him? Why did she bring those flowers to that empty room? Could +it have been she who had kept it clean and fresh and unaltered against +his return? A confident, daring look grew in his eyes; he wished she +could see him in that purple tie and velvet smoking-jacket! What an +opportunity for a romantic self-justification! Should he speak? Suppose +it should frighten her?</p> + +<p>Chance answered him. His respiration had conveyed to her the knowledge +of a presence in the room. He heard her draw a quick breath. "Some one +is here!" she whispered.</p> + +<p>He started forward. "Wait! wait!" he said in a loud whisper, as she +sprang back. But the voice seemed to startle her the more, and before he +could reach her side she was gone. He heard her flying steps descend the +stair, and the opening and closing of a door.</p> + +<p>The sudden flight jarred Hugh's pleasurable sense of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> novelty. He thrust +his hands deep into his pockets. Now he was in for it! She would alarm +the house, rouse the servants—he should have a staring, domestic +audience for the imminent reconciliation his sobered sense told him was +so necessary. Why could he not slip back into the old rut, he thought +sullenly, without such a boring, perfunctory ceremony? He had intended +to postpone this, if possible, until a night's sleep had fortified him. +But now the sooner the ordeal was over, the better! Shrugging his +shoulders, he went quickly down the stair to the library.</p> + +<p>He had known exactly what he should see there—the vivid girl with the +hue of fright in her cheeks, the shaded lamp, the wheel-chair, and the +feeble old man with his furrowed face and gray mustaches. What he +himself should say he had not had time to reflect.</p> + +<p>The figure in the chair looked up as the door opened. "Hugh!" he cried, +and half lifted himself from his seat. Then he settled back, and the +sunken, indomitable eyes fastened themselves on his son's face.</p> + +<p>Hugh was melodramatic—cheaply so. He saw the girl start at the name, +saw her hands catch at the kimono to draw its folds over the bare white +throat, saw the rich color that flooded her brow. He saw himself +suddenly the moving hero of the stagery, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> tractive force of the +situation. Real tears came to his eyes—tears of insincere feeling, due +partly to the cheap whisky he had drunk that day, whose outward +consequences he had so drastically banished, and partly to sheer nervous +excitation.</p> + +<p>"Father!" he said, and came and caught the gaunt hand that shook against +the chair.</p> + +<p>Then the deeps of the old man's heart were suddenly broken up. "My son!" +he cried, and threw his arms about him. "Hugh—my boy, my boy!"</p> + +<p>Jessica waited to hear no more. Thrilling with gladness, and flushing +with the sudden recollection of her bare throat and feet, she slipped +away to her room to creep into bed and lie wide-eyed and thinking.</p> + +<p>What did he look like? Of his face she had never seen even a counterfeit +presentment. Through what adventures had he passed? Now that he had come +home, forgiving and forgiven, would he stay? He had been in his room +when she entered it with the roses—must have guessed, if he had not +already known, that she was blind. Would he guess that she had cared for +that room, had placed fresh flowers there often and often?</p> + +<p>Since she had come to the house in the aspens Jessica had found the +imagined figure of Hugh a dominant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> presence in a horizon lightened with +a throng of new impressions. The direful catastrophe of her +blindness—it had been the sudden result of an accident—had fallen like +a thunderbolt upon a nature elastic and joyous. It had brought her face +to face with a revelation of mental agony, made her feel herself the +hapless martyr of that curt thing called Chance; one moment seeing a +universe unfolding before her in line and hue, the next feeling it +thrust rudely behind a gruesome blank of darkness. The two years that +followed had been a period when despair had covered her; when +specialists had peered with cunning instruments into her darkened eyes, +to utter hopeful platitudes—and to counsel not at all. Then into her +own painful self-absorption had intruded her father's death, and the +very hurt of this, perhaps, had been a salving one. It had of necessity +changed her whole course of living. In her new surroundings she had +taken up life once more. Her alert imagination had begun to stir, to +turn diffidently to new channels of exploration and interest. She had +always lived largely in books and pictures, and her world was still full +of ideals and of brave adventures. Gratitude had made her love the +morose old invalid with his crabbed tempers; and the wandering son, +choosing for pride's sake a resourceless battle with the world<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>—the +very mystery of his whereabouts—had taken strong hold of her +imagination. Of the quarrel which had preceded Hugh's departure, she had +made her own version. That he should have come back on this very night, +when the disinheritance she had dreaded had been so nearly consummated, +seemed now to have an especial and an appealing significance.</p> + +<p>Presently she rose, slipped on the red kimono, and, taking a key from +the pocket of her gown, stole from the room. She ascended a stairway and +unlocked the door of a wide, bare attic where the moonlight poured +through a skylight in the roof upon an unfinished statue. In this statue +she had begun to fashion, in the imagined figure of Hugh, her conception +of the Prodigal Son; not the battered and husk-filled wayfarer of the +parable, but a figure of character and pathos, erring through youthful +pride and spirit. The unfinished clay no eyes had seen, for those walls +bounded her especial domain.</p> + +<p>Carefully, one by one, she unwound the wet cloths that swathed the +figure. In the streaming radiance of the night, the clay looked white as +snow and she a crimson ghost. She passed her fingers lightly over the +features. Was the real Hugh's face like that? One day, perhaps, her own +eyes would tell her, and she would finish it. Then she might show it to +him, but not now.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p><p>She replaced the coverings, relocked the door, and went softly down to +her bed.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>When Hugh went shamefacedly up the stair from the library, the +artificial glow that had tingled to his finger-tips had faded. The poise +of mind, the certitude of all the faculties of eye and hand that his icy +bath had given him, were yielding. The penalties he had dislodged were +returning reinforced. He was rapidly becoming drunk.</p> + +<p>He groped his way to his room, turned out the light, threw himself fully +dressed upon the bed, and slept the deep sleep of deferred intoxication.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER IV</span> <span class="smaller">THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING</span></h2> + +<p>On a June day a month later, Harry Sanderson sat in his study, looking +out of the window across the dim summer haze of heat, negligently +smoking. On the distant hill overlooking the town was the cemetery, +flanked by fields of growing corn where sulky, round-shouldered crows +quarrelled and pilfered. He could see the long white marl road, bending +in a broad curve between clover-stippled meadows, to skirt the +willow-green bluff above the river. There, miles away, on the high bank, +he could distinguish the railroad bridge, a long black skeleton spanning +"the hole," a deep, fish-haunted pool, the deepest spot in the river for +fifty miles. From the nearer, elm-shaded streets came the muffled clack +of trade and the discordant treble of a huckster, somewhere a +trolley-bell was buzzing angrily, and the impudent scream of a blue jay +sheared across the monotone. Harry's gaze went past the streets—past +the open square, with its chapel spire lifting from a beryl sea of +foliage—to a white colonial porch, peering from between aspens that +quivered in the tremulous sunlight.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p><p>The dog on the rug rose, stretching, and came to thrust an eager +insinuating muzzle into its master's lap. Rummy whined, the stubby tail +wagged, but his master paid no heed, and with dejected ears, he slunk +out into the sunshine. Harry was looking, with brows gathered to a +frown, at the far-away porch. The look was full of a troubled question, +a vague misgiving, an interrogative anxiety. He was thinking of a night +when he had saved the son of that house from the calamity of +disinheritance—to what end?</p> + +<p>For since that moonlighted evening of the will-making Harry had learned +that the long lane had had no true turning for Hugh. He had sifted him +through and through. At college he had put him down for a +weakling—unballasted, misdemeanant. Now he knew him for what he really +was—a moral mollusk, a scamp in embryo, a decadent, realizing an ugly +propensity to a deplorable <i>finale</i>. A consistent career of loose living +had carried Hugh far since those college days when he had been dubbed +"Satan's Shadow." While to Harry Sanderson the eccentric and agnostical +had then been, as it were, the mask through which his temperament looked +at life, to Hugh it had spelled shipwreck. Harry Sanderson had done +broadly as he pleased. He had entertained whom he listed; had gone +"slumming"; had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> once boxed to a finish, for a wager, a local pugilist +whose acquaintance he affected, known as "Gentleman Jim." He had been +both the hardest hitter and the hardest drinker in his class, yet withal +its most brilliant student. Native character had enabled him to persist, +as the exasperating function of success which dissipation declined to +eliminate. But the same natural gravitation which in spite of all +aberration had given Harry Sanderson classical honors, had brought Hugh +Stires to the imminent brink of expulsion. And since that time, without +the character which belonged to Harry as a possession, Hugh had +continued to drift aimlessly on down the broad lax way of profligacy.</p> + +<p>The conditions he found upon his return, however, had opened Hugh's eyes +to the perilous strait in which he stood. He was a materialist, and the +taste he had had of deprivation had sickened him. In the first +revulsion, when the contrast between recent famine and present plenty +was strong upon him, he had been at anxious pains to make himself secure +with his father—and with Jessica Holme. Harry's mental sight—keen as +the hunter's sight on the rifle-barrel—was sharpened by his knowledge +of the old Hugh, an intuitive knowledge gained in a significant +formative period. He saw more clearly than the townfolk who, in a +general way, had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> known Hugh Stires all their lives. Week by week Harry +had seen him regain lost ground in his father's esteem; day by day he +had seen him making studious appeal to all that was romantic in Jessica, +climbing to the favor of each on the ladder of the other's regard. Hugh +was naturally a <i>poseur</i>, with a keen sense of effect. He could be +brilliant at will, could play a little on piano, banjo and violin, could +sing a little, and had himself well in hand. And feeling the unconscious +cord of romance vibrate to his touch, he had played upon it with no +unskilful fingers.</p> + +<p>Jessica was comparatively free from that coquetry by means of which a +woman's instinct experiments in emotion. Although she had been artist +enough before the cloistered years of her blindness to know that she was +comely, she had never employed that beauty in the ordinary blandishments +of girlish fascination. But steadily and unconsciously she had turned in +her darkness more and more to the bright and tender air with which Hugh +clothed all their intercourse. Her blindness had been of too short +duration to have developed that fine sense-perception with which nature +seeks to supplement the darkened vision. The ineradicable marks which +ill-governed living had set in Hugh's face—the self-indulgence and +egotism—she could not see. She mistook impulse for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>instinct. She read +him by the untrustworthy light of a colorful imagination. She deemed him +high-spirited and debonair, a Prince Charming, whose prideful rebellion +had been atoned for by a touching and manly surrender.</p> + +<p>All this Harry had watched with a painful sense of impotence, and this +feeling was upon him to-day as he stared out from the study toward the +white porch, glistening in the sun.</p> + +<p>At length, with a little gesture expressive at once of helplessness and +puzzle, he turned from the window, took his violin and began to play. He +began a barcarole, but the music wandered away, through insensible +variations, into a moving minor, a composition of his own.</p> + +<p>It broke off suddenly at a dog's fierce snarl from the yard, and the +rattle of a thrown pebble. Immediately a knock came at the door, and a +man entered.</p> + +<p>"Don't stop," said the new-comer. "I've dropped in for only a minute! +That's an ill-tempered little brute of yours! If I were you, I'd get rid +of him."</p> + +<p>Harry Sanderson laid the violin carefully in its case and shut the lid +before he answered. "Rummy is impulsive," he said dryly. "How is your +father to-day, Hugh?"</p> + +<p>The other tapped the toe of his shining patent-leather with his cane as +he said with a look of ill-humor:</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p><p>"About as well as usual. He's planning now to put me in business, and +expects me to become a staid pillar of society—'like Sanderson,' as he +says forty times a week. How do you do it, Harry? There isn't an old +lady in town who thinks her parlor carpet half good enough for you to +walk on! You're only a month older than I am, yet you can wind the whole +vestry, and the bishop to boot, around your finger!"</p> + +<p>"I wasn't aware of the idolatry." Harry laughed a little—a distant +laugh. "You are observant, Hugh."</p> + +<p>"Oh, anybody can see it. I'd like to know how you do it. It was always +so with you, even at college. You could do pretty much as you liked, and +yet be popular, too. Why, there was never a jamboree complete without +you and your violin at the head of the table."</p> + +<p>"That is a long time ago," said Harry.</p> + +<p>"More than four years. Four years and a month to-morrow, since that last +evening of college. Yet I imagine it will be longer before we forget it! +I think of it still, sometimes, in the night—" Hugh went on more +slowly,—"that last dinner of The Saints, and poor Archie singing with +that wobbly smilax wreath over one eye and the claret spilled down his +shirt-front—then the sudden silence like a wet blanket! I can see him +yet, when his head dropped. He seemed to shrivel right<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> up in his chair. +How horrible to die like that! I didn't touch a drink for a month +afterward!" He shivered slightly, and walked to the window.</p> + +<p>Harry did not speak. The words had torn the network of the past as +sheet-lightning tears the summer dusk; had called up a ghost that he had +labored hard to lay—a memory-specter of a select coterie whose wild +days and nights had once revolved about him as its central sun. The +sharp tragedy of that long-ago evening had been the awakening. The +swift, appalling catastrophe had crashed into his career at the pivotal +moment. It had shocked him from his orbit and set him to the +right-about-face. And the moral <i>bouleversement</i> had carried him, in +abrupt recoil, into the ministry.</p> + +<p>An odd confusion blurred his vision. Perhaps to cover this, he crossed +the room to a small private safe which stood open in the corner, in +which he kept his tithes and his charities. When Hugh, shrugging his +shoulders as if to dismiss the unwelcome picture he had painted, turned +again, Harry was putting into it some papers from his pocket. Hugh saw +the action; his eyes fastened on the safe avidly.</p> + +<p>"I say," he said after a moment's pause, as Harry made to shut its door, +"can you loan me another fifty?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> I'm flat on my uppers again, and the +old man has been tight as nails with me since I came back. I'm sure to +be able to return it with the rest, in a week or two."</p> + +<p>Harry stretched his hand again toward the safe—then drew it back with +compressed lips. He had met Hugh with persistent courtesy, and the other +had found him sufficiently obliging with loans. Of late, however, his +nerves had been on edge. The patent calculation of Hugh's course had +sickened, and his flippant cynicism had jarred and disconcerted him. A +growing sense of security, too, had made Hugh less circumspect. More +than once during the past month Harry had seen him issue from the +shadowed door whose upper panel held the little barred window—the door +at which Doctor Moreau had entrance, though decent doors were closed in +his face.</p> + +<p>Hugh's lowered gaze saw the arrested movement and his cheek flushed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, if it's inconvenient, I won't trouble you for the accommodation," +he said. "I dare say I can raise it."</p> + +<p>The attempt at nonchalance cost him a palpable effort. Comparatively +small as the amount was, he needed it. He was in sore straits. By hook +or crook he must stave off an evil day whose approach he knew not how to +meet.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p><p>"It isn't that it is inconvenient, Hugh," said Harry. "It's that I +can't approve your manner of living lately, and—I don't know where the +fifty is going."</p> + +<p>The mark on Hugh's brow reddened. "I wasn't aware that I was expected to +render you an accounting," he said sulkily, "if I do borrow a dollar or +two now and then! What if I play cards, and drink a little when I'm dry? +I've got to have a bit of amusement once in a while between prayers. You +liked it yourself well enough, before you discovered a sudden talent for +preaching!"</p> + +<p>"Some men hide their talents under a napkin," said Harry. "You drown +yours—in a bottle. You have been steadily going downhill. You are +deceiving your father—and others—with a pretended reform which isn't +skin-deep! You have made them believe you are living straight, when you +are carousing; that you keep respectable company, when you have taken up +with a besotted and discredited gambler!"</p> + +<p>"I suppose you mean Doctor Moreau," returned Hugh. "There are plenty of +people in town who are worse than he is."</p> + +<p>"He is a quack—dropped from the hospital staff for addiction to drugs, +and expelled from his club for cheating at cards."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p><p>"He's down and out," said Hugh sullenly, "and any cur can bite him. He +never cheated me, and I find him better company than your sanctimonious, +psalm-singing sort. I'm not going to give him the cold shoulder because +everybody else does. I never went back on a friend yet. I'm not that +sort!"</p> + +<p>A steely look had come to Harry Sanderson's eyes; he was thinking of the +house in the aspens. While he talked, shooting pictures had been +flashing through his mind. Now, at the boast of this eager protester of +loyalty, this recreant who "never went back on a friend," his face set +like a flint.</p> + +<p>"You never had a friend, Hugh," he said steadily. "You never really +loved anybody or anything but yourself. You are utterly selfish. You are +deliberately lying, every hour you live, to those who love you. You are +playing a part—for your own ends! You were only a good imitation of a +good fellow at college. You are a poor imitation of a man of honor now."</p> + +<p>Hugh rose to his feet, as he answered hotly: "And what are you, I'd like +to know? Just because I take my pleasure as I please, while you choose +to make a stained-glass cherub of yourself, is no reason why I'm not +just as good as you! I knew you well enough before you set up for such a +pattern. You didn't go in much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> then for a theological diet. Pshaw!" he +went on, snapping his fingers toward the well-stocked book-shelves. "I +wonder how much of all that you really believe!"</p> + +<p>Harry passed the insolence of the remark. He flecked a bit of dust from +his sleeve before he answered, smiling a little disdainfully:</p> + +<p>"And how much do <i>you</i> believe, Hugh?"</p> + +<p>"I believe in running my own affairs, and letting other people run +theirs! I don't believe in talking cant, and posing as a +little-tin-god-on-wheels! If I lived in a glass-house, I'd be precious +careful not to throw stones!"</p> + +<p>Harry Sanderson was staring at him curiously now—a stare of singular +inquiry. This shallow witness of his youthful misconduct, then, judged +him by himself; deemed him a mere masquerader in the domino of decorous +life, carrying the reckless and vicious humors of his nonage into the +wider issues of living, and clothing an arrant hypocrisy under the habit +of one of God's ministers!</p> + +<p>The elastic weight of air in the study seemed suddenly grown +suffocating. He reached and flung open the chapel door, and stood +looking across the choir, through the mellow light of the duskily tinted +nave, solemn as with the hush of past prayer. On this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>interior had been +lavished the special love of the invalid, who had given of his riches +that this place for the comfort of souls might be. It was an expanse of +dim colors and dark woodwork. At its eastern end was the high altar, +with tall flowers in stately gilt vases on either side, and a brass +lectern glimmered near-by. In the western wall was set a great +rose-window of rich stained glass—a picture of the eternal tragedy of +Calvary. As Harry stood gazing into the mellow light, Hugh paced moodily +up and down behind him. Suddenly he caught Harry's arm and pointed.</p> + +<p>Harry turned and looked.</p> + +<p>Above the mantel was set a mirror, and from where they stood, this +reflected Hugh's face. It startled Harry, for some trick of the +atmosphere, or the sunlight falling through the painted glass, +lightening the sallow face and leaving the hair in deeper shade—as a +cunning painter by a single line will alter a whole physiognomy—had for +the instant wiped out all superficial unresemblance and left a weird +likeness. As Hugh's mocking countenance looked from the oval frame, +Harry had a queer sensation as if he were looking at his own face, with +some indefinable smear of attaint upon it—the trail of evil. As he drew +away from the other's touch, his eye followed the bar of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> amber light to +the rose-window in the chapel; it was falling through the face of the +unrepentant thief.</p> + +<p>The movement broke the spell. When he looked again the eerie impression +of identity was gone.</p> + +<p>Hugh had felt the recoil. "Not complimented, eh?" he said with a +half-sneer. "Too bad the prodigal should resemble Satan Sanderson, the +fashionable parish rector who waves his arms so gracefully in the +pulpit, and preaches such nice little sermons! You didn't mind it so +much in the old days! Pardon me," he added with malice, "I forgot. It's +the 'Reverend Henry' at present, of course! I imagine your friends don't +call you 'Satan' now."</p> + +<p>"No," returned Harry quietly. "They don't call me 'Satan' now!"</p> + +<p>He went back to the safe.</p> + +<p>The movement set Hugh instantly to regretting his hasty tongue. If he +had only assumed penitence, instead of flying into a passion, he might +have had the money he wanted just as well as not!</p> + +<p>"There's no sense in us two quarrelling," he said hastily. "We've been +friends a long time. I'm sure I didn't intend to when I came in. I +suppose you're right about some things, and probably dropping Moreau +wouldn't hurt me any. I'm sorry I said all I did.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> Only—the money +seemed such a little thing, and I—I needed it."</p> + +<p>Harry stood an instant with his hand on the knob, then instead of +closing the door, he drew out a little drawer. He lifted a packet of +crisp yellow-backs and slowly counted out one hundred dollars. "I'm +trying to believe you mean what you say, Hugh," he said.</p> + +<p>Hugh's fingers closed eagerly over the crackling notes. "Now that's +white of you, after everything I said! You're a good fellow, Harry, +after all, and I'll always say so. I wish Old Gooseberry was half as +decent in a money way. He seems to think fifty dollars a week is plenty +till I marry and settle down. He talks of retiring then, and I suppose +he'll come down handsomely, and give me a chance to look my debts in the +face." He pocketed the money with an air of relief and picked up his hat +and cane.</p> + +<p>Just then from the dusty street came the sound of carriage-wheels and +the click of the gate-latch.</p> + +<p>"It's Bishop Ludlow," he said, glancing through the window. "He's coming +in. I think I'll slip out the side way. Thanks for the loan and—I'll +think over what you've said!"</p> + +<p>Avoiding the bishop, Hugh stepped toward the gate. The money was in his +pocket. Well, one of these days<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> he would not have to grovel for a +paltry fifty dollars! He would be his own master, and could afford to +let Harry Sanderson and everybody else think what they liked.</p> + +<p>"So I'm playing a part, am I!" he said to himself. "Why should your +Holiness trouble yourself over it, if I am! Not because you're so +careful of the Governor's feelings; not by a long shot! It's because you +choose to think Jessica Holme is too good for me! That's where the shoe +pinches! Perhaps you'd like to play at that game yourself, eh?"</p> + +<p>He walked jauntily up the street—toward the door with the little barred +window.</p> + +<p>"The old man is fond of her. He thinks I mean to settle down and let the +moss grow over my ears, and he'll do the proper thing. It'll be a good +way to put my head above water and keep it there. It must be soon, +though!" A smile came to his face, a pretentious, boastful smile, and +his shining patent-leathers stepped more confidently. "She's the +finest-looking girl in this town, even without her eyes. She may get +back her sight sometime. But even if she doesn't, blindness in a wife +might not be such a bad thing, after all!"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER V</span> <span class="smaller">THE BISHOP SPEAKS</span></h2> + +<p>Inside the study, meanwhile, the bishop was greeting Harry Sanderson. He +had officiated at his ordination and liked him. His eyes took in the +simple order of the room, lingering with a light tinge of disapproval +upon the violin case in the corner, and with a deeper shade of question +upon the jewel on the other's finger—a pigeon-blood ruby in a setting +curiously twisted of the two initial letters of his name.</p> + +<p>There came to his mind for an instant a whisper of early prodigalities +and wildnesses which he had heard. For the lawyer who had listened to +Harry Sanderson's recital on the night of the making of the will had not +considered it a professional disclosure. He had thought it a "good +story," and had told it at his club, whence it had percolated at leisure +through the heavier strata of town-talk. The tale, however, had seemed +rather to increase than to discourage popular interest in Harry +Sanderson. The bishop knew that those whose approval had been withheld +were in the hopeless minority, and that even these could not have denied +that he possessed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>desirable qualities—a manner by turns sparkling and +grave, picturesqueness in the pulpit, and the unteachable tone of +blood—and had infused new life into a generally sleepy parish. He had +dismissed the whisper with a smile, but oddly enough it recurred to him +now at sight of the ruby ring.</p> + +<p>"I looked in to tell you a bit of news," said the bishop. "I've just +come from David Stires—he has a letter from Van Lennap, the great +eye-surgeon of Vienna. He disagrees with the rest of them—thinks +Jessica's case may not be hopeless."</p> + +<p>The cloud that Hugh's call had left on Harry's countenance lifted.</p> + +<p>"Thank God!" he said. "Will she go to him?"</p> + +<p>The bishop looked at him curiously, for the exclamation seemed to hold +more than a conventional relief.</p> + +<p>"He is to be in America next month. He will come here then to examine, +and perhaps to operate. An exceptional girl," went on the bishop, "with +a remarkable talent! The angel in the chapel porch, I suppose you know, +is her modelling, though that isn't just masculine enough in feature to +suit me. The Scriptures are silent on the subject of woman-angels in +Heaven; though, mind you, I don't say they're not common on earth!" The +bishop chuckled mildly at his own epigram.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p><p>"Poor child!" he continued more soberly. "It will be a terrible thing +for her if this last hope fails her, too! Especially now, when she and +Hugh are to make a match of it."</p> + +<p>Harry's face was turned away, or the bishop would have seen it suddenly +startled. "To make a match of it!" To hide the flush he felt staining +his cheek, Harry bent to close the safe. A something that had darkled in +some obscure depth of his being, whose existence he had not guessed, was +throbbing now to a painful resentment. Jessica was to marry Hugh!</p> + +<p>"A handsome fellow—Hugh!" said the bishop. "He seems to have returned +with a new heart—a brand plucked from the burning. You had the same +<i>alma mater</i>, I think you told me. Your influence has done the boy good, +Sanderson!" He laid his hand kindly on the other's shoulder. "The fact +that you were in college together makes him look up to you—as the whole +parish does," he added.</p> + +<p>Harry was setting the combination, and did not answer. But through the +turmoil in his brain a satiric voice kept repeating:</p> + +<p>"No, they don't call me 'Satan' now!"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER VI</span> <span class="smaller">WHAT CAME OF A WEDDING</span></h2> + +<p>The white house in the aspens was in gala attire. Flowers—great banks +of bloom—were massed in the hall, along the stairway and in the +window-seats, and wreaths of delicate fern trembled on the prim-hung +chandeliers. Over all breathed the sweet fragrance of jasmin. Musicians +sat behind a screen of palms in a corridor, and a long scarlet carpet +strip ran down the front steps to the driveway, up which passed bravely +dressed folk, arriving in carriages and on foot, to witness the +completion of a much-booted romance.</p> + +<p>For a fortnight this afternoon's event had been the chat of the town, +for David Stires, who to-day retired from active business, was its +magnate, the owner of its finest single estate and of its most important +bank. From his scapegrace boyhood Hugh Stires had made himself the +subject of uncomfortable discussion. His sudden disappearance after the +rumored quarrel with his father, and the advent of Jessica Holme, had +furnished the community sufficient material for gossip. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> wedding had +capped this gossip with an appropriate climax. Tongues had wagged over +its pros and cons—for Hugh's past had induced a wholesome skepticism of +his future. But the carping were willing to let bygones be bygones, and +the wiseacres, to whose experience marriage stood as a sedative for the +harum-scarum, augured well.</p> + +<p>There was an additional element of romance, too, in the situation; for +Jessica, who had never yet seen her lover, would see her husband. The +great surgeon on whose prognostication she had built so much, had +arrived and had operated. He was not alone an eminent consultant in +diagnosis, but an operator of masterly precision, whose daring of +scalpel had made him well-nigh a last resort in the delicate +adventurings of eye surgery. The experiment had been completely +successful, and Jessica's hope of vision had become a sure and certain +promise.</p> + +<p>To see once again! To walk free and careless! To mold the plastic clay +into the shapes that thronged her brain! To finish the statue which she +had never yet shown to any one, in the great sky-lighted attic! To see +flowers, and the sunset, the new green of the trees in spring, and the +sparkle of the snow in winter, and people's faces!—to see Hugh! That +had been at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> core of her thought when it reeled dizzily back from +the merciful oblivion of the anesthetic, to touch the strange gauze +wrappings on her eyes—the tight bandage that must stay for so long, +while nature plied her silent medicaments of healing.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the accepted lover had become the importunate one. The +operation over, there had remained many days before the bandages could +be removed—before Jessica could be given her first glimpse of the world +for nearly three years. Hugh had urged against delay. If he had +stringent reasons of his own, he was silent concerning them. And +Jessica, steeped in the delicious wonder of new and inchoate sensations, +had yielded.</p> + +<p>So it had come about that the wedding was to be on this hot August +afternoon, although it would be yet some time before the eye-bandages +might be laid aside, save in a darkened room. In her girlish, passionate +ideality, Jessica had offered a sacrifice to her sentiment. She had +promised herself that the first form her new sight should behold should +be, not her lover, but her husband! The idea pleased her sense of +romance. So, hugging the fancy, she had denied herself. She was to see +Hugh for the first time in a shaded room, after the glare and nervous +excitement of the ceremony.</p> + +<p>Gossip had heard and had seized upon this tidbit with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> relish. The blind +marriage—a bride with hoodwinked eyes, who had never seen the man she +was to marry—the moment's imperfect vision of him, a poor dole for +memory to carry into the honeymoon—these ingredients had given the +occasion a titillating sense of the extraordinary and romantic, and +sharpened the buzz of the waiting guests, as they whiled away the +irksome minutes.</p> + +<p>It was a sweltering afternoon, and in the wide east parlor, limp +handkerchiefs and energetic fans fought vainly against the intolerable +heat. There, as the clock struck six, a hundred pairs of eyes galloped +between two centers of interest: the door at which the bride would +enter, and the raised platform at the other end of the room where, +prayer-book in hand, in his wide robes and flowing sleeves, Harry +Sanderson had just taken his stand. Perhaps more looked at Harry than at +the door.</p> + +<p>He seemed his usual magnetic self as he stood there, backed by the +flowers, his waving brown hair unsmoothed, the ruby-ring glowing +dull-red against the dark leather of the book he held. Few felt it much +a matter of regret that the humdrum and less personable Bishop of the +Diocese should be away at convocation, since the young rector furnished +the final esthetic touch to a perfectly appointed function. But Harry +Sanderson was far from feeling the grave, alien, figure he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>appeared. In +the past weeks he had waged a silent warfare with himself, bitterer +because repressed. The strange new thing that had sprung up in him he +had trampled mercilessly under. From the thought that he loved the +promised wife of another, a quick, fastidious sense in him recoiled +abashed. This painful struggle had been sharpened by his sense of Hugh's +utter worthlessness. To that rustling assemblage, the man who was to +make those solemn promises was David Stires' son, who had had his fling, +turned over his new leaf becomingly, and was now offering substantial +hostages to good repute. To him, Harry Sanderson, he was a <i>flâneur</i>, a +marginless gambler in the futures of his father's favor and a woman's +heart. He had shrunk from the ceremony, but circumstances had +constrained him. There had been choice only between an evasion—to which +he would not stoop—and a flat refusal, the result of which would have +been a footless scandal—ugly town-talk—a sneer at himself and his +motives—a quietus, possibly, to his whole career.</p> + +<p>So now he stood to face a task which was doubly painful, but which he +would go through with to the bitter end!</p> + +<p>Only a moment Harry stood waiting; then the palm-screened musicians +began the march, and Hugh took his place, animated and assured, looking +the flushed and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>expectant bridegroom. At the same instant the +chattering and hubbub ceased; Jessica, on the arm of the old man, erect +but walking feebly with his cane, was advancing down the roped lane.</p> + +<p>She was in simple white, the point-lace on the frock an heirloom. Her +bronze hair was drawn low, hiding much of the disfiguring bandage, under +which her lips were parted in a half-smile, human, intimate and eager, +full of the hope and intoxication of living.</p> + +<p>Harry's eyes dropped to the opened book, though he knew the office by +heart. He spoke the time-worn adjuration with clear enunciation, with +almost perfunctory distinctness. He did not look at Hugh.</p> + +<p>"<i>If any man can show just cause why they may not lawfully be joined +together, let him speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.</i>" In +the pause—the slightest pause—that turned the page, he felt an insane +prompting to tear off his robes, to proclaim to this roomful of heated, +gaping, fan-fluttering humanity, that he himself, a minister of the +gospel, the celebrant of the rite, knew "just cause"!</p> + +<p>The choking impulse passed. The periods rolled on—the long white glove +was slipped from the hand, the ring put on the finger, and the pair, +whom God and Harry Sanderson had joined together, were kneeling on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> the +white satin prie-dieu with bowed heads under the final invocation. As +they knelt, choir voices rose:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"O perfect love, all human thought transcending,</div> +<div>Lowly we kneel in prayer before Thy throne—"</div> +</div></div> + +<p>Then, while the music lingered, the hush of the room broke in a confused +murmur; the white ribbon-wound ropes were let down, and a voluble wave +of congratulators swept over the spot. In a moment more Harry found +himself laying off his robes in the next room.</p> + +<p>With a sigh of relief, he stepped through the wide French window into +the garden, fresh with the scent of growing things and the humid odors +of the soil. The twitter and bustle he had left came painfully out to +him, and a whiff of evening coolness breathed through the oppressive +air. The strain over, he longed for the solitude of his study. But David +Stires had asked him to remain for a final word, since bride and groom +were to leave on an early evening train; the old man was to accompany +them a part of the journey, and "the Stires place" was to be closed for +an indefinite period. Harry found a bench and sat down, where camelias +dropped like blood.</p> + +<p>What would Jessica suffer in the inevitable awakening, when the tinted +petals of her dreams were shattered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> and strewn? For the first time he +looked down through his sore sense of outrage and protest to deeps in +himself—as a diver peers through a water-glass to the depths of a river +troubled and opaque, dimly descrying vague shapes of ill. Poetry, +passion and dreams had been his also, but he had dreamed too late!</p> + +<p>It was not long before the sound of gay voices and of carriage-wheels +came around the corner of the house, for the reception was to be +curtailed. There had been neither bridesmaids nor groomsmen, and there +was no skylarking on the cards; the guests, who on lesser occasions +would have lingered to throw rice and old shoes, departed from the house +in the aspens with primness and dignity.</p> + +<p>One by one he heard the carriages roll down the graveled driveway. A +bicycle careened across the lawn from a side-gate, carrying a bank +messenger—the last shaft of commerce before old David Stires washed his +tenacious mind of business. A few moments later the messenger reappeared +and rode away whistling. A last chime of voices talking together—Harry +could distinguish Hugh's voice now—and at length quiet told him the +last of the guests were gone. Thinking that he would now see his old +friends for a last farewell, he rose and went slowly back through the +French window.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p><p>The east room was empty, save for servants who were gathering some of +the cut flowers for themselves. He stood aimlessly for a few moments +looking about him. A white carnation lay at the foot of the dais, fallen +from Jessica's shower-bouquet. He picked this up, abstractedly smelled +its perfume, and drew the stem through his buttonhole. Then, passing +into the next room, he found his robes leisurely and laid them by—he +had now only to embellish the sham with his best wishes!</p> + +<p>All at once he heard voices in the library. He opened the door and +entered.</p> + +<p>Harry Sanderson stopped stock-still. In the room sat old David Stires in +his wheel-chair opposite his son. He was deadly pale, and his fierce +eyes blazed like fire in tinder. And what a Hugh! Not the indolently gay +prodigal Harry had known in the past, nor the flushed bridegroom of a +half-hour ago! It was a cringing, a hang-dog Hugh now; with a slinking +dread in the face—a trembling of the hands—a tense expectation in the +posture. The thin line across his brow was a livid pallor. His eyes +lifted to Harry's for an instant, then returned in a kind of fascination +to a slip of paper on the desk, on which his father's forefinger rested, +like a nail transfixing an animate infamy.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p><p>"Sanderson," said the old man in a low, hoarse, unnatural voice, "come +in and shut the door. God forgive us—we have married Jessica to a +common thief! Hugh—my son, my only child, whom I have forgiven beyond +all reckoning—has forged my name to a draft for five thousand dollars!"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER VII</span> <span class="smaller">OUT OF THE DARK</span></h2> + +<p>For a moment there was dead silence in the room. In the hall the tall +clock struck ponderously, and a porch blind slammed beneath a +caretaker's hand. Harry's breath caught in his throat, and the old man's +eye again impaled his hapless son.</p> + +<p>Hugh threw up his head with an attempt at jauntiness, but with furtive +apprehension in every muscle—for he could not solve the look he saw on +his father's face—and said:</p> + +<p>"You act as if it were a cool million! I'm no worse than a lot who have +better luck than I. Suppose I did draw the five thousand?—you were +going to give me ten for a wedding present. I had to have the money +then, and you wouldn't have given it to me. You know that as well as I +do. Besides, I was going to take it up myself and you would never have +been the wiser. He promised to hold it—it's a low trick for him to +round on me like this. I'll pay him off for it sometime! I don't see +that it's anybody else's business but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> ours, anyway," he continued, with +a surly glance at Harry.</p> + +<p>Harry had been staring at him, but with a vision turned curiously +backward—a vision that seemed to see Hugh standing at a carpeted dais +in a flower-hung room, while his own voice said out of a lurid shadow: +"<i>Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband....</i>"</p> + +<p>"Stay, Sanderson," said the old man; then turning to Hugh: "Who advanced +you money on this and promised to 'hold it'?"</p> + +<p>"Doctor Moreau."</p> + +<p>"He profited by it?"</p> + +<p>"He got his margin," said Hugh sullenly.</p> + +<p>"How much margin did he get?"</p> + +<p>"A thousand."</p> + +<p>"Where is the rest?" David Stires' voice was like a whip of steel.</p> + +<p>Hugh hesitated a moment. He had still a few hundreds in pocket, but he +did not mention them.</p> + +<p>"I used most of it. I—had a few debts."</p> + +<p>"Debts of honor, I presume!"</p> + +<p>Hugh's sensibility quivered at the fierce, grating irony of the inquiry.</p> + +<p>"If you'd been more decent with spending-money," he said with a flare of +the old effrontery, "I'd have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> all right! Ever since I came home +you've kept me strapped. I was ashamed to stick up any more of my +friends. And of course I couldn't borrow from Jessica."</p> + +<p>"Ashamed!" exclaimed the old man with harsh sternness. "You are without +the decency of shame! If you were capable of feeling it, you would not +mention her name now!"</p> + +<p>Hugh thought he saw a glimmer through the storm-cloud. Jessica was his +anchor to windward. What hurt him, would hurt her. He would pull +through!</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "it's done, and there's no good making such a row about +it. She's my wife and she'll stand by me, if nobody else does!"</p> + +<p>No one had ever seen such a look on David Stires' face as came to it +now—a sudden blaze of fury and righteous scorn, that burned it like a +brand.</p> + +<p>"You impudent blackguard! You drag my name in the gutter and then try to +trade on my self-respect and Jessica's affection. You thought you would +take it up yourself—and I would be none the wiser! And if I did find it +out, you counted on my love for the poor deluded girl you have married, +to make me condone your criminality—to perjure myself—to admit the +signature and shield you from the consequences. You imagine because you +are my son, that you can do this thing and all still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> go on as before! +Do you suppose I don't consider Jessica? Do you think because you have +fooled and cheated her—and me—and married her, that I will give her +now to a caught thief—a common jailbird?"</p> + +<p>Hugh started. A sickly pallor came to his sallow cheek. That salient +chin, that mouth close-gripped—those words, vengeful, vindictive, the +utterance of a wrath so mighty in the feeble frame as to seem almost +uncouth—smote him with a mastering terror.</p> + +<p>A jailbird! That was what his father called <i>him</i>! Did he mean to give +him up, then? To have him arrested—tried—put in prison? When he had +canvassed the risks of discovery, he had imagined a scene, bitter +anger—perhaps even disinheritance. His marriage to Jessica, he had +reckoned, would cover that extremity. But he had never thought of +something worse. Now, for the first time, he saw himself in the grip of +that impersonal thing known as the law—handcuffs on his wrists, riding +through the streets in the "Black-Maria"—standing at the dock an +outcast, gazed at with contempt by all the town—at length sitting in a +cell somewhere, no more pleasures or gaming, or fine linen, but dressed +in convict's dress, loose, ill-shapen, hanging on him like bags, with +broad black-and-white stripes. He had been through the penetentiary +once. He remembered the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>sullen, stolid faces, the rough, hobnailed +shoes, the cropped heads! His mind turned from the picture with fear and +loathing.</p> + +<p>In the thoughts that were darting through Hugh's mind, there was none +now of regret or of pity for Jessica. His fear was the fear of the +trapped spoiler, who discerns capture and its consequent penalties in +the patrolling bull's-eye flashed upon him. He studied his father with +hunted, calculating eyes, as the old man turned to Harry Sanderson.</p> + +<p>"Sanderson," said David Stires, once more in his even, deadly voice, +"Jessica is waiting in the room above this. She will not understand the +delay. Will you go to her? Make some excuse—any you can think of—till +I come."</p> + +<p>Harry nodded and left the room, shutting the door carefully behind him, +carrying with him the cowering helpless look with which Hugh saw himself +left alone with his implacable judge. What to say to her? How to say it?</p> + +<p>As he passed the hall, the haste of demolition had already begun. +Florists' assistants were carrying the plants from the east room, and +through the open door a man was rolling up the red carpet. The cluttered +emptiness struck him with a sense of fateful symbolism—as though it +shadowed forth the shattering of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>Jessica's ordered dream of happiness. +He mounted the stair as if a pack swung from his shoulders. He paused a +moment at the door, then knocked, turned the knob, and entered.</p> + +<div class="center"><img src="images/i003.jpg" alt="Illustration" /></div> + +<p>There, in the middle of the blue-hung room, in her wedding-dress, with +her bandaged eyes, and her bridal bouquet on the table, stood Jessica. +Twilight was near, but even so, all the shutters were drawn save one, +through which a last glow of refracted sunlight sifted to fall upon his +face. Her hands were clasped before her, he could hear her +breathing—the full hurried respiration of expectancy.</p> + +<p>Then, while his hand closed the door behind him, a thing unexpected, +anomalous, happened—a thing that took him as utterly by surprise as if +the solid floor had yawned before him. Slim fingers tore away the broad +encircling bandage. She started forward. Her arms were flung about his +neck.</p> + +<p>"Hugh!... Hugh!" she cried. "My husband!"</p> + +<p>The paleness was stricken suddenly from Harry's face. An odd, dazed +color—a flush of mortification, of self-reproach, flooded it from chin +to brow. Despite himself, he had felt his lips molding to an answering +kiss beneath her own. He drew a gasping breath, his hand nervously +caught the bandage, replaced it over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> the eyes, and tied it tightly, +putting down her protesting hands.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Hugh," she pleaded, "not for a moment—not when I am so happy! Your +face is what I dreamed it must be! Why did you make me wait so long? And +I can see, Hugh! I can really see! Let it stay off, just for one little +moment more!"</p> + +<p>He held her hands by force. "Jessica—wait!" he said in a broken +whisper. "You must not take it off again—not now!"</p> + +<p>An incredible confusion enveloped him—his tongue cleaved to the roof of +his mouth. Not only had the painful <i>contretemps</i> nonplussed and +dismayed him; not only had it heightened and horrified the realization +of what she must presently be told. It had laid a careless hand upon his +own secret, touching it with an almost vulgar mockery. It had overthrown +in an instant the barricades he had been piling. The pressure of those +lips on his had sent coursing to the furthest recesses of his nature a +great wave which dikes nor locks might ever again forbid.</p> + +<p>Her look, leaping to his face, had not noted the ministerial dress, nor +in the ecstasy of the moment did she catch the agitation in his voice; +or if she did, she attributed it to a feeling like her own. She was +laughing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> happily, while he stood, trembling slightly, holding himself +with an effort.</p> + +<p>"What a dear goose you are!" she said. "The light didn't hurt +them—indeed, indeed! Only to think, Hugh! Your wife will have her +sight! Do go and tell your father! He will be waiting to know!"</p> + +<p>Harry made some incoherent reply. He was desperately anxious to get +away—his thought was a snarl of tatters, threaded by one lucid purpose: +to spare her coming self-abasement this sardonic humiliation. He did not +think of a time in the future, when her error must naturally disclose +itself. The tangle spelled <i>Now</i>. Not to tell her—not to let her know!</p> + +<p>He almost ran from the room and down the stair.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER VIII</span> <span class="smaller">"AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER?"</span></h2> + +<p>At the foot of the landing he paused, drawing a deep breath as if to +lift a weight of air. He needed to get his bearings—to win back a +measure of calmness.</p> + +<p>As he stood there, Hugh came from the library. His head was down and he +went furtively and slinkingly, as though dreading even a casual regard. +He snatched his hat from the rack, passed out of the house, and was +swallowed up in the dusk. David Stires had followed his son into the +hall. He answered the gloomy question in Harry's eyes:</p> + +<p>"He is gone," he said, "and I hope to Heaven I may never see his face +again!" Then, slowly and feebly, he ascended the stair.</p> + +<p>The library windows were shadowed by shrubbery, and the sunset +splintered against the wall in a broad stripe, like cloth of crimson +silk. Harry leaned his hot forehead against the chill marble of the +mantelpiece and gazed frowningly at the dark Korean desk—an antique +gift of his own to David Stires—where the slip<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> of paper still lay that +had spelled such ruin and shame. From the rear of the house came the +pert, tittering laugh of a maid bantering an expressman, and the heavy, +rattling thump of rolled trunks. There was something ghastly in the +incomprehension of all the house save the four chief actors of the +melodrama. The travesty was over, the curtain rung down to clapping of +hands, the scene-shifters clearing away—and behind all, in the wings, +unseen by any spectator, the last act of a living tragedy was rushing to +completion.</p> + +<p>Ten, fifteen minutes passed, and old David Stires reëntered the room, +went feebly to his wheel-chair, and sat down. He sat a moment in +silence, looking at a portrait of Jessica—a painting by Altsheler that +hung above the mantel—in a light fleecy gown, with one white rose in +the bronze hair. When he spoke the body's infirmity had become all at +once pitifully apparent. The fiery wrath seemed suddenly to have burned +itself out, leaving only dead ashes behind. His eyes had shrunk away +into almost empty sockets. The authority had faded from his face. He was +all at once a feeble, gentle-looking, ill, old man, with white mustaches +and uncertain hands, dressed in ceremonial broadcloth.</p> + +<p>"I have told her," he said presently, in a broken voice. "You are kind, +Sanderson, very kind. God help us!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p><p>"What has God to do with it?" fell a voice behind them. Harry faced +about. It was Jessica, as he had first seen her in the upper room, with +the bandage across her eyes.</p> + +<p>"What has God to do with it?" she repeated, in a hard tone. "Perhaps Mr. +Sanderson can tell us. It is in his line!"</p> + +<p>"Please—" said Harry.</p> + +<p>He could not have told what he would have asked, though the accent was +almost one of entreaty. The harsh satire touched his sacred calling; +coming from her lips it affronted at once his religious instinct and his +awakened love. It was all he said, for he stopped suddenly at sight of +her face, pain-frosted, white as the folded cloth.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she said, turning toward the voice, "I remember what you said that +night, right here in this very room—that you sowed your wild oats at +college with Hugh—that they were 'a tidy crop'! You were strong, and he +was weak. You led, and he followed. You were 'Satan Sanderson,' Abbot of +The Saints, the set in which he learned gambling. Why, it was in your +rooms that he played his first game of poker—he told me so himself! And +now he has gone to be an outcast, and you stand in the pulpit in a +cassock, you, the 'Reverend Henry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> Sanderson'! You helped to make him +what he has become! Can you undo it?"</p> + +<p>Harry was looking at her with a stricken countenance. He had no answer +ready. The wave of confusion that had submerged him when he had restored +the bandage to her eyes had again welled over him. He stood shocked and +confounded. His hand fumbled at his lapel, and the white carnation, +crushed by his fingers, dropped at his feet.</p> + +<p>"I am not excusing Hugh now," she went on wildly. "He has gone beyond +excuse or forgiveness. He is as dead to me as though I had never known +him, though the word you spoke an hour ago made me his wife. I shall +have that to remember all my life—that, and the one moment I had waited +for so long, for my first sight of his face, and my bride's kiss! I must +carry it with me always. I can never wipe that face from my brain, or +the sting of that kiss from my lips—the kiss of a forger—of my +husband!"</p> + +<p>The old man groaned. "I didn't know he had seen her!" he said +helplessly. "Jessica, Hugh's sin is not Sanderson's fault!"</p> + +<p>In her bitter words was an injustice as passionate as her pain, but for +her life she could not help it. She was a woman wrenched and torn, +tortured beyond<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> control, numb with anguish. Every quivering tendril of +feeling was a live protest, every voice of her soul was crying out +against the fact. In those dreadful minutes when her mind took in the +full extent of her calamity, Hugh's past intimacy and present grim +contrast with Harry Sanderson had mercilessly thrust themselves upon +her, and her agony had seared the swift antithesis on her brain.</p> + +<p>To Harry Sanderson, however, her words fell with a wholly +disproportionate violence. It had never occurred to him that he himself +had been individually and actively the cause of Hugh's downfall. The +accusation pierced through the armor of self-esteem that he had linked +and riveted with habit. The same pain of mind that had spurred him, on +that long-ago night, to the admission she had heard, had started to new +life a bared, a scathed, a rekindling sin.</p> + +<p>"It is all true," he said. It was the inveterate voice of conscience +that spoke. "I have been deceiving myself. I was my brother's keeper! I +see it now."</p> + +<p>She did not catch the deep compunction in the judicial utterance. In her +agony the very composure and restraint cut more deeply than silence. She +stood an instant quivering, then turned, and feeling blindly for the +door, swept from their sight.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p><p>White and breathless, Jessica climbed the stair. In her room, she took +a key from a drawer and ran swiftly to the attic-studio. She unlocked +the door with hurried fingers, tore the wrappings from the tall white +figure of the Prodigal Son, and found a heavy mallet. She lifted this +with all her strength, and showered blow upon blow on the hard clay, her +face and hair and shimmering train powdered with the white dust, till +the statue lay on the floor, a heap of tumbled fragments.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Fateful and passionate as the scene in the library had been, her going +left a pall of silence in the room. Harry Sanderson looked at David +Stires with pale intentness.</p> + +<p>"Yet I would have given my life," he said in a low voice, "to save her +this!"</p> + +<p>Something in the tone caught the old man. He glanced up.</p> + +<p>"I never guessed!" he said slowly. "I never guessed that you loved her, +too."</p> + +<p>But Harry had not heard. He did not even know that he had spoken aloud.</p> + +<p>David Stires turned his wheel-chair to the Korean desk, touching the +bell as he did so. He took up the draft and put it into his pocket. He +pressed a spring, a panel dropped, and disclosed a hidden drawer, from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +which he took a crackling parchment. It was the will against whose +signing Harry had pleaded months before in that same room. The butler +entered.</p> + +<p>"Witness my signature, Blake," he said, and wrote his name on the last +page. "Mr. Sanderson will sign with you."</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>An hour later the fast express that bore Jessica and David Stires was +shrieking across the long skeleton railroad bridge, a dotted trail of +fire against the deepening night. The sound crossed the still miles. It +called to Harry Sanderson, where he sat in his study with the evening +paper before him. It called his eyes from a paragraph he was reading +through a painful mist—a paragraph under heavy leads, on its front +page:</p> + +<blockquote><p>This city has seldom seen so brilliant a gathering as that +witnessed, late this afternoon, at the residence of the groom, the +marriage of Mr. Hugh Stires and Miss Jessica Holme, both of this +place.</p> + +<p>The ceremony was performed by the Reverend Henry Sanderson, rector +of St. James.</p> + +<p>The groom is the son of one of our leading citizens, and the beauty +and talent of the bride have long made her noted. The happy couple, +accompanied by the groom's father, left on an early train, carrying +with them the congratulations and good wishes of the entire community.</p> + +<p>A full account of the wedding will be given in to-morrow morning's issue.</p></blockquote> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER IX</span> <span class="smaller">AFTER A YEAR</span></h2> + +<p>Night had fallen. The busy racket of wheeled traffic was still, the +pavements were garish with electric light, windows were open, and crowds +jostled to and fro on the cool pavements. But Harry Sanderson, as he +walked slowly back from a long ramble in knickerbockers and norfolk +jacket over the hills, was not thinking of the sights and sounds of the +pleasant evening. He had tramped miles since sundown, and had returned +as he set out, gloomy, unrequited, a follower of a baffled quest. Even +the dog at his heels seemed to partake of his master's mood; he padded +along soberly, forging ahead now and again to look up inquiringly at the +preoccupied face.</p> + +<p>Set back from the street in a wide estate of trees and shrubbery, stood +a great white-porched house that gloomed darkly from amid its aspens. +Not a light had twinkled from it for nearly a year. The little city had +wondered at first, then by degrees had grown indifferent. The secret of +that prolonged honeymoon, that dearth and absence, Harry Sanderson and +the bishop alone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> could have told. For the bishop knew of Hugh's +criminal act; he was named executor of the will that lay in the Korean +chest, and him David Stires had written the truth. His heart had gone +out with pity for Jessica, and understanding. The secret he locked in +his own breast, as did Harry Sanderson, each thinking the other ignorant +of it.</p> + +<p>Since that wedding-day no shred of news had come to either. Harry had +wished for none. To think of Jessica was a recurrent pang, and yet the +very combination of the safe in his study he had formed of the letters +of her name! In each memory of her he felt the fresh assault of a new +and tireless foe—the love which he must deny.</p> + +<p>Until their meeting his moral existence had been strangely without +struggle. When at a single blow he had cut away, root and branch, from +his old life, he had left behind him its vices and temptations. That +life had been, as he himself had dimly realized at the time, a phase, +not a quality, of his development. It had known no profound emotions. +The first deep feeling of his experience had come with that college +catastrophe which had brought the abrupt change to all his habits of +living. He did not know that the impulse which then drew him to the +Church was the gravitational force of an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> austere ancestry, itself an +inheritance from a long line of sectarian progenitors—an Archbishop of +Canterbury among them—reaching from Colony times, when King George had +sent the first Sanderson, a virile, sport-loving churchman, to the +tobacco emoluments of the Old Dominion. He did not know that in the +reaction the pendulum of his nature was swinging back along an old +groove in obeisance to the subtle call of blood.</p> + +<p>In his new life, problems were already solved for him. He had only to +drift with the current of tradition, whereon was smooth sailing. And so +he had drifted till that evening when "Satan Sanderson," dead and done +and buried, had risen in his grave-clothes to mock him in the person of +Hugh. Each hour since then had sensitized him, had put him through +exercises of self-control. And then, with that kiss of Jessica's, had +come the sudden illumination that had made him curse the work of his +hands—that had shown him what had dawned for him, too late!</p> + +<p>Outcast and criminal as he was, castaway, who had stolen a bank's money +and a woman's love, Hugh was still her husband. Hugh's wife—what could +she be to him? And this fevered conflict was shot through with yet +another pang; for the waking smart of compunction which had risen at +Jessica's bitter cry, "You helped to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> make him what he has become!" +would not down. That cry had shown him, in one clarifying instant, the +follies and delinquencies of his early career reduplicated as through +the facets of a crystal, and in the polarized light of conscience, +Hugh—loafer, gambler and thief—stood as the type and sign of an +enduring accusation.</p> + +<p>But if the recollection of that wedding-day and its aftermath stalked +always with him—if that kiss had seemed to cling again and again to his +lips as he sat in the quiet of his study—no one guessed. He seldom +played his violin now, but he had shown no outward sign. As time went +on, he had become no less brilliant, though more inscrutable; no less +popular, save perhaps to the parish heresy-hunter for whom he had never +cared a straw. But beneath the surface a great change had come to Harry +Sanderson.</p> + +<p>To-night, as he wended his way past the house in the aspens, through the +clatter and commotion of the evening, there was a kind of glaze over his +whole face—a shell of melancholy.</p> + +<p>Judge Conwell drove by in his dog-cart, with the superintendent of the +long, low hospital. The man of briefs looked keenly at the handsome face +on the pavement. "Seems the worse for wear," he remarked sententiously.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p><p>The surgeon nodded wisely. "That's the trouble with most of you +professional people," he said; "you think too much!" The judge clucked +to his mare and drove on at a smart trot.</p> + +<p>The friendly, critical eye clove to the fact; it discerned the mental +state of which gloom, depression and insomnia were but the physical +reagents. Harry had lately felt disquieting symptoms of +strain—irritable weakness, fitful repose, a sense of vague, mysterious +messages in a strange language never before heard. He had found that the +long walks no longer brought the old reaction—that even the swift rush +of his motor-car, as it bore him through the dusk of an evening, gave +him of late only a momentary relief. To-morrow began his summer +vacation, and he had planned a month's pedestrian outing through the +wide ranch valleys and the further ranges, and this should set him up +again.</p> + +<p>Now, however, as he walked along, he was bitterly absorbed in thoughts +other than his own needs. He passed more than one acquaintance with a +stare of non-recognition. One of these was the bishop, who turned an +instant to look after him. The bishop had seen that look frequently of +late, and had wondered if it betokened physical illness or mental +unquiet. More than once he had remembered with a sigh the old whisper of +Harry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> Sanderson's early wildness. But he knew youth and its lapses, and +he liked and respected him. Only two days before, on the second +anniversary of Harry's ordination, he had given him for his silken +watch-guard a little gold cross engraved with his name, and containing +the date. The bishop had seen his gift sparkling against Harry's +waistcoat as he passed. He walked on with a puzzled frown.</p> + +<p>The bishop was pursy and prosy, conventional and somewhat stereotyped in +ideas, but he was full of the milk of human kindness. Now he promised +himself that when the hour's errand on which he was hastening was done, +he would stop at the study and if he found Harry in, would have a quiet +chat with him. Perhaps he could put his finger on the trouble.</p> + +<p>At a crossing, the sight of a knot of people on the opposite side of the +street awoke Harry from his abstraction. They had gathered around a +peripatetic street preacher, who was holding forth in a shrill voice. +Beside him, on a short pole, hung a dripping gasoline flare, and the +hissing flame lit his bare head, his thin features, his long hair, and +his bony hands moving in vehement gestures. A small melodeon on four +wheels stood beside him, and on its front was painted in glaring white +letters:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> + +<div class="center"><img src="images/i005.jpg" alt="Hallelujah Jones Suffer me that I may speak; and after that I have spoken, mock on Job, xxi, 3" /></div> + +<p>From over the way Harry gazed at the tall, stooping figure, pitilessly +betrayed by the thin alpaca coat, at the ascetic face burned a brick-red +from exposure to wind and sun, at the flashing eyes, the impassioned +earnestness. He paused at the curb and listened curiously, for +Hallelujah Jones with his evangelism mingled a spice of the rancor of +the socialist. In his thinking, the rich and the wicked were mingled +inextricably in the great chastisement. He was preaching now from his +favorite text: <i>Woe to them that are at ease in Zion</i>.</p> + +<p>Harry smiled grimly. He had always been "at ease in Zion." He wore +sumptuous clothes—the ruby in his ring would bring what this plodding +exhorter would call a fortune. At this moment, Hede, his dapper Finn +chauffeur, was polishing the motor-car for him to take his cool evening +spin. That very afternoon he had put into the little safe in the chapel +study two thousand dollars in gold, which he had drawn, a part for his +charities and quarterly payments and a part to take with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> him for the +exigencies of his trip. The street evangelist over there, preaching +paradise and perdition to the grinning yokels, often needed a square +meal, and was lucky if he always knew where he would sleep. Yet did the +Reverend Henry Sanderson, after all, get more out of life than +Hallelujah Jones?</p> + +<p>The thread of his thought broke. The bareheaded figure had ended his +harangue. The eternal fires were banked for a time, while, seated on a +camp-stool at his crazy melodeon, he proceeded to transport his audience +to the heavenly meads of the New Jerusalem. He began a "gospel song" +that everybody knew:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"I saw a wayworn traveller,</div> +<div class="i1">The sun was bending low.</div> +<div>He overtopped the mountain</div> +<div class="i1">And reached the vale below.</div> +<div>He saw the Golden City,</div> +<div class="i1">His everlasting home,</div> +<div>And shouted as he journeyed,</div> +<div class="i1">'Deliverance will come!</div> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<div class="i2">"'Palms of Victory,</div> +<div class="i3">Crowns of Glory!</div> +<div>Palms of Victory, I shall wear!'"</div> +</div></div> + +<p>The voice was weather-cracked, and the canvas bellows of the instrument +coughed and wheezed, but the music was infectious, and half from +overflowing spirits, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> half from the mere swing of the melody, the +crowd chanted the refrain:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div class="i2">"'Palms of Victory,</div> +<div class="i3">Crowns of Glory!</div> +<div>Palms of Victory, I shall wear!'"</div> +</div></div> + +<p>Two, three verses of the old-fashioned hymn he sang, and after each +verse more of the bystanders—some in real earnestness, some in impious +hilarity—shouted in the chorus:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"'Palms of Victory, I shall wear!'"</div> +</div></div> + +<p>Harry walked on in a brown study, the refrain ringing through his brain. +There came to him the memory of Hugh's old sneer as he looked at his +book-shelves—whereon Nietzsche and Pascal sat cheek by jowl with +<i>Theron Ware</i> and <i>Robert Elsmere</i>—"I wonder how much of all that you +really believe!" How much <i>did</i> he really believe? "I used to read +Thomas à Kempis then," he said to himself, "and Jonathan Edwards; now I +read Rénan and the <i>Origins of Christian Mythology</i>!"</p> + +<p>At the chapel-gate lounged his chauffeur, awaiting orders.</p> + +<p>"Bring the car round, Hede," said Harry, "and I shan't need you after +that to-night. I'll drive her myself. You can meet me at the garage."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p><p>Hede, the dapper, good-looking Scandinavian, touched his glossy straw +hat respectfully. It was a piece of luck that his master had not planned +a motor trip instead of a tour afoot. For a month, after to-night, his +time was his own. His quarter's wages were in his pocket, and he slapped +the wad with satisfaction as he sauntered off to the bowling-alley.</p> + +<p>The study was pitch-dark, and Rummy halted on the threshold with a low, +ominous growl as Harry fumbled for the electric switch. As he found and +pressed it and the place flooded with light, he saw a figure there—the +figure of a man who had been sitting alone—beside the empty hearth, who +rose, shrinking back from the sudden brilliancy.</p> + +<p>It was Hugh Stires.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER X</span> <span class="smaller">THE GAME</span></h2> + +<p>Harry Sanderson stared at the apparition with a strange feeling, like +rising from the dead. There flashed into his mind the reflection he had +seen once in the mirror above the mantel—the face on which fell the +amber ray from the chapel window, shining through the figure of the +unrepentant thief—the face that had seemed so like his own!</p> + +<p>The likeness, however, was not so startling now. The aristocratic +features were ravaged like a nicked blade. Dissipation, exposure, shame +and unbridled passion had each set its separate seal upon the handsome +countenance. Hugh's clothes were shabby-genteel and the old slinking +grace of wearing them was gone. A thin beard covered his chin, and his +shifty look, as he turned it first on Harry and then nervously over his +shoulder, had in it a hunted dread, a dogging terror, constant and +indefinable. From bad to worse had been a swift descent for Hugh Stires.</p> + +<p>The wave of feeling ebbed. Harry drew the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>window-curtains, swung a +shade before the light, and motioned to the chair.</p> + +<p>"Sit down," he said.</p> + +<p>Hugh looked his old friend in the face a moment, then his unsteady +glance fell to the white carnation in his lapel as he said: "I suppose +you wonder why I have come here."</p> + +<p>Harry did not answer the implied question. His scrutiny was deliberate, +critical and inquiring. "What have you been doing the last year?" he +asked.</p> + +<p>"A little of everything," replied Hugh. "I ran a bucket-shop with Moreau +in Sacramento for a while. Then I went over in the mining country. I +took up a claim at Smoky Mountain—that's worth something, or may be +sometime."</p> + +<p>"Why did you leave it?"</p> + +<p>Hugh touched his parched lips with his tongue—again that nervous, +sidelong look, that fearful glance over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"I had no money to work it. I had to live. Besides, I'm tired of the +whole thing."</p> + +<p>The backward glance, the look of dread, were tangible tokens. Harry +translated them:</p> + +<p>"You are not telling the truth," he said shortly. "What have you +<i>done</i>?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p><p>Hugh flinched, but he made sullen answer: "Nothing. What should I have +done?"</p> + +<p>"That is what I am now inquiring of myself," said Harry. "Your face is a +book for any one to read. I see things written on it, Hugh—things that +tell a story of wrong-doing. You are afraid."</p> + +<p>Hugh shivered under the regard. Did his face really tell so much?</p> + +<p>"I don't care to be seen in town," he said. "You wouldn't either, +probably, under the circumstances." His gaze dropped to his frayed +coat-sleeve. In his craven fear of something that he dared not name even +to himself, and in his wretched need, he remembered a night once before, +when he had sidled into town drunken and soiled—to a luxurious room, a +refreshing bath, clean linen and a welcome. Abject drops of self-pity +started in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"You're the only one in the world I dared come to," he said miserably. +"I've walked ten miles to-day, for I haven't a red cent in my pocket. +Nor even decent clothes," he ended.</p> + +<p>"That can be partly remedied," said Harry after a pause. He took a dark +coat from its hook and tossed it to him. "Put that on," he said. "You +needn't return it."</p> + +<p>Hugh caught the garment. In another moment he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> had exchanged it for the +one he wore, and was emptying the old coat's pockets.</p> + +<p>"Don't sneak!" said Harry with sudden contempt. "Don't you suppose I +know a deck of cards when I see it?"</p> + +<p>The thin scar on Hugh's brow reddened. He thrust into his pocket the +pasteboards he had made an instinctive move to conceal and buttoned the +coat around him. It fitted sufficiently. His eyes avoided the well-set +figure standing in white negligée shirt, norfolk jacket and leather +belt. As they had been wont to do in the comfortable past, they fixed +themselves on the little safe.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Harry," he began, "you were a good fellow in the old days. +I'm sorry I never paid you the money I borrowed. I would have, but +for—what happened. But you won't go back on me now, will you? I want to +get out of the country and begin over again somewhere. Will you loan me +the money to do it?"</p> + +<p>Hugh was eager and voluble now. The man to whom he appealed was his +forlorn hope. He had come with no intention of throwing himself upon his +father's mercy. He had wished to see anybody in the world but him. In +his urgent need, he had had a wild thought of appealing to Jessica, or +at worst to get speech with Blake, the old butler who many a time of old +had hidden his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> backslidings from the parental eye. But he had found the +white house in the aspens closed and desolate, the servants gone. Harry +Sanderson was his last resort.</p> + +<p>"If you will, I'll never forget it, Harry!" he cried. "Never, the +longest day I live! I'll use every dollar of it just as I say! I will, +on my honor!"</p> + +<p>But the sight of the poker deck had been steel to Harry's soul. It had +touched an excoriated spot that in the past months had grown as +sensitive as an exposed nerve. The pictured squares were the ironic +badge of Hugh's incorrigibility. They had ruined him, and the ruin had +broken his father's heart, and wrecked the life of Jessica Holme. And +out of this havoc a popular rector named Harry Sanderson had emerged +pitifully the worse.</p> + +<p>"Honor!" he said. "Have you enough to swear by? You are what you are +because you are a bad egg! You were born a gentleman, but you choose to +be a rogue. Do you know the meaning of the word honor, or right, or +justice? Have you a single purpose of mind which isn't crooked?"</p> + +<p>"You're just like the rest, then," Hugh retorted. "Just because I did +that one thing, you'll give me no more chance. Yet the first thing I did +with that money was to square myself. I paid every debt of honor I had.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> +That's why I'm in the hole now. But I get no credit for it, even from +you. I wish you could put yourself in my place!"</p> + +<p>Harry had been looking steadily at the sallow face with its hoof-print +of the satyr, not seeing it, but hearing his own voice say to Jessica: +"I was my brother's keeper! I see it now." And out of the distance, it +seemed, his voice answered:</p> + +<p>"Put myself in your place! I wish I could! I wish to God I could!"</p> + +<p>The exclamation was involuntary, automatic, the cumulative expression of +every throe of conscience Harry had endured since then, the voice of +that remorse that had cried insistently for reparation, dinning in his +ears the fateful question that God asked of Cain! Suddenly a whirl of +rage seized him, unmeasured, savage, malicious. He had despised Hugh, +now he hated him; hated him because he was Jessica's husband, and more +than all, because he was the symbol of his own self-abasement. A +dare-devil side of the old Satan Sanderson that he had chained and +barred, rose up and took him by the throat. He struck the oak +wainscoting with his fist, feeling a red mist grow before his eyes.</p> + +<p>"So you paid every 'debt of honor' you had, eh? You acknowledge a +gamester's honor, but not the obligation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> of right action between man +and man! Very well! Give me that pack of cards. You want money—here it +is!"</p> + +<p>He swiftly turned the clicking combination of the safe, wrenched open +the door and took out two heavy canvas bags. He snapped the cord from +the neck of one of these and a ringing stream of double-eagles swept +jingling on the table. He dipped his hand in the yellow pile. A thought +mad as the hoofs of runaway horses was careening through his brain. He +felt an odd lightness of mind, a tense tingling of every nerve and +muscle.</p> + +<p>"Here is two thousand dollars!—yours, if you win it! For you shall play +for it, you gambler who pays his debts of 'honor' and no other! You +shall play fair and straight, if you never play again!"</p> + +<p>Hugh gazed at Harry in a startled way. This was not the ministerial +Harry Sanderson he had known—this <i>gauche</i> figure, with the white +infuriate face, the sparkling eyes and the strange, veiled look. This +reminded him of the reckless spirit of his college days, that he had +patterned after and had stood in awe of. Only he had never seen him look +so then. Could Harry be in earnest? Hugh glanced from him to the pile of +coin and back again. His fingers itched.</p> + +<p>"How can I play," he said, "when you know very well I haven't a <i>sou +markee</i>?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p><p>Harry stuffed the gold back into the bag. He snatched the cards from +Hugh's hand and a box of waxen envelope wafers from his desk. There was +a strange light in his eye, a tremor in his fingers.</p> + +<p>"It is I who play with money!" he said. "My gold against your counters! +Each of those hundred red disks represents a day of your life—a day, do +you understand?—a red day of your sin! A day of yours against a +double-eagle! What you win you keep. But for every counter I win, you +shall pay me one straight, white day, a clean day, lived for decency and +for the right!"</p> + +<p>He was the old Satan Sanderson now, with the blood bubbling in his +veins—the Satan Sanderson who could "talk like Bob Ingersoll or an +angel," as the college saying was—the cool, daring, enigmatical Abbot +of The Saints, primed for any audacity. It was the old character again, +but curiously changed. The new overlaid it. Under the spur of some +driving impulse the will was travelling along a disused and preposterous +channel to a paramount end.</p> + +<p>Hugh's eyes were fastened on the gold in Harry's fingers. Two thousand +dollars! If luck came his way he could go far on that—far enough to +escape the nameless terror that pursued him in every shadow. Money<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> +against red wafers? Why, it was plenty if he won, and if he lost he had +staked nothing. What a fool Harry was!</p> + +<p>Harry saw the shrewd, calculating look that came to his eyes. He caught +his wrist.</p> + +<p>"Not here!" he said hoarsely. He flung open the chapel door and pushed +him inside. He seized one of the altar candles, lit it with a match and +stuck it upright in its own wax on the small communion table that stood +just inside the altar-rail, with the cards, the red wafers and the bags +of coin. He dragged two chairs forward.</p> + +<p>"Now," he said in a strained voice, "put up your hand—your right +hand—and swear before this altar, on the gambler's honor you boast of, +win or lose, to abide by this game!"</p> + +<p>Hugh shrank. He was superstitious. The calculating look had fled. He +glanced half fearfully about him—at Harry's white face—at the high +altar with its vases of August lilies—at the great rose-window, now a +mass of white, opaque blotches on which the three black crosses stood +out with weird distinctness—at the lurking, unlighted shadows in the +corners. He looked longingly at the gold, shining yellow in the +candle-light. It fascinated him.</p> + +<p>He lifted his hand. It was trembling.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p><p>"I swear I will!" he said. "I'll stand by the cards, Harry, and for +every day you win, I'll walk a chalk line—so help me God!"</p> + +<p>Harry Sanderson sat down. He emptied one of the bags at his elbow, and +pushed the box of wafers across the table. He shuffled the cards swiftly +and cut.</p> + +<p>"Your deal!" he said.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XI</span> <span class="smaller">HALLELUJAH JONES TAKES A HAND</span></h2> + +<p>Hallelujah Jones had finished his labor for the night. The crowd had +grown restive, and finally melted away, and, his audience gone, he +folded the camp-stool, turned off the gasoline flare, shut down the lid +of his melodeon, and trundled it up the street. A goodly number of +coppers had rattled into his worn hat, and to the workman belonged his +wage. There was a little settlement on the river, a handful of miles +away, and the trudge under the stars would be cool and pleasant. If he +grew tired, there was his blanket strapped atop the melodeon, and the +open night was dry and balmy.</p> + +<p>As he pushed up the street he came to a great motor-car standing at the +curb under the maples. There was no one in it, but somewhere in its +interior a muffled whirring throb beat evenly like a double, metallic +heart. He stopped and regarded it inquisitively; a rich man's property, +to be sure!</p> + +<p>He looked up—it was at the gate of the chapel. No doubt it belonged to +the fashionable rector who had been pointed out to him on the street the +day before.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> He remembered the young, handsome face, the stylish +broadcloth. He thought he would have liked to lean over the Reverend +Henry Sanderson's shoulder and lay his finger on a text: <i>How hardly +shall a rich man enter into the kingdom of Heaven</i>. Yet it was a +beautiful edifice that wealth had built there for Christ! He saw dimly +the stone angel standing in the porch, and, leaving his melodeon on the +pavement, entered the gate to examine it.</p> + +<p>He noticed now a dim flicker that lit one corner of the great +rose-window. Moving softly over the cropped grass, he approached, tilted +one of the hinged panels, and peered in. Two men were there, behind the +altar-railing, seated at the communion table.</p> + +<p>Hallelujah Jones started back. There on the table was a bag of coin, +cards and counters. They were playing—he heard the fall of the cards on +the hard wood, saw the gleam of a gold-piece, the smear of melted wax +marring the polished oak. The reddish glow of the candle was reflected +on the players' faces. Well he knew the devil's tools: had he not sung +and exhorted in Black Hill mining camps and prayed in frontier faro +"joints"? They were gambling! At God's holy altar, and on Christ's +table! Who would dare such a profanation?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p><p>He craned his neck. Suddenly he gave a smothered cry. The player facing +him he recognized—it was the rector himself! He bent forward, gazing +with a tense and horrified curiosity.</p> + +<p>In that hazard within the altar-rail strange forces were contending, +whose meaning he could not fathom. Between the two men who played, not a +word had been spoken save those demanded by the exigencies of the game. +Harry had seemed to act almost automatically, but his mind was working +clearly, his hand was firm and cool as the blossom on his coat; he made +his play with that old steely nonchalance with which, once upon a time, +he had staked—and lost—so often. But in his brain a thousand spindles +were whirring, a maze of refractory images was rushing past him into an +eddying phantasmagoria. A kind of exaltation possessed him. He was +putting his past into the dice-box to redeem a soul in pawn, fighting +the devil with his own fire, gambling for God!</p> + +<p>Five times, ten times, the cards had changed hands, and with every deal +he lost. The gold disks had slipped steadily across the table. But Harry +had seemed to be looking beyond the ebb and flow of the jettons and the +pale face opposite him that gloated over its yellow pile. Though that +pile grew larger and larger, Harry's face<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> had never changed. Hugh's was +the shaking hand when he discarded, the convulsed features when he +scanned his draw, the desperate anxiety when for a moment fortune seemed +to waver. He had never in his life had such luck! He swept his winnings +into his pockets with a discordant laugh as he noted that, of the +contents of the opened bag, Harry had but one double-eagle remaining.</p> + +<p>Harry paused an instant. He snapped the little gold cross he wore from +its silken tether and set it upright by him on the table.</p> + +<p>His hand won, and the next, and the next. Hugh hoarded his gold: he +staked the red wafers—each one a day! He had won almost a thousand +dollars, but the second bag had not yet been opened, and the vampire +intoxication was running molten-hot in his veins. The untouched bag drew +him as the magnet mountain drew the adventurous Sindbad—he could have +snatched it in his eagerness.</p> + +<p>But the luck had changed; his red counters diminished, melted; he would +soon have to draw on his real winnings. Cold beads of sweat broke on his +forehead.</p> + +<p>Neither had heard the creak of the rose-window as the hinged panel drew +back. Neither saw the face pressed against the aperture. Neither guessed +the wild<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> and terrible thoughts that were raging through the mind of the +solitary watcher as he peered and peered.</p> + +<p>This minister! This corrupt, ungodly shepherd! He could be neither +hanged nor put in jail, yet he committed a crime for which hell itself +scarce held adequate penalty and punishment! The street preacher's eyes +dilated, the hand that held the panel trembled, spots of unhealthy white +sprang into his burning cheeks. The flaring candles—the table with its +carven legend, <i>This Do In Remembrance of Me</i>—the little gold cross, +set there, it seemed to him, in a satanic derision! It was the evil the +Apostle Paul wrestled against, of "wicked spirits in high places." It +was sacrilege! It was blasphemy! It was the Arch-Fiend laughing, making +a mock of God's own altar with the guilty pleasures of the pit—a very +sacrament of the damned!</p> + +<p>Scarce knowing what he did, he closed the panel softly and ran across +the chapel lawn. On the pavement outside he met a man approaching. It +was the bishop, on his way to his contemplated chat with Harry +Sanderson. The excited evangelist did not know the man, but his eye +caught the ministerial dress, the plain, sturdy piety of the face. In +his zeal he saw an instrument to his hand. He grasped the bishop's arm.</p> + +<p>"Quick! Quick!" he gasped. "There's devil's work<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> doing in there! Come +and see!" He fairly pulled him inside the gate.</p> + +<p>The puzzled bishop saw the intense excitement of the other's demeanor. +He saw the faint glow in the corner of the rose-window. Were there +thieves after the altar-plate?</p> + +<p>He shook off the eager hand that was drawing him toward the window. "Not +there—come this way!" he said, and hurried toward the porch. He tried +the chapel door—it was fast. He had a key to this in his pocket. He +inserted it with caution, opened the door noiselessly and went in, the +street preacher at his heels.</p> + +<p>What the bishop saw was photographed instantaneously on his mind in +fiery, indelible colors. It ate into his soul like hot iron into +quivering flesh, searing itself upon his memory. It was destined to +haunt his sleep for many months afterward, a phantom of regret and +shame. He was, in his way, a man of the world, travelled, sophisticated, +acquainted with sin in unexpected forms and places. But this sight, in +all its coarse suggestion of license, in its harrowing implication of +hidden vice and hypocrisy, was damning and appalling. The evangelist of +the pave had been horrified, shocked to word and action; the bishop was +frozen, inarticulate, impaled. For any evil in Hugh Stires he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> was +prepared—since the forgery. But Hugh's companion now was the man whom +he himself had ordained and anointed, by the laying on of hands, with +the chrism of his holy ministry.</p> + +<p>It was sin, then, that had set the look he had marvelled at in Harry +Sanderson's face—sin, flaunting, mocking and terrible! He whom the +church had ordained to shepherd its little ones, to comfort its +afflicted, to give in marriage and to bless, to hold before the world +the white and stainless banner—a renegade, polluting the sanctuary! A +priest apostate, surprised in a hideous revel, gambling, as the Roman +soldiers gambled for the seamless garment, at the foot of the cross! An +irrepressible exclamation burst from his lips.</p> + +<p>With the sound both men at the table started to their feet. Hugh, with a +single glance behind him, uttering a wild laugh, leaped the railing, +dashed through the study, and vanished into the night; Harry, as though +suddenly turned to stone, stood staring at the accusatory figure, with +the eager form of the evangelist behind it. It was as if the horror on +the stern, set face of the bishop mirrored itself instantaneously upon +his countenance, his imagination opening in a shocked, awed way to the +concentrated light of feeling, so that he stood bewildered in the +paralysis of a like dismay.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p><p>To the bishop it seemed the attitude of guilt detected.</p> + +<p>What was Harry Sanderson thinking, as, under that speechless regard, he +mechanically gathered the scattered cards and lifted the little cross +and the unopened bag of double-eagles from the table? Where was the odd +excitement, the strange exaltation that had possessed him? The spindles +in his brain had stilled, and an algid calm had succeeded, as abrupt as +the quiet, deadly assurance with which his mind now saw the pit into +which his own feet had led him. The paradoxical impulse that had bred +this sinister topsyturvydom had fallen away. The same judicial Harry +Sanderson who had said to Jessica, "I was my brother's keeper," +arraigned and judged himself, and pronounced the sentence on the +bishop's face conclusive, irrefutable, without the power of explanation +or appeal.</p> + +<p>He blew out the candle, replaced it carefully in its altar bracket, made +shift to wipe the wax from the table, and slowly, half blindly, and +without a word, went into the study.</p> + +<p>The bishop came forward, drew the key from the inside of the study door, +closed it and locked it from the chapel side. Harry did not turn, but he +was acutely conscious of every sound. He heard the door shut sharply, +the harsh grate of the key in the lock, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> sound came to him like +the last sentence—the realization of a soul on whom the gate of the +good closes for ever.</p> + +<p>In the dark silence of the chapel Hallelujah Jones smote his thin hands +together approvingly, as he followed the bishop to the outer door. There +the older man laid his hand on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"<i>Let him that thinketh he standeth</i>," he said, "<i>take heed lest he +fall</i>! Let not this knowledge be spread abroad that it make the +unrighteous to blaspheme. When you pray for your own soul to-night, pray +for the soul of that man from whom God's face is turned away!"</p> + +<p>Something in the churchless evangelist bowed to the voice of +ecclesiastical authority. He went without a word.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>In the study Harry Sanderson stood for a moment with the cards and the +bag of double-eagles in his hand. In his soft shirt and disordered hair, +with his preternaturally bright eyes, the white blossom on his lapel, +and the brilliant light upon his face, he might have been that +satin-sleeved colonial ancestor of his, in dissolute maturity, coming +from an unclerical bout at Loo, two hundred years ago.</p> + +<p>Finally he put the cards and the canvas bag <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>methodically into the safe +and closed it. Then he knelt by his desk and said, clearly and aloud—to +that cold inner symbol of consciousness in his soul:</p> + +<p>"O God, I do not know if Thou art, as has been said, a seer of the good +that is in the bad, and of the bad that is in the good, and a lover of +them both. But I know that I am in a final extremity. I can no longer do +my labor consistently before the world and before Thee. If I am +delivered, it must be by some way of Thine own that I can not conceive, +for I can not help myself. Amen."</p> + +<p>He rose to his feet, mechanically put on a coat that was lying on a +chair—Hugh's coat, but he did not notice this—and bareheaded passed +out to the street. The motor-car stood there. He took his place in the +forward seat, and threw on the power.</p> + +<p>Barking joyously, Rummy, the brown spaniel, tore out of the gate, but +his master did not stop. The little creature pursued the moving car, +made a frantic leap to gain his seat, but missed, and the huge armored +wheel struck and hurled him to the gutter.</p> + +<p>Harry did not hear the sharp yelp of pain; his hand was on the lever, +pushing it over, over, to its last notch, and the great mechanism, +responding with a leap, sped away, faster and faster, through the night.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XII</span> <span class="smaller">THE FALL OF THE CURTAIN</span></h2> + +<p>Harry Sanderson was acting in a kind of fevered dream. His head and +hands were bare, his face white and immobile, and his eyes stared +straight before him with the persistent fixity of the sleep-walker's. +They did not see a bowed, plodding figure pushing a rickety, wheeled +melodeon, who scurried from before the hurtling weight that had all but +run him down. Nor could they see far behind in the eddying dust a little +dog, moaning, limping piteously on three legs, with tongue lolling and +shaggy coat caked with mud—following the hopeless, bird-like flight.</p> + +<p>One mile, two miles, three miles. The streets were far behind now. The +country road spun before him, a dusty white ribbon, along which the dry +battered corn rattled as if in a surge of torrid wind. The great +motor-car was reeling off the distance like a maddened thing, swooping +through the haloed dark, the throttle out, the lever pushed to its +utmost limit of speed, rocking drunkenly, every inch of tested steel +ringing and throbbing. Yet Harry's fingers had no tremor, no hesitancy, +no lack of cunning. His heart was beating measuredly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> He kept the road +by a kind of instinct as rudimentary as that which points the homing +carrier-pigeon. He seemed to be moving in a mental world created by some +significant clairvoyancy, in which the purpose operated without recourse +to the spring of reason. The light of neurasthenia burned behind his +eyelids; he felt at once a consuming flame within, a paralyzing frost +without. The light autumn mist drenched him like a fine, sifting rain; +the wheel-flung dust adhered like yellow mud, and above the clatter of +the exhaust the still air shrieked past like a shrewd wind.</p> + +<p>Five miles, through the dark, under the breathless, expectant stars. The +car was on the broad curve now, where the road bent to the bluff above +the river to pass the skeleton railroad bridge. But Harry knew neither +place nor time. He was conscious only of motion—swift, swallow-like, +irresistible—this, and the racing pictures in his brain, stencilled on +the blur of night that closed around him. These pictures came and went; +the last revel of The Saints when he was Satan Sanderson—Hugh sneering +at his calling—Jessica facing him with unbandaged eyes—Hallelujah +Jones, preaching on the street corner. The figure of the street +evangelist recurred again and again with a singular persistency. It grew +more tangible! It threatened him!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p><p>Something in Harry's brain seemed to snap. A tiny shutter, like that of +a camera, fell down. His hands dropped from the steering-wheel, and, +swaying in his seat, he began to sing, in a voice made high and uneven +by the speed of the car:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div class="i2">"'Palms of Victory,</div> +<div class="i3">Crowns of Glory!</div> +<div>Palms of Victory, I shall wear!'"</div> +</div></div> + +<p>He sang but the three lines. For suddenly the car left the road—the +inflated tires rebounded from the steel ridge of the railroad track—the +forward axle caught an iron signal post—and the great motor-car, its +shattered lamp jingling like a gong, its pistons thrusting in midair, +reared on two wheels, hurling its occupant out like a pebble thrown from +a sling, half-turned, and, leaving a trail of sparks like the tail of a +rocket behind it, plunged heavily over the rim of the bluff into the river.</p> + +<p>A moment later the deep black waters of "the hole" had closed above the +mass of sentient steel. The swift current had smoothed away every trace +of the strange monster it had engulfed, and there, by the side of the +track, huddled against the broken signal post, his clothing plastered +with mud and grime, motionless, and with a nasty cut on the temple, lay +Harry Sanderson.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XIII</span> <span class="smaller">THE CLOSED DOOR</span></h2> + +<p>A long saturating peace, a deep and drenching darkness, had folded Harry +Sanderson. Dully at first, at length more insistently and sharply, a +rhythmic pulsing sound began to annoy the quietude. K-track, k-track, +k-track—it grew louder; it grew more momentous and material; it +irritated the calm that had wrapped the animate universe. Shreds of +confusing impression had begun to arrange themselves on a void of +nothingness, blurred inchoate images to struggle through a delicious +sensation of indifference and repose. Outlines were filling, contours +growing distinct; the brain was beginning to resume its interrupted +function. As though from an immeasurable distance he heard a low +continuous roar, and now and again, through the roar, nearer voices.</p> + +<p>Harry awoke. His mind awoke, but his eyes did not open at once, for the +gentle swaying that cradled him was pleasant and the muffled clack and +hum soothed him like opium. He was as serenely comfortable as a +stevedore who dozes out of the long stupefaction of exhaustion to the +realization that the day is a holiday.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> His blood was coursing like +quicksilver. He felt a buoyancy, a volatile pleasure, a sense of +complete emancipation from all that clogged and cloyed—the sensuous +delight of the full pulse and the perfect bodily mechanism.</p> + +<p>He opened his eyes.</p> + +<p>It was daylight. He was lying on dusty boards that rattled and vibrated +beneath him—the floor of an empty freight car in motion. The sliding +door was part-way open, and through it was borne the moist air of a +river bay and the purring wash of the tide. A small brown dog, an +abject, muddied and shivering morsel, was snuggled close to his side. It +whined, as if with joy to see his eyes opened, and its stubby tail beat +the floor.</p> + +<p>Harry turned his head. Two men in dingy garments were seated on the +floor a little distance away, thumbing a decrepit pack of cards over an +empty box. He could see both side-faces, one weather-beaten and +good-humored, the other crafty—knights of the road.</p> + +<p>The sudden movement had sent a momentary twinge to his temple; he put up +his hand—it touched a coarse handkerchief that had been bound tightly +about it. The corner hung down—it was soiled and stiff with blood. What +was he doing there? Where was he? <i>Who was he?</i></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p><p>It came to him with a start that he actually for the moment did not +know who he was—that he had ridiculously slipped the leash of his +identity. He smiled at his predicament. He would lie quietly for a few +moments and it would come: of course it would come!</p> + +<p>Yet it did not come, though he lay many moments, the fingers of his mind +fumbling for the latch of the closed door. He had waked perfectly +well—all save the slight cut on his temple, and that was clearly +superficial, a mere scratch. Not a trouble or anxiety marred his soul; +his mind was as clear and light as a lark's. Body and brain together +felt as if they had never had a serious ache in the world. But all that +had preceded his awakening was gone from him as completely as though it +had had no existence. His mind, so far as memory of incident was +concerned, was wiped clean, as a wet sponge wipes off a slate. Yet he +felt no trouble or anxiety. That part of his brain which had vibrated to +these emotions was, as it were, under a curious anesthesia. Goaded and +overkeyed into a state of hypertension, it had retaliated with +insensibility. All that had vexed and hurt was gone into the limbo with +its own disturbing memories.</p> + +<p>Stealthily he rose to a sitting posture and, with a frown of humorous +perplexity, took a swift and silent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> inventory. Here he was, in a +freight car, speeding somewhere or other, with a sore and damaged skull. +The dog clearly belonged to him, or he to the dog—there was an old +intimacy in the fawning fondness of the amber eyes. Yonder were two +tramps, diverting themselves in their own way, irresponsible and +questionable birds of passage. He scanned his own clothing. It was +little better than theirs. His coat was threadbare, and with mud, oil +and coal-dust, was in a more disreputable state. His wristbands were +grimy, and one cuff-link had been torn away. He had no hat.</p> + +<p>He bethought himself of his pockets, and went through them methodically +one by one. They yielded several dollars in coin, a penknife and a tiny +gold cross, but not a letter, not a scrap of paper, nothing to serve +him. The gleam of a ring on his finger caught his eye; he rubbed away +the dirt and carefully examined it, wondering if the stone was real. His +hand was slightly cut and swollen, and the circlet would not come off, +but by shifting it slightly he could see the white depression made by +long wear. The setting was an odd one, formed of the twisted letters H. +S. Those naturally should be his initials, but there he stopped. He +repeated to himself all the names he could think of beginning with S, +but they told him nothing.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p><p>He looked himself over again, carefully, reflectively—many a time of +old he had regarded himself with the same amused, fastidious tolerance +when dressed for a "slumming" expedition—his head a little to one side, +the ghost of a smile on his lips. He put out his hand and laid it on the +spaniel's head.</p> + +<p>Its rough tongue licked his fingers; it held up one forepaw mutely and +lamely. He drew the feverish, dirty little creature into his lap and +examined the limp member. It was broken.</p> + +<p>"Poor little beggar!" said he under his breath. "So you've been knocked +out, too!" With his knife he cut a piece from the lining of his coat and +with a splinter of wood from the floor he set the fractured bone and +wrapped the leg tightly. The dog submitted without a whimper, and when +he set it down, it lay quietly beside him, watching him with +affectionate canine solicitude.</p> + +<p>"I wonder who we are, you and I," muttered Harry Sanderson whimsically. +"I wonder!"</p> + +<p>His gaze turned to where he could see the sunshine dancing and +shimmering from the tremulous water. He sniffed the warm air—it was +clear and sweet. Not a cloud was in the perfect sky. How fine he felt, +broken head and all!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p><p>He looked across the car, where the card players were still absorbed. +Over the shoulder of one he could see the hand he held—a queen, two +aces, a seven and a deuce. For an instant something in his brain snapped +and crackled like the sputtering spark of an incomplete insulation—for +an instant the fingers almost touched the latch of the closed door. Then +the sensation faded, and left a blank as before. He rose to his feet and +walked forward.</p> + +<p>The players looked around. One of them nodded approvingly.</p> + +<p>"Right as a trivet!" he said. "I made a pretty good job of that cut of +yours. Hurt you much?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Harry. "I'm obliged to you for the attention."</p> + +<p>"Foolish to walk on a railroad track," the other went on. "By your +looks, you've been on the road long enough to know better. We figgered +it out that you was just a-going to cross the railroad bridge when the +freight raised merry hell with you. We stopped to tank there and we +picked you up, you and your four-legged mate. Must have been a bit +squiffy, eh?"</p> + +<p>He winked, and took a flask from his pocket. "Have a hair of the dog +that bit you?" he said.</p> + +<p>Harry took the flask, and, wiping the top on his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> sleeve, uncorked it. +Something in the penetrating odor of the contents seemed to cleave +through far mental wastes to an intimate, though mysterious goal. He put +it to his lips and drank thirstily.</p> + +<p>As the burning liquid scorched his throat, a recrudescence of old +impulses surged up through the crust of more modern usage. Mentally, +characteristically, he was once more the incongruous devil-may-care +figure in whom conspicuous achievement and contradictory excesses had +walked hand in hand. The Harry Sanderson of the new, remorseful, +temperate life, of chastened impulses, of rote and rule and reformed +habit—the rector of St. James—had been lost on that wild night ride. +The man who had awakened in the freight car was the Satan Sanderson of +four years before, who, under stress of mental illness and its warped +purview, in that strenuous scene in the chapel, had regained his ancient +governance.</p> + +<p>Harry handed back the flask with a long breath. There was a composed yet +reckless light in his eye—the old veiled gleam of vagary, and paradox, +and escapade. He seated himself beside them.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," he said. "With your permission, gentlemen, I will take a +hand in the game."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XIV</span> <span class="smaller">THE WOMAN WHO REMEMBERED</span></h2> + +<p>Since that tragical wedding-day at the white house in the aspens, +Jessica had passed through a confusion of experiences. She had always +lived much in herself, and to her natural reserve her blindness had +added. As a result her knowledge both of herself and of life had been +superficial. She had been drawn to Hugh by both the weakest and the +noblest in her, in a self-obliterating worship that had counted her +restored sight only an ornament and glory for her love. In the baleful +hour of enlightenment she had been lost, whirled away, out into the +storm and void, every landmark gone, every light extinguished, her feet +set in the "abomination of desolation." The first bitter shock of the +catastrophe, however, seemed to burn up in her the very capacity for +further poignant suffering, and she went through the motions of life +apathetically.</p> + +<p>Change of scene and the declining health of David Stires occupied, +fortunately, much of her waking thoughts. After the first few months of +travel he failed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> steadily. His citric-acid moods were forgotten, his +harsh tempers put aside. Hour after hour he lay in his chair, gazing out +from the wide sun parlor of the sanatorium on the crest of Smoky +Mountain, whither their journeying had finally brought them. He had +never spoken of Hugh. But Jessica, sitting each day beside him, reading +to him till he dropped asleep, seeing the ever-increasing sadness in his +face, knew the hidden canker that gnawed his heart.</p> + +<p>To the northward the slope of the mountain fell gradually to fields of +violet-eyed alfalfa, and twice a day a self-important little +donkey-engine drew a single car up and down between the great glass +building on the ridge and the junction of the northern railroad. This +view did not attract her; she liked best the southern exposure, with its +flushed, serrated snow-peaks in the distance, the warmer brown shadows +of the gulch-seamed hills unrolling at her feet, and at their base the +treeless, busy little county-seat two miles away. In time her fiercer +pain had dulled, and her imagination—naturally so importunate—had +begun to seize upon her surroundings. In the summer season the +sanatorium had few guests, and for this she was thankful. Doctor Brent, +its head, rallying her on her paleness, drove her out of doors with +good-natured severity, and when she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> was not with David Stires she +walked or rode for hours at a time over the mountain trails. Breathing +in the crisp air of altitude her spirits grew more buoyant. The beauty +of shrub and flower, of cloud and sky, began to call to her, and the +breath of October found a tinge of color in her cheek. She fed the +squirrels, listened to the pert chirp of the whisky-jack and the +whirring drum of the partridge, or sat on a hidden elevation which she +named "The Knob," facing across the shallow valley to the south.</p> + +<p>The Knob overlooked a little grassy shelf a few hundred feet below, +where stood a miner's cabin, with weed-grown gravel heaps near by, in +front of which a tree bore the legend, painted roughly on a board: "The +Little Paymaster Claim." From its point of vantage, too, unobserved, she +could look down into the gulch far below, where yellowish-brown cones +reared like gigantic ant-hills—the ear-marks of the placer miner—and +gray streaks indicated the flumes in which, by tortuous meanderings, the +water descended to do its work in the sluices. She could even watch the +toiling miners, hoisting the gravel by windlasses, or shovelling it into +the long narrow boxes through which the foaming water raced. So limpid +was the air that in the little town she could distinguish each several +building lining the single<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> straight street—a familiar succession of +gilded café, general emporium and drug store, with the dull terra cotta +"depot" at one end, and on the other, on a sunburned acre of its own, +the glaring white court-house, flanked by the post-office and the jail. +She could see the clouds of dust, the wagons hitched at the curb and the +drab figures grouped at the corners or passing in and out of doorways.</p> + +<p>Her interest had opened eagerly to these scenes. The solitudes soothed +and the life of the community below, frankly primitive and +uncomplicated, attracted her. Between the town of Smoky Mountain and the +expensive sanatorium on the ridge a great social gulf was fixed; the +latter's patrons for the most part came and went by the narrow-gage road +that linked with the northern junction; the settlement far below was +only a feature of the panorama for which they paid so well. Even Doctor +Brent—who had perched this place of healing where his patients could +breathe air fresh from the Pacific and cooled by the snow-peaks—knew it +chiefly through two of its citizens, Mrs. Halloran, the capable, +bustling wife of the proprietor of the Mountain Valley House, the town's +single hostelry, who brewed old-fashioned blackberry wine and cordials +for his patients, and Tom Felder, a young lawyer whom he had known on +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> coast before ill health had sent him to hang out his shingle in a +more genial altitude.</p> + +<p>The latter sometimes came for a chat with the physician, and on one of +these calls Jessica and he had met. She had liked his keen, good-humored +face and waving, slightly graying hair. She had met him once since on +the mountain road, and he had walked with her and told her quaint +stories of the townspeople. She did not guess that more than once since +then he had walked there hoping to meet her again. He had taken her to +Mrs. Halloran, whose heart she had won by praise of her cherry cordial.</p> + +<p>As Mrs. Halloran said afterward: "'Twas no flirt with the bottle and +make love to the spoon! She ain't a bit set up. Take the word I give +you, Tom Felder, an' go and swap lies with the doctor at the santaranium +soon again. Ye can do worse."</p> + +<p>This had been Jessica's first near acquaintance with the town, but since +that time she had often reined up at the door of the neat hotel to pass +a word with Mrs. Halloran or to ask for another bottle of the cherry +cordial, which the sick man she daily tended found grateful to his jaded +palate.</p> + +<p>"It brings back my boyhood," David Stires said to her one afternoon, +tapping the bottle by his wheel-chair.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> "That was before the chemist +married the vintner's daughter. Somehow this has the old taste."</p> + +<p>"It is nearly gone," she said. "I'll get another bottle—I am going for +a ride now. I think it does you good."</p> + +<p>"Before you go," he said, "fetch my writing-case and I will dictate a +letter."</p> + +<p>She brought and opened it with a trouble at her heart, for the request +showed his increasing weakness. Until to-day the few letters he had +written had been done with his own hand. Thinking of this as she waited, +her fingers nervously plucked at the inside of the leather cover. The +morocco flap fell and disclosed a slip of paper. It was a canceled +bank-draft. It bore Hugh's name, and across its face, in David Stires' +crabbed hand, written large, was the venomous word <i>Forgery</i>.</p> + +<p>The room swam before her eyes. Only by a fierce effort could she compel +her pen to trace the dictated words. Hugh's misdeed, evil as it was, had +been to her but an abstract crime; now it suddenly lay bare before her, +a concrete expression of coarse thievery, a living symbol of crafty +simulation. Scarce knowing why she did it, she drew the draft covertly +from its receptacle, and slipped it into her bosom. Her fingers trembled +as they replaced the flap, and her face was pale when she put away the +writing-case and went to don her habit.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p><p>The evidence of Hugh's sin! As the horse pounded down the winding road, +she held her hand hard against her breast, as though it were a live coal +that she would press into her flesh in self-torture. That paper must +remain, as the sin that made it remained—the sign-manual of her +dishonor and loss! The man whose hand had penned its lying signature was +the man she had thought she loved. By that act he had thrust himself +from her for ever. Yet he lived. Somewhere in the world he walked, in +shame and degradation, beyond the pale of honorable living—and she was +his wife!</p> + +<p><i>She was his wife!</i> The words hummed in the hoof-beats and taunted her. +The odors of the balsam boughs about her became all at once the scent of +jasmin, the sigh of the wind turned to the chanting of choir voices, and +beneath her closed eyelids came a face seen but once, but never to be +erased or forgotten, a face startled, quivering with a strange, +remorseful flush—which she had not guessed was guilt!</p> + +<p><i>She was his wife!</i> Though she called herself Jessica Holme, yet, in the +law, his name and fame were hers. There was deep in her the unreasoned, +intuitive regard, handed down through inflexible feminine generations, +for the relentless mandate, "let not man put asunder;" but she had no +finical conception of woman's duty to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> convention. To break the bond? To +divorce the husband to whom she was wife in name only? That would be to +spread abroad the disgrace under which she cringed! She thought of the +old man she had left—uncomplaining, growing feebler every day. To shame +him before the world, whose ancestors had been upright and clean-handed? +To add the final sting to his sufferings—who had done her only good? +No, she could not do that. Time must solve the problem for her in some +other way.</p> + +<p>The main street of the town was busy, yet quiet withal, with the +peculiar quiet which marks the absence of cobblestone and trolley-bell. +Farmers from outlying fruit ranches gossiped on the court-house square; +here and there a linen collar and white straw hat betokened the +professional man or drummer; and miners in overalls and thong-laced +boots kept a-swing the rattan half-doors of the saloons.</p> + +<p>"Look at that steady hand, now, an' her hair as red as glory!" said Mrs. +Halloran, gazing admiringly from the doorstep where she had been +chatting with Tom Felder. "Ye needn't stare yer gray eyes out though, or +she'll stop at th' joolry shop to buy ye a ring—to shame ye fer jest +hankerin' and sayin' nothin'!"</p> + +<p>Felder laughed as he crossed the street, raising his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> felt hat gallantly +to the approaching rider. Mrs. Halloran was a privileged character. The +ravage of drudgery had not robbed her of comeliness that gave her face +an Indian summer charm, and she was as kindly as her husband was morose. +It was not Michael Halloran who kept the Mountain Valley House popular! +The old woman hurried to the curb and tied the horse as Jessica +dismounted.</p> + +<p>"How did ye guess I made some more this day?" she exclaimed. "Sure, if +ye drink it yerself, my dearie, them cheeks is all th' trade-mark I +need!" She led the way into the little carpeted side room, by courtesy +denominated "the parlor." "I'll go an' put it up in two shakes," she +said. "Sit ye down an' I'll not be ten minutes." So saying she bustled +away.</p> + +<p>Left alone, Jessica gazed abstractedly about her. Her mind was still +full of the painful reflections of her ride. A door opened from the room +into the office. It was ajar; she stepped close and looked in.</p> + +<p>A group of miners lounged in the space before the front +windows—familiarly referred to by its habitués as "the Amen +Corner"—chatting and watching the passers-by.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she clapped her hand to her mouth to stifle a cry. A name had +been spoken—the name that was in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> her thought—the name of "Hugh +Stires." She leaned forward, listening breathlessly.</p> + +<p>"I wonder where the young blackleg's been," said one, peering through +the windows. "He'd better have stayed away for good, I'm thinking. What +does he want to come back for, to a place where there aren't three men +who will take a drink with him?"</p> + +<p>The reply was as contemptuous.</p> + +<p>"We get some rare black sheep in the hills!" The voice spoke meaningly. +"If I had my way, he'd leave this region almighty quick!"</p> + +<p>Jessica looked about her an instant wildly, guiltily. She could not be +mistaken in the name! Was Hugh here, whither by the veriest accident she +had come—here in this very town that she had gazed down upon every day +for weeks? <i>Was he?</i> She pressed her cold hands to her colder cheeks. +The contempt in the voices had smitten through her like a sword.</p> + +<p>A revulsion seized her. No, no, it could not be! She had not heard +aright. It was only a fancy! But she had an overwhelming desire to +satisfy herself with her own eyes. From where she stood she could not +see the street. She bethought herself of the upper balcony.</p> + +<p>Swiftly, on tiptoe, she crossed to the hall door, threw it open, and ran +hastily up the stair.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XV</span> <span class="smaller">THE MAN WHO HAD FORGOTTEN</span></h2> + +<p>If the man who had been the subject of the observations Jessica had +heard had been less absorbed, as he walked leisurely along on the +opposite side of the street, he would have noticed the look of dislike +in the eyes of those he passed. They drew away from him, and one +spoke—to no one in particular and with an oath offensive and fervid. +But weather-beaten, tanned, indifferently clad, and with a small brown +dog following him, the new-comer passed along, oblivious to the sidelong +scrutiny. He did not stare about him after the manner of a stranger, +though, so far as he knew, he had never been in the place before. So far +as he knew—for Harry Sanderson had no memories save those which had +begun on a certain day a month before in a box-car. He walked with eyes +on the pavement, absorbed in thoughts of his own.</p> + +<p>But Harry Sanderson now was not the man who had ridden into oblivion in +the motor-car. The rector of St. James was in a strange eclipse. +Mentally and externally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> he had reverted to the old Satan Sanderson, of +the brilliant flashing originality, of the curt risk and daring. The +deeply human and sensitive side, that had developed during his divinity +years, was in abeyance; it showed itself only in the affection he +bestowed on the little nameless dog that followed him like a brown, +shaggy shadow.</p> + +<p>He was like that old self of his, and yet, if he had but known it, he +was wonderfully like some one else, too—some one who had belonged to +the long ago and garbled past that still eluded him; some one who had +been a part also of the life of this very town, till a little over a +month before, when he had left it with dread dogging his footsteps!</p> + +<p>Curious coincidences had wrought together for this likeness. In the past +weeks Harry had grown perceptibly thinner. A spare beard was now on his +chin, and the fiery sun that had darkened his cheeks to sallow had +lightened his brown hair a shade. The cut on his brow had healed to the +semblance of a thin red birth-mark. Most of all, the renaissance of the +old character had given his look, to the casual eye, a certain flare and +jauntiness, which dissipation and license, unclogged now with memory or +compunction, had matured and vitalized. His was now a replica of the +face he had once seen, in that lost life of his, mirrored in his chapel +study<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>—his own face, with the trail of evil upon it, and yet weirdly +like Hugh Stires'.</p> + +<p>Fate—or God!—was doing strange things for Harry Sanderson!</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Harry's game of cards in the freight-car had been a sequent of the game +in the chapel. It was an instinctive effort of the newly-stirring +consciousness to relink the broken chain, utilizing the mental formula +which had been stamped deeply upon it when the curtain of oblivion +descended—which had persisted, as the photograph of the dead retina +shows the scene upon which the living eye last looked. The weeks that +followed were reversionary. Rebellion against convention, +dissipation—these had been the mask through which the odd temperament +of Satan Sanderson had looked at life. This mask had fallen before a +career of new meanings and motives. These blotted suddenly out with +their inspirations and habits, and, the old spring touched, the mind had +automatically resumed its old viewpoint.</p> + +<p>He had studied himself with a sardonic, <i>ex parte</i> interest. He had +found at his disposal a well-stocked mind, a copious vocabulary. Terms +of science, historic references, the thousand and one allusions of the +daily newspaper that the unlearned pass over, all had their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> +significance for him. He was no superficial observer, and readily +recognized the evidences of mental culture. But the cord that had bound +all together into character had snapped. He was a ship without a rudder; +a derelict, drifting with the avid winds of chance on the tide of fate. +A thousand ways he had turned and turned. A thousand tricks he had tried +to cajole the unwilling memory. All were vain. When he had awakened in +the freight-car, many miles had lain between him and his vanished +history, between him and St. James parish, the town he had impressed, +the desolate white house in the aspens, the chapel service and surplice, +and the swift and secret-keeping river. Between him and all that these +things had meant, there lay a gulf of silence and blankness as wide as +infinity itself.</p> + +<p>But drifting, adventuring, blown by the gipsy wind of chance, learning +the alphabet and the rule of three of "the road," the man was at once a +part of it and apart from it. The side that rejoiced in the liberty and +madcap adventure was overlaid by another darkling side whose fingers +were ever feeling for the lost latch. In the nomad weeks of wind and +sun, as the tissues of the brain grew slowly back to a state of normal +action, the mind seized again and again upon the bitter question of his +identity. It had obtruded into clicking leagues on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>steel-rails, into +miles afoot by fruit-hung lanes, on white Pacific shell-roads under +cedar branches, on busy highways. It had stalked into days of labor in +hop-fields, work with hand and foot that brought dreamless sleep and +generous wage; into nights of less savory experience in city purlieus, +where a self-forgotten man gamed and drank, recklessly, audaciously, +forbiddingly. Who was he? From what equation of life had he been +eliminated? Had he loved anything or anybody? Had he a friend, any +friend, in the world? At first it was not often that he cared; only +occasionally some deep-rooted instinct would stir, subtly conscious, +without actual contrast, of the missed and evaded. But he came to ask it +no longer quizzically or sardonically, but gloomily and fiercely. And +lacking answer, the man of no yesterdays had plunged on toward the +ardent, alien to-morrow, and further into audacious folly. He had drunk +deeper, the sign-posts of warning were set in his countenance, and his +smile had grown as dangerous as a sunstroke.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>The man of no memories gave no heed to the men on the street who looked +at him askance. He sauntered along unconsciously, his hands thrust deep +in his pockets. With a casual glance at the hotel across the way, he +entered a saloon, where a score of patrons were standing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> at the bar, or +shaking dice noisily at the tables ranged against the wall. The +bartender nodded to his greeting—the slightest possible nod. The dog +who had followed him into the place leaped up against him, its forepaws +on his knee.</p> + +<p>"Brandy, if you please," said the new arrival, and poured indolently +from the bottle set before him.</p> + +<p>The conversation in the room had chilled. To its occupants the man who +had entered was no stranger; he was Hugh Stires, returned unwelcome to a +place from which he had lately vanished. Moreover, what they felt for +him was not alone the crude hatred which the honest toiler feels for the +trickster who gains a living by devious knaveries. There was an uglier +suspicion afloat of Hugh Stires! A blue-shirted miner called gruffly for +his score, threw down the silver and went out, slamming the swing-door. +Another glowered at the new arrival, and ostentatiously drew his glass +farther along the bar.</p> + +<p>The new-comer regarded none of them. He poured his glass slowly full, +sipped from it, and holding it in his hand, turned and glanced +deliberately about the place. He looked at everybody in the room, +suddenly sensible of the hostile atmosphere, with what seemed a careless +amusement. Then he raised his glass.</p> + +<p>"Will you join me, gentlemen?" he said.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p><p>There was but one response. A soiled, shambling figure, blear, +white-haired and hesitating, with a battered violin under its arm, +slouched from a corner and grasped eagerly for the bottle the bartender +contemptuously pushed toward him. No one else moved.</p> + +<p>The man who waited studied the roomful with a disdainful smile, with +eyes sparkling like steel points. He as wholly misunderstood their +dislike as they misconstrued his effrontery—did not guess that to them +he stood as one whom they had known and had good reason to despise. +Their attitude struck him as so manifestly unreasonable and absurd—so +primarily the sulky hatred of the laborious boor for the manifestly more +flippant member of society—that it diverted him. He had drunk at +bar-rooms in many strange places; never before had he encountered a +community like this. His veiled, insolent smile swept the room.</p> + +<p>"A spirit of brotherhood almost Christian!" he said. "If I observe that +the town's brandy is of superior vintage to its breeding, let me not be +understood as complimenting the former without reservation. I have drunk +better brandy; I have never seen worse manners!"</p> + +<p>He looked smilingly at the soiled figure beside him—a fragment of +flotsam tossed on the tide of failure. "I erred in my general +salutation," he said. "Gentility is,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> after all, less a habit than an +instinct." He lifted his glass—to the castaway. "I drink to the health +of the only other gentleman present," he said, and tossed the drink off.</p> + +<p>A snort and a truculent shuffle came from the standing men. Their faces +were dark. Tom Felder, the lawyer, entered the saloon just in time to +see big Devlin, the owner of the corner dance-hall, rise from a table, +rolling up flannel sleeves along tattooed arms. He saw him stride +forward and, with a well-directed shove, send the shambling inebriate +reeling across the floor.</p> + +<p>"Two curs at the bar are enough at a time!" quoth Devlin.</p> + +<p>Then the lawyer saw an extraordinary thing. The emptied glass rang +sharply on the bar, the arm that held it straightened, the lithe form +behind it seemed to expand—and the big bulk of Devlin went backward +through the doorway, and collapsed in a sprawling heap on the pavement.</p> + +<p>"For my part," said an even, infuriate voice from the threshold, "I +prefer but one."</p> + +<p>The face the roomful saw now as they pushed to the outer air, and which +turned on the flocking crowd, bore anything but the slinking look they +had been used to see on the face of Hugh Stires. The smile that meant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> +danger played over it; there was both calculation and savagery in it. It +was the look of the man to whom all risks are alike, to whom nothing +counts. In the instant confusion, every one there recognized the element +of hardihood dumfounded. Here was one who, as Barney McGinn, the +freighter, said afterward, "hadn't the sand of a sick coyote," bearding +a bully and the most formidable antagonist the town afforded. Devlin +himself was not overpopular; his action had been plainly enough a play +to the galleries; and courage—that animal attribute which no +circumstance or condition can rob of due admiration—had appeared in an +unexpected quarter. But the man they despised had infuriated them with +insult, and Devlin had the sympathy that clings to a fair cause. An ugly +growl was running through the crowd, and several started forward. Even +when Tom Felder put up his hand with a sharp, indignant exclamation, +they fell back with an unwilling compulsion.</p> + +<p>The prostrate man was on his feet in an instant, wiping the blood from a +cleft lip, and peeled off his vest with a vile epithet.</p> + +<p>"That is incidentally a venturesome word to select from your +vocabulary," said the even voice, a sort of detonation in it. "You will +feel like apologizing presently."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p><p>Devlin came on with a bull-like rush. The lawyer's eye, shrewdly gaging +the situation, gave the slighter man short shrift, and for several +intense seconds every breath stopped. Those seconds called up from some +mysterious covert all the skill and strength of the old hard-hitting +Satan Sanderson, all the science of parry and feint learned in those +bluff college bouts with the gloves with Gentleman Jim. And this hidden +reserve rushed into combat with an avid thirst and wild ferocity as +strange as the steady eye and hand that cloaked them beneath a sardonic +coolness.</p> + +<p>It was a short, sharp contest. Not a blow broke the guard of the man +whose back was to the doorway—on the other hand, Devlin's face was +puffed and bleeding. When for a breath he drew back, gulping, a sudden +glint of doubt and fear had slipped beneath the blood and sweat.</p> + +<p>The end came quickly. Harry stepped to meet him, there was a series of +swift passes—then one, two, lightning-like blows, and Devlin went down +white and stunned in the dust of the roadway.</p> + +<p>So high was the tension and so instantaneous the close, that for a +moment the crowd was noiseless, the spell still upon them. In that +moment Tom Felder came hastily forward, for, though sharing the general +dislike, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>admiration was strong in him, and, knowing the temper of the +bystanders, he expected trouble.</p> + +<p>The man who had administered Devlin's punishment, however, did not see +his approach. He was looking somewhere above their heads—at the upper +balcony of the hotel opposite—staring, in a kind of strained and +horrified expectancy, at a girl who leaned forward, her hands clenching +the balustrade, her eyes fixed on his face. The late sunlight on her +hair made it gleam like burnished copper over her green riding-habit, +and her cheeks were blanched.</p> + +<p>There was something in that face, in that intense look, that seemed to +cleave the gray veil that swathed Harry Sanderson's past. Somewhere, +buried in some cell of his brain, a forgotten memory tugged at its +shackles—a memory of a time when, thousands and thousands of years ago, +he had been something more than the initials "H. S." The look pierced +through the daredevil present in which the mind astray had roved +reckless and insensate, to a deeper stratum in which slept maturer +qualities of refined taste, of dignity and of repute. It stripped off +the protecting cicatrice and left him enveloped in an odd embarrassment. +A flush burned his face.</p> + +<p>Only an instant the gaze hung between them. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> served as a distraction, +for other eyes had raced to the balcony. Loud voices were suddenly +hushed, for there was not wanting in the crowd that instinctive regard +for the proprieties which belongs to communities where gentlewomen are +few. In that instant Felder put his hand on the arm of the staring man +and drew him to the door of the hotel.</p> + +<p>"Inside, quickly!" he said under his breath, for a rumble from the crowd +told him the girl had left the balcony above. He pushed the other +through the doorway and turned for a second on the threshold.</p> + +<p>"Whatever private feelings you may have," he said in a tone that all +heard, "don't disgrace the town. Fair play—no matter who he is! McGinn, +I should think you, at least, were big enough to settle your grudges +without the help of a crowd."</p> + +<p>The freighter reddened angrily for a second, then with a shame-faced +laugh, shrugged his shoulders and turned away. The lawyer went in, +shutting the hotel door behind him.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XVI</span> <span class="smaller">THE AWAKENING</span></h2> + +<p>The man whose part the lawyer had taken had yielded to his touch almost +dazedly as the girl disappeared. The keen, pleasurable tang of danger +which had leaped in his blood when he faced the enmity of the crowded +street—the reckless zest with which he would have met any odds and any +outcome with the same smile, and gone down if need be fighting like the +tiger in the jungle—had been pierced through by that look from the +balcony. His poise for a puzzling moment had been shaken, his +self-command overthrown. Feeling a dull sense of anger at the curious +embarrassment upon him, he went slowly through the office to the desk, +and with his back to the room, lit a cigar.</p> + +<p>The action was half mechanical, but to the men gathered at the windows, +as they got down from the chairs on which they had been standing, +interested spectators of the proceedings outside, it seemed a pose of +gratuitous insolence. Tom Felder, entering, saw it with something of +resentment.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p><p>"That was a close squeak," he said. "Do you realize that? In five +minutes more you'd have been handled a sight worse than you handled your +man, let me tell you!"</p> + +<p>The man of no memories smiled, the same smile that had infuriated the +bar-room—and yet somehow it was more difficult to smile now.</p> + +<p>"Is it possible," he asked, "that through an unlucky error I have +trounced the local archbishop?"</p> + +<p>Felder looked at him narrowly. Beneath the sarcasm he distinguished +unfamiliarity, aloofness, a genuine astonishment. The appearance in the +person of Hugh Stires of the qualities of nerve and courage had +surprised him out of his usual indifference. The "tinhorn gambler" had +fought like a man. His present <i>sang-froid</i> was as singular. Had he been +an absolute stranger in the town he might have acted and spoken no +differently. Felder's smooth-shaven, earnest face was puzzled as he +answered curtly:</p> + +<p>"You've trounced a man who will remember it a long time."</p> + +<p>"Ah?" said the man addressed easily. "He has a better memory than I, +then!"</p> + +<p>He gazed over the heads of the silent roomful to the simmering street +where Devlin, with the aid of a supporting arm, was staggering into the +saloon in which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> his humiliation had begun. "They seem agitated," he +said. The feeling of embarrassment was passing, the old daring was +lifting. His glance, scanning the room, set itself on a shabby, blear +figure in the background, apologetic yet keenly and pridefully +interested. A whimsical light was in his eye. He crossed to him and, +reaching out his hand, drew the violin from under his arm.</p> + +<p>"Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast," he said, and, opening +the door, he tucked the instrument under his chin and began to play.</p> + +<p>What absolute contempt of danger, what insane prompting possessed him, +can scarcely be imagined. As he stood there on the threshold with that +veiled smile, he seemed utterly careless of consequence, beckoning +attack, flaunting an egregious impertinence in the face of anger and +dislike. Felder looked for a quick end to the folly, but he saw the men +in the street, even as they moved forward, waver and pause. With almost +the first note, it had come to them that they were hearing music such as +the squeaking fiddles of the dance-halls never knew. Those on the +opposite pavement crossed over, and men far down the street stood still +to listen.</p> + +<p>More than the adept's cunning, that had at first tingled in his fingers +at sight of the instrument, was in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> Harry Sanderson's playing. The +violin had been the single passion which the old Satan Sanderson had +carried with him into the new career. The impulse to "soothe the savage +breast" had been a flare of the old character he had been reliving; but +the music, begun in bravado, swept him almost instantly beyond its +bounds. He had never been an indifferent performer; now he was playing +as he had never played in his life, with inspiration and abandon. There +was a diabolism in it. He had forgotten the fight, the crowd, his own +mocking mood. He had forgotten where he was. He was afloat on a +fluctuant tide of melody that was carrying him back—back—into the +far-away past—toward all that he had loved and lost!</p> + +<p>"It's <i>Home, Sweet Home</i>," said Barney McGinn,—"no, it's <i>Annie +Laurie</i>. No, it's—hanged if I know what it is!"</p> + +<p>The player himself could not have told him. He was in a kind of tranced +dream. The self-made music was calling with a sweet insistence to buried +things that were stirring from a long sleep. It sent a gulp into the +throat of more than one standing moveless in the street. It brought a +suspicious moisture to Tom Felder's eyes. It drew Mrs. Halloran from the +kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. It called to a girl who crouched +in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> the upper hall with her miserable face buried in her hands, drew her +down the stair to the office door, her eyes wide with a breathless +wonder, her face glistening with feeling.</p> + +<p>From the balcony Jessica had witnessed the fight without understanding +its meaning. A fascination she could not gainsay had glued her eyes to +the struggle. It was he—it was the face she knew, seen but once for a +single moment in the hour of her marriage, but stamped indelibly upon +her memory. It was no longer smooth-shaven, and it was changed, evilly +changed. But it was the same! There was recklessness and mockery in it, +and yet strength, not weakness. Shunned and despised as he might be—the +chief actor, as it seemed to her, in a cheap and desperate bar-room +affray, a coarse affair of fisticuffs in the public street—yet there +was something intrepid in his bearing, something splendid in his +victory. In spite of the sharp, momentary sense of antagonism that had +bruised her inmost fiber, when the brutal bulk of his opponent fell she +could have wept with relief! Then, suddenly, she had found that look +chaining her own. It had given her a strange thrill, had both puzzled +and touched her. She had dragged her eyes away with a choking sensation, +a sense of helplessness and capture. When the violin sounded, a +resistless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> rush of feeling had swept her to the lower door, where she +stood behind the spectators, spellbound.</p> + +<p>In the man who played, weird forces were contending. The feel of the +polished wood on his cheek, the odor of the resined catgut in his +nostrils, were plucking, plucking at the closed door. A new note crept +to the strings. They had spoken pathos—now they told of pain. All the +struggle whose very meaning was forgotten, the unrequital, the baffled +quest, the longing of that last year which had been born of a woman's +kiss in a darkened room, never voiced in that lost life, poured forth +broken, inarticulate.</p> + +<p>To Jessica, standing with hands close-clasped, it seemed the agony of +remorse for a past fall, the cry of a forlorn soul, knowing itself cast +out, appealing to its good angel for pity and pardon. Hugh had often +played to her, lightly, carelessly, as he did all things. She had deemed +it only one of his many clever, amateurish accomplishments. Now it +struck her with a pang that there had been in him a deeper side that she +had not guessed. Since her wedding-day she had thought of her marriage +as a loathed bond, from which his false pretense had absolved her. Now a +doubt of her own position assailed her. Had loneliness and outlawry +driven him into the career that had made him shunned even in this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> rough +town—a course which she, had she been faithful to her vow "for better, +for worse," might have turned to his redemption? God forgave, but she +had not forgiven! Smarting tears scorched her eyelids.</p> + +<p>For Harry Sanderson the music was the imprisoned memory, crying out +strongly in the first tongue it had found. But the ear was alien, the +mind knew no by-path of understanding. It was a blind wave, feeling +round some under-sea cavern of suffering. Beneath the pressure the +closed door yielded, though it did not wholly open. The past with its +memories remained hidden, but through the rift, miraculously called by +the melody, the real character that had been the Reverend Henry +Sanderson came forth. The perplexed phantom that had been moving down +the natural declivity of resurrected predisposition, fell away. The +slumbering qualities that had stirred uneasily at sight of the face on +the balcony, awoke. Who he was and had been he knew no more than before; +but the new writhing self-consciousness, starting from its sleep, with +almost a sense of shock, became conscious of the gaping crowd, the dusty +street, the red sunset, and of himself at the end of a vulgar brawl, +sawing a violin in silly braggadocio in a hotel doorway.</p> + +<p>The music faltered and broke off. The bow dropped at his feet. He picked +it up fumblingly and turned back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> into the office, as a man entered from +a rear door. The new-comer was Michael Halloran, the hotel's proprietor, +short, thick-set and surly. Asleep in his room, he had neither seen the +fracas nor heard the playing. He saw instantly, however, that something +unusual was forward, and, blinking on the threshold, caught sight of the +man who was handing the violin back to its owner. He clenched his fist +with a scowl and started toward him.</p> + +<p>His wife caught his arm.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Michael, Michael!" she cried. "Say nothing, lad! Ye should have +heard him play!"</p> + +<p>"Play!" he exclaimed. "Let him go fiddle to his side-partner Prendergast +and the other riffraff he's run with the year past!" He turned blackly +to Harry. "Take yourself from this house, Hugh Stires!" he said. +"Whether all's true that's said of you I don't say, but you'll not come +here!"</p> + +<p>Harry had turned very white. With the spoken name—a name how +familiar!—his eyes had fallen to the ring on his finger—the ring with +the initials H. S. A sudden comprehension had darted to his mind. A +score of circumstances that had seemed odd stood out now in a baleful +light. The looks of dislike in the bar-room—the attitude of the +street—this angry diatribe—all smacked of acquaintance, and not alone +acquaintance, but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>obloquy. His name was Hugh Stires! He belonged to +this very town! And he was a man hated, despised, forbidden entrance to +an uncouth hostelry, an unwelcome visitant even in a bar-room!</p> + +<p>An hour earlier the discovery would not so have appalled him. But the +violin music, in the emergence of the real Harry Sanderson, had, as it +were, flushed the mind of its turgid silt of devil-may-care and left it +quick and quivering. He turned to Felder and said in a low voice—to +him, not to the hotel-keeper, or to the roomful:</p> + +<p>"When I entered this town to-day, I did not know my name, or that I had +ever set foot in it before. I was struck by a train a month ago, and +remember nothing beyond that time. It seems that the town knows me +better than I know myself."</p> + +<p>Halloran looked about him with a laugh of derision and incredulity, but +few joined in it. Those who had heard the playing realized that in some +eerie way the personality of the man they had known had been altered. +Before the painful, shocked intensity of his face, the lawyer felt his +instant skepticism fraying. This was little like acting! He felt an +inclination to hold out his hand, but something held him back.</p> + +<p>Harry Sanderson turned quietly and walked out of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> the door. Pavement and +street were a hubbub of excited talk. The groups parted as he came out, +and he passed between them with eyes straight before him.</p> + +<p>As he turned down the street, a fragment of quartz, thrown with +deliberate and venomous aim, flew from the saloon doorway. It grazed his +head, knocking off his hat.</p> + +<p>Tom Felder had seen the flying missile, and he leaped to the center of +the street with rage in his heart. "If I find out who threw that," he +said, "I'll send him up for it, so help me God!"</p> + +<p>Harry stooped and picked up his hat, and as he put it on again, turned a +moment toward the crowd. Then he walked on, down the middle of the +street, his eyes glaring, his face white, into the dusky blue of the +falling twilight.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XVII</span> <span class="smaller">AT THE TURN OF THE TRAIL</span></h2> + +<p>The scene in the hotel office had left Jessica in a state of mental +distraction in which reason was in abeyance. In the confusion she had +slipped into the little sitting-room unnoticed, feeling a sense almost +of physical sickness, to sit in the half-light, listening to the +diminishing noises of the spilling crowd. She was wind-swept, +storm-tossed, in the grip of primal emotions. The surprise had shocked +her, and the strange appeal of the violin had disturbed her equipoise.</p> + +<p>The significant words of awakening spoken in the office had come to her +distinctly. In their light she had read the piteous puzzle of that gaze +that had held her motionless on the balcony. Hugh had forgotten the +past—all of it, its crime, its penalty. In forgetting the past, he had +forgotten even her, his wife! Yet in some mysterious way her face had +been familiar to him; it had touched for an instant the spring of the +befogged memory.</p> + +<p>As she spurred through the transient twilight past<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> the selvage of the +town and into the somber mountain slope, she struck the horse sharply +with her crop. He who had entrapped her, who had married her under the +shadow of a criminal act, who had broken her future with his, when his +whole bright life had crashed down in black ruin—could such a one look +as he had looked at her? Could he make such music that had wrung her +heart?</p> + +<p>All at once the horse shied violently, almost unseating her. A man was +lying by the side of the road, tossing and muttering to himself. She +forced the unwilling animal closer, and, leaning from the saddle, saw +who it was. In a moment she was off and beside the prostrate form, a +spasm of dread clutching at her throat at sight of the nerveless limbs, +the chalky pallor of the brow, the fever spots in the cheeks.</p> + +<p>A wave of pity swept over her. He was ill and alone; he could not be +left there—he must have shelter. She looked fearfully about her. What +could she do? In that town, whose intolerance and dislike she had seen +so actively demonstrated, was there no one who would care for him? She +turned her head, listening to a nearing sound—footsteps were plodding +up the road. She called, and presently a pedestrian emerged from the +half-dark and came toward her.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p><p>He bent over the form she showed him.</p> + +<p>"It's Stires," he said with a chuckle. "I heard he'd come back." The +chuckle turned to a cough, and he shook his head. "This is sad! You +could never believe how I have labored with the boy, but"—he turned out +his hands—"you see, there is the temptation. It is his unhappy +weakness."</p> + +<p>Jessica remembered the yellow, smirking face now. She had passed him on +the day Tom Felder had walked with her from the Mountain Valley House, +and the lawyer had told her he lived in the cabin just below the Knob, +where she so often sat. She felt a quiver of repulsion.</p> + +<p>"He is not intoxicated," she said coldly. "He is ill. You know him, +then?"</p> + +<p>"Know him!" he echoed, and laughed—a dry, cackling laugh. "I ought to. +And I guess he knows me." He shook the inert arm. "Get up, Hugh!" he +said. "It's Prendergast!"</p> + +<p>There flashed through her mind the phrase of the surly hotel-keeper: +"His side-partner, Prendergast!" Could it be? Had Hugh really lived in +the cabin on which she had so often peered down during those past weeks? +And with this chosen crony!</p> + +<p>She touched Prendergast's arm. "He is ill, I say,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> she repeated. "He +must be cared for at once. Your cabin is on the hillside, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"<i>His</i> cabin," he corrected. "A rough place, but it has sheltered us +both. I am but guide, philosopher and friend."</p> + +<p>She bit her lips. "Lift him on my horse," she said. She stooped and put +her hands under the twitching shoulders. "I will help you. I am quite +strong."</p> + +<p>With her aid he lifted the swaying form on to the saddle and supported +it while Jessica led the way up the darkening road.</p> + +<p>"Here is the cut-off," he said presently. "Ah, you know it!" for she had +turned into the side-path that led along the hill, under the gray, +snake-like flume—the shortest route to the grassy shelf on which the +cabin stood.</p> + +<p>The by-way was steep and rugged, and rhododendron clumps caught at her +ankles, and once she heard a snake slip over the dry rustle of leaves, +but she went on rapidly, dragging at the bridle, turning back now and +then anxiously to urge the horse to greater speed. She scarcely heard +the offensively honied compliments which Prendergast offered to her +courage and resource. Her pulses were throbbing unsteadily, her mind in +a ferment.</p> + +<p>It seemed an eternity they climbed; in reality it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> scarcely twenty +minutes before they reached the grassy knoll and the cabin whose crazy +swinging door stood wide to the night air. She tied the horse, went in +and at Prendergast's direction found matches and lit a candle. The bare, +two-room interior it revealed, was unkempt and disordered. Rough bunks, +a table and a couple of hewn chairs were almost its only furniture. The +window was broken and the roof admitted sun and rain. Prendergast laid +the man they had brought on one of the bunks and threw over him a shabby +blanket.</p> + +<p>"My dear young lady," he said, "you are a good Samaritan. How shall we +thank you, my poor friend here and I?"</p> + +<p>Jessica had taken money from her pocket and now she held it out to him. +"He must have a doctor," she said. "You must fetch one."</p> + +<p>The yellow eyes fastened on the bill, even while his gesture protested. +"You shame me!" he exclaimed. "And yet you are right; it is for him." He +folded it and put it into his pocket. "As soon as I have built a fire, I +will go for our local <i>medico</i>. He will not always come at the call of +the luckless miner. All are not so charitable as you."</p> + +<p>He untied her horse and extended a hand, but she mounted without his +help. "He will thank you one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> day—this friend of mine," he said, "far +better than I can do."</p> + +<p>"It is not at all necessary to tell him," she replied frigidly. "The +sick are always to be helped, in every circumstance."</p> + +<p>She gave her horse the rein as she spoke and turned him up the steep +path that climbed back of the cabin, past the Knob, and so by a narrow +trail to the mountain road.</p> + +<p>Emmet Prendergast stood listening to the dulling hoof-beats a moment, +then reëntered the cabin. The man on the bunk had lifted to a sitting +position, his eyes were open, dazed and staring.</p> + +<p>"That's right," the older man said. "You're coming round. How does it +feel to be back in the old shebang? Can't guess how you got here, can +you? You were towed on horseback by a beauty, Hughey, my boy—a +rip-staving beauty! I'll tell you about it in the morning, if you're +good."</p> + +<p>The man he addressed made no answer; his eyes were on the other, +industrious and bewildered.</p> + +<p>"I heard about the row," went on Prendergast. "They didn't think it was +in you, and neither did I." He looked at him cunningly. "Neither did +Moreau, eh, eh? You're a clever one, Hugh, but the lost-memory racket<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> +won't stand you in anything. You hadn't any call to get scared in the +first place—<i>I</i> don't tell all I know!"</p> + +<p>He shoved the candle nearer on the table. "There's a queer look in your +face, Hugh!" he said, with a clumsy attempt at kindness. "That rock they +threw must have hurt you. Feel sort of dizzy, eh? Never mind, I'll show +you a sight for sore eyes. You went off without your share of the last +swag, but I've saved it for you. Prendergast wouldn't cheat a pal!"</p> + +<p>From a cranny in the clay-chinked wall he took a chamois-skin bag. It +contained a quantity of gold-dust and small nuggets, which he poured +into a miner's scales on the table and proceeded to divide in two +portions. This accomplished, he emptied one of the portions on to a +paper and pushed it out.</p> + +<p>"That's yours," he said.</p> + +<p>Harry's eyes were on his with a piercing intensity now, as though they +looked through him to a vast distance beyond. He was staring through a +gray mist, at something far off but significant that eluded his direct +vision. The board table, the yellow gold, the flickering candle-light +recalled something horrifying, in some other world, in some other life, +millions of ages ago.</p> + +<p>He lurched to his feet, overturning the table. The gold-dust rattled to +the floor.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p><p>"Your deal!" he said. Then with a vague laugh, he fell sidewise upon +the bunk.</p> + +<p>Emmet Prendergast stared at him with a look of amazement on his yellow +face. "He's crazy as a chicken!" he said.</p> + +<p>He sat watching him a while, then rose and kindled a fire on the unswept +hearth. From a litter of cans and dented utensils in a corner he +proceeded to cook himself supper, after which he carefully brushed up +the scattered gold-dust and returned it all to its hiding-place. Lastly +he rummaged on a shelf and found a phial; this proved to be empty, +however, and he set it on the table.</p> + +<p>"I guess you'll do well enough without any painkiller," he said to +himself. "Doctors are expensive. Anyway, I'll be back by midnight."</p> + +<p>He threw more wood on the fire, blew out the candle, and, closing the +door behind him, set off down the trail to the town—where a faro-bank +soon acquired the bill Jessica had given him.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XVIII</span> <span class="smaller">THE STRENGTH OF THE WEAK</span></h2> + +<p>It was pitch-dark when Jessica reached the sanatorium, though she went +like a whirlwind, the chill damp smell of the dewy balsams in her +nostrils, the dust rising ghost-like behind the rapid hoofs. She found +David Stires anxious and peevish over her late coming.</p> + +<p>Sitting beside him as he ate his supper, and reading to him afterward, +she had little time for coherent thought; all the while she was +maintaining her self-control with an effort. Since she had ridden away +that afternoon, she felt as if years had gone over her with all their +changes. She was oppressed with a new sense of fate, of power beyond and +stronger than herself, and her mind was enveloped in a haze of futurity. +She felt a relief when the old man grew tired and was wheeled to his +bedroom.</p> + +<p>Left alone, her reflections returned. She began to be tortured. She +tried to read—the printed characters swam beyond her comprehension. At +length she drew a hood over her head and stole out on to the wide porch.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p><p>It was only nine o'clock, and along the gravel paths that wound among +the shrubbery a few dim forms were strolling—she caught the scent of a +cigar and the sound of a woman's laugh. The air was crisp and bracing, +with a promise of frost and painted leaves. She gazed down across the +dark gulches toward the town, a straggling design pricked in blinking +yellow points. Halfway between, folded in the darkness, lay the green +shelf and the cabin to which her thought recurred with a kind of +compulsion.</p> + +<p>Her eyes searched the darkness anxiously. He had seemed dangerously ill; +he might die, perhaps. If he did, what would it be for her, his wife, +but freedom from a galling bond? She thought of the violin playing. Had +that been but the soul's swan-song, the last cry of his stained and +desolate spirit before it passed from this world that knew its +temptation and its fall? If she could only know what the doctor had +said!</p> + +<p>There was no moon, but the stars were glowing like tiny, green-gilt +coals, and the yellow road lay plain and clear. With a sudden +determination she drew her light cloak closely about her, stepped down, +sped across the grass to a footpath, and so to the road.</p> + +<p>As she ran on down the curving stretch under the trees, moving like a +hastening, gray phantom through a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> purple world of shadows, the +crackling slip of bank-paper that lay in her bosom seemed to burn her +flesh. She was stealing away to gaze upon the outcast who had shamed and +humbled her—going, she knew not why, with burning cheeks and hammering +heart.</p> + +<p>She slipped through the side trail to the cabin with a choking +sensation. She stole to the window and peered in—in the firelight she +could see the form on the bunk, tossing and muttering. Otherwise the +place was empty. She lifted the latch softly and entered.</p> + +<p>The strained anxiety of Jessica's look relaxed as she gazed about her. +She saw the phial on the table—the doctor had been there, then. If he +were in serious case, Prendergast would be with him. She threw back her +hood, drew one of the chairs to the side of the bunk and sat down, her +eyes fixed on his face. The weakness and helplessness of his posture +struck through and through her. Two sides of her were struggling in a +chaotic combat for mastery.</p> + +<p>"I hate you! I hate you!" she said under her breath, clenching her cold +hand. "I <i>must</i> hate you! You stole my love and put it under your feet! +You have disgraced my present and ruined my future! What if you have +forgotten the past—your crime? Does that make you the less guilty, or +me the less wretched?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p><p>But withal a silent voice within her gave the lie to her vehemence. +Some element of her character that had been rigid and intact was +crumbling down. An old, sweet something, that a dreadful mill had ground +and crushed and annihilated, was rising whole and undefiled, superior to +any petty distinction, regardless of all that lifted combative in her +inheritance, not to be gainsaid or denied.</p> + +<p>She leaned closer, listening to the incoherent words and broken phrases +borne on the turbid channels of fever. But she could not link them +together into meaning. Only one name he spoke clearly over and over +again—the name Hugh Stires—repeated with the dreary monotony of a +child conning a lesson. She noted the mark across his brow. Before her +marriage, in her blindness, she had used to wonder what it was like. It +was not in the least disfiguring—it gave a touch of the extraordinary. +It was so small she did not wonder that in that ecstatic moment of her +bride's kiss she had not seen it.</p> + +<p>Slowly, half fearfully, she stretched out her hand and laid it on his. +As if at the touch the mutterings ceased. The eyes opened, and a +confused, troubled look crept to them. Then they closed again, and the +look faded out into a peace that remained.</p> + +<p>Jessica dropped to her knees and buried her face in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> the blanket, +burning and chilling with an indescribable sensation of mingled pain and +pleasure. She scarcely knew what she was thinking. It seemed to her that +his very weakness and helplessness voiced again the something that had +sounded in the music of the violin, when the buried, forgotten past had +cried out its pain and shame and plea, half unconsciously—to her! A +thrill ran through her, the sense of moral power of the weak over the +strong, of the feminine over the masculine.</p> + +<p>A rising flush stained her cheeks. With a sudden impulse, and with a +guilty backward glance, she bent and touched her lips to his forehead.</p> + +<p>She drew back quickly, her face flooded with color, caught her breath, +then, drawing her hood over her head, went swiftly to the door and was +swallowed up in the darkness.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XIX</span> <span class="smaller">THE EVIL EYE</span></h2> + +<p>Harry Sanderson, harking back from the perilous pathway of fever, was to +see himself in the light of reawakened instincts. The man of no +memories, in his pointless wanderings, had felt dissatisfaction, a +fierce resentment, a savage unrest, but morally he had not suffered. The +spiritual elements of the maturer growth had slept. At a woman's look +they had awakened, to rise to full stature under the strange spell of +melody. When the real, remorseful nature, newly emerged, found itself an +object of animadversion and contempt, face to face with a past of shame +and reproach, the shock had been profound. The stirring of the old +conscience was as painful as is the first gasp of air to the drowned +lung. It had thrown the brain into a fever to whose fierce onslaught the +body had temporarily succumbed.</p> + +<p>When, toward midnight, the fever ebbed, he had fallen into a deep sleep +of exhaustion, from which he opened his eyes next morning upon the +figure of Prendergast, sitting pipe in mouth in the sunny doorway.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p><p>He lifted himself on his elbow. That crafty face had been inexplicably +woven with the delirious fantasies of his fever. Where and when had he +known it? Then in a great wave welled over him the memory of his last +conscious hours—the scene in the saloon, the fight, the music, the +sudden appalling discovery of his name and repute. He remembered the +sickening wave of self-disgust, the fierce agony of resentment that had +beat in his every vein as he walked up the darkening street. He +remembered the thrown quartz. No doubt another missile had struck home, +or he had been set upon, kicked and pommelled into insensibility. This +old man—a miner probably, for there were picks and shovels in the +corner—had succored him. He had been ill, there was lassitude in every +limb, and shadowy recollections tantalized him. As in the garish day one +mistily recalls a dream of the night before, he retained a dim +consciousness of a woman's face—the face he had seen on the +balcony—leaning near him, bringing into a painful disorder a sense of +grateful coolness, of fragrance, and of rest.</p> + +<p>He turned his head. Through the window he could see the blue, ravined +mountain—a slope of verdure soaked in placid, yellow sunshine, rising +gradually to the ridge, peaceful and Arcadian.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p><p>As he stared again at the seated figure, the grim fact reared like a +grisly specter, deriding, thrusting its haggard presence upon him. In +this little community, which apparently he had forsaken and to which he +had by chance returned, he stood a rogue and a scoundrel, a thing to +point the finger at and to avoid! The question that had burned his brain +to fire flamed up again. The town despised him. What had been his +career? How had he become a pariah? And by what miracle had he been so +altered as to look upon himself with loathing?</p> + +<p>He was dimly conscious withal that some fundamental change had passed +over him, though how or when he could not tell. Some mysterious moral +alchemy had transmuted his elements. What he had been he was no more. He +was no longer even the man who had awakened in the box-car. Yet the +debts of the unknown yesterday must be paid in the coin of the known +to-day!</p> + +<p>He lifted himself upright, dropping his feet to the floor. At the +movement the man on the doorstep rose quickly and came forward.</p> + +<p>"You're better, Hugh," he said. "Take it easy, though. Don't get up just +yet—I'm going to cook you some breakfast." He turned to the hearth, +kicked the smoldering log-ends together and set a saucepan on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> them. +"You'll be stronger when you've got something between your ribs," he +added.</p> + +<p>"How long have I been lying here?" asked Harry.</p> + +<p>"Only since last night. You've had a fever."</p> + +<p>"Where is my dog?"</p> + +<p>"Dog?" said the other. "I never knew you had one."</p> + +<p>Harry's lips set bitterly. It had fared more hardly, then, than he. It +had been a ready object for the crowd to wreak their hatred upon, +because it belonged to him—because it was Hugh Stires' dog! He leaned +back a moment against the cabin wall, with closed eyes, while +Prendergast stirred the heating mixture, which gave forth a savory +aroma.</p> + +<p>"Is this your cabin, my friend?"</p> + +<p>The figure bending over the hearth straightened itself with a jerk and +the blinking yellow eyes looked hard at him. Prendergast came close to +the bunk.</p> + +<p>"That's the game you played in the town," he said with a surly sneer. +"It's all right for those that take it in, but you needn't try to +bamboozle me, pretending you don't know your own claim and cabin! I'm no +such fool!"</p> + +<p>A dull flush came to Harry's face. Here was a page from that iniquitous +past that faced him. His own cabin? And his own claim? Well, why not?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p><p>"You are mistaken," he said calmly. "I am not pretending. I can not +remember you."</p> + +<p>Prendergast laughed in an ugly, derisive way. "I suppose you've +forgotten the half-year we've lived here together, and the gold-dust +we've gathered in now and again—slipped it all, have you?"</p> + +<p>Harry stood up. The motion brought a temporary dizziness, but it passed. +He walked to the door and gazed out on the pleasant green of the +hillside. On a tree near-by was nailed a rough, weather-beaten board on +which was scrawled "The Little Paymaster Claim." He saw the grass-grown +gravel-trenches, evidence of abandoned work. He had been a miner. That +in itself was honest toil. Across the waving foliage he could look down +to the distant straggling street with its huddles of houses and its +far-off swinging signs. Some of these signs hung above resorts of +clicking wheels and green baize tables; more than once in the past month +on such tables he had doubled many times over a paltry stake with that +satiric luck which smiles on the uncaring. His eye ran back up the +slope.</p> + +<p>"The claim is good, then," he said over his shoulder. "We found the +pay?"</p> + +<p>Prendergast contemplated him a moment in grim silence, with a scowl. +"You're either really fuddled,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> Hugh," he said then, "or else you're a +star play-actor, and up to something deep. Well, have it your own +way—it's all the same to me. But you can't pull the wool over my eyes +long!"</p> + +<p>There was mockery and threat in his tone, but more than both, the evil +intimacy in his words gave Harry a qualm of disgust. This man had been +his associate. That one hour in the town had shown him what his own life +there had been.</p> + +<p>What should he do? Forsake for ever the neighborhood where he had made +his blistering mark? Fling all aside and start again somewhere? And +leave behind this disgraceful present, with that face that had looked +into his from above the dusty street?</p> + +<p>If fate intended that, why had it turned him back? Why had he been +plucked rudely from his purpose and set once more here, where every +man's hand was against him—every one but this sorry comrade? There was +in him an intuitive obstinacy, a steadfastness under stress which +approved this drastic coercion. If such was the bed he had made, he +would lie in it. He would drink the gall and vinegar without whimpering. +Whatever lay behind, he would live it down. This man at least had +befriended him.</p> + +<p>He turned into the room. "Perhaps I shall remember<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> after a while." He +took the saucepan from Prendergast's hand. "I'll cook the breakfast," he +said.</p> + +<p>Prendergast filled his pipe and watched him. "I guess there <i>are</i> bats +in your belfry, sure enough, Hugh," he said at length. "You never +offered to do your stint before."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XX</span> <span class="smaller">MRS. HALLORAN TELLS A STORY</span></h2> + +<p>From the moment her kiss fell upon the forehead of the delirious man in +the cabin, Jessica began to be a prey to new emotions, the significance +of which she did not comprehend. She was no longer a child; she had +attained to womanhood on that summer's wedding-day that seemed so far +away. But her woman's heart was untried, and it felt itself opening to +this new experience with a strange confusion.</p> + +<p>That kiss, she told herself that night, had been given to her dead +ideal, that had lain there in its purifying grave-clothes of +forgetfulness. Yet it burned on her lips, as that other kiss in a +darkened room had burned afterward, but with a sense of pleasure, not of +hurt. It took her back into crimson meadows with her lost girlhood and +its opaled outlook—and Hugh. Then the warring emotions racked her +again; she felt a whirl of anger at herself, of hot impatience, of +mortification, of self-pity, and of stifled longing for she knew not +what.</p> + +<p>But largest of all in her mind next day was anxiety.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> She must know how +he fared. In the open daylight she could not approach the cabin, but she +reflected that the doctor had been there, and no doubt had carried some +report of him to the town. So, as the morning grew, she rode down the +mountain, ostensibly to get the cherry cordial she had left behind her +the day before—really to satisfy her hunger for news.</p> + +<p>As it happened, Mrs. Halloran's first greeting set her anxiety at rest. +Prendergast had bought some tobacco at the general store an hour before, +while she had been making her daily order, and the store-keeper had +questioned him. Prendergast had a fawning liking for the notice of his +fellows—save for his saloon cronies, few enough in the town, where it +was currently reported that he had a prison record in Arkansas, ever +exchanged more than a nod with him—and he had responded eagerly to the +civil inquiries. To an interested audience he had told of the finding of +Hugh on the mountain road in a sort of crazy fever, and enlarged upon +the part the girl on horseback had played. Hugh was all right now, he +said, except that he didn't remember him, or the cabin, or Smoky +Mountain.</p> + +<p>Here was new interest. Though her name was known to few, Jessica had +come to be a familiar figure on the streets—she was the only lady rider +the place knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>—and the description was readily recognizable without +the name which Mrs. Halloran supplied. In an hour the story had found a +hundred listeners, and as Jessica rode by that day, many a passer-by had +turned to gaze after her.</p> + +<p>What Prendergast had said Mrs. Halloran told her in a breath. Before she +finished she found that Jessica had not heard of the incident in the +saloon which had precipitated the fight with Devlin, and with +sympathetic rhetoric Mrs. Halloran told this, too.</p> + +<p>"He deserved it, ye see, dearie," she finished. "But no less was it a +brave thing that—what ye did last night, alone on the mountain with +them two, an' countin' yerself as safe as if ye were in God's pocket! To +hear that scalawag Prendergast talk, he's been Hugh Stires' good +angel—the oily hypocrite! An' do ye think it's true that he's lost his +memory—Stires, I mean—an' don't know nothin' that's ever happened with +him? Could that be, do ye think?"</p> + +<p>"I've often heard of such a thing, Mrs. Halloran," responded Jessica. +Her heart was throbbing painfully. "But why does Smoky Mountain hate him +so? What has he done?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Halloran shook her head. "I never knew anything myself," she said +judiciously. "I reckon the town<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> allus counted him just a general +low-down. The rest is only suspicion an' give the dog a bad name."</p> + +<p>There had been comfort for Jessica in this interview. The burden of that +illness off her mind—she had not realized how great a load this had +been till it was lifted—she turned eagerly toward this rift in the +cloud of infamy that seemed to envelop the reputation of the man whose +life her own had again so strangely touched. She was feeling a new +kinship with the town; it was now not alone a spot upon which she had +loved to gaze from the height; it was the place wherein the man she had +once loved had lived and moved.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Halloran's story had materially increased the poignant force of her +pity. What had seemed to her a vulgar brawl, had been in reality a +courageous and unselfish championship of a defenseless outcast. Thinking +of this, the self-blame and contrition which she had felt when she +listened to the violin assailed her anew, till she seemed a very part of +the guilt, an equal sinner by omission.</p> + +<p>Yet she rode homeward that day with almost a light heart.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXI</span> <span class="smaller">A VISIT AND A VIOLIN</span></h2> + +<p>Prendergast's first view had been one of suspicion, but this had been +shaken, and thereafter he had studied Harry with a sneering tolerance. +There had been little talk between them during the meal which the +younger man had cooked, taking the saucepan from the other's hands. +Shrinking acutely from the details of the dismal past which he must +learn, Harry had asked no questions and Prendergast had maintained a +morose silence. The latter had soon betaken himself down the +mountain—to his audience in the general store.</p> + +<p>As Harry stood in the cabin doorway, looking after him, toward the town +glistening far below in the morning sunlight, he thought bitterly of his +reception there.</p> + +<p>"They all knew me," he thought; "every one knew me, on the street, in +the hotel. They know me for what I have been to them. Yet to me it is +all a blank! What shameful deeds have I done?" He shrank from memory +now! "What was I doing so far away, where was I going, on the night when +I was picked up beside the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> railroad track? I may be a drunkard," he +said to himself. "No, in the past month I have drunk hard, but not for +the taste of the liquor! I may be a gambler—the first thing I remember +is that game of cards in the box-car! I may be a cheat, a thief. Yet how +is it possible for bad deeds to be blotted out and leave no trace? +Actions breed habit, if they do not spring from it, and habit, +automatically repeated, becomes character. I feel no inherent propensity +to rob, or defraud. Shall I? Will these things come back to me if my +memory does? Shall I become once more one with this vile old man, my +'side-partner,' to share the evil secrets that I see in his eyes—as I +must once have shared them?" He shuddered.</p> + +<p>There welled over him again, full force, the passionate resentment, the +agony of protest, that had been the gift of the resuscitated character. +He found himself fighting a wild desire to fling his resolution behind +him and fly from his reputation and its penalties.</p> + +<p>In the battle that he fought now he turned, even in his weakness, to +manual labor, striving to dull his thought with mechanical movement. He +cleaned and put to rights both rooms and sorted their litter of odds and +ends. But at times the inclination to escape became well-nigh +insupportable. When the conflict was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> fiercest he would think of a +girl's face, once seen, and the thought would restrain him. Who was she? +Why had her look pierced through him? In that hateful career that seemed +so curiously alien, could she have had a part?</p> + +<p>He did not know that she of whom he wondered, in the bitterest of those +hours had been very near him—that on her way up the mountain she had +stolen down to the Knob to look through the parted bushes to the cabin +with the blue spiral rising from its chimney. He could not guess that +she gazed with a strained, agitated interest, a curiosity even more +intense than his own, the look of a heart that was strangely learning +itself with mingled and tremulous emotions.</p> + +<p>Though the homely task to which he turned failed to allay his struggle, +by nightfall Harry had put the warring elements under. When Prendergast +returned at supper-time the candle was lighted in its wall-box, the +dinted tea-kettle was singing over a crackling fire, and Harry was +perspiring over the scouring of the last utensil.</p> + +<p>Prendergast looked the orderly interior over on the threshold with a +contemptuous amusement. "Almost thought I was in church," he said. He +took off his coat and lazily watched the other cook the frugal evening<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> +meal. "Excuse my not volunteering," he observed; "you do it so nicely +I'm almost afraid you'll have another attack of that forgettery of +yours, and go back to the old line."</p> + +<p>Presently he looked at the bunk, clean and springy with fresh cut +spruce-shoots. He went to it, knelt down and thrust an arm into the +empty space beneath it. He got up hastily.</p> + +<p>"What have you done with that?" he demanded with an angry snarl.</p> + +<p>"With what?" Harry turned his head, as he set two tin plates on the bare +table.</p> + +<p>"With what was under here."</p> + +<p>"There was nothing there but an old horse skin," said Harry. "It is +hanging on the side of the cabin."</p> + +<p>With an oath Prendergast flung open the door and went outside. He +reëntered quickly with the white hide in his arms, wrapped it in a +blanket and thrust it back under the bunk.</p> + +<p>"Has any one been here to-day—since you put it out there?" he asked +quickly.</p> + +<p>"No," said Harry, surprised. "Why?"</p> + +<p>Prendergast chuckled. The chuckle grew to a guffaw and he sat down, +slapping his thigh. Presently he went to the wall, took the chamois-skin +bag from its <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>hiding-place and poured some of its yellow contents into +his palm. "That's why. Do you remember that, eh?"</p> + +<p>Harry looked at it. "Gold-dust," he said. "I seem to recall that. I am +going to begin work in the trench to-morrow; there should be more where +that came from."</p> + +<p>Prendergast poured the gold back into the bag with a cunning look. The +other had asked for no share of it. At that moment he decided to say +nothing of the evening before, of the girl or the horseback +journey—lest Hugh, cudgelling his brains, might remember he had been +offered a half. If Hugh's peculiar craziness wanted to dig in the dirt, +very well. It might be profitable for them both. He put the pouch into +his pocket with a grin.</p> + +<p>"There's plenty more where that came from, all right," he said, "and +I'll teach you again how to get it, one of these days."</p> + +<p>Prendergast said little during the meal. When the table was cleared he +lit his pipe and took from a shelf a board covered with penciled figures +and scrutinized it.</p> + +<p>"Hope you remember how to play old sledge," he said. "When we stopped +last game you owed me a little over seventeen thousand dollars. If you +forget it isn't a cash game some day and pay up, why, I won't kick," he +added<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> with rough jocularity. He threw a pack of cards on to the table +and drew up the chairs.</p> + +<p>Harry did not move. As they ate he had been wondering how long he could +abide that sinister presence. The garish cards themselves now smote him +with a shrinking distaste. As he was about to speak a knock came at the +cabin door and Prendergast opened it.</p> + +<p>The visitor Harry recognized instantly; it was the man who had called +for fair play at the fight before the saloon, who had drawn him into the +hotel.</p> + +<p>Felder carried a bundle under his arm. He nodded curtly to Prendergast +and addressed himself to Harry.</p> + +<p>"I am the bearer of a gift from some one in the town," he said. "I have +been asked to deliver this to you." He put the bundle into the other's +hands.</p> + +<p>Harry drew up one of the chairs hastily. "Please sit down," he said +courteously. He looked at the bundle curiously. "<i>Et eos dona +ferentes</i>," he said slowly. "A gift from some one in the town!"</p> + +<p>A keen surprise flashed into the lawyer's glance. "The quotation is +classic," he said, "but it need not apply here." He took the bundle, +unwrapped it and disclosed a battered violin. "Let me explain," he +continued. "For the owner of this you fought a battle yesterday. You +tested its tone a little later—it seems that you are a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>master of the +most difficult of instruments. There was a time, I believe, when the old +man was its master also; he was once, they say, the conductor of an +orchestra in San Francisco. Drink and the devil finally brought him +down. For three years past he has lived in Smoky Mountain. Nobody knows +his name—the town has always called him 'Old Despair.' You did him what +is perhaps the first real kindness he has ever known at its hands. He +has done the only thing he could to requite it."</p> + +<p>Harry had colored painfully as Felder began to speak. The words brought +back that playing and its strange rejuvenescence of emotion, with acute +vividness. His voice was unsteady as he answered:</p> + +<p>"I appreciate it—I am deeply grateful—but it is quite impossible that +I accept it from him."</p> + +<p>"You need not hesitate," said the lawyer. "Old Despair needs it no +longer. He died last night in Devlin's dance-hall, where he played—when +he was sober enough—for his lodging. I happened to be near-by, and I +assure you it was his express wish that I give the violin to you."</p> + +<p>Rising, he held out his hand. "Good night," he said. "I hope your memory +will soon return. The town is much interested in your case."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p><p>The flush grew deeper in Harry's cheek, though he saw there was nothing +ironical in the remark. "I scarcely hope so much," he replied. "I am +learning that forgetfulness has its advantages."</p> + +<p>As the door closed behind the visitor, Prendergast kicked the chair back +to the table.</p> + +<p>"You're getting on!" he sneered, his oily tone forgotten. "Damn his +impertinence! He didn't offer to shake with <i>me</i>! Come on and play."</p> + +<p>Harry opened the door again and sat down on the cool step, the violin in +his hands.</p> + +<p>"I think I don't care for the cards to-night," he said. "I'd rather play this."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXII</span> <span class="smaller">THE PASSING OF PRENDERGAST</span></h2> + +<p>The little town had been unconsciously grateful for its new sensation. +The return of Hugh Stires and his apparent curious transformation was +the prime subject of conversation. For a half-year the place had known +but one other event as startling: that was the finding, some months +before, of a dead body—that of a comparative stranger in the +place—thrust beneath a thicket on Smoky Mountain, on the very claim +which now held Prendergast and his partner.</p> + +<p>The "Amen Corner" of the Mountain Valley House had discussed the pros +and cons exhaustively. There were many who sneered at the loss of memory +and took their cue from Devlin who, smarting from his humiliation and +nursing venom, revamped suspicions wherever he showed his battered face. +In his opinion Hugh Stires was "playing a slick game."</p> + +<p>"Your view is colored by your prejudices, Devlin," said Felder. "He's +been a blackleg in the past—granted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> But give the devil his due. As +for the other ugly tale, there's no more evidence against him than there +is against you or me!"</p> + +<p>"They didn't find the body on <i>my</i> ground," had been the other's surly +retort, "and <i>I</i> didn't clear out the day before, either!"</p> + +<p>The phenomenon, however, whether credited or pooh-poohed, was a drawing +card. More than a few found occasion to climb the mountain by the +hillside trail that skirted the lonely cabin. These, as likely as not, +saw Prendergast lounging in the doorway smoking, while the younger man +worked, leading a trench along the brow of the hill to bring the water +from its intake—which Harry's quick eye had seen was practicable—and +digging through the shale and gravel to the bed-rock, to the sparse +yellow grains that yielded themselves so grudgingly. Some of the +pedestrians nodded, a few passed the time of day, and to each Harry +returned his exact coin of salutation.</p> + +<p>The spectacle of Hugh Stires, who had been used to pass his days in the +saloons and his nights in even less becoming resorts, turned practical +miner, added a touch of <i>opera bouffe</i> to the situation that, to a +degree, modulated the rigor of dispraise. It was the consensus of +opinion that the new Hugh Stires seemed vastly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>different from the old; +that if he were "playing a game," it was a curious one.</p> + +<p>The casual espionage Prendergast observed with a scowl, as he watched +Harry's labors—when he was at the cabin, for after the first few days +he spent most of his time in haunts of his own in the town, returning +only at meal-time, gruff and surly. Harry, however, recognized nothing +unusual in the curious glances. He worked on, intent upon his own +problem of dark contrasts.</p> + +<p>On the one side was a black record, exemplified in Prendergast, clouded +infamy, a shuddering abhorrence of his past self as he saw it through +the pitiless lens of public opinion; on the other was a grim constancy +of purpose, a passionate wish to reconstruct the warped structure of +life of which he found himself the tenant, days of healthful, +peace-inspiring toil, a woman's face that threaded his every thought. As +he wielded his pick in the trench or laboriously washed out the few +glistening grains that now were to mean his daily sustenance, he turned +often to gaze up the slope where, set in its foliage, the glass roof of +the sanatorium sparkled softly through the Indian haze. Strange that the +sight should mysteriously suggest the face that haunted him!</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Emmet Prendergast saw the abstracted regard as he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> came up the trail +from the town. He was in an ugly humor. The bag of gold-dust which he +had shown to Harry he had not returned to the hiding-place in the wall, +and with this in his pocket the faro-table had that day tempted him. The +pouch was empty now.</p> + +<p>Harry's back was toward him, and the gold-pan in which he had been +washing the gravel lay at his feet. With a noiseless, mirthless laugh +Prendergast stole into the cabin and reached down from the shelf the +bottle into which each day Harry had poured his scanty findings. He +weighed it in his hand—almost two ounces, a little less than twenty +dollars. He hastily took the empty bag from his pocket.</p> + +<p>But just then a shadow darkened the doorway and Harry entered. He saw +the action, and, striding forward, took the bottle from the other's +hand.</p> + +<p>Prendergast turned on him, a sinister snarl under his affectation of +surprise. "Can't you attend to your own rat-killing?" he growled. "I +guess I've got a right to what I need."</p> + +<p>"Not to that," said Harry quietly. "We shall touch the bottom of the +flour sack to-morrow. You expect to get your meals here, I presume."</p> + +<p>"I still look forward to that pleasure," answered Prendergast with an +evil sneer. "Three meals a day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> and a rotten roof over my head. When I +think of the little I have done to deserve it, the hospitality overcomes +me! All I have done is to keep you from starving to death and out of +quod at the same time. I only taught you a safe way to beat the game—an +easier one than you seem to know now—and to live on Easy Street!"</p> + +<p>"I am looking for no easy way," responded Harry, "whatever you mean by +that. I expect to earn my living as I'm earning it now—it's an honest +method, at all events."</p> + +<p>"You've grown all-fired particular since you lost your memory," retorted +Prendergast, his eyes narrowing. "You'll be turning dominie one of these +days! Perhaps you expect to get the town to take up with you, and to +make love to the beauty in the green riding-habit that brought you here +on her horse the night you were out of your head!"</p> + +<p>Harry started. "What do you mean?" he asked thickly.</p> + +<p>Prendergast's oily manner was gone now. His savage temper came +uppermost.</p> + +<p>"I forgot you didn't know about that," he scoffed. "I made a neat story +of it in the town. They've been gabbling about it ever since."</p> + +<p>Harry caught his breath. As through a mist he saw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> again that green +habit on the hotel balcony—that face that had haunted his waking +consciousness. It had not been Prendergast alone, then, who had brought +him here. And her act of charity had been made, no doubt, a thing for +the tittering of the town, cheapened by chatter, coarsened by joke!</p> + +<p>"I wonder if she'd done it if she'd known all I know," continued the +other malevolently. "You'd better go up to the sanatorium, Hugh, and +give her a nice sweet kiss for it!"</p> + +<p>A lust of rage rose in Harry's throat, but he choked it down. His hand +fell like iron on Prendergast's shoulder, and turned him forcibly toward +the open door. His other hand pointed, and his suppressed voice said:</p> + +<p>"This cabin has grown too small for us both. The town will suit you +better."</p> + +<p>Prendergast shrank before the wrath-whitened face, the dangerous sparkle +in the eyes. "You've got through with me," he glowered, "and you think +you can go it alone." The old suspicion leaped in the malicious +countenance. "Well, it won't pay you to try it yet. I know too much! Do +you understand? <i>I know too much!</i>"</p> + +<p>Harry went out of the cabin. At the door he turned. "If there is +anything you own here," he said, "take it with you. You needn't be here +when I come back."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p><p>His fingers shaking with the black rage in his heart, Prendergast +gathered his few belongings, rolled them in the white horse-skin which +he drew from beneath his bunk, and wrapped the whole in a blanket. He +fastened the bundle in a pack-strap, slung it over his shoulder, and +left the cabin. Harry was seated on one of the gravel-heaps, some +distance away, looking out over the valley, his back toward him. As he +took the steep path leading toward the little town Prendergast shot the +figure an envenomed look.</p> + +<p>"What's your scheme, I wonder?" he muttered darkly. "Whatever it is, +I'll find out, never fear! And if there's anything in it, you'll come +down from that high horse!" He settled his burden and went rapidly down +the trail, turning over in his mind his future schemes.</p> + +<p>As it chanced, there was one who saw his vindictive face. Jessica, +crouched on the Knob, had seen him come and now depart, pack on back, +and guessed that the pair had parted company. Her whole being flamed +with sympathy. She could see his malignant scowl plainly from where she +leaned, screened by the bushes. It terrified her. What had passed +between them in the cabin? She left the Knob wondering.</p> + +<p>All that evening she was ill at ease. At midnight, sleepless, she was +looking out from her bedroom window<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> across the phantom-peopled shadows, +where on the face of the pale sky the stars trembled like slow tears. +Anxiety and dread were in her heart; a pale phantom of fear seemed +lurking in the shadows; the night was full of dread.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXIII</span> <span class="smaller">A RACE WITH DEATH</span></h2> + +<p>On the day following the expulsion of Prendergast, Harry woke restless +and unrefreshed. Fleeting sensations mocked him—a disturbing conviction +that the struggling memory in some measure had succeeded in reasserting +itself in the shadowy kingdom of sleep. Waking, the apparitions were +fled again into their obscurity, leaving only the wraiths of +recollection to startle and disquiet.</p> + +<p>A girl's face hovered always before him—ruling his consciousness as it +had ruled his sleeping thought. "Is it only fancy?" he asked himself. +"Or is it more? It was there—my memory—in shreds and patches, on my +sleep; now when I wake, it is only the fraying mist of dreams.... +Dreams!" He drew a deep breath. "Yet the overmastering sense of reality +remains. Last night I walked in intimate, forgotten ways—and she was in +them—<i>she!</i>" He flushed, an odd, sensitive flush. "Dreams!" he said. +"All dreams and fancies!"</p> + +<p>At length he took down from its shelf the bottle he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> had rescued from +Prendergast's intention and emptied it of its glistening grains—enough +to replenish his depleted stock of provisions. He paused a moment as he +put on his hat, smiling whimsically, a little sadly. He dreaded entering +the town. But there could be no remedy in concealment. If he was to live +and work there, appear he must on the streets sooner or later. Smoky +Mountain must continue to think of him as it might; what he was from +that time on, was all that could count to him.</p> + +<p>If he had but known it, there was good reason for hesitation to-day. +Early that morning an angry rumor had disturbed the town; the sluice of +the hydraulic company had been robbed again. Some two months previously +there had occurred a series of depredations by which the company had +suffered. The boxes were not swept of their golden harvest each day, and +in spite of all precautions, coarse gold had disappeared mysteriously +from the riffles—this, although armed men had watched all night. There +had been much guess-work. The cabin on the hillside was the nearest +habitation—the company's flume disgorged its flood in the gulch beneath +it—and suspicion had eventually pointed its way. The sudden ceasing of +the robberies with the disappearance of Hugh Stires had given focus to +this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> suspicion. Now, almost coincident with his return, the thievery +had recommenced. It had been a red-letter day for Devlin and his ilk who +cavilled at the more charitable. Of all this, however, the object of +their "I-told-you-so" was serenely ignorant.</p> + +<p>As Harry walked briskly down the mountain, a feeling of unreality stole +upon him. The bell was ringing in the steeple of the little Catholic +church below, and the high metallic sound came to him with a mysterious +and potential familiarity. With the first note, his hand in his pocket +closed upon an object he always carried—the little gold cross he had +found there when he awakened in the freight-car, the only token he +possessed of his vanished past. More than once it had been laid for a +mascot on the faro-table or the roulette-board with his last coin. +Always it had brought the stake back, till he had gained a whimsical +belief in its luck.</p> + +<p>He drew it out now and looked at it. "Strange that the sound of a bell +always reminds me of that," he muttered. "Association of ideas, I fancy, +since there is a cross on the church steeple. And what is there in that +bell? It is a faint sound even from here, yet night after night, up +there in the cabin, that far-off peal has waked me suddenly from sleep. +Why is it, I wonder?"</p> + +<p>Entering the town, there were few stirring on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> sunny streets, but he +could not but be aware that those he met stopped to gaze after him. +Some, indeed, followed. His first objective point was a jeweler's, where +he could turn his gold-dust into readier coin for needful purchases. He +saw a sign next the Mountain Valley House, and entered.</p> + +<p>The jeweler weighed the dust with a distrustful frown, but Harry's head +was turned away. He was reading a freshly printed placard tacked on the +wall—an offer of reward for the detection of the sluice thief. He read +it through mechanically, for as he read there came from the street +outside a sound that touched a muffled chord in his brain. It was the +exhaust of a motor-car.</p> + +<p>He thrust the money the goldsmith grudgingly handed him into his pocket +and turned to the door. A long red automobile had stopped at the curb. +Two men whom it carried were just entering the hotel.</p> + +<p>Harry had seen many such machines in his wanderings, and they had +aroused no baffling instinct of habitude. But the old self was stirring +now, every sense alert. Hour by hour he had found himself growing more +delicately susceptible to subtle mental impressions, haunted by shadowy +reminders of things and places. Something in the sight of the long, low +"racer" <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>reminded him—of what? His eye traced its polished lines, +noting its cunning mechanism, its build for silent speed, with the eager +lighting of a connoisseur. He took a step toward it, oblivious to all +about him.</p> + +<p>He did not note that men were gathering, that the nearest saloon was +emptying of its occupants. Nor did he see a girl on horseback, with a +tiny child before her on the saddle, who reined up sharply opposite.</p> + +<p>The rider was Jessica; the child, an ecstatic five-year-old she had +picked up on the fringe of the town, to canter in with her hands +gripping the pommel of the saddle. She saw Harry's position instantly +and guessed it perilous. What did the men mean to do? She leaned +forward, a swift apprehension in her face.</p> + +<p>Harry came back suddenly to a realization of his surroundings. He looked +about him, startled, his cheek darkening its red, every muscle +instinctively tightening. He saw danger in the lowering faces, and the +old lust of daring leaped up instantly to grapple with the rejuvenated +character.</p> + +<p>Devlin's voice came over the heads of the crowd as, burly and +shirt-sleeved, he strode across the street:</p> + +<p>"Hand over the dust you've stolen before you are tarred and feathered, +Hugh Stires!"</p> + +<p>Harry looked at him surprised, his mind instantly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> recurring to the +placard he had seen. Here was a tangible accusation.</p> + +<p>"I have stolen nothing," he responded quietly.</p> + +<p>"Where did he get what he just sold me?" The jeweler's sour query rose +behind him from the doorway.</p> + +<p>"We'll find that out!" was the rough rejoinder.</p> + +<p>In face of his threatening peril, Jessica forgot all else—the restive +horse, the child. She sprang to the ground, her face pained and +indignant, and started to run across the street. But with a cry of +dismay she turned back. The horse had caught sight of the red +automobile, and, snorting and wild-eyed, had swung into the roadway.</p> + +<p>"It's Devlin's kid!" some one cried out, and Devlin, turning, went +suddenly ashen. The baby was the one soft spot in his ruffianly heart. +He sprang toward the animal, but the movement and the hands clutching at +the bridle sent it to a leaping terror. In another instant it had broken +through the ring of bystanders, and, frenzied at its freedom, dashed +down the long, level street with the child clinging to the +saddle-pommel.</p> + +<p>It was all the work of a moment, one of panic and confusion, through +which rang Jessica's scream of remorse and fright. Torpor held the +crowd—all save one, whose action followed the scream as leap follows<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> +the spur. In a single step Harry gained the automobile. With an +instantaneous movement he pushed the lever down and jerked the throttle +wide. The machine bounded into its pace, the people rolling back before +it, and, gathering headway, darted after the runaway.</p> + +<p>The spectators stood staring. "He'll never catch him," said Michael +Halloran, who had joined the crowd. "Funeral Hollow's only a mile away." +With others he hurried to the hotel balcony, where he could watch the +exciting race. Jessica stood stock-still, as blanched as Devlin, +wringing her hands.</p> + +<p>Harry Sanderson had acted with headlong intention, without calculation, +almost without consciousness of mental process. Standing on the +pavement, with the subtle lure of the motor creeping in his veins, his +whole body responding—as his fingers had tingled at sight of the +violin—to the muffled vibrations of that halted bundle of steel, in the +sharp exigency he had answered an overmastering impulse. In the same +breath he had realized Jessica's presence and the child's peril, both +linked in that anguished cry. With the first bound of the car under him, +as the crowd was snatched behind, a weird, exultant thrill shot through +every nerve. Each bolt and bar he knew as one would tell his fingers. +Somewhere, at some time, he had known such flight—through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> mellow +sunlight, with the air singing past. Where? When?</p> + +<p>Not for the fraction of a second, however, did his gaze waver. He knew +that the flat on which the town was built fell away in a hollow ravine +to the southward—he could see it from the cabin doorway—a stretch of +breakneck road only a mile ahead. Could the child hold on? Could he +distance those frenzied hoofs in time? The arrow of the indicator stole +forward on the dial.</p> + +<p>Far behind, as the crowd watched, a cry rose from the hotel balcony. It +was Barney McGinn, the freighter, with a glass at his eye. "He's +gaining!" he shouted. "He has almost overtaken the horse!"</p> + +<p>The horse's first fury of speed was tiring. The steel steed was creeping +closer. A thunder of hoofs in pursuit would have maddened the flying +animal, but the gliding thing that was now so close to him came on with +noiseless swiftness. Harry had reserved, with the nicety of a practised +hand, a last increment of speed. With the front wheels at the horse's +flank, he drew suddenly on this. As the car responded, he swerved it +sharply in, and, holding with one hand, leaned far out from the step, +and lifted the child from the saddle.</p> + +<p>The automobile halted again before the hotel amid a hush. The men who a +little while before had been ripe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> for violence, now stood in shamefaced +silence. It was Jessica who ran forward and took the child, still +sobbing a little, from Harry's hands. One long look passed between +them—a look on her part brimming with a great gratitude for his lifting +of her weight of dread and compunction, and with something besides that +mantled her cheeks with rich color. She kissed the child and placed her +in her father's arms.</p> + +<p>Devlin's countenance broke up. He struggled to speak, but could not, +and, burying his face in the child's dress and crying like a baby, he +crossed the street hastily to his own door.</p> + +<p>Harry stepped to the pavement with a dull kind of embarrassment at the +manifold scrutiny. He had misconstrued Jessica's flushing silence, and +the inference stung. The fierce zest was gone, and the rankling barb of +accusation smarted. He should apologize to the owner, he reflected +satirically, for helping himself to the automobile—he who stole +gold-dust, he at whose door the town laid its unferreted thieveries! He +who was the scapegoat for the town's offenses!</p> + +<p>That owner, in very fact, stood just then in the hotel doorway regarding +him with interest. He was the sheriff of the county. He was about to +step forward, when an interruption occurred. A scuffle and a weak<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> bark +sounded, and a lean brown streak shot across the pavement.</p> + +<p>"Rummy!" cried Harry. "Rummy!"</p> + +<p>Through some chink of the dead wall in his brain the name slipped out, a +tiny atom of flotsam retrieved from the wreck of memory. That was all, +but to the animal which had just found its lost master, the word meant a +sublimation of delight, the clearing of the puzzle of namelessness that +had perplexed its canine brain. The dog's heaven was reached!</p> + +<p>Down on his knees on the pavement went Harry, with his arms about the +starved, palpitating little creature, and his cheek against its shaggy +coat. In another moment he had picked it up in his arms and was walking +up the street.</p> + +<p>Late that night Tom Felder, sitting in his office, heard the story of +the runaway from the sheriff's lips. He himself had been in court at the +time.</p> + +<p>"And the horse?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"In the Hollow, with his back broken," said the sheriff.</p> + +<p>The lawyer sprang from his chair. "Good God!" he exclaimed. "How can a +man like that ever have been a scoundrel?"</p> + +<p>The sheriff relit his dead cigar reflectively. "It's a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> curious thing," +he said. "They are saying on the street that he's sent Prendergast +packing. He'll have to watch out—the old tarantula will sting him if he +can!"</p> + +<p>Harry Sanderson went back to his cabin with a strange feeling of +exaltation and disappointment—exaltation at the recurrence of something +of his old adventures, disappointment at the flushed silence with which +Jessica had received the child.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXIV</span> <span class="smaller">ON SMOKEY MOUNTAIN</span></h2> + +<p>Jessica bore back from the town that afternoon a spirit of tremulous +gladness. In the few moments of that thrilling ride and rescue, a +mysterious change had been wrought in her.</p> + +<p>In the past days her soul had been possessed by a painful agitation +which she did not attempt to analyze. At moments the ingrained hatred of +Hugh's act, the resentment that had been the result of that year of +pain, had risen to battle for the inherent justice of things. At such +times she was restless and <i>distraite</i>, sitting much alone, and puzzling +David Stires by meaningless responses.</p> + +<p>She could not tell him that the son whose name he never took upon his +lips was so near: that he whose crime his father's pride of name had +hidden, through all the months since then, had gone down with the +current, shunned by honest folk, adding to his one dismal act the weight +of persistent repetition! She could not tell him this, even though that +son now lived without<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> memory of the evil he had done; though he +struggled under a cloud of hatred, reaching out to clean deed and high +resolve.</p> + +<p>Now, however, all distrust and trepidation had vanished. Strangely and +suddenly the complex warfare in her mind had stilled. Standing with Mrs. +Halloran, she had listened to the comment with shining eyes. Not that +she distinguished any sudden and violent <i>volte-face</i> of opinion to turn +persecution to popularity and make the reprobate of to-day the favorite +of to-morrow. But in its very reserve she instinctively felt a new +tension of respect. Suspicion and dislike aside, there was none there +who would again hinder the man who had made that race with death!</p> + +<p>For her own part, she only knew that she had no longer fear of soul or +sense of irrevocable loss, or suffering. What were those old Bible words +about being born again? What was that rebirth but a divine forgetting, a +wiping out, a "remembering no more?" If it was the memory of his shame +that had dragged him down, that memory was gone, perhaps for ever. The +Hugh she now loved was not the Hugh who had sinned!</p> + +<p>She sat by David Stires that evening chatting gaily—he had been much +weaker and more nervous of late and she would not have him told of the +runaway—talking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> of cheerful things, radiating a glow from her own +happiness that warmed the softly-lighted sick-room. All the while her +heart was on the hillside where a rough cabin held him who embodied for +her all the mystery and meaning of life. By a kind of clairvoyance she +saw him sitting in the snug firelight, thinking perhaps of the instant +their eyes had met. She did not guess that for him that moment had held +an added pang.</p> + +<p>So the hours had passed, and the sun, when it rose next day, shone on a +freshly created world. The wind no longer moaned for the lost legends of +the trees. There was a bloom on every flowering bush, a song in the +throat of every bird. She was full of new feelings that yielded in their +sway only to new problems that loomed on her mental horizon. As the +puzzle of the present cleared, the future was become the all-dominating +thing. She knew now that she had never hated, had never really ceased to +love. And Hugh? Love was not a mere product of times and places. It was +only the memory that was gone, his love lived on underneath. Surely that +was what the violin—what the look on his face had said! When the broken +chain was welded, he would know her! Would it be chance—some sudden +mental shock—that would furnish the clue? She had heard of such things.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p><p>But suppose he did not recover his memory. In the very nature of the +case, he must sometime learn the facts of his past. Was it not better to +know the very worst it contained now, to put all behind him, and face a +future that held no hidden menace? She alone could tell him what had +clouded his career—the thing whose sign and symbol was the forged +draft. She carried the slip of paper in the bosom of her dress, and +every day she took it out and looked at it as at some maleficent relic. +It was a token of the old buried misery that, its final purpose +accomplished, should be forgotten for ever. How to convey the truth with +as little pain as might be—this was the problem—and she had found the +solution. She would leave the draft secretly in the cabin, where he must +see it. It bore his own name, and the deadly word David Stires' cramped +fist had written across it, told its significant story. How it got there +Hugh would not question; it would be to him only a detail of his +forgotten life there.</p> + +<p>She was glad when in the late afternoon Doctor Brent came for his chat +with David Stires, and the latter sent her out for a walk. It was a +garlanded day, a day of clear blue spaces between lavender clouds +lolling in the sky, and over all the late summer landscape a dull gold +wash of sun. There had long ceased to be for her any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> direction save +one—down the mountain road to where a rambling, overgrown path led to +the little grassy plateau with its jutting rock, which was her point of +observation. She did not keep to the main road, but chose a short-cut +through the thick underbrush that brought her more quickly to the Knob. +There she sat down, and, parting the bushes, peered through them.</p> + +<p>All was quiet. No wisp of smoke curled from the cabin chimney, no work +was forward; for Harry had climbed far up the mountain, alone with his +thoughts. It was a favorable opportunity.</p> + +<p>Jessica had the fateful draft in her hand as she ran quickly down the +trail and across the cleared space to the cabin door. It was wide open. +Peering warily she saw that both rooms were empty, and, with a guilty +last glance about her, she entered. A smile curved her lips as she saw +the plain neatness of the interior; the scoured cooking-utensils, the +coarse Mackinaw clothing hung from wooden pegs, the clean bacon +suspended from the rafters. A nail in the wall held an old violin, and +beneath it was a shelf of books.</p> + +<p>To these, battered and dog-eared novels rescued from the mildewed litter +of the cabin, Harry had turned eagerly in the long evenings for lack of +mental pabulum. She took one from the meager row, and opened it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> +curiously. It was <i>David Copperfield</i>, and she saw with kindling +interest that heavy lines were drawn along certain of the pages. The +words that had been marked revealed to the loving woman something of his +soul.</p> + +<p>She looked about her. Where should she put the draft? He had left a +marker in the book; he would open it again, no doubt. She laid the draft +between the printed leaves, beyond the marker. Then, replacing the +volume on the shelf, she ran from the door and hastened back up the +steep trail to the Knob.</p> + +<p>Leaning back against the warm rock, lapped in the serene peacefulness of +the spot, Jessica fell into reverie. Never since her wedding-day had she +said to herself boldly: "I love him!"—never till yesterday. Now all was +changed. Her thought was a tremulous assurance: "I shall stay here near +him day after day, watching. Some day his memory will come back, and +then my love will comfort him. The town will forget it has hated, and +will come to honor him. Sometime, seeing how he is changed, his father +will forgive him and take him back, and we shall all three go home to +the white house in the aspens. If not, then my place will still be with +Hugh! Perhaps we shall live here. Perhaps a cabin like that will be +home, and I shall live with him, and work with him, and care for him."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p><p>Thus she dreamed—a new day-dream, unravaged by the sordid tests of +verity.</p> + +<p>So absorbed was she that she did not hear a step approaching over the +springy moss—a sharply drawn breath, as the intruder stifled an +exclamation. She had drawn her handkerchief across her eyes against the +dancing glimmer of sunlight. Suddenly it dropped to her lap, and she +half turned.</p> + +<p>In the instant of surprise, as Harry's look flashed into hers, a name +sprang unbidden to her lips—a name that struck his strained face to +sudden whiteness, ringing in his ears like the note of a sunken bell. +All that was clamoring in him for speech rushed into words.</p> + +<p>"You call my name!" he cried. "You know me! Have I ever been 'Hugh' to +you? Is that what your look said to me? Is that why your face has +haunted me? Tell me, I pray you!"</p> + +<p>She had struggled to her feet, her hands pressed to her bosom. The +surprise had swung her from her moorings. Her heart had been so full in +her self-communings that now, between the impulse toward revealment and +the warning of caution, she stood confused.</p> + +<p>"I had never seen you in the town before that day," she said. "I am +stopping there"—she pointed to the ridge above, where the roof of the +sanatorium glistened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> in the sunlight. "I was at the hotel by merest +accident when—you played."</p> + +<p>The light died in his eyes. He turned abruptly and stared across the +foliaged space. There was a moment's pause.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me!" he said at length, in a voice curiously dull. "You must +think me a madman to be talking to you like this. To be sure, every one +knows me. It is not strange that you should have spoken my name. It was +a sudden impulse to which I yielded. I had imagined ... I had dreamed +... but no matter. Only, your face—that white band across your +eyes—your voice—they came to me like something far away that I have +known. I was mistaken. I was crazy to think that you—"</p> + +<p>He stopped. A wave of sympathy passed over her. She felt a mad wish to +throw all aside, to cry to him: "You <i>did</i> know me! You loved me once! I +am Jessica—I am your wife!" So intense was her emotion that it seemed +to her as if she had spoken his name again audibly, but her lips had not +moved, and the tap of a woodpecker on a near-by trunk sounded with harsh +distinctness.</p> + +<p>"I have wanted to speak to you," she said, after an instant in which she +struggled for self-control. "You<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> did a brave thing yesterday—a +splendid thing. It saved me from sorrow all my life!"</p> + +<p>He put aside her thanks with a gesture. "You saved me also. You found me +ill and suffering and your horse carried me to my cabin."</p> + +<p>"I want to tell you," she went on hastily, her fingers lacing, "that I +do not judge you as others do. I know about your past life—what you +have forgotten. I know you have put it all behind you."</p> + +<p>His face changed swiftly. To-day the determination with which he had +striven to put from his mind the problem of his clouded past had broken +down. In the light of the charge which had been flung in his teeth the +afternoon before, his imagination had dwelt intolerably on it. "Better +to have ended it all under the wheels of the freight-engine," he had +told himself. "What profit to have another character, if the old lies +chuckling in the shadow, an old-man-of-the-sea, a lurking thing, like a +personal devil, to pull me down!" In these gloomy reflections her +features had recurred with a painful persistence. He had had a bad +half-hour on the mountain, and now, before her look and tone, the +ever-torturing query burst its bonds.</p> + +<p>"You know!" he said hoarsely. "Yet you say that? They stoned me in the +street the day I came back. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>Yesterday they counted me a thief. It is +like a hideous nightmare that I can't wake from. Who am I? Where did I +come from? I dare not ask, for fear of further shame! Can you imagine +what that means?"</p> + +<p>He broke off, leaning an unsteady hand against a tree. "I've no excuse +for this raving!" he said, in a moment, his face turned away. "I have +seen you but twice. I do not even know your name. I am a man snatched +out of the limbo and dropped into hell, to watch the bright spirits +passing on the other side of the gulf!"</p> + +<p>Pain lay very deep in the words, and it pierced her like a bodily pang, +so close did she seem to him in spirit. She felt in it unrest, +rebellion, the shrinking sensibility that had writhed in loneliness, and +the longing for new foothold on the submerged causeway of life.</p> + +<p>She came close to him and touched his arm.</p> + +<p>"I know all that you suffer," she said. "You are doing the strong thing, +the brave thing! The man in you is not astray now; it was lost, but it +has found its way back. When your memory comes, you will see that it is +fate that has been leading you. There was nothing in your past that can +not be buried and forgotten. What you have been you will never be again. +I know that! I saw you fight Devlin and I know why you did it. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> heard +you play the violin! Whatever has been, I have faith in you now!"</p> + +<p>She spoke breathlessly, in very abandon, carried away by her feeling. As +she spoke he had turned toward her, his paleness flushed, his eyes +leaping up like hungry fires, devouring her face. At the look timidity +rushed upon her. She stopped abruptly and took a startled step from him.</p> + +<p>He turned from her instantly, his hands dropped at his sides. The word +that had almost sprung to speech had slipped back into the void.</p> + +<p>"I thank you for the charity you have for me," he said, "which I in no +way deserve. I ... I shall always remember it."</p> + +<p>She hesitated an instant, made as if to speak. Then, turning, she went +quickly from him. At the edge of the bushes she stopped with a sudden +impulse. She looked at the handkerchief she held in her hand. Some tiny +lettering was embroidered in its corner, the word <i>Jessica</i>. She looked +back—he had not moved. Rolling it into a ball, she threw it back, over +the bushes, then ran on hastily through the trees.</p> + +<p>After a time Harry turned slowly, his shoulders lifting in a deep +respiration. He drew his hand across his brow as though to dispel a +vision. This was the first<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> time he had hit upon the place. He saw the +flat ledge, with the bushes twisted before it for a screen. She had +known the place before, then! The white and filmy cambric caught his +eye, lying at the base of the great, knob-like rock. He went to it, +picked it up, and looked at it closely.</p> + +<p>"Jessica!" he whispered. The name clung about him; the very leaves +repeated it in music. He had a curious sensation as if, while she spoke, +that very name had half framed itself in some curtained recess of his +thought. He pressed the handkerchief to his face. The faint perfume it +exhaled, like the dust of dead roses, gave him a ghostly impression of +the familiar.</p> + +<p>He thought of what she had said; she had not known him! And yet that +look, the strange dreaming sense of her presence, his name on her lips +in the moment of bewilderment!</p> + +<p>He struck his forehead sharply with his open hand.</p> + +<p>"Fool!" he said, with a bitter laugh. "Fool!"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXV</span> <span class="smaller">THE OPEN WINDOW</span></h2> + +<p>Over the sanatorium on the ridge sleep had descended. On its broad +grounds there was no light of moon or stars, and its chamber windows +were dark, save where here and there the soft glow of a night-lamp +sifted through a shutter. The evening had closed gloomily, breeding +storm. The air was sultry and windless, and now and then sheet-lightning +threw into blunt relief the dark bodies of the trees. Inside the +building all slumbered, soundly or fitfully as health or illness +decreed, carrying the humors of the stirring day into the wider realm of +sleep.</p> + +<p>Jessica had closed her eyes, thinking of a time when secrecy would all +be ended, disguise done, when she would wear again the ring she had +taken off in bitterness, when indeed and in name she would be a wife +before the world. She had picked a great bowl of wild star-jasmin and +set it by her bedside and the room was sweet with the delicate scent. +The odor carried her irresistibly back to the far-away mansion that had +since<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> seemed a haunted dwelling, to the days of her blindness and of +Hugh's courtship. Before she extinguished the light she searched in a +drawer and found her wedding-ring—the one she had worn for less than an +hour. It was folded away in a box which she had not opened since the +dreadful day when she had broken in pieces her model of the Prodigal +Son. When she crept into bed, the ring was on her finger. She had fallen +asleep with her cheek resting on it.</p> + +<p>She awoke with a start, with a vague, inexplicable uneasiness, an +instinct that the night had voiced an unusual sound. She sat up in bed, +staring into the dark depths of the room. Her instant thought had been +of David Stires, but the tiny bell on the wall whose wire led to his +bedroom was not vibrating. She listened a moment, but there was only a +deep silence.</p> + +<p>Slipping out of bed, she crossed the room and parted the curtain from +before the tall French window. The room was on the ground floor and the +window gave directly on the lawn. The wind seemed dead, and the world +outside—the broad, cleared expanse of trees and shrubs, and the +descending forest that closed it round—was wrapped in a dense +blackness. While she gazed there came a sudden yellow flare of lightning +and far-distant mutter of thunder spoke behind the hills.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p><p>Still with the unreasoning uneasiness holding her, she groped to the +door, drew the bolt and looked out into the wide, softly carpeted hall, +lighted dimly by a lamp set just at the turn of the staircase. All at +once a shiver ran through her. There, a dozen steps away, the light full +upon him, stood the man who filled her thoughts.</p> + +<p>He stood perfectly still, without movement or gesture, gazing at her. +She could see his face distinctly, silhouetted on the pearl-gray wall. +It wore an expression of strained concern and of deep helplessness. The +instant agitation and surprise blotted the puzzle of his presence there. +She forgot that it was the dead of night, that she was in her nightgown. +It flashed across her mind that some near and desperate trouble had +befallen him. All the protective and maternal in her love welled up. She +went quickly toward him.</p> + +<p>He did not move or stir, and then she realized that though his eyes +seemed to look at her, it was with a passive tranced fixity. They saw +nothing. He was asleep.</p> + +<p>It was the mind which was conscious, the action of the brain was at +rest. The body, through the operation of some irreducible law of the +subjective self, was moving in an automatic somnambulism. The +intermittent <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>memory that had begun to emerge in sleep, that had given +him on waking the eerie impression of a dual identity, had led him, +involuntarily and unerringly, to her.</p> + +<p>She halted, a deep compassion and a painful wonderment holding her, +feeling with a thrill the power she possessed over him. Then, like a +cold wave, surged over her a numbing sense of his position. How had he +entered? Had he broken locks like a burglar? The situation was +anomalous. What should she do? Waked abruptly, the result might be +disastrous. Discovered, his presence there when all slumbered, suspected +as he had been, would be ruinous. She must get him away, out of the +house, and quickly.</p> + +<p>A breath of cool air swept past her, putting out the lamp—an outer door +was open. At the same instant she heard steps beyond the curve of the +hall, Doctor Brent's voice peremptory and inquiring. Her nerves chilled; +he blocked the sole avenue of retreat. No, there was one other, and only +one—a single way to shield him. Quiet and resourceful now, though her +cheeks were hot, she took the hand of the unconscious man, drew him +silent and unresisting into the friendly shadow of her room, closed the +door noiselessly and bolted it.</p> + +<p>For a moment she stood motionless, her heart beating violently. Had he +been seen? Or had the open door<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> created an alarm? Releasing his hand +gently, she found her way softly to a stand, lighted a tiny night-taper, +and threw a shawl about her. Through its ground-glass the light cast a +wan glimmer which showed the shadowy outlines of the room, its white +rumpled bed, its scattered belongings eloquent of a woman's ownership, +and the pallid countenance of the sleeping man. He had stopped still; a +troubled frown was on his face, and his head was bent as if listening.</p> + +<p>A sudden confusion tingled through her veins, a sense of maidenly shame +that she could be there beside him <i>en déshabille</i>, opposing the sweet +reminder of their real relationship—was he not in fact her +husband?—that lay ever beneath her thought to justify and explain. He +must wake before he left that room. What would he think? She flushed +scarlet in the semi-darkness; she could not tell him—that! Not there +and then! The blood forsook her heart as footsteps sounded outside the +door. They paused, passed on, returned and died away.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, in the tense silence of the room, the mantel-clock struck +three, a deep chime, like the vibration of a far-off church bell. The +tone was not loud—indeed the low roll of the thunder had been well-nigh +as loud—but there was in the intrusive metallic cadence a peculiar +suggestion to the dormant mind. As the sound of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> church bell in the +town had done so often, it penetrated the crust of sleep; it touched the +inner ear of the conscious intelligence that stirred so painfully, +throbbing keenly to sights and sounds and odors that to the wakeful mind +left only a cloudy impression eddying to some unfamiliar center. Harry +started, a shudder ran through his frame, he swayed dizzily, his hand +went to his forehead.</p> + +<p>In the instant of shocked awakening, Jessica was at his side in an agony +of apprehension, her arm thrown about him, her hand pressed across his +lips, her own lips at his ear in an agonized warning:</p> + +<p>"Hush, do not speak! It is I, Jessica. Make no noise."</p> + +<p>She felt her wrist caught in a grasp that made her wince. His whole body +was trembling violently. "Jessica!" he said in a painfully articulated +whisper. "You? Where am I?"</p> + +<p>"This is my room," she breathed. "You have been walking in your sleep. +Make no sound. We shall be heard."</p> + +<p>A low exclamation broke from his lips. He looked bewilderedly about him, +his eyes returning to her face with a horrified realization. "I ... came +here ... to your room?" The voice was scarcely audible.</p> + +<p>"It was I who brought you here. You were in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> hall—you would have +been found. The house is roused."</p> + +<p>He turned abruptly to the door, but she caught his arm. "What are you +going to do? You will be seen!"</p> + +<p>"So much the better; it will be at my proper measure—as a prowler, a +housebreaker, a disturber of honest sleep!"</p> + +<p>"No, no!" she protested in a panic. "You shall not; I will not have you +taken for what you are not! I know—but they would not know! No one must +see you leave this room! Do you not think of me?"</p> + +<p>He caught his breath hard. "Think of you!" he repeated huskily. "Is +there ever an hour when I do not think of you? Is there a day when I +would not die to serve you? Yet in my very sleep—"</p> + +<p>He paused, gazing at her where she stood in the half-light, a misty, +uncertain figure. She was curiously happy. The delicious and pangless +sense of guilt, however—the guilt of the hidden, not the blameworthy +thing—that was tingling through her was for him a shrinking and acute +self-reproach.</p> + +<p>"Here!" he said under his breath. "To have brought myself here, of all +places, for you of all women to risk yourself for me! I only know that I +was wandering for years and years in a shadowy desert, searching for +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>something that would not be found—and then, suddenly I was here and +you were speaking to me! You should have left me to be dragged away +where I could trouble no one again."</p> + +<p>She was silent. "Forgive me," he said, "if you can. I—I can never +forgive myself. How can I best go?"</p> + +<p>For answer she moved to the window, slender and wraith-like. He followed +silently. A million vague new impressions were clutching at him; the +fragrance in the room was like a hypnotic incense veiling shadowy forms. +Lines started from the blank:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>And I swear, as I thought of her thus, in that hour,</div> +<div class="i1">And how, after all, old things were best,</div> +<div>That I smelt the smell of that jasmin-flower</div> +<div class="i1">Which she used to wear in her breast!</div> +</div></div> + +<p>As she parted the curtain, a second of bright lightning revealed the +landscape, the dark hedges and clustered trees. It blackened, and she +drew him back with a hushed word, pointing where a lantern was flashing +through the shrubbery.</p> + +<p>"It is a watchman," she said. "He will be gone presently."</p> + +<p>Looking at her, where she stood in the dim light, half turned away, one +hand against her cheek, there welled through him a wave of that hopeless +longing which her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> kiss had awakened in that epoch moment of the +Reverend Henry Sanderson. The clinging white gown, with the filmy lace +at its throat, the taper's faint glow glimmering to a numbus in her +loosened hair, the sweet intangible suggestions of the room—all these +called to him potently, through the lines that raced in his brain.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>But O, the smell of that jasmin-flower!</div> +<div class="i1">And O that music! and O the way</div> +<div>That voice rang out from the donjon tower—</div> +</div></div> + +<p>"God help me!" he whispered, the pent passion of his dreams rushing to +utterance. "Why did I ever see your face? I was reckless and careless +then. I had damned the decent side of me that now is quivering alive! I +have tried to blot your face from my memory. But it is useless. I shall +always see it."</p> + +<p>A rumble of nearer thunder sounded and a tentative dash of rain struck +the pane. She was shaken to her depths. She stood in a whirlwind of +emotion. She seemed to feel his arms clasping her, his lips on hers, his +adjuring words in her ears. The odor of the flowers wreathed them both. +The beating of her heart seemed to fill all the silent room.</p> + +<p>On the lawn just outside the window, low voices were heard through the +increasing rain. They passed, and after a moment he softly unlatched the +window.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p><p>"Good-by," he said.</p> + +<p>She stretched out her hand. He touched it, then drew the window wide. As +he stepped noiselessly down on to the springy turf, the lightning +flashed again—a pale-green glow that seemed almost before her face. She +drew back, and the same instant, through the thunder, the electric bell +on the wall rang sharply. She threw on her dressing-gown, thrust her +feet into slippers, and hastened from the room.</p> + +<p>The same flash that had startled Jessica lighted brightly the physician +and the watchman, who stood at the corner of the building, having +finished their tour of inspection. It was the latter who had found the +open door and who had aroused the doctor, insisting that he had seen a +man in the hall. The other had pooh-poohed this, but now by the +lightning both saw the figure emerge from the French window and +disappear in the darkness.</p> + +<p>They ran back, the physician ahead. The window was not locked, and they +stepped through it into an empty room.</p> + +<p>"To be sure!" said the doctor disgustedly. "He was here all the +time—heard us searching the halls, and took the first unlocked door he +found. Miss Holme, no doubt, is sitting up with Mr. Stires. Not a word +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> this," he added as they walked along the hall. "Unless she misses +something, there is no need of frightening her."</p> + +<p>He barred the outer door behind the watchman and went on. As he reached +David Stires' room, the door opened and Jessica came out. She spoke to +him in a low, anxious voice. "I was coming for you," she said. "I am +afraid he is not so well. I can not rouse him. Will you come in and see +what you can do?"</p> + +<p>The doctor entered, and a glance at his patient alarmed him. Until dawn +he sat with Jessica watching. When the early sunlight was flooding the +room, however, David Stires opened his eyes and looked upon her quite +naturally.</p> + +<p>"Where is Harry Sanderson?" he asked. "I thought he was here."</p> + +<p>She looked at him with a forced smile. "You have been dreaming," she +answered.</p> + +<p>He seemed to realize where he was. "I suppose so," he said with a sigh, +"but it was very real. I thought he came in and spoke your name."</p> + +<p>She stroked his hand. "It was fancy, dear." If he but knew who had +really been there that night! If she could only tell him all the happy +truth!</p> + +<p>He lay silent a moment. Then he said: "If it could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> only have been Harry +you married instead of Hugh! For he loved you, Jessica."</p> + +<p>She flushed as she said: "Ah, that was fancy, too!"</p> + +<p>It was the first time since the day of her marriage that he had spoken +Hugh's name.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXVI</span> <span class="smaller">LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT</span></h2> + +<p>Dawn had come with an unleashed wind and the crash of thunder. The +electric storm, which had muttered and menaced like a Sabbath of witches +till daylight, had broken at length and turned the world to a raving +turmoil, pitilessly scarring the mountain and deluging the gulches with +cloud-burst.</p> + +<p>In the cabin on the hillside Harry had watched the rage of the elements +with a dull sense of accord; it typified the wild range of feeling in +which his soul had been harried. Battle had been the keynote of a series +of days and doings of which the tense awakening in Jessica's chamber, +with its supreme moment of passion and longing, had been a weird +culmination.</p> + +<p>As he made his way down the mountain in the blank and heavy dark, +correcting his path by the lightning, he had faced squarely the question +that in that dim room had become an imminent demand.</p> + +<p>"<i>What if I love her!</i> What right have I to love her, with a wretched +name like mine? She has refinement,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> a measure of wealth, no doubt, and +I am poor as poverty, dependent on the day's grubbing in the ditch for +to-morrow's bacon and flour. Yet that would not stand in the way! I am +no venal rogue, angling for the loaves and fishes. Whatever else she +cursed me with, Nature gave me a brain, and culture and experience have +educated it. With hand or brain I can hew my own niche to stand in! Must +I put away the longing that drove me to her in sleep, with her dawning +love that shielded me? And if, knowing all, she love me, must the past, +that is so unreal to me, block my way to happiness? I am putting it deep +underground, and its ghost shall not rise! Time passes, reputations +change. Mine will change. And when I have squared my living here, the +world is wide. What does it matter who she is, if she is the one woman +for me? What does it matter what I have been, if I shall be that no +longer?"</p> + +<p>So he had argued, but his argument ended always with the same stern and +unanswerable conclusion: "To drag her down in order to lift myself! +Because she pities me—pity is akin to love!—shall I take advantage of +her interest and innocence? Shall I play upon divine compassion and +sinister propinquity, like any mean adventurer who inveigles a romantic +girl into marrying a rascal to reform him?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p><p>In the cabin, through the long hours till the dawn began to infiltrate +the dark hollows of the wood he had lain wide-eyed, thinking. When day +came he had cooked his breakfast and thereafter sat watching the havoc +of the storm through the window. Hours passed thus before the fury of +the wind had spent itself, and with the diminution of the rain, a +crouching mist had crept over the range from the west, from which Smoky +Mountain jutted like a drenched emerald island. At length he rose, threw +open the door and stood looking out upon the wind-whipped foliage and +the drab desolation of the fog. Then he threw on his Mackinaw coat, +picked up his gold-pan and climbed down the slope. Beneath all other +problems must lie the sordid problem of his daily food. He had uncovered +a crevice in the bed-rock at the end of his trench the day before, and +now he scraped a pailful of the soggy gravel it contained and carried it +back to the cabin. A fresh onslaught of rain came just then, and setting +the heaped-up pan on the doorstep, he reëntered the room.</p> + +<p>With a sigh he took off his damp coat and threw a log on the fire. He +abstractedly watched it kindle, then filled and lit his pipe and turned +to the book-shelf. He ran his hand absently along the row. Where had +been that wide, dim expanse of library walls that hovered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> like a mirage +beyond his visual sight? He chose a volume he had been reading, and +turned the pages.</p> + +<p>All at once his hand clenched. He gave a choked cry. He was staring at a +canceled bank-draft bearing his own name—a draft across whose face was +written, in the cramped hand resembling the signature, a word that +seemed etched in livid characters of shame—<i>Forgery!</i></p> + +<p>"Pay to Hugh Stires"—"the sum of five thousand dollars"—he read the +phrases in a hoarse, husky monotone, every vein beating fiercely, his +body hot with the heat of a forge. There it was, a hideous chapter of +it, the damnable truth from which he had shrunk! "I may be a thief!"—he +had said that to himself long ago. His mind had revolted at the idea, +yet the thought had clung. It had made him a coward. When the allegation +had passed before the jeweler's shop, it had stung the deeper for his +dread. He had been the beneficiary of that forgery. He alone could have +perpetrated it. The popular suspicion was well grounded: he was a common +criminal!</p> + +<p>Did the town know? He snatched at the draft and read the date. More than +a year ago, and it had been presented for payment in a distant city, the +city near which he had been picked up beside the railroad track. The +forged name was the same as his own. Who was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> David Stires? His father? +Had that city been his home once, and that infamous act the forerunner +of his flight or exile? He looked at the paper again with painful +intentness. It was canceled—therefore had been paid without question. +Yet the man it had robbed had stamped it with that venomous hall-mark. +Clearly the law had not stepped in—for here he was at liberty, owning +his name. He had been let go, then, disowned, to carry his badge of +crime here into the wilderness! And how had he lived since then? Harry +shuddered.</p> + +<p>What now? It was no longer a question only of his life and repute here +at Smoky Mountain. The trail led infinitely further; it led to the +greater world, into which he had fondly dreamed of going. The words +Jessica had spoken on the hillside sounded in his ears: "<i>Whatever has +been</i> I have faith in you now." His face lightened. That assurance had +swept the past utterly aside, had leaned only on the present. His +present, at least, was clean!</p> + +<p>He drew a sudden breath and the color faded from his cheek; a baleful +suggestion had insinuated itself with a harrowing pain. <i>Was</i> it clean? +He had forced an entrance in the dead of night to tread dark halls like +a thief—and he had laid that flattering unction to his soul! Suppose he +had not gone there innocent of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>purpose? What if, not alone the memory, +but the lusts and vices of the former man were reasserting themselves in +sleep? What if the new Hugh Stires, unknown to the waking consciousness, +was carrying on the deeds of the old? What if the town was right? What +if there was, indeed, good reason for suspecting him?</p> + +<p>He stumbled to a chair and sat down, his frame rigid. He thought of the +robbed sluice in the gulch below, of his own unhappy adventure of the +night. How could he tell what he had done—what he might do? Minutes +went by as he sat motionless, his mind catching strange kaleidoscopic +pictures that fled past him into the void. At length he rose and went to +the window. Far down the hillside, a faint line through the mist spanned +the gulch bottom. A groan burst from his lips:</p> + +<p>"That is the hydraulic flume," he said aloud. "Gold has been stolen +there in the past, again and again. Some was stolen two nights ago. <i>How +do I know but that I am the thief?</i>" Was that what Prendergast had meant +by the "easier way"? A shiver ran over him. "How do I know!" he thought. +"I can see myself—the evil side of me—when the dark had fallen, waking +and active ... I see myself creeping down there, stealing from shadow to +shadow, to scoop the gold from the riffles when the moon is under a +cloud. I see men sitting from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> dark to daylight, with loaded rifles +across their knees, watching. I see a flash of fire ... I hear a report. +I see myself there by the sluice-boxes, dead, shot down in the act of a +thief, making good the name men know me by!"</p> + +<p>The figure of Jessica came before him, standing in her soft white gown, +her hand against her cheek and the jasmin odors about her. The dream he +had dreamed could not be—never, never, never! All that was left was +surrender, ignominious flight to scenes barren of suggestion.</p> + +<p>To a place where he could work and save and repay! He looked at the slip +of bank-paper in his hand.</p> + +<p>At that instant a shining point caught his eye. It came from the pan of +gravel on the doorstep on which the rain had been beating. He thrust the +draft into his pocket and seized a double handful of the gravel. He +plunged it into a pail of water and held it to the light. It sparkled +with coarse, yellow flakes of gold. He dropped the handful with a sharp +exclamation, threw on his coat and rushed from the cabin.</p> + +<p>All day, alone on the fog-soaked hillside, Harry toiled in the trench +without food or rest.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXVII</span> <span class="smaller">INTO THE GOLDEN SUNSET</span></h2> + +<p>It was a fair, sweet evening, and the room where Jessica sat beside +David Stires' bed, reading aloud to him, was flooded with the failing +sunlight. The height was still in brightness, but the gulches below were +wine-red and on their rims the spruces stood shadow-straight against the +golden ivory of the southern sky. Since the old man's seizure in the +night he had been much worse and she had scarcely left his room. To-day, +however, he had sat propped by pillows, able to read and chat, and the +deep personal anxiety that had numbed her had yielded. She was reading +now from a life of that poetess whose grave has made a lonely Colorado +mountain a place of pilgrimage. She read in a low voice, holding the +page to the dimming light:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"The spot she chose was a bare knoll, facing out across the curved +chasm, the wide empty gulf on three sides, a plot hounded by a knot +of noble trees that whispered softly together. Here above the sky +was beautifully blue, the searching fall wind that numbed the +fingers in the draw of the gorge was gone, and the warm sunshine +was mellow and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> pleasant. It was a spot to dream in, leaning upon +the great facts of God that He teaches best to those who love His +Nature. A spot in which to be laid at last for the long sleep, when +mortal dreams are over and work is done."</p></blockquote> + +<p>"That is beautiful," he said. "I should choose a spot like that." He +pointed down the long slope, where a red beam of the sun touched the +gray face of the Knob and turned it to a spot of crimson-lake. "That +must be such a place."</p> + +<p>Her cheeks flushed. She knew what he was thinking. He would not wish to +lie in the far-away cemetery that looked down on the white house in the +aspens, the theater of his son's downfall! The Knob, she thought with a +thrill, overlooked the place of Hugh's regeneration.</p> + +<p>A knock came at the door. It was a nurse with letters for him from the +mail, and while he opened them Jessica laid aside the book and went +slowly down the hall to the sun-parlor, where the doctor stood with the +group gathered after the early supper, chatting of the newest "strike" +on the mountain.</p> + +<p>"We'll be famous if we keep on," he was saying, as she looked out of the +wide windows across the haze where the sunlight drifted down in dust of +gold. "I've a mind to stake out a claim myself."</p> + +<p>"We pay you better," said one of the occupants<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> grimly. "Anyway, the +whole of Smoky Mountain was staked in the excitement a year ago. There's +no doubt about this find, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"It's on exhibition at the bank," the doctor replied. "More than five +thousand dollars, <i>cached</i> in a crevice in the glacial age, as neat as a +Christmas stocking!"</p> + +<p>"Wish it was <i>my</i> stocking," grunted the other. "It would help pay my +bill here."</p> + +<p>The man of medicine laughed and nodded to Jessica where she stood, her +cheeks reddened by the crimsoning light. She had scarcely listened to +the chatter, or, if she did, paid little heed. All her thoughts were +with the man she loved. Watching the luminous purple shadows grow slowly +over the landscape, she longed to run down to the Knob, to sit where she +had first spoken to him, perhaps by very excess of yearning to call him +to her side. She had a keen sense of the compunction he must feel, and +longed, as love must, to reassure him.</p> + +<p>The talk went on about her.</p> + +<p>"Where is the lucky claim?" some one asked.</p> + +<p>"Just below this ridge," the doctor replied. "It is called the 'Little +Paymaster.'"</p> + +<p>The name caught her ear now. The Little Paymaster? That was the name on +the tree—on Hugh's claim! At that instant she thought she heard David +Stires calling.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> She turned and ran quickly up the long hall to his open +door.</p> + +<p>The sight of his face at first startled her, for it was held captive of +emotion; but it was an emotion of joy, not of pain. A letter fluttered +in his grasp. He thrust it into her hands.</p> + +<p>"Jessica!" he exclaimed. "Hugh has paid it! He has sent the five +thousand dollars, interest and principal, to the bank, to my account."</p> + +<p>For a moment she stood transfixed. The talk she had mechanically heard +leaped into significance, and her mind ran back to the hour when she had +left the draft at the cabin. She caught the old man's hand and knelt by +his chair, laughing and crying at once.</p> + +<p>"I knew—oh, I knew!" she cried, and hid her face in the coverlet.</p> + +<p>"It is what I have prayed for," he said, after a moment, in a shaking +voice. "I said I hoped I would never see his face again, but I was +bitter then. He was my only son, after all, and he is your husband. I +have thought it all over lying here."</p> + +<p>Jessica lifted her eyes, shining with a great thankfulness. During these +last few days the impulse to tell all that she had concealed had been +almost irresistible; now the barrier had fallen. The secret she had +repressed so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> long came forth in a rush of sentences that left him mute +and amazed.</p> + +<p>"I should have told you before," she ended, "but I didn't know—I wasn't +sure—" She broke down for very joy.</p> + +<p>He looked at her with eyes unnaturally bright. "Tell me everything, +Jessica!" he said. "Everything from the beginning!"</p> + +<p>She drew the shade wider before the open window, where he could look +down across the two miles of darkening foliage to the far huddle of the +town—a group of toy houses now hazily indistinct—and, seated beside +him, his hand in hers, poured out the whole. She had never framed it +into words; she had pondered each incident severally, apart, as it were, +from its context. Now, with the loss of memory and the pitiful struggle +of recollection as a background, the narrative painted itself in vivid +colors to whose pathos and meaning her every instinct was alive. Her +first view of Hugh, the street fight and the revelation of the +violin—the part she and Prendergast had taken—the rescue of the +child—the leaving of the draft in the cabin, and the strange +sleep-walking that had so nearly found a dubious ending—she told all. +She did not realize that she was revealing the depths of her own heart +without reserve. If she omitted to tell of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> his evil reputation and the +neighborhood's hatred, who could blame? She was a woman, and she loved +them both.</p> + +<p>Dusk came before the moving recital was finished. The rose of sunset +grew over the trellised west, faded, and the gloom deepened to darkness, +pricked by stars. The old man from the first had scarcely spoken. When +she ended she could hardly see his face, and waited anxiously to hear +what he might say. Presently he broke the silence.</p> + +<p>"He was young and irresponsible, Jessica," he said. "Money always came +so easily. He didn't realize what he was doing when he signed that +draft. He has learned a lesson out in the world. It won't hurt his +career in the end, for no one but you and I and one other knows it. +Thank God! If his memory comes back—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, it will!" she breathed. "It must! That day on the Knob he only +needed the clue! When I tell him who I am, he will know me. He will +remember it all. I am sure—sure! Will you let me bring him to you?" she +added softly.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, pressing her hand, "to-morrow. I shall be stronger in +the morning."</p> + +<p>She rose and lighted the lamp, shading it from his eyes.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p><p>"Do you remember the will, Jessica?" he asked her presently. "The will +I drew the day he came back? You never knew, but I signed it—the night +of your wedding. Harry Sanderson was right, my dear, wasn't he?</p> + +<p>"I wish now I hadn't signed it, Jessica," he added. "I must set it +right—I must set it right!" He watched her with a smile on his face. "I +will rest now," he said, and she adjusted the pillows and turned the +lamp low.</p> + +<p>Crossing the room, she stepped through the long window on to the porch, +and stood leaning on the railing. From the dark hedges where the brown +birds built came a drowsy twitter as from a nest of dreams. A long time +she stood there, a thousand thoughts busy in her brain—of Hugh, of the +beckoning future. She thought of the day she had destroyed the model +that her fingers longed to remold, now that the Prodigal was indeed +returned. The words of the biblical narrative flashed through her mind: +<i>And he arose and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way +off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his +neck, and kissed him.</i> So Hugh's father would meet him now! The dewed +odors of the jasmin brought the memory of that stormy night when he had +come to her in his sleep. She imagined she heard again his last +word—his whispered "Good-by" in the sound of the rain.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p><p>She thought it a memory, but the word that flashed into her mind was +carried to her from the shadow, where a man stood in the shrubbery +watching her dim figure and her face white and beautiful in the light +from a near-by window, with a passionate longing and rebellion.</p> + +<p>Harry was seeing her, he told himself, for the last time. He had made up +his mind to this on that stormy morning when he had found the lucky +crevice. For days he had labored, spurred by a fierce haste to make +requital. Till the last ounce of the rich "pocket" had been washed, and +the whole taken to the bank in the town, no one had known of the find. +It had repaid the forgery and left him a handful of dollars over—enough +to take him far away from the only thing that made life worth the +effort. He had climbed to the ridge on the bare chance of seeing +Jessica—not of speaking to her. Watching her, it required all his +repression not to yield to the reckless desire that prompted him to go +to her, look into her eyes, and tell her he loved her. He made a step +forward, but stopped short, as she turned and vanished through the +window.</p> + +<p>Standing on the porch, a gradual feeling of apprehension had come to +Jessica—an impression of blankness and chill that affected her +strangely. Inside the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> room she stood still, frightened at the sudden +sense of utter soundlessness.</p> + +<p>She caught up the lamp, and, turning the wick, approached the bed. She +put out her hand and touched the wasted one on the coverlet. Then a +sobbing cry came from her lips.</p> + +<p>David Stires was gone. A crowning joy had goldened his bitterness at the +last moment, and he had gone away with his son's face in his heart and +the smile of welcome on his lips.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXVIII</span> <span class="smaller">THE TENANTLESS HOUSE</span></h2> + +<p>Dark was falling keen and cool, for frost was in the air, touching the +fall foliage on the hills to crimson and amber, silvering the long +curving road that skirted the river bluff, and etching delicate hoar +tracery on the spidery framework of the long black railroad bridge that +hung above "the hole." The warning light from a signal-post threw a +crimson splash on the ground. Its green pane cast a pallor on a bearded +face turned out over the gloomy water.</p> + +<p>The man who had paused there had come from far, and his posture +betokened weariness, but his features were sharp and eager. He turned +and paced back along the track to the signal-post.</p> + +<p>"It was here," he said aloud. He stood a moment, his hands clenched. +"The new life began here. Here, then, is where the old life ended." From +where he stood he could see blossoming the yellow lights of the little +city, five miles away. He set his shoulders, whistled to the small dog +that nosed near-by, and set off at a quick pace down the road.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p><p>What had brought him there? He scarcely could have told. Partly, +perhaps, a painful curiosity, a flagellant longing to press the iron +that had seared him to his soul. So, after a fortnight of drifting, the +dark maelstrom of his thoughts had swept him to its dead center. This +was the spot that held the key to the secret whose shame had sent him +hither by night, like a jailbird revisiting the haunts that can know him +no more. He came at length to a fork in the road; he mechanically took +the right, and it led him soon to a paved road and to more cheerful +thoroughfares.</p> + +<p>Once in the streets, a bar to curious glances, he turned up his coat +collar and settled the brim of his felt hat more closely over his eyes. +He halted once before a shadowed door with a barred window set in its +upper panel—the badge of a gambling-house. As he had walked, baffling +hints of pictures, unfilled outlines like a painter's studies had been +flitting before him, as faces flit noiselessly across the opaque ground +of a camera-obscura. Now, down the steps from that barred door, a filmy, +faded, Chesterfieldian figure seemed to be coming toward him with +outstretched hand—one of the ghosts of his world of shadows.</p> + +<p>He walked on. He crossed an open square and presently came to the gate +of a Gothic chapel, set well back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> from the street. Its great +rose-window was alight, for on this evening was to be held a memorial +service for the old man whose money had built the pile, who had died a +fortnight before in a distant sanatorium. A burnished brass plate was +set beside the gate, bearing the legend: "St. James Chapel. Reverend +Henry Sanderson, Rector." The gaze with which the man's eye traced the +words was as mechanical as the movement with which his hand, in his +pocket, closed on the little gold cross; for organ practice was +beginning, and the air, throbbing to it, was peopled with confused +images—but no realization of the past emerged.</p> + +<p>He turned at the sound of wheels, and the blur shocked itself apart to +reveal a kindly face that looked at him for an instant framed in the +window of a passing carriage. With the look a specter plucked at the +flesh of the wayfarer with intangible fingers. He shrank closer against +the palings.</p> + +<p>Inside the carriage Bishop Ludlow settled back with a sigh. "Only a face +on the pavement," he said to his wife, "but it reminded me somehow of +Harry Sanderson."</p> + +<p>"How strange it is!" she said—the bishop had no secrets from his +wife—"never a word or a sign, and everything in his study just as he +left it. What can you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> do, John? It is four months ago now, and the +parish needs a rector."</p> + +<p>He did not reply for a moment. The question touched the trouble that was +ever present in his mind. The whereabouts of Harry Sanderson had caused +him many sleepless hours, and the look of frozen realization which had +met his stern and horrified gaze that unforgetable night—a look like +that of a tranced occultist waked in the demon-constrained commission of +some rueful impiety—had haunted the good man's vigils. He had knowledge +of the by-paths of the human soul, and the more he reflected the less +the fact had fitted. The wild laugh of Hugh's, as he had vanished into +the darkness, had come to seem the derisive glee of the tempter +rejoicing in his handiwork. Recollection of Harry's depression and the +insomnia of which he had complained had deepened his conviction that +some phase of mental illness had been responsible. In the end he had +revolted against his first crass conclusion. When the announced vacation +had lengthened into months, he had been still more deeply perplexed, for +the welfare of the parish must be considered.</p> + +<p>"I know," he said at length. "I may have failed in my whole duty, but I +haven't known how to tell David Stires, especially since we heard of his +illness. I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> written to him—the whole story; the ink was not dry on +the paper when the letter came from Jessica telling us of his death."</p> + +<p>Behind them, as they talked, the man on the pavement was walking on +feverishly, the organ music pursuing him, the dog following with a +reluctant whine.</p> + +<p>At last he came to a wide, dark lawn set thick with aspens clustering +about a white house that loomed grayly in the farther shadow. He +hesitated a moment, then walked slowly up the broad, weed-grown garden +path toward its porch. In the half light the massive silver door-plate +stood out clearly. He had known instinctively that that house had been a +part of his life, and yet a tremor caught him as he read the +name—STIRES. The intuition that had bent his steps from the street, the +old stirring of dead memory, had brought him to his past at last. This +house had been his home!</p> + +<p>He stood looking at it with trouble in his face. He seemed now to +remember the wide colonnaded porch, the tall fluted columns, the green +blinds. Clearly it was unoccupied. He remembered the scent of jasmin +flowers! He remembered—</p> + +<p>He started. A man in his shirt-sleeves was standing by a half-open side +door, regarding him narrowly.</p> + +<p>"Thinking of buying?" The query was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>good-humoredly satiric. "Or maybe +just looking the old ranch over with a view to a shake-down!"</p> + +<p>The trespasser smiled grimly. It was not the first time he had seen that +weather-beaten face. "You have given up surgery as a profession, I see," +he said.</p> + +<p>The other came nearer, looked at him in a puzzled way, then laughed.</p> + +<p>"If it isn't the card-sharp we picked up on the railroad track!" he +said, "dog and all! I thought you were far down the coast, where it's +warmer. Nothing much doing with you, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing much," answered the man he addressed. Others might recognize +him as the black sheep, but this nondescript watchman whom chance had +set here could not. He knew him only as the dingy vagabond whose broken +head he had bandaged in the box-car!</p> + +<p>"I'm in better luck," went on the man in shirt-sleeves. "I struck this +about two months ago, as gardener first, and now I'm a kind of a sort of +a watchman. They gave me a bunk in the summer-house there"—he jerked +his thumb backward over his shoulder—"but I know a game worth two of +that for these cold nights. I'll show you. I can put you up for the +night," he added, "if you like."</p> + +<p>The wayfarer shook his head. "I must get away to-night, but I'm much +obliged."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p><p>"Haven't done anything, have you?" asked his one-time companion +curiously. "You didn't seem that sort."</p> + +<p>The bearded face turned away. "I'm not 'wanted' by the police, no. But +I'm on the move, and the sooner I take the trail the better. I don't +mind night travel."</p> + +<p>"You'd be better for a rest," said the watchman, "but you're the doctor. +Come in and we'll have a nip of something warm, anyhow."</p> + +<p>He led the way to the open door and beckoned the other inside, closing +it carefully to. "It's a bully old hole," he observed, as he lit a brace +of candles. "It wasn't any trick to file a key, and I sleep in the +library now as snug as a bug in a rug." He held the light higher. "You +look a sight better," he said. "More flesh on your bones, and the beard +changes you some, too. That scar healed up fine on your forehead—it's +nothing but a red line now."</p> + +<p>His guest followed him into a spacious hall, scarce conscious of what he +did. A double door to the left was shut, but he nevertheless knew +perfectly that the room it hid had a tall French window, letting on to a +garden where camelias had once dropped like blood. The open door to the +right led to the library.</p> + +<p>There the yellow light touched the dark wainscoting, the marble +mantelpiece, dim paintings on the wall, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> a great brass-bound Korean +desk in a corner. What black thing had once happened in that room? What +face had once looked at him from that wheel-chair? It was an old face, +gray and lined and passionate—his father, doubtless. He told himself +this calmly, with an odd sense of apartness.</p> + +<p>The other's glance followed his pridefully. "It's a fine property," he +said. "The owner's an invalid, I hear, with one leg in the grave. He's +in some sanatorium and can't get much good of it. Nice pictures, them," +he added, sweeping a candle round. "That's a good-looker over +there—must be the old man's daughter, I reckon. Well, I'll go and get +you a finger or two to keep the frost out of your lungs. It'll be cold +as Billy-be-dam to-night. Make yourself at home." The door closed behind +him.</p> + +<p>The man he left was trembling violently. He had scarcely repressed a +cry. The portrait that hung above the mantelpiece was Jessica's, in a +house-dress of soft Romney-blue and a single white rose caught in her +hair. "The old man's daughter!"—the words seemed to echo and reëcho +about the walls, voicing a new agony without a name. Then Jessica was +his sister!</p> + +<p>The owner of the house, his father, an invalid in a sanatorium? It was a +sanatorium on the ridge of Smoky<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> Mountain where she had stayed, into +which he had broken that stormy night! Had his father been there then, +yearning in pain and illness over that evil career of his in the town +beneath? Was relationship the secret of Jessica's interest, her +magnanimity, that he had dreamed was something more? A dizzy sickness +fell upon him, and he clenched his hands till the nails struck purple +crescents into the palms.</p> + +<p>As he stared dry-eyed at the picture in the candle-light, the misery +slowly passed. He must <i>know</i>. Who she was, what she was to him, he must +learn beyond peradventure. He cast a swift glance around him; orderly +rows of books stared from the shelves, the mahogany table held only a +pile of old magazines. He strode to the desk, drew down its lid and +tried the drawers. They opened readily and he rapidly turned over their +litter of papers, written in the same crabbed hand that had etched the +one damning word on the draft he had found in the cabin on Smoky +Mountain.</p> + +<p>This antique desk, with its crude symbols and quaint brass-work, a gift +to him once upon a time from Harry Sanderson, had been David Stires' +carry-all; he had been spending a last half-hour in sorting its contents +when the bank-messenger, on that fateful day, had brought him the slip +of paper that had told his son's disgrace.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> Most of the papers the +searcher saw at a glance were of no import, and they gave him no clue to +what he sought. Then, mysteriously guided by the subtle memory that +seemed of late to haunt him, though he was but half conscious of its +guidance, his nervous fingers suddenly found and pressed a spring—a +panel fell down, and he drew out a folded parchment.</p> + +<p>Another instant and he was bending over it with the candle, his fingers +tracing familiar legal phrases of a will laid there long ago. He read +with the blood shrinking from his heart:</p> + +<p>"<i>To my son Hugh, in return for the care and sorrow he has caused me all +the days of his life, for his dissolute career and his graceless +desertion, I do give and bequeath the sum of one thousand dollars and +the memory of his misspent youth. The residue of my estate, real and +personal, I do give and bequeath to my ward, Jessica Holme</i>—"</p> + +<p>The blood swept back to his heart in a flood. Ward, not daughter! He +could still keep the one sweet thing left him. His love was justified. +Tears sprang to his eyes, and he laid the parchment back and closed the +desk. He hastily brushed the drops away, as the rough figure of the +watchman entered and set down two glasses and a bottle with a flourish.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p><p>"There you are; that'll be worth five miles to you!" He poured noisily. +"Here's how!" he said.</p> + +<p>His guest drank, set down the glass and held out his hand. "Good luck," +he said. "You've got a good, warm berth here; maybe I shall find one, +too, one of these days."</p> + +<p>The dog thrust a cold muzzle into his hand as he walked down the gravel +path slowly, feeling the glow of the liquor gratefully, with the +grudging release it brought from mental tension. He had not consciously +asked himself whither now. In some subconscious corner of his brain this +had been asked and answered. He was going to his father. Not to seek to +change the stern decree; not to annul those bitter phrases: <i>his +dissolute career—the memory of his misspent youth!</i> Only to ask his +forgiveness and to make what reparation was possible, then to go out +once more to the world to fight out his battle. His way was clear before +him now. Fate had guided him, strangely and certainly, to knowledge. He +was thankful for that. He had come a silent shadow; like a shadow he +would go.</p> + +<p>He retraced his steps, and again stood on the square near where the +rose-window of the Gothic chapel cast a tinted luster on the clustering +shrubbery. The audience-room was full now, a string of carriages waited +at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> curb, and as he stood on the opposite pavement the treble of the +choir rose full and clear:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Lead, kindly Light, amid th' encircling gloom,</div> +<div class="i5">Lead Thou me on;</div> +<div>The night is dark, and I am far from home,</div> +<div class="i5">Lead Thou me on!</div> +<div>Keep Thou my feet! I do not care to see</div> +<div>The distant scene; one step enough for me."</div> +</div></div> + +<p>He drew his hat-brim over his eyes, and mingled with the hurrying street.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXIX</span> <span class="smaller">THE CALL OF LOVE</span></h2> + +<p>The bell was tapping in the steeple of the little Catholic church on the +edge of the town, and the mellow tone came clearly up the slope of the +mountain where once more the one-time partner of Prendergast stood on +the threshold of the lonely cabin, sentinel over the mounds of yellow +gravel that marked his toil.</p> + +<p>The returned wanderer had met with a distinct surprise in the town. As +he passed through the streets more than one had nodded, or had spoken +his name, and the recognition had sent a glow to his cheek and a +lightness to his step.</p> + +<p>Since the daring feat in the automobile, the tone of the gossip had +changed. His name was no longer connected with the sluice robberies. The +lucky find, too, constituted a material boom for Smoky Mountain and +bettered the stock in its hydraulic enterprises, and this had been +written on the credit side of the ledger. Opinion, so all-powerful in a +new community, had altered. Devlin had abruptly ordered from his place +one who had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> done no more than to repeat his own earlier gibes, and even +Michael Halloran, the proprietor of the Mountain Valley House, had given +countenance to the more charitable view championed by Tom Felder. All +this he who had been the outcast could not guess, but he felt the change +with satisfaction.</p> + +<p>As he gazed up the slope, all gloriously afire with the marvellous +frost-hues of the autumn—dahlia crimsons, daffodil golds and maple +tints like the flames of long-sought desires—toward the glass roof that +sparkled on the ridge above, one comfort warmed his breast. If it had +been the subtle stirring of blood kinship, the blind instinct of love, +that had drawn him to that nocturnal house-breaking, not the lawless +appetence of the natural criminal! Whether his father was indeed there +he must discover.</p> + +<p>Till the sun was low he sat in the cabin thinking. At length he called +the dog and fastened it in its accustomed place, and began slowly to +climb the steep ascent. When he came to a certain vine-grown trail that +met the main path, he turned aside. Here lay the spot where he had first +spoken with her, face to face. Here she had told him there was nothing +in his past which could not be buried and forgotten!</p> + +<p>As he parted the bushes and stepped into the narrow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> space beside the +jutting ledge, he stopped short with an exclamation. The place was no +longer a tangle of vines. A grave had been lately made there, and behind +it, fresh-chiseled in the rock, was a statue: a figure seated, chin on +hand, as if regarding the near-by mound. As in a dream he realized that +its features were his own. Awestruck, the living man drew near.</p> + +<p>It was Jessica's conception of the Prodigal Son, as she had modelled it +in Aniston in her blindness, after Hugh's early return to the house in +the aspens. That David Stires should have pointed out the distant Knob +as a spot in which he would choose to be buried had had a peculiar +significance to her, and the wish had been observed. Her sorrow for his +death had been deepened by the thought that the end had come too +suddenly for David Stires to have reinstated his son. This sorrow had +possessed one comfort—that he had known at the last and had forgiven +Hugh. Of this she could assure him when he returned, for she could not +really believe—so deep is the heart of a woman—that he would not +return. In the days of vigil she had found relief in the rough, hard +work of the mallet. None had intruded in that out-of-the-way spot, save +that one day Mrs. Halloran, led by curiosity to see the grave of the +rich man whose whim it had been to be buried on the mountain side,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> had +found her at her work, and her Jessica had pledged to silence. She was +no fool, was Mrs. Halloran, and to learn the name of the dead man was to +put two and two together. The guess the good woman evolved undershot the +mark, but it was more than sufficient to summon all the romance that +lurked beneath that prosaic exterior; nevertheless she shut her lips +against temptation, and all her motherly heart overflowed to the girl +who worked each day at that self-appointed task. Only the afternoon +before Jessica had finished carving the words on the base of the statue +on which the look of the startled man was now resting: <i>I will arise and +go unto my father</i>.</p> + +<p>The gazer turned from the words, with quick question, to the mound. He +came close, and in the fading light looked at the name on the low +headstone. So he had come too late!</p> + +<p><i>And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in +thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.</i> Though for him +there could have been no robe or ring, or fatted calf or merriment, yet +he had longed for the dearer boon of confession and understanding. If he +could only have learned the truth earlier! If he might only put back the +hands of the clock!</p> + +<p>Hours went by. The shadows dreamed themselves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> away and dark fell, +cloudless and starry. The half-moon brightened upon him sitting moveless +beside the stone figure. At length he rose to his feet, his limbs +cramped and stiffened, and made his way back to the lonely cabin on the +hillside.</p> + +<p>There he found fuel, kindled a blaze in the fireplace and cooked his +frugal supper. The shock of surprise past, he realized his sorrow as a +thing subjective and cerebral. The dead man had been his father; so he +told himself, but with an emotion curiously destitute of primitive +feeling. The very relationship was a portion of that past that he could +never grasp; all that was of the present was Jessica!</p> + +<p>He thought of the losing battle he had fought there once before, when +tempest shrieked without—the battle which had ended in <i>débacle</i> and +defeat. He thought of the will he had seen, now sealed with the Great +Seal of Death. He was the shorn beggar, she the beneficiary. What duty +she had owed his father was ended now. Desolate she might be—in need of +a hand to guide and guard—but she was beyond the reach of penury. This +gave him a sense of satisfaction. Was she there on the mountain at that +moment? There came upon him again the passionate longing that had held +him in that misty sanatorium room when the odor of the jasmin had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> +wreathed them both—when she had protected and saved him!</p> + +<p>At last he took Old Despair's battered violin from the wall, and, +seating himself in the open doorway, looking across the mysterious +purple of the gulches to the skyline sown with pale stars, drew the bow +softly across the strings. In the long-past days, when he had been the +Reverend Henry Sanderson, in the darker moods of his study, he had been +used to seek the relief to which he now turned. Never but once since +then had he played with utter oblivion of self. Now his struggle and +longing crept into the music. The ghosts that haunted him clustered +together in the obscurity of the night, and stood between his opening +future and her.</p> + +<p>Through manifold variations the music wandered, till at length there +came from the hollowed wood an air that was an unconscious echo of a +forgotten wedding-day—"O perfect love, all human thought transcending." +After the fitful medley that had spoken, the placid cadence fell with a +searching pathos that throbbed painfully on the empty silence of the +mountain.</p> + +<p>Empty indeed he thought it. But the light breeze that shook the +pine-needles had borne the sound far to an ear that had grown tense with +listening—to one on the ridge above to whom it had sounded the supreme +call of youth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> and life. He did not feel her nearer presence as she +stole breathless across the dark path, and stood there behind him with +outstretched hands, her whole being merged in that mute appeal.</p> + +<p>The music died, the violin slipped from beneath his chin, the bow +dropped and his head fell on his arms. Then he felt a touch on his +shoulder and heard the whisper: "Hugh! Hugh!"</p> + +<p>"Jessica!" he cried, and sprang to his feet.</p> + +<p>In those three words all was asked and answered. It did not need the low +cry with which she flung herself on her knees beside the rough-hewn +steps, or the broken sentences with which he poured out the fear and +hope that he had battled with.</p> + +<p>"I have watched every day and listened every night," she said. "I knew +that you would come—that you <i>must</i> come back!"</p> + +<p>"If I had never gone, Jessica!" he exclaimed. "Then I might have seen my +father! But I didn't know—"</p> + +<p>She clasped her hands together. "You know now—you remember it all?"</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "I have been there"—he pointed to the hillside—"and +I have guessed who it is that lies there. I know I sinned against him +and against myself, and left him to die unforgiving. That is what the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> +statue said to me—as he must have said: <i>I am no more worthy to be +called thy son</i>."</p> + +<p>"Ah," she cried, "he knew and he forgave you, Hugh. His last thought was +of your coming! That is why I carved the figure there."</p> + +<p>"You carved it?" he exclaimed. She bent her forehead to his hands, as +they clasped her own.</p> + +<p>"The prodigal is yourself," she said. "I modelled it once before when +you came back to him, in the time you have forgotten. But I destroyed +it,"—the words were very low now—"on my wedding-day."</p> + +<p>His hands released hers, and, looking up, she saw, even in the +moonlight, that with the last word his face had gone ghastly white. At +the sight, timidity, maidenly reserve, fell, and all the woman in her +rushed uppermost. She lifted her arms and clasped his face.</p> + +<p>"Hugh," she cried, "can't you remember? Don't you understand? Think! I +was blind, dear, blind—a white bandage was across my eyes, and you came +to me in a shaded room! Why did you come to me?"</p> + +<p>A spark seemed to dart through his brain, like the prickling discharge +from a Leyden jar. A spot of the mental blackness visualized, and for an +instant sprang out in outlines of red. He smelled the odor of jasmin +flowers. He saw himself standing, facing a figure with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> bandaged eyes. +He saw the bandage torn off, felt that yielding body in his arms, heard +a voice—her voice—crying, "Hugh—Hugh! My husband!" and felt those +lips pressed to his own in the tense air of a darkened room.</p> + +<p>A cry broke from his lips: "Yes, yes! I remember! Jessica, my wife!" His +arms went round her, and with a little sob she nestled close to him on +the doorstep.</p> + +<p>The blank might close again about him now! He had had that instantaneous +glimpse of the past, like lightning through a rifted pall, and in that +glimpse was joy. For him there was now no more consciousless past or +remorseful present. No forgery or exile, no Prendergast, or hatred, or +evil repute. For her, all that had embittered, all that stood for loss +and grieving, was ended. The fire on the hearth behind them domed and +sank, and far below the lights of the streets wavered unheeded.</p> + +<p>The shadowed silence of the cathedral pines closed them round. Above in +the calm sky the great constellations burned on and swung lower, and in +that dim confessional she absolved him from all sin.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXX</span> <span class="smaller">IN A FOREST OF ARDEN</span></h2> + +<p>Keen, morning sunlight, a sky clean as a hound's tooth, and an air cool +and tinctured with the wine of perfect autumn! Jessica breathed it +deeply as her buoyant step carried her along the mountain trails, brave +in the pageant of the passing year. Her face reflected the rich color +and her eyes were deep as the sky.</p> + +<p>Only last night had been that sweet unfolding in which the past had been +swept away for ever. To-day her heart was almost too full to bear, +beating to thought of the man to whose arms the violin had called her. +That had been the hour of confidence, of love's sacrament, the closure +of all her distrust and agony. Now she longed inexpressibly for the +further assurance she knew would look from his eyes to hers; yet her joy +was so poignant that it was near to pain, and withal was so enwound with +maidenly consciousness that, knowing him near, she must have fled from +him. She walked rapidly on, losing herself in the windings of blind +wood-paths, revelling in the beauty of the silent, empty forest.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p><p>The morning had found the man whose image filled her mental horizon no +less a prey to conflicting emotions than herself. That hour on the +mountain-side, under the stars, had left Harry possessed of a mêlée of +perplexing emotions. Dreaming and waking, Jessica's face hung before his +eyes, her voice sounded in his ear. Yet over his happiness more than +once a chill had fallen, an odd shrinking, an unexplainable sense of +flush, of fastidiousness, of mortification. This subtle conflict of +feeling, not understood, had driven him, in sheer nervousness, to the +peaceful healing of the solitudes.</p> + +<p>The future held no longer any doubt—it held only her. Where was that +future to be? Back in the city to which his painful curiosity had so +lately driven him? This lay no longer in his own choice; it was for her +to decide now, Jessica—his wife. He said the word softly, under his +breath, to the sweet secret grasses, as something mysterious and sacred. +How appealing, how womanly she was—how incommunicably dear, how—</p> + +<p>He looked up transfixed, for she stood there before him, ankle-deep in a +brown whirlwind of leaves from a frost-stung oak, her hand to her cheek +in an adorable gesture that he knew, her lips parted and eager. She said +no word, nor did he, but he came swiftly and caught her to him, and her +face buried itself on his breast.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p><p>As he looked down at her thus folded, the trouble, the sense of vexing +complexity vanished, and the primitive demand reasserted its sway. +Presently he released her, and drew her gently to a seat on the +sprawling oak roots.</p> + +<p>"I wanted so to find you," she said. "I have so many, many things to +say."</p> + +<p>"It is all wonderfully strange and new!" he said. "It is as though I had +rubbed Aladdin's lamp, and suddenly had my heart's desire."</p> + +<p>"Ah," she breathed, "am I that?"</p> + +<p>"More than that, and yet once I—Jessica, Jessica! When I woke this +morning in the cabin down there, it seemed to me for a moment that only +last night was real, and all the past an ugly dream. How could you have +loved me? And how could I have thrown my pearl away?"</p> + +<p>"We are not to think of that," she protested, "never, never any more."</p> + +<p>"You are right," he rejoined cheerfully; "it is what is to come that we +must think of." He paused an instant, then he said:</p> + +<p>"Last night, when you told me of the white house in the aspens, I did +not tell you that I had just come from there—from Aniston."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p><p>She made an exclamation of wonder. "Tell me," she said.</p> + +<p>Sitting with her hand in his, he told of that night's experiences, the +fear that had held him as he gazed at her portrait in the library, the +secret of the Korean desk that had solaced his misery and sent him back +to the father he was not to see.</p> + +<p>At mention of the will she threw out her hand with a passionate gesture. +"The money is not mine!" she cried. "It is yours! He intended to change +it—he told me so the day he died. Oh, if you think I—"</p> + +<p>"No, no," he said gently. "There is no resentment, no false pride in my +love, Jessica. I am thinking of you—and of Aniston. You would have me +go back, would you not?"</p> + +<p>She looked up smiling and slowly shook her head. "You are a blind +guesser," she said. "Don't you think I know what is in your mind? Not +Aniston, Hugh. Sometime, but not now—not yet. It is nearer than that!"</p> + +<p>His eyes flowed into hers. "You understand! Yes, it is here. This is +where I must finish my fight first. Yesterday I would have left Smoky +Mountain for ever, because you were here. Now—"</p> + +<p>"I will help you," she said. "All the world besides<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> counts nothing if +only we are together! I could live in a cabin here on the mountain +always, in a Forest of Arden, till I grow old, and want nothing but +that—and you!" She paused, with a happy laugh, her eye turned away.</p> + +<div class="center"><img src="images/i004.jpg" alt="Illustratio" /></div> + +<p>A log cabin, but a home glorified by her presence! In a dozen words she +had sketched a sufficient Paradise. As he did not answer, she faced him +with crimsoning cheeks, then reading his look she suddenly threw her +arms about his neck.</p> + +<p>"Hugh," she cried, "we belong to each other now. There is no one else to +consider, is there? I want to be to you what I haven't been—to bear +things with you, and help you."</p> + +<p>He kissed her eyes and hair. "You <i>have</i> helped, you <i>do</i> help me, +Jessica!" he urged. "But I am jealous for your love. It must not be +offended. The town of Smoky Mountain must not sneer—and it would sneer +now."</p> + +<p>"Let it!" she exclaimed resentfully. "As if I would care!"</p> + +<p>"But <i>I</i> would care," he said softly. "I want to climb a little higher +first."</p> + +<p>She was silent a moment, her fingers twisting the fallen leaves. "You +don't want them to know that I am your wife?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p><p>"Not yet—till I can see my way."</p> + +<p>She nodded and smiled and the cloud lifted from her face. "You must know +best," she said. "This is what I shall do, then. I shall leave the +sanatorium to-morrow. The people there are nothing to me, but the town +of Smoky Mountain is yours, and I must be a part of it, too. I am going +to the Mountain Valley House. Mrs. Halloran will take care of me." She +sprang to her feet as she added: "I shall go to see her about it now."</p> + +<p>He knew the dear desire her determination masked—to do her part in +softening prejudice, in clearing his way—and the thought of her +great-heartedness brought a mist to his eyes. He rose and walked with +her through the bracken to the road. They came out to the driveway just +below the trail that led to the Knob. The bank was high, and leaping +first he held up his arms to her and lifted her lightly down. In the +instant, as she lay in his arms, he bent and kissed her on the lips.</p> + +<p>Neither noted two figures walking together that at that moment rounded +the bend of the road a little way above. They were Tom Felder and Doctor +Brent, the latter swinging a light suit-case, for he was on his way to +the station of the valley railroad. He had chosen to walk that he might +have a longer chat with his friend. Both men saw the kiss and +instinctively drew back, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> lawyer with a sudden color on his face, +the doctor with a look of blank astonishment.</p> + +<p>The latter, in one way, knew little about the town. Beside Felder and +Mrs. Halloran, whose surly husband he had once doctored when the town's +practitioner was away—thereby earning her admiration and +gratitude—there were few with whom he had more than a nodding +acquaintance. He had liked David Stires, and Jessica he genuinely +admired, though he had thought her at times somewhat distant. He himself +had introduced Felder to her, on one of the latter's visits. He had not +observed that the young lawyer's calls had grown more frequent, nor +guessed that he had more than once loitered on the mountain trails +hoping to meet her.</p> + +<p>The doctor noted now the telltale flush on his companion's face.</p> + +<p>"We have surprised a romance," he said, as the two unconscious figures +disappeared down the curving stretch. "Who is the man?"</p> + +<p>"He is the one we have been talking about."</p> + +<p>The other stared. "Not your local Jekyll and Hyde, the sneak who lost +his memory and found himself an honest man?"</p> + +<p>Felder nodded. "His cabin is just below here, on the hillside."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p><p>"Good Lord!" ejaculated the doctor. "What an infernal pity! What's his +name?"</p> + +<p>"Hugh Stires."</p> + +<p>"Stires?" the other repeated. "Stires? How odd!" He stood a moment, +tapping his suit-case with his stick. Suddenly he took the lawyer's arm +and led him into the side-path.</p> + +<p>"Come," he said, "I want to show you something."</p> + +<p>He led the way quickly to the Knob, where he stopped, as much astonished +as his companion, for he had known nothing of the statue. They read the +words chiselled on its base. "The prodigal son," said Felder.</p> + +<p>"Now look at the name on the headstone," said the physician.</p> + +<p>Felder's glance lifted from the stone, to peer through the screening +bushes to the cabin on the shelf below, and returned to the other's face +with quick comprehension. "You think—"</p> + +<p>"Who could doubt it? <i>I will arise and go unto my father.</i> The old man's +whim to be buried here had a meaning, after all. The statue is Miss +Holme's work—nobody in Smoky Mountain could do it—and I've seen her +modelling in clay at the sanatorium. What we saw just now is the key to +what might have been a pretty riddle if we had ever looked further than +our noses.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> It's a case of a clever rascal and damnable propinquity. The +ward has fallen in love with the black sheep!"</p> + +<p>They betook themselves down the mountain in silence, the doctor +wondering how deep a hurt lay back of that instant's color on his +friend's now imperturbable face, and more than disturbed on Jessica's +account. Her care for the cross-grained, likable invalid had touched +him.</p> + +<p>"A fine old man to own a worthless son," he said at length, musingly. "A +gentleman of the old school. Your amiable blackleg has education and +good blood in him, too!"</p> + +<p>"I've wondered sometimes," said Felder, "if the old Hugh Stires, that +disreputable one that came here, wasn't the unreal one, and the Hugh +Stires the town is beginning to like, the real one, brought back by the +accident that took his memory. You medical men have cases of such double +identity, haven't you?"</p> + +<p>"The books have," responded the other, "but they're like Kellner's +disease or Ludwig's Angina—nobody but the original discoverer ever sees +'em."</p> + +<p>As they parted at the station the doctor said: "We needn't take the town +into our confidence, eh? Some one will stumble on the statue sooner or +later, but we won't help the thing along." He looked shrewdly in the +other's face as they shook hands.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p><p>"You know the old saying: There's as many good fish in the sea as ever +were caught."</p> + +<p>The lawyer half laughed. "Don't worry," he said. "If I had been in +danger, the signal was hung out in plenty of time!"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXI</span> <span class="smaller">THE REVELATION OF HALLELUJAH JONES</span></h2> + +<p>Hallelujah Jones was in his element. With his wheezy melodeon, his +gasoline flare and his wild earnestness, he crowded the main street of +the little mining-town, making the engagement of the "San Francisco +Amazons" at the clapboard "opera house" a losing venture. The effete +civilization of wealthy bailiwicks did not draw forth his powers as did +the open and unveneered debaucheries of less restricted settlements. +Against these he could inveigh with surety, at least, of an appreciative +audience.</p> + +<p>He had not lacked for listeners here, for he was a new sensation. His +battered music-box, with its huge painted text, was far and away more +attractive than the thumping pianolas of the saloons or the +Brobdignagian gramophone of the dance-hall, and his old-fashioned songs +were enthusiastically encored. When he lit his flare in the court-house +square at dusk on the second evening, the office of the Mountain Valley +House was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> emptied and the bar-rooms and gaming-tables well-nigh +deserted of their patrons.</p> + +<p>Jessica had seen the mustering crowd from the hotel entrance. Mrs. +Halloran had welcomed her errand that day and given her her best room, a +chamber overlooking the street. She had persuaded her visitor to spend +the afternoon and insisted that she stay to supper, "just to see how she +would like it for a steady diet." Now, as Jessica passed along toward +the mountain road, the spectacle chained her feet on the outskirts of +the gathering. She watched and listened with a preoccupied mind; she was +thinking that on her way to the sanatorium she would cross to the cabin +for a good-night word with the man upon whom her every thought centered.</p> + +<p>As it happened, however, Harry was at that moment very near her. Alone +on the mountain, the perplexing conflict of feeling had again descended +upon him. He had fought it, but it had prevailed, and at nightfall had +driven him down to the town, where the street preacher now held forth. +He stood alone, unnoted, a little distance away, near the court-house +steps, where, by reason of the crowd, Jessica could see neither him nor +the dog which sniffed at the heels of the circle of bystanders as if to +inquire casually of salvation.</p> + +<p>Numbers were swelling now, and the street preacher,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> shaking back his +long hair, drew a premonitory, wavering chord from his melodeon, and +struck up a gospel song:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"My days are gliding swiftly by,</div> +<div class="i1">And I, a pilgrim stranger,</div> +<div>Would not detain them as they fly,</div> +<div class="i1">These hours of toil and danger.</div> +<div>For Oh, we tread on Jordan's strand,</div> +<div class="i1">Our friends are passing over,</div> +<div>And just before the shining shore</div> +<div class="i1">We may almost discover."</div> +</div></div> + +<p>The song ended, he mounted his camp-stool to propound his usual fiery +text.</p> + +<p>The watcher by the steps was gazing with a strange, alert intentness. +Something in the scene—the spluttering, dripping flame, the music, the +forensic earnestness of the pilgrim—held him enthralled. The dormant +sense that in the recent weeks had again and again stirred at some +elusive touch of memory, was throbbing. Since last night, with its +sudden lightning flash of the past that had faded again into blankness, +he had been as sensitive as a photographic plate.</p> + +<p>Hallelujah Jones knew the melodramatic value of contrast. As his mood +called, he passed abruptly from exhortation to song, from prayer to +fulmination, and he embellished his harangue with anecdotes drawn from +his lifelong campaign against the Arch-Enemy of Souls.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> Of what he had +said the solitary observer had been quite unconscious. It was the +<i>ensemble</i>—the repetition of something experienced somewhere +before—that appealed to him. Suddenly, however, a chance phrase pierced +to his understanding.</p> + +<p>Another moment and he was leaning forward, his eyes fixed, his breath +straining at his breast. For each word of the speaker now was knocking a +sledge-hammer blow upon the blank wall in his brain. Hallelujah Jones +had launched into the recital of an incident which had become the <i>chef +d'ouvre</i> of his repertory—a story which, though the stern charge of a +bishop had kept him silent as to name and locality, yet, possessing the +vividness of an actual experience, had lost little in the telling. It +was the tale of an evening when he had peered through the tilted window +of a chapel, and seen its dissolute rector gambling on the table of the +Lord.</p> + +<p>Back in the shadow the listener, breathless and staring, saw the scene +unroll like the shifting slide of a stereopticon—the epitaph on his own +dead self. Nerve and muscle and brain tightened as if to withstand a +shock, for the man who moved through the pictures was himself! He saw +the cards and counters falling on the table, the entrance of the two +intruding figures, heard Hugh's wild laugh as he fled, and the grate of +the key<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> in the lock behind him as he stood in his study. He heard the +rush of the wind past the motor-car, the rustle of dry corn in the +hedges, and felt the mist beating on his bare head—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Palms of Victory,</div> +<div>Crowns of Glory!</div> +<div>Palms of Victory</div> +<div>I shall wear!"</div> +</div></div> + +<p>He did not know that it was the voice of the street preacher which was +singing now. The words shrieked themselves through his brain. Harry +Sanderson, not Hugh Stires! Not an outcast! Not criminal, thief and +forger! The curtain was rent. The dead wall in his brain was down, and +the real past swept over him in an ungovernable flood. Hallelujah Jones +had furnished the clue to the maze. His story was the last great wave, +which had crumbled, all at once, the cliff of oblivion that the normal +process of the recovered mind had been stealthily undermining. The +formula, lost so long in the mysterious labyrinth of the brain, had +reëstablished itself, and the thousand shreds of recollection that he +had misconstrued had fallen into their true place in the old pattern. +Harry Sanderson at last knew his past and all of puzzlement and distress +that it had held.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p><p>Shaking in every limb and feeling all along the court-house wall like a +drunken man, he made his way to the further deserted street. A passer-by +would have shrunk at sight of his face and his burning eyes.</p> + +<p>For these months, he, the Reverend Henry Sanderson, disgraced, had +suffered eclipse, had been sunk out of sight and touch and hearing like +a stone in a pool. For these months—through an accidental facial +resemblance and a fortuitous concurrence of circumstances—he had owned +the name and ignominy of Hugh Stires. And Jessica? Deceived no less than +he, dating her piteous error from that mistaken moment when she had torn +the bandage from her eyes on her wedding-day. She had never seen the +real Hugh in Smoky Mountain. She must learn the truth. Yet, how to tell +her? How could he tell her <i>all</i>?</p> + +<p>At any hour yesterday, hard as the telling must have been, he could have +told her. Last night the hour passed. How could he tell her now? Yet she +was the real Hugh's wife by law and right; he himself could not marry +her! If God would but turn back the universe and give him yesterday!</p> + +<p>Why not <i>be</i> Hugh Stires? The wild idea came to him to throw away his +own self for ever, never to tell her, never to return to Aniston, to +live on here or fly to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> some distant place, till years had made +recognition impossible. He struck his forehead with his closed hand. He, +a priest of God, to summon her to an illegal union? To live a serial +story of hypocrisy, with the guilty shadow of the living Hugh always +between them, the sword of Damocles always suspended above their heads, +to cleave to the heart of his Fool's Paradise? The mad thought died. Yet +what justice of Heaven was it that Jessica, whose very soul had been +broken on the wheel, should now, through no conscious fault, be led by +his hand through a new Inferno of suffering?</p> + +<p>His feet dragging as though from cold, he climbed the mountain road. As +he walked he took from his pocket the little gold cross, and his +fingers, numb with misery, tied it to his thong watch-guard. It had been +only a bauble, a pocket-piece acquired he knew not when or how; now he +knew it for the badge of his calling. He remembered now that, pressed a +certain way, it would open, and engraved inside were his name and the +date of his ordination.</p> + +<p>He might shut the cabin door, but he could not forbid the torturer that +came with him across the threshold. He might throw himself upon his +knees and bury his face in the rough skin of the couch, but he could not +shut out words that blent in golden-lettered flashes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> across his +throbbing eyeballs: <i>Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife</i>.</p> + +<p>So he crouched, a man under whose feet life had crashed, leaving him +pinned beneath the wreck, to watch the fire that must creep nearer and nearer.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXII</span> <span class="smaller">THE WHITE HORSE SKIN</span></h2> + +<p>Curiosity held Jessica until the evangelist closed his melodeon +preparatory to a descent upon the dance-hall. Then, thinking of the +growing dark with some trepidation—for the recent "strike" had brought +its influx of undesirable characters to the town—she started toward the +mountain.</p> + +<p>Ahead of her a muffled puff-puff sounded, and the dark bulk of an +automobile—the sheriff's, the only one the town of Smoky Mountain +boasted—was moving slowly in the same direction, and she quickened her +pace, glad of this quasi-company. It soon forged ahead, but she had +passed the outskirts of the town then and was not afraid.</p> + +<p>A little way up the ascent a cumbrous shadow startled her. She saw in a +moment that it was the automobile, halted at the side of the road. Her +footsteps made no sound and she was close upon it when she saw the three +men it had carried standing near-by. She made to pass them, and had +crossed half the intervening space, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> some instinct sent her to the +shade of the trees. They had stopped opposite the hydraulic concession, +where a side path left the main road—it was the same path by which she +and Emmet Prendergast had taken their unconscious burden on a night long +ago—leading along the hillside, overlooking the snake-like flume, and +forming a steeper short-cut to the cabin above. They were conversing in +low tones, and as they talked they pointed, she thought toward it.</p> + +<p>Jessica had never in her life been an eavesdropper, but her excited +senses made her anxious. Moreover, she was in a way committed, for she +could not now emerge without being seen. As she waited, a man came from +the path and joined the others. The sky had been overcast and gloomy, +but the moon drew out just then and she saw that the new-comer, +evidently a patrol, carried a rifle in the hollow of his arm. She also +saw that one of the first three was the automobile's owner.</p> + +<p>For some minutes they conversed in undertones, whose very secrecy +inflamed her imagination. It seemed to her that they made some reference +to the flume. Had there been another robbery of the sluice-boxes, and +could they still suspect Hugh?</p> + +<p>Dread and indignation made her bold. When they turned into the path she +followed, treading noiselessly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> till she was close behind them. They +had stopped again, and were looking intently at a shadowy gray something +that moved in the bottom below.</p> + +<p>She heard the man who carried the rifle say, with a smothered laugh:</p> + +<p>"It's only Barney McGinn's old white horse taking a drink out of the +sluice-box. He often does that."</p> + +<p>Then the sheriff's voice said: "McGinn's horse is in town to-night, with +Barney on her back. Horse or no horse, I'm going to"—the rest was lost +in the swift action with which he snatched the firearm from the first +speaker, sighted, and fired.</p> + +<p>In the still night the concussion seemed to rock the ground, and roused +a hundred echoes. It startled and shocked the listening girl, but not so +much as the sound that followed it—a cry that had nothing animal-like, +and that sent the men running down the slope toward an object that lay +huddled by the sluice-box.</p> + +<p>In horrified curiosity Jessica followed, slipping from shadow to shadow. +She saw the sheriff kneel down and draw a collapsed and empty horse's +skin from a figure whose thieving cunning it would never cloak again.</p> + +<p>"So it was you, after all, Prendergast!" the sheriff said +contemptuously.</p> + +<p>The white face stared up at them, venomous and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> writhing, turning about +the circle as though searching for some one who was not there.</p> + +<p>"How did—you guess?"</p> + +<p>The sheriff, who had been making a swift examination, answered the +panted question. "You have no time to think of that now," he said.</p> + +<p>A sinister look darted into the filming yellow eyes, and hatred and +certainty rekindled them. Prendergast struggled to a sitting posture, +then fell back, convulsed. "Hugh Stires! He was the only—one who +knew—how it was done. He's clever, but he can't get the best of +Prendergast!" A spasm distorted his features. "Wait—wait!"</p> + +<p>He fumbled in his breast and his fingers brought forth a crumpled piece +of paper. He thrust it into the sheriff's hands.</p> + +<p>"Look! Look!" he gasped. "The man they found murdered on the claim +there"—he pointed wildly up the hillside—"Doctor Moreau. I found +him—dying! Stires—"</p> + +<p>Strength was fast failing him. He tried again to speak, but only +inarticulate sounds came from his throat.</p> + +<p>A blind terror had clutched the heart of the girl leaning from the +shadow. "Doctor Moreau"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>—"murdered." Why, he had been one of Hugh's +friends! Why did this man couple Hugh's name with that worst of crimes? +What dreadful thing was he trying to tell? She hardly repressed a desire +to scream aloud.</p> + +<p>"Be careful what you say, Prendergast," said the sheriff sternly.</p> + +<p>The wretched man gathered force for a last effort. His voice came in a +croaking whisper:</p> + +<p>"It was Stires killed him. Moreau wrote it down—and I—kept the paper. +Tell Hugh—we break—even!"</p> + +<p>That was all. His head fell back with a shiver, and Emmet Prendergast +was gone on a longer journey than ever his revenge could warm him.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXIII</span> <span class="smaller">THE RENEGADE</span></h2> + +<p>While the man whom the town knew as Hugh Stires listened to the tale of +the street preacher, another, unlike yet curiously like him in feature, +had slowly climbed the hilly slope from the north by the sanatorium +road. He walked with a jaunty swagger bred of too frequent applications +to a flask in his pocket.</p> + +<p>Since the evening of the momentous scene in the chapel with Harry +Sanderson, Hugh had had more and more recourse to that black comforter. +It had grown to be his constant companion. When, late on the night of +the game, some miles away, he had gloatingly counted the money in his +pockets, he had found nearly a thousand dollars in double-eagles, and a +single red counter—the last he had had to stake against Harry's gold. +He put the crimson disk into his pocket, "to remember the bishop by," he +thought with a chuckle, but the fact that for each of the counters Harry +had won he had sworn to render a day of clean and decent living, he +straightway forgot. For the other's position he had wasted no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> pity. +Harry would find it difficult to explain the matter to the bishop! Well, +if it "broke" him, served him right! What business had he to set himself +so far above every one else?</p> + +<p>For some time thereafter Hugh had seriously contemplated going abroad, +for a wholesome fear had dogged him in his flight from Smoky Mountain. +For weeks he had travelled by night, scanning the daily newspapers with +a desperate anxiety, his ears keen for hue and cry. But with money in +his pocket, courage returned, and in the end fear lulled. There had been +no witness to that deed on the hillside. There might be suspicion, but +no more! At length the old-time attraction of the race-course had +absorbed him. He had followed the horses in "the circuit," winning and +losing, consorting with the tipsters, growing heavier with generous +living, and welcoming excitement and change. But the ghost of Doctor +Moreau haunted him, and would not be exorcized.</p> + +<p>Money, however, could not last always, and a persistent run of ill luck +depleted his store. When poverty again was at his elbow a vagrant rumor +had told him, with the usual exaggerations, of the rich "find" on the +Little Paymaster Claim on Smoky Mountain. Too late he cursed the +reasonless panic that had sent him into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> flight. Had the ground been +"jumped" by some one who now profited? Nevertheless, it was still his +own to claim; miners' law gave him a year, and he had left enough +possessions in the cabin, he thought cunningly, to disprove abandonment. +He dreaded a return, but want and cupidity at length overcame his fears. +He had arrived at Smoky Mountain on this night to claim his own.</p> + +<p>As he walked unsteadily along, Hugh drank more than once from the flask +to deaden the superstitious dread of the place which was stealing over +him. On the crest of the ridge he skirted the sanatorium grounds and at +length gained the road that twisted down toward the lights of the town. +In the dubious moonlight he mistook the narrow trail to the Knob for the +lower path to the cabin. As he turned into it, the report of a rifle +came faintly from the gulch below. It seemed to his excited senses like +the ghostly echo of a shot he had himself fired there on a night like +this long before—a hollow echo from another world.</p> + +<p>He quickened his steps and stumbled all at once into the little clearing +that held the new-made grave and Jessica's statue. The sight terrified +his intoxicated imagination. His hair rose. The name on the headstone +was <span class="smcap">Stires</span>, and there was himself—no, a ghost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> of himself!—sitting +near! He turned and broke into a run down the steep slope. In his +fear—for he imagined the white figure was pursuing him—he tripped and +fell, regained his feet, rushed across the level space, threw his weight +against the cabin door, and burst into the room.</p> + +<p>A dog sprang up with a growl, and in the light of the fire that burned +on the hearth, a man sitting at the rough-hewn table lifted a haggard +face from his arms and each recognized the other.</p> + +<p>The ghost was gone now before firelight and human presence, and Hugh, +with a loud laugh of tipsy incredulity, stood staring at the man before +him.</p> + +<p>"Harry Sanderson!" he cried. "By the great horn spoon!" His shifty eyes +surveyed the other's figure—the corduroys, the high laced boots, the +soft blue flannel shirt. "Not exactly in purple and fine linen," he +said—the impudent swagger of intoxication had slipped over him again, +and his boisterous laugh broke with a hiccough. "I thought the gospel +game was about played out that night in the chapel. And now you are +willing to take a hint from the prodigal. How did you find my nest? And +perhaps you can tell me who has been making himself so infernally at +home here lately?"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> have," said Harry evenly.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p><p>Hugh's glance, that had been wavering about the neat interior, returned +to Harry, and knowledge and anger leaped into it. "So it was you, was +it? You are the one who has been trying his hand as a claim-jumper!" He +lurched toward the table and leaned upon it. "I've always heard that the +devil took care of his own. The runaway rector stumbles on my manor, and +with his usual luck—'Satan's luck' we called it at college—steps in +just in time to strike it rich!"</p> + +<p>He stretched his hand suddenly and caught a tiny object that glittered +against Harry's coat—the little gold cross, which the other had tied to +his watch-guard. The thong snapped and Hugh sent the pendant rattling +across the doorway.</p> + +<p>"You were something of a howling swell as a parson," he said insolently, +"but you don't need the jewelry now!"</p> + +<p>Harry Sanderson's eyes had not left Hugh's face; he was thinking +swiftly. The bolt from the blue had been so recent that this sudden +apparition seemed a natural concomitant of the situation. Only the +problem was no longer imminent; it was upon him. Jessica was not for +him—he had accepted that. Though the clock might not turn backward, +this man must stand between them. Yet his presence now in the +predicament was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>intolerable. This drunken, criminal maligner had it in +his power to precipitate the climax for her in a coarse and brutal +<i>exposé</i>. Hugh had no idea of the true tangle, else he had not been seen +in the town. But if not to-night, then to-morrow! Harry's heart turned +cold within him. If he could eliminate Hugh from the problem till he +could see his way!</p> + +<p>"Well," said Hugh with a sneer, "what have you got to say?"</p> + +<p>Harry rose slowly and pushed the door shut. "When we last met," he said, +"what you most wanted was to leave the country."</p> + +<p>"I changed my mind," retorted Hugh. "I've got a right to do that, I +suppose. I've come back now to get what is mine, and I'll have it, too!" +He rapped the table with his knuckles.</p> + +<p>Hugh had no recollection now of past generosities. His selfish +materialism saw only money that might be his. "I know all about the +strike," he went on, "and there's no green in my eye!"</p> + +<p>"How much will you take for the property?"</p> + +<p>Hugh laughed again jeeringly. "That's your game, is it? But I'm not such +a numskull! Whatever you could offer, it's worth more to me. You've +found a good thing here, and you'd like to skin me as a butcher skins<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> a +sheep." In the warmer air of the cabin the liquor he had drunk was +firing his brain, and an old suspicion leaped to his tongue.</p> + +<p>"I know you, Satan Sanderson," he sneered. "You were always the same +precious hypocrite in the old days, pretending to be so almighty +virtuous, while you looked out for number one. I saw through you then, +too, when you were posing as my friend and trying your best all along to +queer me with the old man! I knew it well enough. I knew what the reason +was, too! You wanted Jessica! You—"</p> + +<p>Self-control left Harry suddenly, as a ship's sail is whipped from its +gaskets in a white squall. Before the words could be uttered, his +fingers were at Hugh's throat.</p> + +<p>At that instant there was the sound of running feet outside, a hurried +knock at the door and an agitated voice that chilled Harry's blood to +ice.</p> + +<p>His hands relaxed their hold; he dragged Hugh to the door of the inner +room, thrust him inside, shut and bolted it upon him.</p> + +<p>Then he went and opened the outer door.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXIV</span> <span class="smaller">THE TEMPTATION</span></h2> + +<p>Jessica's eyes met Harry's in a look he could not translate, save that +it held both yearning and anguish.</p> + +<p>The accusation of Prendergast had stunned her faculties. As in an evil +dream, with the low breeze murmuring by and the fitful moon overhead, +she had seen the sheriff rise to his feet and methodically put the +fragment of paper into his pocket-book. A moment later she was running +up the dark path, her thoughts a confusion in which only one coherent +purpose stood distinct—to warn him. They would know no need to hasten. +If the man she loved had reached the cabin, she would be before them.</p> + +<p>Not that she believed him guilty; in his lost past there could be no +stain so dark as that! She recalled the look of personal hatred she had +once surprised on Prendergast's face. He hated Hugh, and dying, had left +this black lie behind to do him a mischief. He was innocent, innocent! +But would the charge not be believed? They would arrest him, drag him +down to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> town, to the brick jail on the court-house square. The +community was prejudiced. Innocent men had been convicted before of +crimes they never committed. In those breathless minutes she did not +reason further; she knew only that a vital danger threatened him, and +that he must fly from it. The lighted pane had told her the occupant of +the cabin had returned.</p> + +<p>She stood before the door, her hands clasped tightly, her eyes on +Harry's face, even in this crucial moment drinking in thirstily what she +saw there; for in this crisis, hanging on the narrow verge of +catastrophe, when he had need to summon all his store of poise and +contained strength, his look melted over her in a mist of tenderness.</p> + +<p>"What has happened?" he asked.</p> + +<p>He did not offer to touch or to kiss her, but this she did not remember +till afterward. In what words could she tell him? Would he think she +believed him guilty when she besought him to fly? She answered simply, +directly, with only a deep appeal in her eyes:</p> + +<p>"Men will be here soon—men from the town. I overheard them. I wanted to +let you know!" she hesitated; it had grown all at once difficult to put +into words.</p> + +<p>"Coming here? Why?"</p> + +<p>"To arrest a man who is accused of murder."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p><p>If her eyes could have pierced the bolted door a few feet away! If she +could have seen that listening face behind it, as her clear tones fell, +grow instinct with recognition, amazement, and evil suspicion—a look +that her last word swept into a sickly gray terror! If she could have +heard the groan from the wretched man beyond!</p> + +<p>"Whose murder?"</p> + +<p>"Doctor Moreau's."</p> + +<p>In all Harry Sanderson's life was to be never such a moment of +revealment. He knew that she meant himself. The murderer of Doctor +Moreau—Hugh's one-time crony and loose associate, who had shared in the +plunder of the forged draft, and had then abandoned his cat's-paw to +discovery! The man Hugh had promised to "pay off for it some time!" Had +Moreau also made this his stamping-ground? A swift memory swept him of +Hugh's hang-dog look, his nervous dread when he had begged in the chapel +study for money with which to leave the country. It did not need the +smothered gasp from behind the bolted door to point the way to the swift +conclusion Harry's mind was racing to. A dull flush spread to his +forehead.</p> + +<p>Jessica waited with caught breath, searching his countenance. It was +told now, but he must know that she had not credited it—that "for +better, for worse," she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> must believe in him now. "I knew, oh, I knew!" +she cried. "You need not tell me!"</p> + +<p>The hell of two passions that were struggling within him—a savage +exultation and a submerging wave of pity for her utter ignorance, her +blind faith, for the painful dénouement that was rushing upon her—died, +and left him cold and still. "No," he said gravely, "I am not the man +they want. It has all come back to me—the past that I had lost. Such a +crime has no part in it."</p> + +<p>At another time the abrupt news of this retrieval must have affected her +strangely, for she had wondered much concerning the return of that +memory that held alike their early love and his own tragedy and shame. +Now, however, a greater contingency absorbed her. He must go, and +without delay. Her lips were opened to speak when he closed the door +behind him and stepped quickly down toward her. At all odds, he was +thinking, she must not see the man in that inner room! If she remained +he could not guess what shock might result.</p> + +<p>"Jessica," he said, "you have tried to save me from danger to-night. I +need a greater service of you now; it is to ask no questions, but to go +at once. I can not explain why, but you must not stay here a moment."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she cried bitterly, "you don't intend to leave! You choose to face +it, and you want to spare me. If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> you really want to spare me, you will +go! Why, you would have no chance where they have hated you so. +Prendergast was killed robbing the sluice to-night, and he +lied—lied—lied! He swore you did it, and they will believe it!"</p> + +<p>He put back her beseeching hands. How could he explain? Only to get her +away—to gain time—<i>to think</i>!</p> + +<p>"Listen!" she went on wildly. "They will wait to carry him to the town. +I can go and bring my horse here for you. There is time! You have only +to send me word, and I will follow you to the end of the world! Only say +you will go!"</p> + +<p>He caught at the straw. The expedient might serve.</p> + +<p>"Very well," he said; "bring him to the upper trail, and wait there for +me."</p> + +<p>She gave a sob of relief at his acquiescence. "I will hurry, hurry!" she +cried, and was gone, swift as a swallow-flight, into the darkness.</p> + +<p>As he reëntered the cabin, the calmness fell from Harry Sanderson as a +mask drops, and the latent passion sprang in its place. He crossed the +room and drew the bolt for the wretched man who, after one swift glance +at his face, grovelled on his knees before him, sobered and shivering.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p><p>"For God's sake, Harry, you won't give me up?" Hugh cried. "You can't +mean to do that! Why, we were in college together! I'd been drinking +to-night, or I wouldn't have talked to you as I did. I'm sober enough +now, Harry! You can have the claim. I'll give it to you and all you've +got out of it. Only let me go before they come to take me!"</p> + +<p>Harry drew his feet from the frantic hands that clasped them. "Did you +kill Moreau?" he asked shortly.</p> + +<p>"It was an accident," moaned Hugh. "I never intended to—I swear to +Heaven I didn't! He hounded me, and he tried to bleed me. I only meant +to frighten him off! Then—then—I was afraid, and I ran for it. That +was when I came to you at Aniston and—we played." Hugh's breath came in +gasps and drops of sweat stood on his forehead.</p> + +<p>A weird, crowding clamor was sweeping through Harry's brain. When, at +the sound of Jessica's voice, he had thrust Hugh into the inner room, it +had been only to gain time, to push further back, if by but a moment, +the shock which was inevitable. Then, in the twinkling of an eye, Fate +had swept the board. Hugh's worthless life was forfeit. He would stand +no longer between him and Jessica! The enginery of the law would be +their savior.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p><p>Neither crime nor penalty was of his making. He owed Hugh nothing—the +very money he had taken from the ground, save a bare living, had gone to +pay his thievery. He could surrender him to the law, then take Jessica +far away where the truth would come mercifully softened by distance and +lightened by future happiness. It was not his to intervene, to cozen +Justice, to compound a felony and defeat a righteous Providence! He owed +mercy to Jessica. He owed none to this cringing, lying thing before him, +who now reminded him of that chapel game that had ruined the Reverend +Henry Sanderson!</p> + +<p>"When we played!" he echoed. "How have you settled your debt—the 'debt +of honor' you once counted so highly? How have you lived since then? +Have you paid me those days of decent living you staked, and lost?"</p> + +<p>Hugh looked past him with hollow, hunted gaze. There was no escape, no +weapon to his hand, and those eyes were on him like unwavering sparks of +iron.</p> + +<p>"But I will!" he exclaimed desperately. "If you'll only help me out of +this, I'll live straight to my dying day! You don't know how I've +suffered, Harry, or you'd have some mercy on me now! I can never get +away from it! That's why I was drunk to-day. Night<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> and day I see +him—Moreau, as I saw him lying here that night on the hillside. He +haunts me! You don't know what it means to be always afraid, to wake up +in the night with the feel of handcuffs on your wrists, to know that +such a thing is behind you, following you, following you, never letting +you rest, never forgetting!" A choking sob burst from his lips. "Let me +go, Harry," he pleaded; "for my father's sake!"</p> + +<p>"Your father is dead," said Harry.</p> + +<p>"Then for old-time's sake!" He tried to clasp Harry's knees. "They may +be here at any minute! I must have been seen as I crossed the mountain! +I thought it would never come out, or I wouldn't have come! I'll go far +enough away. I'll go to South America, and you will never see me alive +again, neither you nor Jessica! I knew her voice just now—I know she's +here. I don't care how or why! You don't need to give me up to get her! +I'll give her to you! For God's sake, Harry, listen! Jessica wouldn't +want to see me hung! For <i>her</i> sake!"</p> + +<p>Harry caught his breath sharply. The thrust had gone deep; it had +sheared through the specious arguments he had been weaving. The +commandment that an hour before had etched itself in letters of fire +upon his eyelids hung again before him. He had coveted his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> neighbor's +wife. This man, felon as he was—pitiful hound to whom the news of his +father's death brought no flicker of sorrow or remorse, who now offered +to barter Jessica for his own safety!—he himself, however unwittingly, +had irreparably wronged. Between them stood the accusing wraith of one +immortal hour, when the heart of love had beat against his own. If he +delivered Hugh to the hangman, would it be for justice's sake?</p> + +<p>The scales fell from his eyes. For him, loving Jessica, it could be only +a dastard act. Yet if he aided the real Hugh to escape, he, the +supposititious Hugh who had played his rôle, must continue it. He must +second the villainy, and in so doing play the cheaply tragic part. He +must pose as an accused murderer before the town whose good opinion he +had longed to gain—before Jessica!—until Hugh had had time to win safe +away! He might do even more. The real Hugh would stand small chance; +even were the evidence not flawless, the old record would condemn him. +But he himself had lightened that record. He had gained liking and +sympathy; there might be a chance for him of acquittal.</p> + +<p>If this might only be! The truth then need never be known and Hugh +Stires, to all belief having been put once in jeopardy, need fear no +more. Life would be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>before him again, to pay the days of righteous +living he had played for in the chapel game, to reverse the record of +his selfish and remorseless career. If the trial went against him—Hugh +would have had his chance, would be far away. He, Harry Sanderson, would +not have betrayed him. A hundred people, if he chose to summon them, +would establish his own identity. It would be cheating justice, making a +mock of law, but he was in a position where human statute must yield to +a higher rule of action. The law might punish, but he would have been +true to his own soul. Jessica would understand. The truth held pain and +shame for her, but he would have tried to save her from a greater. And +he would have cancelled his debt to Hugh!</p> + +<p>It was the Harry Sanderson of St. James parish, of the scrupulous +conscience—whose college career as Satan Sanderson had come to be a +fiery sore in his breast—who now spoke:</p> + +<p>"Get up!" he said. "Have you any money?"</p> + +<p>Hugh rose, trembling and ashen. "Hardly ten dollars," he answered.</p> + +<p>Harry considered hastily. He was almost penniless; nearly all his share +of the strike had gone to repay the forged draft. "I have no ready +cash," he said, "but the night we played in the chapel, I left a +thousand dollars<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> in my study safe. I have not been there since." He +took pencil and paper from his pocket and wrote down some figures +hastily. "Here is the combination. You must try to get that money."</p> + +<p>"Wait," he added, as Hugh's hand was on the latch. He must risk nothing; +he could make assurance doubly sure. "A half-mile from the foot of the +mountain, where the road comes in from Funeral Hollow, wait for me. I +will bring a horse there for you."</p> + +<p>Hugh crushed the paper into his pocket and opened the door. "I'll wait," +he said. He darted out, slipped around the corner of the cabin, and +stealthily disappeared.</p> + +<p>Harry sat down upon the doorstep. The strain had been great; in the +reaction, he was faint, and a mist was before his eyes. The die was +cast. Hugh could easily escape; until he himself spoke, he would not +even be hunted. He, Harry Sanderson, was the scapegoat, left to play his +part.</p> + +<p>How long he sat there he did not know. He sprang up at a muffled sound. +He had still a work to do before they came—for Hugh! He saw in an +instant, however, that it was Jessica, leading her horse by the bridle.</p> + +<p>"I could not wait," she breathed. "You did not come, and I was afraid!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p><p>Mounting, he leaned from the saddle and took both her hands in +his—still he did not kiss her.</p> + +<p>"Jessica, you believe I am innocent?" he asked anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Yes—yes!"</p> + +<p>"Will you believe what I am doing is for the best?"</p> + +<p>"Always, always!" she whispered, her voice vibrating. "Only go!"</p> + +<p>"Whatever happens?"</p> + +<p>"Whatever happens!"</p> + +<p>He released her hands and rode quickly up the grassy path.</p> + +<p>As she stood looking after him, a dog's whine came from the cabin. She +ran and released the spaniel and took him up in her arms.</p> + +<p>As she did so a sparkle caught her eye. It came from the tiny gold cross +lying where Hugh had flung it, near the lighted doorway. She picked it +up, looked at it a moment abstractedly and thrust it into her +pocket—scarce consciously, for her heart was keeping time to the +silenced hoof-beat that was bearing the man she loved from danger.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Where the way opened into the gloomy cut of Funeral Hollow, Harry +dismounted and went forward slowly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> afoot, leading the horse, till a +figure stepped from a clump of bushes to meet him with an exclamation of +relief. Hugh had waited at the rendezvous in shivering apprehension and +dismal suspicion of Harry's intentions, and had not approached till he +had convinced himself that the other came alone. He wrung Harry's hand +as he said:</p> + +<p>"If I get out of this, I'll do better the rest of my life, I will, upon +my soul, Harry!"</p> + +<p>"You may not be able to get into the chapel," said Harry; "my rooms"—he +felt his cheek burn as he spoke—"may be occupied. On the chance that +you fail, take this." He took off the ruby ring, whose interlaced +initials had once fortified him in his error of identity. "The stone is +worth a good deal. It should be enough to take you anywhere."</p> + +<p>Hugh nodded, slipped the ring on his finger, and rode quickly off. Then +Harry turned and walked rapidly back toward the town.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXV</span> <span class="smaller">FELDER TAKES A CASE</span></h2> + +<p>The sheriff stopped his automobile before the dingy telegraph office. +The street had been ringing that evening with more exciting events than +it had known in a year.</p> + +<p>"He's off," he said disgustedly to the men who had curiously gathered. +"He must have got wind of it somehow, and he had a horse ready. We +traced the hoof-prints from the cabin as far as the Hollow. I'm going to +use the wire."</p> + +<p>"That's a lie!" rumbled an angry voice behind him, as Devlin strode into +the crowd. "Hugh Stires gave himself up fifteen minutes ago at the +jail."</p> + +<p>"How do you know that?" demanded the sheriff, relieved but chagrined at +his fool's-errand.</p> + +<p>"Because I saw him do it," answered Devlin surlily. "I was there."</p> + +<p>"Well, it saves trouble for me. That'll tickle you, Felder," the sheriff +added satirically, turning toward the lawyer. "You're a sentimentalist, +and he's been your special fancy. What do you think now, eh?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p><p>"I'll tell you what <i>I</i> think," said Devlin, his big hands working. "I +think it's a damned lie of Prendergast's!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, ho!" exclaimed the sheriff amusedly. "You once danced to a +different tune, Devlin!"</p> + +<p>The blood was in the big, lowering face. "I did," he admitted. "I went +up against him when the liquor was in me, and by the same token he wiped +this street with me. He stood me fair and he whipped me, and I needed +it, though I hated him well enough afterwards. An'—an'—"</p> + +<p>He gulped painfully. No one spoke.</p> + +<p>"It's many's the time since then I've wished the hand was shrivelled +that heaved that rock at him in the road! The day when I saw my bit of a +lass, holdin' to the horse's mane, ridin' to her death in the +Hollow—an'—when he brought her back—" He stopped, struggling with +himself, tears rolling down his cheeks.</p> + +<p>"No murderer did that!" he burst out. "We gave him the back of the hand +an' the sole of the foot, an' we kept to it, though he fought it down +an' lived straight an' decent. He never did it! I don't care what they +say! I'll see Prendergast in hell before I'll believe it, or any dirty +paper he saved to swear a man's life away."</p> + +<p>The listeners were silent. No one had ever heard such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> a speech from the +huge owner of the dance-hall. The sheriff lighted a cigar before he +said:</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Devlin. We all understand your prejudices, but I'm +afraid they haven't much weight with legal minds, like Mr. Felder's +here, for instance."</p> + +<p>"Excuse me," said Felder. "I fear my prejudices are with Devlin. Good +night," he added, moving up the street.</p> + +<p>"Where are you bound?" asked the other casually.</p> + +<p>"To the jail," answered the lawyer, "to see a client—I hope."</p> + +<p>The sheriff emitted a low whistle. "<i>I</i> hope there'll be enough sane men +left to get a jury!" he said.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXVI</span> <span class="smaller">THE HAND AT THE DOOR</span></h2> + +<p>At the sound of steps in the jail corridor and the harsh grating of the +key in the lock, Harry rose hastily from the iron cot whereon he had +been sitting and took a step forward.</p> + +<p>"Jessica!" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>She came toward him, her breath hurried, her cheek pale. Tom Felder's +face was at her shoulder. "I have a little matter to attend to in the +office," he said, nodding to Harry. "I shall wait for you there, Miss +Holme."</p> + +<p>She thanked him with a grateful look, and as he vanished, Harry took her +hand and kissed it. He longed to take her in his arms.</p> + +<p>"I heard of it only at noon," she began, her voice uncertain. "I was +afraid they would not let me see you, so I went to Mr. Felder. They were +saying on the street that he had offered to defend you."</p> + +<p>"I had not been here an hour when he came," he said.</p> + +<p>"I know you have no money," she went on; "I know<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> what you did with the +gold you found. And I have begged him to let me pay for any other +counsel he will name. I have not told him—what I am to you, but I have +told him that I am far from poor, and that nothing counts beside your +life. He says you have forbidden him to do this—forbidden him to allow +any help from any one. Hugh, Hugh! Why do you do this? The money should +be yours, not mine, for it was your father's! It <i>is</i> yours, for I am +your wife!"</p> + +<p>He kissed her hand again without answering.</p> + +<p>"Haven't I a right now to be at your side? Mayn't I tell them?"</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "Not yet, Jessica."</p> + +<p>"I must obey you," she said with a wan smile, "yet I would share your +shame as proudly as your glory! You are thinking me weak and despicable, +perhaps, because I wanted you to go away. But women are not men, and +I—I love you so, Hugh!"</p> + +<p>"I think you are all that is brave and good," he protested.</p> + +<p>"I want you to believe," she went on, "that I knew you had done no +murder. If an angel from Heaven had come to declare it, I would not have +believed it. I only want now to understand."</p> + +<p>"What do you not understand?" he asked gently.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></p><p>She half turned toward the door, as she said, in a lower key: "Last +night I was overwrought. I had no time to reason, or even to be glad +that you had recovered your memory. I thought only of your escaping +somewhere—where you would be safe, and where I could follow. But after +you had gone, many things came back to me that seemed strange—something +curious in your manner. You had not seemed wholly surprised when I told +you you were accused. Why did you shut the cabin door, and speak so low? +Was there any one else there when I came?"</p> + +<p>He averted his face, but he did not answer. She was treading on near +ground.</p> + +<p>"My horse came back this afternoon," she continued. "He had been ridden +hard in the night and his flanks were cut cruelly with a whip. You did +not use him, but some one did."</p> + +<p>She waited a moment, still he made no reply.</p> + +<p>"I want to ask you," she said abruptly, "do you know who killed Doctor +Moreau?"</p> + +<p>His blood chilled at the question. He looked down at her speechless. +"You must let me speak," she said. "You won't answer that. Then you do +know who really did it. Oh, I have thought so much since last night! For +some reason you are shielding him. Was it the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> man who was in the +cabin—who rode my horse? If he is guilty, why do you help him off, and +so make yourself partly guilty?"</p> + +<p>He looked down at her and put a finger on her lips. "Do you remember +what you told me last night—that you would believe what I did was for +the best?"</p> + +<p>"But I thought then you were going away! How can I believe it now? Why, +they hang men who murder, and it is you who are accused! If you protect +the real murderer, you will have to stand in his place. The whole town +believes you are guilty—I see it in all their faces. They are sorry, +many of them, for they don't hate you as they did, but they think you +did it. Even Mr. Felder, though I have told him what I suspect, and +though he is working now to defend you!"</p> + +<p>"Jessica," he urged, "you must trust me and have faith in me. I know it +is hard, but I can't explain to you! I can't tell you—yet—why I do as +I am doing, but you must believe that I am right."</p> + +<p>She was puzzled and confused. When she had put this and that together, +guided by her intuition, the conclusion that he knew the guilty one had +brought a huge relief. Now this fell into disarray. She felt beneath his +manner a kind of appeal, a deprecation, almost a hidden pity for her—as +though the danger were hers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> not his, and she the one caught in this +catastrophe. She looked at him pale and distraught.</p> + +<p>"You speak as if you were sorry for me," she said, "and not for +yourself. Is it because you know you are not in real danger—that you +know the truth must come out, only you can't tell it yourself, or tell +me either? Is that it?"</p> + +<p>A wave of feeling passed over Harry, of hopeless longing. Whichever way +the issue turned there was anguish for her—for she loved him. If he +were acquitted, she must learn that past love between them had been +illicit, that present love was shame, and future love an impossibility. +Convicted, there must be added to this the bitter knowledge that her +husband in very truth was a murderer, doomed to lurk in hiding so long +as he might live. Yet not to reassure her now was cruelty.</p> + +<p>"It is not that, Jessica," he said gravely; "yet you must not fear for +me—for my life. Try to believe me when I say that some time you will +understand and know that I did only what I must."</p> + +<p>"Will that be soon?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I think it may be soon," he answered.</p> + +<p>Her face lighted. The puzzle and dread lifted. "Oh, then," she +said—"oh, then, I shall not be afraid. I can not share your thoughts, +nor your secret, and I must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> rebel at that. You mustn't blame me—I +wouldn't be a woman if I did not—but I love you more than all the +world, and I shall believe that you know best. Hugh," she added softly, +"do you know that—you haven't kissed me?"</p> + +<p>Before her upturned, pleading eyes and trembling lips, the iron of his +purpose bent to the man in him, and he took her into his arms.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXVII</span> <span class="smaller">THE PENITENT THIEF</span></h2> + +<p>A frosty gloom was over the city of Aniston, moon and stars hidden by a +cloudy sky, from which a light snow—the first of the season—was +sifting down. The streets were asleep; only occasional belated +pedestrians were to be seen in the chilly air. These saw a man, his face +muffled from the snowflakes, pass hurriedly toward the fountained +square, from whose steeple two o'clock was just striking. The wayfarer +skirted the square, keeping in cover of the buildings as though avoiding +chance observation, till he stood on the pavement of a Gothic chapel +fronting the open space.</p> + +<p>Here he paused and glanced furtively about him. He could see the +entrance to the minister's study, at which he had so often knocked and +the great rose-window of the audience-room where he had once gamed with +Harry Sanderson. This was the building he must enter like a thief.</p> + +<p>On the night of his flight from Smoky Mountain, Hugh had ridden hard +till dawn, abandoning the horse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> to find its way back as best it might. +Hidden in a snug retreat, he had slept through the next day, to +recommence his journeying at nightfall. He had thus been obliged to make +haste slowly and had lost much valuable time. For two days after his +arrival, he had hung about outside the town in a fever of impatience; +for though he had readily ascertained that the premises were unoccupied, +the first night he had been frightened away by the too zealous scrutiny +of a policeman, and on the next he had been unable to force the door. +That morning he had secured a skeleton-key, and now the weather was +propitious for his purpose.</p> + +<p>After a moment's reconnoitering, he scaled the frost-fretted iron +palings and gained the shelter of the porch. He tried the key anxiously; +to his relief it fitted. Another minute and he stood in the study, the +door locked behind him, his veins beating with excitement.</p> + +<p>He felt along the wall, drawing his hand back sharply as it encountered +the electric switch. He struck a wax <i>fusée</i> and by its feeble ray gazed +about him. The room looked as it had always looked, with Harry's books +on the shelves, and his heavy walking-stick in the corner, and there +against the wall stood the substantial iron safe that held his own +ransom. Crouching down before it, he took from his pocket the paper upon +which was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> written the combination; ten to the right, five to the left, +twice nineteen to the right—</p> + +<p>The match scorched his fingers, and he lighted another and began to turn +the knob. The lock bore both figures and letters in concentric rings, +and he saw that the seven figures Harry had written formed a word. Hugh +dropped the match with a smothered exclamation, for the word was +Jessica! So Harry really had loved her in the old days! Had he profited +by that wedding-day expulsion to make love to her himself? Yet on the +night of the game with Harry in the chapel the house in the aspens had +been closed and dark. How had she come to be in Smoky Mountain? His +father was dead—so Harry had said. If so, the money had gone to her, no +doubt. Well, at any rate, she had never been anything to him and he was +no dog-in-the-manger. What he needed now was the thousand dollars, and +here it was. He swung the massive door wide and took out the canvas bag. +With this and the ruby ring—it must easily be worth as much again—he +could put the round world between himself and capture.</p> + +<p>He closed the safe, and with the bag of coin in his hand, groped his way +to the door of the chapel. It was less dark there, for the snow was +making a white night outside, and the stained glass cast a wan glimmer +across<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> the aisles. He could almost see himself and Harry Sanderson +sitting in the candle-light at the communion table inside the +altar-rail, almost hear the musical chink of the gold! His hand wandered +to his pocket, where lay the one wax wafer he had kept as a +pocket-piece. At that altar he had sworn to pay a day of clean living +for each of the counters he had lost. He had not kept that oath, and now +vengeance was near to overtaking him. He shuddered. He had turned over a +new leaf this time in earnest, and he would make up for the broken vow!</p> + +<p>But meanwhile he greatly needed sleep, and to-night in the open that was +out of the question. He could gain several good hours' rest where he +was, and still get away before daybreak. He drew together the +altar-cushions and lay down, the canvas bag beside him, but he was cold, +and at length he rose and went into the vestry for a surplice. He +wrapped this about him, and, lighting a cigarette, lay down again. He +was very tired, but his limbs twitched from nervousness. He lighted one +cigarette after another, but sleep was coy. He tried to woo it with +nonsense rhymes, but the lines ran together. He tried the remedy of his +restless, precocious childhood—the counting of innumerable sheep as +they leaped the hurdle one by one; but now all of the sheep were black. +There came before his eyes, uncalled, the portrait of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> dead mother, +that had always hung at home in the wainscoted library. In her memory +his father had built this very chapel. He wondered again whether she had +looked like the picture.</p> + +<p>A softer feeling came to him. She would be sorry if she could know his +plight. Perhaps if she had lived his life might have been different. +Slow tears stole down his cheeks—not now of affected sentimentalism, or +of hysterical self-pity, but warmer drops from some deeper well that had +not overflowed since he was a little boy. If he had the chance he would +live from now on so that if she were alive she need not be ashamed! The +promise he made himself at that moment was an honester one than all his +selfish years had known, for it sprang not from dread, but from the +better feeling that his maturity had trampled and denied. He felt a kind +of peace—the first real peace he had known since his school-days—and +with it drowsiness came at last. With the drops wet on his cheek, +forgetfulness found him. In a few minutes he was sleeping heavily.</p> + +<p>The last half-consumed cigarette dropped from his relaxing fingers to +the cushion, where it made a smoldering nest of fire. A tiny tongue of +flame caught the edge of a wall-hanging, ran up to the dry oaken rafters +and speedily ignited them. In fifteen minutes the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>interior of the +chapel was a mass of flame, and Hugh woke gasping and bewildered.</p> + +<p>With a cry of alarm he sprang to his feet, seized the bag of coin and +ran to the door of the study. In his haste he stumbled against it, and +the dead-lock snapped to. He was a prisoner now, for he had left the +skeleton-key in the inside of the outer door. Clutching his treasure, he +ran to the main entrance; it was fast. He tried the smaller windows; +iron bars were set across them. He made shift to wrap the surplice about +his mouth, against the stifling smoke and fiery vapors. The bag dropped +from his hand and the gold rolled about the floor. He stooped and +clutched a handful of the coins and crammed them into his pocket. Was he +to die after all like this, caught like a rat in a trap? In his panic of +terror he forgot all necessity of concealment; he longed for nothing so +much as discovery by those whose cries he now heard filling the waking +street. Many voices were swelling the clamor there. Bells were pealing a +terror-tongued alarm, but those on the spot saw that the structure was +doomed. Hugh screamed desperately, but the roar of the flames overhead +and the angry crackling of the woodwork drowned all else. The roof +timbers were snapping, the muffling surplice was scorching, a thousand +luminous points about him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> were bursting into fire in the sickening +heat. He pounded with all his might upon the door panels, but in vain. +Who outside could have imagined that a human being was pent within that +fiery furnace?</p> + +<p>Uttering a hoarse cry, with the strength of despair, Hugh wrenched a pew +from the floor and made of it a ladder to reach the rose-window. +Mounting this, he beat frantically with his fist upon the painted glass. +The crystal shivered beneath the blows, and clinging to the iron +supports, his beard burnt to the skin, he set his face to the aperture +and drew a gulping breath of the sweet, cold air. In his agony, with +that fiery hell opening beneath him, he could see the massed people +watching from the safety that was so near.</p> + +<p>"Look! Look!" The sudden cry went up, and a thrill of awe ran through +the crowd. The glass Hugh had shattered had formed the face of the +Penitent Thief in the window-design, and his outstretched arms fitted +those of the figure. It was as though by some ghastly miracle the +painted features had suddenly sprung into life, the haggard eyes opened +in appeal. The watchers gasped in amazement.</p> + +<p>The flame was upon him now. He was going to his last account—with no +time to alter the record. But had not his sleeping vow been one of +reformation? He tried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> to shriek this to the deaf heavens, but all the +spellbound watchers heard was the cry: "Lord, Lord, remember—" And this +articulate prayer from the crucified malefactor filled them with a +superstitious horror. In the crowd more than one covered his face with +his hands.</p> + +<p>All at once there came a shout of warning. The wall opened outward, +tottered and fell.</p> + +<p>Then it was that they saw the writhing figure, tangled in the twisted +lead bars of the wrecked rose-window. Shielding their faces from the +unendurable heat, they reached and bore it to safety, laying it on the +crisp, snowy grass, and tearing off the singed and smoking ministerial +robes.</p> + +<p>Judge Conwell was one of these. In the flaring confusion he leaned over +the figure—the gleam of the ruby ring on the finger caught his eye. He +bent forward to look into the drawn and distorted face.</p> + +<p>"Good God!" he said. "It's Harry Sanderson!"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXVIII</span> <span class="smaller">A DAY FOR THE STATE</span></h2> + +<p>In communities such as Smoky Mountain the law moves with fateful +rapidity. Harry had been formally arraigned the second morning after his +self-surrender and had pleaded not guilty. The Grand Jury was in +session—indeed, had about finished its labors—and there had been no +reason for delay. All necessary witnesses for the state were on the +ground, and Felder for his part had no others to summon. So that when +Doctor Brent, one keen forenoon, swung himself off a Pullman at the +station, returning from his ten days' absence, he found the town +thrilling with the excitement of the first day of the trial. Before he +left the station, he had learned of Prendergast's death and accusation +and knew that Tom Felder had come to the prisoner's defense.</p> + +<p>Doctor Brent had taken no stock in the young lawyer's view of Hugh +Stires. The incident that they had witnessed on the mountain road—it +had troubled him during his trip—had been to him only another chapter +in the hackneyed tragedy of romantic womanhood <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>flattered by a rascal. +He was inclined now to lay the championship as much to interest in +Jessica as in the man who had won her love.</p> + +<p>He walked thoughtfully to his friend's deserted office, and leaving his +suit-case there, betook himself to the filled court-room, where Smoky +Mountain had gathered to watch Felder's fight for the life and liberty +of the man who for days past had been the center of interest. The court +had opened two hours before and half the jury had been selected. He +found a seat with some difficulty, and thereafter his attention was +given first to the bench where the prisoner sat, and second to a chair +close to the railing beside Mrs. Halloran's, where a girl's face +glimmered palely under a light veil.</p> + +<p>Toward this chair the hundreds of eyes in the room that morning had +often turned. Since the day Mrs. Halloran had surprised Jessica at work +upon the rock statue, she had kept her counsel, but as the physician had +conjectured, the monument had been stumbled upon and had drawn curious +visitors. Thus the name on the grave had become common property and the +coincidence had been chattered of. That Jessica had chiselled the statue +was not doubted—she had bought the tools in town, and old Paddy Wise, +the blacksmith, had sharpened them for her. The story Prendergast had +told in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> the general store, too, had not been forgotten, and the aid she +had given the fever-stricken man had acquired a new significance in face +of the knowledge that she had more than once been admitted to the jail +with Felder. No one in Smoky Mountain would have ventured to "pump" the +lawyer, and the town had been too mindful of its manners to catechize +her, but it had buzzed with theories. From the moment of the opening of +the trial she had divided interest with the prisoner.</p> + +<p>The first appearance of the latter, between two deputies, had caused a +murmur of surprise. In the weeks of wholesome toil and mountain air, the +sallow, haggard look that Harry had brought to the town had gradually +faded; his step had grown more elastic, his cheek ruddier, his eye a +clearer blue. The scar on his temple had become less noticeable. Day by +day, he had been growing back to the old look. The beard and mustache +now were gone; the face they saw was smooth-shaven, calm, alien and +absorbed. He had bowed slightly to the judge, shaken hands gravely with +Felder and sat down with a quick, flashing smile at the quivering face +behind the veil. He had seemed of all there the one who had least +personal concern in the deliberations that were forward. Yet beneath +that mask of calmness Harry's every nerve was stretched, every sense +restive.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p><p>In the interviews he had had with his client, Felder had been puzzled +and nonplussed. To tell the truth, when he had first come to his defense +it had been not with a conviction of his innocence, but with a belief in +the present altered character that made the law's penalty seem excessive +and supererogatory; in fine, that whatever he might have deserved when +he did it—assuming that he did it—he did not deserve hanging now. But +the man's manner had made him lean more and more upon an assumption of +actual innocence. In the end, while discarding Jessica's reasoning, he +had accepted her conclusion. The man was certainly guiltless. Since this +time, he had felt his position keenly. It had been one thing to do the +very best possible for a presumptively guilty man—to get him off +against the evidence if he could; it was a vastly different thing to +defend one whom he believed actually guiltless against damning +circumstance.</p> + +<p>With the filling of the jury-box the court adjourned for an hour and +Doctor Brent saw the two women's figures disappear with Felder into a +side room, while the prisoner was taken in charge by the deputies. The +doctor lunched hastily at the Mountain Valley House, irritated out of +his usual urbanity by the chatter of the crowded dining-room, realizing +then how busy gossip<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> had been with Jessica's name. He walked back to +the court-room moodily smoking.</p> + +<p>The afternoon session commenced with a concise opening by the district +attorney; Felder's reply was as brief, and the real business of the day +began with the witnesses for the state.</p> + +<p>Circumstantially speaking, the evidence was flawless. Doctor Moreau, +while little known and less liked, had figured in the town as a promoter +and an inventor of "slick" stock schemes. He had come there with Hugh +Stires, from Sacramento, where they had had a business partnership—of +short duration. There had been bad blood between them there, as the +latter had once admitted. The prisoner had preëmpted the claim on Smoky +Mountain in an abortive "boom" which Moreau had engineered, and over +whose proceeds the pair, it was believed, had fallen out. He had then, +to use the attorney's phrase, "swapped the devil for the witch," and had +taken up with Prendergast, who by the manner of his taking off had +finally justified a jail record in another state. Soon after this break +Hugh Stires had vanished. On the day following his last appearance in +the town, the body of Moreau had been found on the Little Paymaster +Claim, shot by a cowardly bullet through the back—a fact which +precluded the possibility<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> that the deed had been done in self-defense. +There was evidence that he had died a painful and lingering death. +Suspicion had naturally pointed to the vanished man, and this suspicion +had grown until, after some months' absence, he had returned, alleging +that he had lost his memory of the past, to resume his life in the cabin +on the mountain and his partnership with the thief Prendergast. The two +had finally quarrelled and Prendergast had taken up his abode in the +town. Subsequent to this, the latter had been heard to make dark +insinuations, unnoted at the time but since grown significant, hinting +at criminal knowledge of the prisoner. The close of this chapter had +been Prendergast's dismal end in the gulch, when he had produced the +scrap of paper which was the crux of the case. He declared he had found +Moreau dying; that the latter had traced with his own hand the +accusation which fastened the crime upon Hugh Stires. Specimens of +Moreau's handwriting were not lacking and seemed to prove beyond +question its authenticity.</p> + +<p>Such were the links of the coil which wound, with each witness, closer +and closer—none knew better how closely than Harry Sanderson himself. +As witness succeeded witness, his heart sank. Jessica's burden was not +to be lightened; Hugh must remain a Cain, a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> dweller in the dark places +of the earth. In the larger part, his own sacrifice was to fail!</p> + +<p>In his cross-examination Felder had fought gamely to lighten the weight +of the evidence: The prisoner's old associations with Moreau had been +amicable, else they would not have come to Smoky Mountain together; if +he had been disliked and avoided, the circumstance was referable rather +to his companionships than to his own actions; whatever the pervasive +contempt, there had been nothing criminal on the books against him. The +lawyer's questions touched the baleful whisper that had become +allegation and indictment, a prejudged conviction of guilt. They made it +clear that the current belief had been the fruit of antipathy and bias; +that it had been no question of evidence; so far as that went, he, +Felder, might have done the deed, or Prendergast, or any one there. But +Smoky Mountain would have said, as it did say, "It was Hugh Stires!" He +compelled the jury to recognize that but one bit of actual evidence had +been offered—there had been no eye-witness, no telltale incident. All +rested upon a single scrap of paper, a fragment of handwriting in no way +difficult of imitation, and this in turn upon the allegation of a thief, +struck down in an act of crime, whose word in an ordinary case of fact +would not be worth a farthing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> No motive had been alleged for the +killing of Moreau by the prisoner, but Prendergast had had motive enough +in his accusation. It had been open knowledge that he hated Hugh Stires, +and his own character made it evident that he would not have scrupled to +fasten a murder upon him.</p> + +<p>But as Felder studied the twelve grave faces in the jury-box, who in the +last analysis were all that counted, he shared his client's +hopelessness. Judgment and experience told him how futile were all +theories in the face of that inarticulate but damning witness that +Prendergast had left behind him. So the afternoon dragged through, a day +for the State.</p> + +<p>Sunset came early at that season. Dark fell and the electric bulbs made +their mimic day, but no one left the room. The outcome seemed a foregone +conclusion. The jurymen no longer gazed at the prisoner, and when they +looked at one another, it was with grim understanding. As the last +witness for the State stepped down and the prosecutor rested, the judge +glanced at the clock.</p> + +<p>"There is a bare half-hour," he said tentatively. "Perhaps the defense +would prefer not to open testimony till to-morrow."</p> + +<p>Felder had risen. He saw his opportunity—to bring out sharply a +contrasting point in the prisoner's favor,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> the one circumstance, +considered apart, pointing toward innocence rather than guilt—to leave +this for the jury to take with them, to off-set by its effect the weight +of the evidence that had been given.</p> + +<p>"I will proceed, if your Honor pleases," he said, and amid a rustle of +surprise and interest called Jessica to the stand.</p> + +<p>As she went forward to the witness chair, she put back the shielding +veil, and her face, pale as bramble-bloom under her red-bronze hair, +made an appealing picture. A cluster of white carnations was pinned to +her coat and as she passed Harry she bent and laid one in his hand. The +slight act, not lost upon the spectators, called forth a sibilant +flutter of sympathy. For it wore no touch of designed effect; its +impulse was as pure and unmistakable as its meaning.</p> + +<p>Harry had started uncontrollably as she rose, for he had had no inkling +of the lawyer's intention, and a flush darkened his cheek at the cool +touch of the flower. But this faded to a settled pallor, as under +Felder's grave questioning she told in a voice as clear as a child's, +yet with a woman's emotion struggling through it, the story of her +disregarded warning. While she spoke pain and shame travelled through +his every vein, for—though technically she had not brought herself into +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>perplexing purview of the law—she was laying bare the secret of +her own heart, which now he would have covered at any cost.</p> + +<p>"That is all, your Honor," said Felder, when Jessica had finished her +story.</p> + +<p>"Do you wish to cross-examine?" asked the judge perfunctorily.</p> + +<p>The prosecutor looked at her an instant. He saw the faintness in her +eyes, the twitching of the gloved hand on the rail. "By no means," he +said courteously, and turned to his papers.</p> + +<p>At the same moment, as Jessica stepped into the open aisle, the ironic +chance which so often relieves the strain of the tragic by a breath of +the banal, treated the spellbound audience to a novel sensation. Every +electric light suddenly went out, and darkness swooped upon the town and +the court-room. A second's carelessness at the power-house a half-mile +away—the dropping of a bit of waste into a cog-wheel—and the larger +mechanism that governed the issues of life and death was thrown into +instant confusion. Hubbub arose—people stood up in their places.</p> + +<p>The judge's gavel pounded viciously and his stentorian voice bellowed +for order.</p> + +<p>"Keep your seats, everybody!" he commanded. "Mr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> Clerk, get some +candles. This court is not yet adjourned!"</p> + +<p>To Jessica the sudden blankness came with a nervous shock. Since that +first meeting in the jail she had pinned her faith on the reassurance +that had been given her. She had fought down doubt and questioning and +leaned hard upon her trust. But in her overwrought condition, as the end +drew near with no solution of the enigma, this faith sometimes faltered. +The mystery was so impenetrable, the peril so imminent! To-day, in the +court-room, her subtle sense had told her that, belief and conviction +aside, a pronounced feeling of sympathy existed for the man she loved. +She had not needed Mrs. Halloran's comforting assurances on this score, +for the atmosphere was surcharged with it. She had felt it when she laid +the carnation in his hand, and even more unmistakably while she had +given her testimony. She had realized the value of that one unvarnished +fact, introduced so effectively—that he had had time to get away, and +instead had chosen to surrender himself.</p> + +<p>Yet even as she thrilled to the responsive current, Jessica had not been +deceived. She felt the pitiful impotence of mere sympathy against the +apparent weight of evidence that had frightened her. Surely,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> surely, if +he was to save himself, the truth must come out speedily! But the end of +it all was in sight and he had not spoken. To-day as she watched his +face, the thought had come to her that perhaps his reassurance had been +given only to comfort her and spare her anguish. The thought had come +again and again to torture her; only by a great effort had she been able +to give her testimony. As the pall of darkness fell upon the court-room, +it brought a sense of premonition, as though the incident prefigured the +gloomy end. She turned sick, and stumbled down the aisle, feeling that +she must reach the outer air.</p> + +<p>A pushing handful opened the way to the corridor, and in a moment more +she was in the starlit out-of-doors, fighting down her faintness, with +the babble of talk behind her and the cool breeze on her cheek.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XXXIX</span> <span class="smaller">THE UNSUMMONED WITNESS</span></h2> + +<p>In the room Jessica had left, the turmoil was simmering down; here and +there a match was struck and showed a circle of brightness. The glimmer +of one of them lit the countenance of a man who had brushed her sleeve +as he entered. It was Hallelujah Jones. The evangelist had prolonged his +stay at Smoky Mountain, for the town, thrilling to its drama of crime +and judgment, had seemed a fruitful vineyard. He had no local interest +in the trial of Hugh Stires, and had not attended its session; but he +had been passing the place when the lights went out and in curiosity had +crowded into the confusion, where now he looked about him with eager +interest.</p> + +<p>A candle-flame fluttered now, like a golden butterfly, on the judge's +desk, another on the table inside the bar. More grew along the walls +until the room was bathed in tremulous yellow light. It touched the +profile of the prisoner, turned now, for his look had followed Jessica +and was fixed questioningly on her empty seat. In the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> unseeing darkness +Harry had held the white carnation to his lips before he drew its stem +through his lapel.</p> + +<p>The street preacher's jaw dropped in blank astonishment, for what he saw +before him brought irresistibly back another scene that, months before, +had bit into his mind. The judge's high desk turned instantly to a +chapel altar, and the table back of the polished railing to a communion +table. The minister that had looked across it in the candle-light had +worn a white carnation in his buttonhole. His face—</p> + +<p>Hallelujah Jones started forward with an exclamation. A thousand times +his zealot imagination had pictured the recreant clergyman he had +unmasked as an outcast, plunging toward the lake of brimstone. Here it +was at last in his hand, the end of the story! The worst of criminals, +skulking beneath an alias! He sprang up the aisle.</p> + +<p>"Wait! wait!" he cried. "I have evidence to give!" He pointed excitedly +toward Harry. "This man is not what you think! He is not—"</p> + +<p>Forensic thunder loosed itself from the wrathful judge's desk, and +crashed across the stupefied room. His gavel thumped upon the wood. "How +dare you," he vociferated, "break in upon the deliberations of this +court! I fine you twenty dollars for contempt!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></p><p>Felder had leaped to his feet, every sense on the <i>qui vive</i>. Like a +drowning man he grasped at the straw. What could this man know? He took +a bill from his pocket and clapped it down on the clerk's desk.</p> + +<p>"I beg to purge him of contempt," he said, "and call him as a witness."</p> + +<p>The district attorney broke in:</p> + +<p>"Your Honor, I think I am within my rights in protesting against this +unheard-of proceeding. The man is a vagrant of unknown character. His +very action proclaims him mentally unbalanced. Beyond all question he +can know nothing of this case."</p> + +<p>"I have not my learned opponent's gift of clairvoyance," retorted Felder +tartly. "I repeat that I call this man as a witness."</p> + +<p>The judge pulled his whiskers and looked at the evangelist in severe +annoyance. "Take the stand," he said gruffly.</p> + +<p>Hallelujah Jones snatched the Bible from the clerk's hands and kissed +it. Knowledge was burning his tongue. The jury were leaning forward in +their seats.</p> + +<p>"Have you ever seen the prisoner before?" asked Felder.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"When?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span></p><p>"When he was a minister of the gospel."</p> + +<p>Felder stared. The judge frowned. The jury looked at one another and a +laugh ran round the hushed room.</p> + +<p>The merriment kindled the evangelist's distempered passion. Sudden anger +flamed in him. He leaned forward and shook his hand vehemently at the +table where Harry sat, his face as colorless as the flower he wore.</p> + +<p>"That man's name," he blazed, "is not Hugh Stires! It is a cloak he has +chosen to cover his shame! He is the Reverend Henry Sanderson of Aniston!"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XL</span> <span class="smaller">FATE'S WAY</span></h2> + +<p>Harry's pulses had leaped with excitement when the street preacher's +first exclamation startled the court-room; now they were beating as +though they must burst. He was not to finish the losing struggle. The +decision was to be taken from his hands. Fate had interfered. This bigot +who had once been the means of his undoing, was to be the <i>deus ex +machina</i>. Through the stir about him he heard the crisp voice of the +district attorney:</p> + +<p>"I ask your Honor's permission, before this extraordinary witness is +examined further," he said caustically, "to read an item printed here +which has a bearing upon the testimony." He held in his hand a newspaper +which, earlier in the afternoon, with cynical disregard of Felder's +tactics, he had been casually perusing.</p> + +<p>"I object, of course," returned Felder grimly.</p> + +<p>"Objection overruled!" snapped the irritated judge. "Read it, sir."</p> + +<p>Holding the newspaper to a candle, the lawyer read<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> in an even voice, +prefacing his reading with the journal's name and date:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"This city, which was aroused in the night by the burning of St. +James Chapel, will be greatly shocked to learn that its rector, the +Reverend Henry Sanderson, who has been for some months on a +prolonged vacation, was in the building at the time, and now lies +at the city hospital, suffering from injuries from which it is +rumored there is grave doubt of his recovery."</p></blockquote> + +<p>In the titter that rippled the court-room Harry felt his heart bound and +swell. Under the succinct statement he clearly discerned the fact. He +saw the pitfall into which Hugh had fallen—the trap into which he +himself had sent him on that fatal errand with the ruby ring on his +finger. "Grave doubt of his recovery!"—a surge of relief swept over him +to his finger-tips. Dead men can not be brought to bar—so Jessica would +escape shame. With Hugh passed beyond human justice, he could declare +himself. The bishop had guarded his secret, and saved the parish from an +unwelcome scandal. He could explain—could tell him that illness and +unbalance lay beneath that chapel game! He could take up his career! He +would be free to go back—to be himself again—to be Jessica's—if Hugh +died! The reading voice drummed in his ears:</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span></p><blockquote><p>"The facts have not as yet been ascertained, but it seems clear +that the popular young minister returned to town unexpectedly last +night, and was asleep in his study when the fire started. His +presence in the building was unguessed until too late, and it was +by little short of a miracle that he was brought out alive.</p> + +<p>"As we go to press we learn that Mr. Sanderson's condition is much +more hopeful than was at first reported."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Harry's heart contracted as if a giant hand had clutched it. His elation +fell like a rotten tree girdled at the roots. If Hugh <i>did not</i> die! He +chilled as though in a spray of liquid air. Hugh's escape—the chance +his conscience had given him, was cut off. He had not betrayed him when +the way was open; how could he do so now when flight was barred? If to +deliver him then to the hangman would have been cowardice, how much more +cowardly now, when it was to save himself, and when the other was +helpless? And the law demanded its victim!</p> + +<p>As a drowning man sees flit before him the panorama of his life, so in +this clarifying instant these lurid pictures of the tangle of his past +flashed across Harry's mental vision.</p> + +<p>The judge reached for the newspaper the lawyer held, ran his eye over +it, and brought his gavel down with an angry snort.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span></p><p>"Take him away," he said. "His testimony is ordered stricken from the +records. The fine is remitted, Mr. Felder—we can't make you responsible +for lunatics. Bailiff, see that this man has no further chance to +disturb these proceedings. The court stands adjourned."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XLI</span> <span class="smaller">FELDER WALKS WITH DOCTOR BRENT</span></h2> + +<p>Felder had been among the last to leave the court-room. He was +discomfited and angry. He had meant to make a telling point for the +defense, and the unbalanced imagination of a strolling, bigot gospeller +had undone him. His own precipitate and ill-considered action had +uncovered an idiotic mare's-nest, to taint his appeal with bathos and +open his cause with a farcical anti-climax. He glumly gathered his +scattered papers, put with them the leaf of the newspaper from which the +district attorney had read, and despatched the lot to his office by a +messenger.</p> + +<p>At the door of the court-house Doctor Brent slipped an arm through his.</p> + +<p>"Too bad, Tom," he said sympathizingly. "I don't think you quite +deserved it."</p> + +<p>Felder paced a moment without speaking. "I need evidence," he said then, +"—anything that may help. I made a mistake. You heard all the +testimony?"</p> + +<p>The other nodded.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span></p><p>"What did you think of it?"</p> + +<p>"What could any one think? I give all credit to your motive, Tom, but +it's a pity you're mixed up in it."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because, if there's anything in human evidence, he's a thoroughly +worthless reprobate. He lay for Moreau and murdered him in cold blood, +and he ought to swing."</p> + +<p>"The casual view," said the lawyer gloomily. "Just what I should have +said myself—if this had happened a month ago."</p> + +<p>His friend looked at him with an amused expression. "I begin to think he +must be a remarkable man!" he said. "Is it possible he has really +convinced you that he isn't guilty?"</p> + +<p>Felder turned upon the doctor squarely. "Yes," he returned bluntly. "He +has. Whatever I may have believed when I took this case, I have come to +the conclusion—against all my professional instincts, mind you—that he +never killed Moreau. I believe he's as innocent as either you or I!"</p> + +<p>The physician looked puzzled. "You believe Moreau's hand didn't write +that accusation?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Do you think he lied?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span></p><p>"I don't know what to think. But I am convinced Hugh Stires isn't +lying. There's a mystery in the thing that I can't get hold of." He +caught the physician's half-smile. "Oh, I know what you think," he said +resentfully. "You think it is Miss Holme. I assure you I am defending +Hugh Stires for his own sake!"</p> + +<p>"She played you a close second to-day," observed the doctor shrewdly. +"That carnation—I never saw a thing better done."</p> + +<p>Felder drew his arm away. "Miss Holme," he said almost stiffly, "is as +far from acting—"</p> + +<p>"My dear fellow!" exclaimed the other. "Don't snap me up. She's a +gentlewoman, and everything that is lovely. If she were the reason, I +should honor you for it. I'm very deeply sorry for her. For my part, I'm +sure I wish you might get him off. She loves him, and doesn't care who +sees it, and if he were as bad as the worst, a woman like that could +make a man of him. But I know juries. In towns like this they take +themselves pathetically in earnest. On the evidence so far, they'll +convict fast enough."</p> + +<p>"I know it," said the lawyer despondently. "And yet he's innocent. I'd +stake my life on it. It's worthless as evidence and I shan't introduce +it, but he has as good as admitted to her that he knows who did it."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span></p><p>"Come, come! Putting his neck into the noose for mere Quixotic feeling? +And who, pray, in this Godforsaken town, should he be sacrificing +himself for?" the doctor asked satirically.</p> + +<p>"That's the rub," said the lawyer. "Nobody. Yet I hang by my +proposition."</p> + +<p>"Well, he'll hang by something less tenuous, I'm afraid. But it won't be +your fault. The crazy evangelist was only an incident. He merely served +to jolt us back to the normal. By the way, did you hear him splutter +after he got out?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"You remember the story he told the other night of the minister who was +caught gambling on his own communion table? Well, Hugh Stires is not +only the Reverend Henry Something-or-other, but he is that man, too! The +crack-brained old idiot would have told the tale all over again, only +the crowd hustled him.</p> + +<p>"There he is now," he said suddenly, as a light sprang up and voices +broke out on the opposite corner. "The gang is standing by. I see your +friend Barney McGinn," he added, with a grim enjoyment. "I doubt if +there are many converts to-night."</p> + +<p>Even as he spoke, there came a shout of laughter and warning. The +spectators scattered in all directions, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> a stream of water from a +well-directed hose deluged the itinerant and his music-box.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes later the street preacher, drenched and furious, was +trundling his melodeon toward Funeral Hollow, on his way to the coast.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XLII</span> <span class="smaller">THE RECKONING</span></h2> + +<p>As Harry stood again in the obscure half-darkness of his cell, it came +to him that the present had a far-reaching significance—that it was but +the handiwork and resultant of forces in his own past. He himself had +brewed the bitter wormwood he must drink. Jessica's quivering +arraignment on that lurid wedding-day in the white house in the +aspens—it had been engraven ever since on his buried memory!—rang in +his mind:</p> + +<p><i>You were strong and he was weak. You led and he followed. You were +"Satan Sanderson," Abbot of the Saints, the set in which he learned +gambling. You helped to make him what he has become!</i></p> + +<p>They had made variant choice, and that choice had left Harry Sanderson +in training for the gaiters of a bishop, and Hugh Stires treading the +paths of dalliance and the gambler. But he himself had set Hugh's feet +on the red path that had pointed him to the shameful terminus. He had +gambled for Hugh's future, forgetting that his past remained, a thing +that must be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span>covered. He had won Hugh's counters, but his own right to +be himself he had staked and lost long before that game on the communion +table under the painted crucifixion.</p> + +<p>The words he had once said to Hugh recurred to him with a kind of awe: +"Put myself in your place? I wish to God I could!"</p> + +<p>Fate—or was it God?—had taken him at his word. He had been hurled like +a stone from a catapult into Hugh's place, to bear his knavery, to +suffer his dishonor, and to redeem the baleful reputation he had made. +He had been his brother's keeper and had failed in the trust; now the +circle of retribution, noiseless and inexorable as the wheeling of that +vast scorpion cluster in the sky, evened the score and brought him again +to the test! And, in the supreme strait, was he, a poor poltroon, to +step aside, to cry "enough," to yield ignobly? Even if to put aside the +temptation might bring him face to face with the final shameful penalty?</p> + +<p>This, then, was the meaning of the strange sequence of events through +which he had been passing since the hour when he had awakened in the +box-car! Living, he was not to betray Hugh; the Great Purpose behind all +meant that he should go forward on the path he had chosen to the end!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span></p><p>A step outside the cell, the turning of the key. The door opened, and +Jessica, pale and trembling, stood on the threshold.</p> + +<p>"I can not help it," she said, as she came toward him, "though you told +me not to come. I have trusted all the while, and waited, and—and +prayed. But to-day I was afraid."</p> + +<p>She paused, locking her hands before her, looking at him in an agony of +entreaty. When she had fled from the court-room to the open air, she had +walked straight away toward the mountain, struggling in the cool wind +and motion against the feeling of physical sickness and anguish. But she +had only partly regained her self-possession. Returning, the thinning +groups about the dim-lit door had made it clear that the session was +over. In her painful confusion of mind she had acted on a peremptory +impulse that drove her to the jail, where her face had quickly gained +her entrance.</p> + +<p>"Surely, surely," she went on, "the man you are protecting has had time +enough! Hasn't he? Won't you tell them the truth now?"</p> + +<p>He knew not how to meet the piteous reproach and terror of that look. +She had not heard the street preacher's declaration, he knew, but even +if she had, it would have been to her only an echo of the old mooted +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span>likeness. He had given her comfort once—but this was no more to be. No +matter what it meant to him, or to her!</p> + +<p>"Jessica," he said steadily, "when you came to me here that first day, +and I told you not to fear for me, I did not mean to deceive you. I +thought then that it would all come right. But something has happened +since then—something that makes a difference. I can not tell who was +the murderer of Moreau. I can not tell you or any one else, either now +or at any time."</p> + +<p>She gazed at him startled. She had a sudden conception of some element +hitherto unguessed in his make-up, something inveterate and adamant. +Could it be that he did not intend to tell at all? The very idea was +monstrous! Yet that clearly was his meaning. She looked at him with +flashing eyes.</p> + +<p>"You mean you will not?" she exclaimed bitterly. "You are bent on +sacrificing yourself, then! You are going to take this risk because you +think it brave and noble, because somehow it fits your man's gospel! +Can't you see how wicked and selfish it is? You are thinking only of +him, and of yourself, not of me!"</p> + +<p>"Jessica, Jessica!" he protested with a groan. But in the self-torture +of her questionings she paid no heed.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think I suffer? Haven't I borne enough in the months since I +married you, for you to want to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> save me this? Do you owe me nothing, me +whom you so wronged, whose—"</p> + +<p>She stopped suddenly at the look on his face of mortal pain, for she had +struck harder than she knew. It pierced through the fierce resentment to +her deepest heart, and all her love and pity gushed back upon her in a +torrent. She threw herself on her knees by the bare cot, crying +passionately:</p> + +<p>"Oh, forgive me! Forget what I said! I did not mean it. I have forgiven +you a thousand times over. I never ceased to love you. I love you now, +more than all the world."</p> + +<p>"It is true," he said, hoarse misery in his tone. "I have wronged you. +If I could coin my blood drop by drop, to pay for the past, I could not +set that right. If giving my life over and over again would save you +pain, I would give it gladly. But what you ask now is the one thing I +can not do. It would make me a pitiful coward. I did not kill Moreau. +That is all I can say to you or to those who try me."</p> + +<p>"Your life!" she said with dry lips. "It will mean that. That counts so +fearfully much to me—more than my own life a hundred times. Yet there +is something that counts more than all that to you!"</p> + +<p>His face was that of a man who holds his hand in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> the fire. "Jessica," +he said, "it is like this with me. When you found me here—the day I saw +you on the balcony—I was a man whose soul had lost its compass and its +bearings. My conscience was asleep. You woke it, and it is fiercely +alive now. And now with my memory has come back a debt of my past that I +never paid. Whatever the outcome, for my soul's sake I must settle it +now and wipe it from the score for ever. Nothing counts—nothing can +count—more than you! But I must sail by the needle; I must be truthful +to the best that is in me."</p> + +<p>She rose slowly to her feet with a despairing gesture.</p> + +<p>"'<i>He saved others</i>,'" she quoted in a hard voice, "'<i>himself he could +not save!</i>' I once heard a minister preach from that text at home; it +was your friend, the Reverend Henry Sanderson. I thought it a very +spiritual sermon then—that was before I knew what his companionship had +been to you!"</p> + +<p>In the exclamation was the old bitterness that had had its spring in +that far-away evening at the white house in the aspens, when Harry +Sanderson had lifted the curtain from his college career. In spite of +David Stires' predilection, since that day she had distrusted and +disliked, at moments actively hated him. His mannerisms had seemed a +pose and his pretensions hypocrisy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> On her wedding-day, when she lashed +him with the blame of Hugh's ruin, this had become an ingrained +prejudice, impregnable because rooted deeper than reason, in the +heritage of her sex, the eternal proclivity, which saw Harry Sanderson, +his motley covered with the sober domino of the Church, standing +self-righteously in surplice and stole, while Hugh slid downward to +disgrace.</p> + +<p>"If there were any justice in the universe," she added, "it should be he +immolating himself now, not you!"</p> + +<p>His face was not toward her and she could not see it go deadly white. +The sudden shift she had given the conversation had startled him. He +turned to the tiny barred window that looked out across the court-yard +square—where such a little time since he had found his lost self.</p> + +<p>"I think," he said, "that in my place, he would do the same."</p> + +<p>"You always admired him," she went on, the hard ring of misery in her +tone. "You admire him yet. Oh, men like him have such strange and wicked +power! Satan Sanderson!—it was a fit name. What right has he to be +rector of St. James, while you—"</p> + +<p>He put out a hand in flinching protest. "Jessica! Don't!" he begged.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span></p><p>"Why should I not say it?" she retorted, with quivering lips. "But for +him you would never be here! He ruined your life and mine, and I hate +and despise him for a selfish hypocrite!"</p> + +<p>That was what he himself had seemed to her in those old days! The edge +of a flush touched his forehead as he said slowly, almost appealingly:</p> + +<p>"He was not a hypocrite, Jessica. Whatever he was it was not that. At +college he did what he did too openly. That was his failing—not caring +what others thought. He despised weakness in others; he thought it none +of his affair. So others were influenced. But after he came to see +things differently, from another standpoint—when he went into the +ministry—he would have given the world to undo it."</p> + +<p>"That may have been the Harry Sanderson you knew," she said stonily. +"The one I knew drove an imported motor-car and had a dozen fads that +people were always imitating. You are still loyal to the old college +worship. As men go, you count him still your friend!"</p> + +<p>"As men go," he echoed grimly, "the very closest!"</p> + +<p>"Men's likings are strange," she said. "Because he never had temptations +like yours, and has never done what the law calls wrong, you think he is +as noble as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> you—noble enough to shield a murderer to his own danger."</p> + +<p>"Ah, no, Jessica," he interposed gently. "I only said that in my place, +he would do the same."</p> + +<p>"But <i>you</i> are shielding a murderer," she insisted fiercely. "You will +not admit it, but I know! There can be no justice or right in that! If +Harry Sanderson is all you think him—if he stood here now and knew the +whole—he would say it was wicked. Not brave and noble but wicked and +cruel!"</p> + +<p>He shook his head, and the sad shadow of a bitter smile touched his +lips. "He would not say so," he said.</p> + +<p>A dry sob answered him. He turned and leaned his elbows on the narrow +window-sill, every nerve aching, but powerless to comfort. He heard her +step—the door closed sharply.</p> + +<p>Then he faced into the empty cell, sat down on the cot and threw out his +arms with a hopeless cry:</p> + +<p>"Jessica, Jessica!"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XLIII</span> <span class="smaller">THE LITTLE GOLD CROSS</span></h2> + +<p>Jessica left the jail with despair in her heart. The hope on which she +had fed these past days had failed her. What was there left for her to +do? Like a swift wind she went up the street to Felder's office.</p> + +<p>A block beyond the court-house a crowd was enjoying the watery +discomfiture of Hallelujah Jones, and shrinking from recognition even in +the darkness—for the arc lights were still black—she crossed the +roadway and ran on to the unpretentious building where the lawyer had +his sanctum. She groped her way up the unlighted stair and tapped on the +door. There was no answer. She pushed it open and entered the empty +outer room, where a study lamp burned on the desk.</p> + +<p>A pile of legal looking papers had been set beside it and with them lay +a torn page of a newspaper whose familiar caption gave her a stab of +pain. Perhaps the news of the trial had found its way across the ranges, +to where the names of Stires and Moreau had been known. Perhaps every +one at Aniston already knew of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> it, was reading about it, pitying her! +She picked it up and scanned it hastily. There was no hint of the trial, +but her eye caught the news which had played its rôle in the court-room, +and she read it to the end.</p> + +<p>Even in her own trouble she read it with a shiver. Yet, awful as the +fate which Harry Sanderson had so narrowly missed, it was not to be +compared with that which awaited Hugh, for, awful as it was, it held no +shame!</p> + +<p>In a gust of feeling she slipped to her knees by the one sofa the room +contained and prayed passionately. As she drew out her handkerchief to +stanch the tears that came, something fell with a musical tinkle at her +feet. It was the little cross she had found in front of the hillside +cabin, that had lain forgotten in her pocket during the past anxious +days. She picked it up now and held it tightly in her hand, as if the +tangible symbol brought her closer to the Infinite Sympathy to which she +turned in her misery. As she pressed it, the ring at the top turned and +the cross parted in halves. Words were engraved on the inside of the +arms—a date and the name <i>Henry Sanderson</i>.</p> + +<p>The recurrence of the name jarred and surprised her. Hugh had dropped +it—an old keepsake of the friend who had been his <i>beau idéal</i>, his +exemplar, and whose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> ancient influence was still dominant. He had clung +loyally to the memento, blind in his constant liking, to the wrong that +friend had done him. She looked at the date—it was May 28th. She +shuddered, for that was the month and day on which Doctor Moreau had +been killed—the point had been clearly established to-day by the +prosecution. To the original owner of that cross, perhaps, the date that +had come into Hugh's life with such a sinister meaning, was a glad +anniversary!</p> + +<p>Suddenly she caught her hand to her cheek. A weird idea had rushed +through her brain. The religious symbol had stood for Harry Sanderson +and the chance coincidence of date had irresistibly pointed to the +murder. To her excited senses the juxtaposition held a bizarre, uncanny +suggestion. This cross—the very emblem of vicarious sacrifice!—suppose +Harry Sanderson had never given it to Hugh! Suppose he had lost it on +the hillside himself!</p> + +<p>She snatched up the paper again: "Who has been for some months on a +prolonged vacation"—the phrase stared sardonically at her. That might +carry far back—she said it under her breath, fearfully—beyond the +murder of Doctor Moreau! Her face burned, and her breath came sharp and +fast. Why, when she brought her warning to the cabin, had Hugh been so +anxious to get her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> away, unless to prevent her sight of the man who was +there—to whom he had taken her horse? Who was there in Smoky Mountain +whom he would protect at hazard of his own life? Yet in this crisis, +even, her appeal to his love had been fruitless. He had called Harry +Sanderson his closest friend, had said that in his place Harry would do +the same. She remembered his cry: "What you ask is the one thing I can +not do. It would make me a pitiful coward!" She had asked only that he +tell the truth. To protect a vulgar murderer was not courageous. But +what if they were bound by ties of old friendship and college +<i>camaraderie</i>? Men had their standards.</p> + +<p>Jessica's veins were all afire. A rector-murderer? A double career? Was +it beyond possibility? At the sanatorium she had re-read <i>The Mystery of +Edwin Drood</i>; now she thought of John Jasper, the choir-master, stealing +away from the cathedral to the London opium den to plan the murder of +his nephew. The mad thought gripped her imagination. Harry Sanderson had +been wild and lawless in his university days, a gamester, a skeptic—the +Abbot of the Saints! To her his pretensions had never seemed more than a +graceful sham, the generalities of religion he spread for the +delectation of fashionable St. James only "as sounding brass and a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> +tinkling cymbal." He had been a hard drinker in those days. What if the +old desire had run on beneath the fair exterior, denied and repressed +till it had burst control—till he had fled from those who knew him, to +Hugh, in whose loyalty he trusted, to give it rein in a debauch? Say +that this had happened, and that in the midst of it Moreau, whom he had +known in Aniston, had come upon him. Anticipating recognition, to cover +his own shame and save his career, in drunken frenzy perhaps, he might +have fired the shot on the hillside—that Moreau, taken unawares, had +thought was Hugh's!</p> + +<p>It came to her like an impinging ray of light—the old curious likeness +that had sometimes been made a jest of at the white house in the aspens. +Moreau and Prendergast had believed it to be Hugh! So had the town, for +the body had been found on his ground! But on the night when the real +murderer came again to the cabin—perhaps it was his coming that had +brought back the lost memory!—Hugh had known the truth. In the light of +this supposition his strained manner then, his present determination not +to speak, all stood plain.</p> + +<p>What had he meant by a debt of his past that he had never paid? He could +owe no debt to Harry Sanderson. If he owed any debt, it was to his dead +father, a thousand times more than the draft he had repaid. Could he be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> +thinking in his remorse that his father had cast him off—counting +himself nothing, remembering only that Harry Sanderson had been David +Stires' favorite, and St. James, which must be smirched by the odium of +its rector, the apple of his eye?</p> + +<p>Jessica had snatched at a straw, because it was the only buoyant thing +afloat in the dragging tide; now with a blind fatuousness she hugged it +tighter to her bosom. The joints of her reasoning seemed to dovetail +with fateful accuracy. She was swayed by instinct, and apparent +fallacies were glozed by old mistrust and terror of the outcome which +was driving her to any desperate expedient. Beside Hugh's salvation the +whole universe counted as nothing. She was in the grip of that fierce +passion of love's defense which feeds the romance of the world. One +purpose possessed her: to confront Harry Sanderson. What matter though +she missed the remainder of the trial? She could do nothing—her hands +were tied. If the truth lay at Aniston she would find it. She thought no +further than this. Once in Harry Sanderson's presence, what she should +say or do she scarcely imagined. The horrifying question filled her +thought to the exclusion of all that must follow its answer. It was +surety and self-conviction she craved—only to read in his eyes the +truth about the murder of Moreau.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span></p><p>She suddenly began to tremble. Would the doctors let her see him? What +excuse could she give? If he was the man who had been in Hugh's cabin +that night, he had heard her speak, had known she was there. He must not +know beforehand of her coming, lest he have suspicion of her errand. +Bishop Ludlow—he could gain her access to him. Injured, dying perhaps, +maybe he did not guess that Hugh was in jeopardy for his crime. Guilty +and dying, if he knew this, he would surely tell the truth. But if he +died before she could reach him? The paper was some days old; he might +be dead already. She took heart, however, from the statement of his +improved condition.</p> + +<p>She sprang to her feet and looked at her chatelaine watch. The +east-bound express was overdue. There was no time to lose—minutes might +count. She examined her purse—she had money enough with her.</p> + +<p>Five minutes later she was at the station, a scribbled note was on its +way to Mrs. Halloran, and before a swinging red lantern, the long +incoming train was shuddering to a stop.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XLIV</span> <span class="smaller">THE IMPOSTOR</span></h2> + +<p>In the long hospital the air was cool and filtered, drab figures passed +with soft footfalls and voices were measured and hushed. But no sense of +coolness or repose had come to the man whose racked body had been +tenderly borne there in the snowy dawn which saw the blackened ruins of +Aniston's most perfect edifice.</p> + +<p>Because of him tongues clacked on the street corner and bulletins were +posted in newspaper windows; carriages of tasteful equipment halted at +the hospital porte-cochère, messages flew back and forth, and the +telephone in the outer office whirred busily at unseasonable hours; but +from the clean screened room where he lay, all this was shut out. Only +the surgeons came and went, deftly refreshing the bandages which swathed +one side of his face, where the disfiguring flame had smitten—the other +side was untouched, save for a line across the brow, seemingly a thin, +red mark of excoriation.</p> + +<p>Hugh had sunk into unconsciousness with the awestruck exclamation +ringing in his ears: "Good God!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> It's Harry Sanderson!" He had drifted +back to conscious knowledge with the same words racing in his brain. +They implied that, so far as capture went, the old, curious resemblance +would stand his friend till he betrayed himself, or till the existence +of the real Harry Sanderson at Smoky Mountain did so for him. The +delusion must hold till he could have himself moved to some place where +his secret would be safer—till he could get away!</p> + +<p>This thought grew swiftly paramount; it overlapped the rigid agony of +his burns that made the bed on which he lay a fiery furnace; it gave +method to his every word and look. He took up the difficult part, and +after the superficial anguish dulled, complained no more and +successfully counterfeited cheerfulness and betterment. He said nothing +of the curiously recurrent and sickening stab of pain, searching and +deep-seated, that took his breath and left each time an increasing +giddiness. Whatever inner hurt this might betoken, he must hide it, the +sooner to leave the hospital, where each hour brought nearer the +inevitable disclosure.</p> + +<p>He thanked fortune now for the chapel game; few enough in Aniston would +care to see the unfrocked, disgraced rector of St. James! He did not +know that the secret was Bishop Ludlow's own, until the hour when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> he +opened his eyes, after a fitful sleep, upon the latter's face.</p> + +<p>The bishop was the first visitor and it was his first visit, for he had +been in a distant city at the time of the fire. Waiting the waking, he +had been mystified at the change a few months had wrought in the +countenance of the man whose disappearance had cost him so many +sleepless hours. The months of indulgence and rich living—on the money +he had won from Harry—had taken away Hugh's slightness, and his fuller +cheeks were now of the contour of Harry's own. But the bishop +distinguished new lines in the face on the pillow, an expression +unfamiliar and puzzling; the firmness and strength were gone, and in +their place was a haunting something that gave him a flitting suggestion +of the discarded that he could not shake off.</p> + +<p>Waking, the unexpected sight of the bishop startled Hugh; to the good +man's pain he had turned his face away.</p> + +<p>"My dear boy," the bishop had said, "they tell me you are stronger and +better. I thank God for it!"</p> + +<p>He spoke gently and with deep feeling. How could he tell to what extent +he himself, in mistaken severity, had been responsible for that +unaccustomed look? When Hugh did not answer, the bishop misconstrued the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span>silence. He leaned over the bed; the big cool hand touched the fevered +one on the white coverlid, where the ruby ring glowed, a coal in snow.</p> + +<p>"Harry," he said, "you have suffered—you are suffering now. But think +of me only as your friend. I ask no questions. We are going to begin +again where we left off."</p> + +<p>The words and tone had shown Hugh the situation and given him his cue. +He could put himself fairly in Harry's place, and with the instinct of +the actor he did so now, meeting the other's friendliness with a +hesitant eagerness.</p> + +<p>"I would like to do that," he said, "—to begin again. But the chapel is +gone."</p> + +<p>"Never mind that," said the bishop cheerfully. "You are only to get +well. We are going to rebuild soon, and we want your judgment on the +plans. Aniston is hanging on your condition, Harry," he went on. +"There's a small cartload of visiting-cards down-stairs for you. But I +imagine you haven't begun to receive yet, eh?"</p> + +<p>"I—I've seen nobody." Hugh spoke hurriedly and hoarsely. "Tell the +doctor to let no one come—no one but you. I—I'm not up to it!"</p> + +<p>"Why, of course not," said the bishop quickly. "You need quiet, and the +people can wait."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span></p><p>The bishop chatted a while of the parish, Hugh replying only when he +must, and went away heartened. Before he left Hugh saw his way to hasten +his own going. On the next visit the seed was dropped in the bishop's +mind so cleverly that he thought the idea his own. That day he said to +the surgeon in charge:</p> + +<p>"He is gaining so rapidly, I have been wondering if he couldn't be taken +away where the climate will benefit him. Will he be able to travel +soon?"</p> + +<p>"I think so," answered the surgeon. "We suspected internal injury at +first, but I imagine the worst he has to fear is the disfigurement. +Mountain or sea air would do him good," he added reflectively; "what he +will need is tonic and building up."</p> + +<p>The bishop had revolved this in his mind. He knew a place on the coast, +tucked away in the cypresses, which would be admirable for +convalescence. He could arrange a special car and he himself could make +the journey with him. He proposed this to the surgeon and with his +approval put his plan in motion. In two days more Hugh found his going +fully settled.</p> + +<p>The idea admirably fitted his necessity. The spot the bishop had +selected was quiet and retired, and more, was near the port at which he +could most readily take ship for South America. Only one reflection made +him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> shiver: the route lay through the town of Smoky Mountain. Yet who +would dream of looking for a fugitive from the law in the secluded car +that carried a sick man? The risk would be small enough, and it was the +one way open!</p> + +<p>On the last afternoon before the departure, Hugh asked for the clothes +he had worn when he was brought to the hospital, found the gold-pieces +he had snatched in the burning chapel and tied them in a handkerchief +about his neck. They would suffice to buy his sea-passage. The one red +counter he had kept—it was from henceforth to be a reminder of the good +resolutions he had made so long ago—he slipped into a pocket of the +clothes he was to wear away, a suit of loose, comfortable tweed.</p> + +<p>Waiting restlessly for the hour of his going, Hugh asked for the +newspapers. Since the first he had had them read to him each day, +listening fearfully for the hue and cry. But to-day the surgeon put his +request aside.</p> + +<p>"After you are there," he said, "if Bishop Ludlow will let you. Not now. +You are almost out of my clutches, and I must tyrannize while I can."</p> + +<p>A quick look passed from him to his assistant as he spoke, for the +newspapers that afternoon had worn <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span>startling head-lines. The sordid +affairs of a mining town across the ranges had little interest for +Aniston, but the names of Stires and Moreau on the clicking wire had +waked it, thus late, to the sensation. The professional caution of the +tinker of human bodies wished, however, that no excitement should be +added to the unavoidable fatigue of his patient's departure.</p> + +<p>This fatigue was near to spelling defeat, after all, for the exertion +brought again the dreadful, stabbing pain, and this time it carried Hugh +into a region where feeling ceased, consciousness passed, and from which +he struggled back finally to find the surgeon bending anxiously over +him.</p> + +<p>"I don't like that sinking spell," the latter confided to his assistant +an hour later as they stood looking through the window after the +receding carriage. "It was too pronounced. Yet he has complained of no +pain. He will be in good hands at any rate." He tapped the glass +musingly with his forefinger. "It's curious," he said after a pause; "I +always liked Sanderson—in the pulpit. Somehow he doesn't appeal to me +at close range."</p> + +<p>The special car which the bishop had ready had been made a pleasant +interior; fern-boxes were in the corners, a caged canary swung from a +bracket, and a softly cushioned couch had been prepared for the sick +man. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> moment before the start, as it was being coupled to the rear of +the resting train, while the bishop chatted with the conductor, a +flustered messenger boy handed him a telegram. It read:</p> + +<blockquote><p>I arrive Aniston to-morrow five. Confidential. Must see you. +Urgent.<span class="s12"> </span><span class="smcap">Jessica.</span></p></blockquote> + +<p>The bishop read it in some perplexity. It was the first word he had +received from her since her marriage, but, aware of Hugh's forgery and +disgrace, he had not wondered at this. Since the news of David Stires' +death, he had looked for her return, for she was the old man's heir and +mistress now of the white house in the aspens. But he realized that it +would need all her courage to come back to this town whence she had fled +with her trouble—to lay bare an unsuspected and shameful secret, to +meet old friends, and answer questions that must be asked. The +newspapers to-day pictured a still worse shame for her, in the position +of the man who, in name still, was her husband—who had trod so swiftly +the downward path from thievery to the worst of crimes. Could Jessica's +coming have to do with that? He must see her, yet his departure could +not now be delayed. He consulted with the conductor and the latter pored +over his tablets.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span></p><p>As a result, his answering message flashed along the wires to Jessica's +far-away train:</p> + +<blockquote><p>Sanderson injured. Taking him to coast train forty-eight due Twin +Peaks two to-morrow afternoon.</p></blockquote> + +<p>And thus the fateful moment approached when the great appeal should be made.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XLV</span> <span class="smaller">AN APPEAL TO CÆSAR</span></h2> + +<p>The evidence of the first day's trial of the case of the People against +Hugh Stires was the all-engrossing topic that night in Smoky Mountain. +In the "Amen Corner" of the Mountain Valley House it held sway. Among +the sedate group there gathered, there seemed but one belief: that the +accused man was guilty—but one feeling: that of regret. Gravity lay so +heavily upon the atmosphere there that when Mrs. Halloran momentarily +entered the discussion to declare fiercely that "if Hugh Stires was a +murderer, then they were all thieves and she a cannibal" she aroused no +smile. Barney McGinn perhaps aptly expressed the consensus of opinion +when he said: "I allow we all know he's guilty, but nobody believes it."</p> + +<p>Late as Smoky Mountain sat up that night, however, it was on hand next +morning, rank and file, when the court convened.</p> + +<p>All the previous evening, save for a short visit to the cell of his +client, Felder had remained shut in his office, thinking of the morrow. +In his talk with Harry he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> not concealed his deep anxiety, but to +his questions there was no new answer, and he had returned from the +interview more nonplussed than ever. He had wondered that Jessica, on +this last night, did not come to his office, but had been rather +relieved than otherwise that she did not. He had gone to bed heavy with +discouragement and had waked in the morning with foreboding.</p> + +<p>As he shook hands with the prisoner in the packed court-room, Felder +felt a keen admiration that his sense of painful impotence could not +overlay. He read in the composed face the same prescience that possessed +him, but it held no fear or shadow of turning. He was facing the +scaffold; facing it—if the woman he loved was right in her +conclusions—in obedience to a set idea of self-martyrdom and with +indomitable spirit. It was inconceivable that a sane man would do this +for a sneaking assassin. It was either aberration or a relentless +purpose so extraordinary that it lay far removed from the ordinary +courses of reasoning. Felder's own conviction had no bolstering of fact, +no logical premise; indeed, as he had admitted to Doctor Brent, it was +thoroughly unprofessional. Even to cite the circumstances on which +Jessica based her belief that Hugh knew the real murderer would weaken +his case. The suggestion would seem a mere bungling expedient to inject +the tantalizing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> fillip of mystery and unbelievable Quixotic motive, +and, lacking evidence to support it, would touch the whole fabric with +the taint of the meretricious. The sense of painful responsibility and +hopelessness oppressed him, for, so far as real evidence went, he had +entered on this second day of the struggle without a tangible theory of +defense.</p> + +<p>As he turned from greeting his client, Felder noted with surprise that +Jessica was not in her place. Not that he needed her further testimony, +for he had drawn from her the day before all he intended to utilize, but +her absence disturbed him, and instinctively he turned and looked across +the sea of faces toward the door.</p> + +<p>Harry's glance followed his, and a deeper pain beleaguered it as his +eyes returned to the empty chair. He saw Mrs. Halloran whisper eagerly +with the lawyer, who turned away with a puzzled look. In his bitterness +the thought came to him that the testimony had sapped her conviction of +his innocence—that his refusal to answer her entreaties had been the +last straw to the load under which it had gone down—that she believed +him indeed the murderer of Moreau. To seem the cringing criminal, the +pitiful liar and actor in her eyes! The thought stung him. Her faith had +meant so much!</p> + +<p>The ominous feeling weighed heavily on Felder when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> he rose to continue +the testimony for the prisoner, so rudely disturbed the evening before. +In such a community pettifogging was of no avail. Throwing expert dust +in jurors' eyes would be worse than useless. In his opening words he +made no attempt to conceal the weakness of the defense, evidentially +considered. Stripped of all husk, his was to be an appeal to Cæsar.</p> + +<p>Through a cloud of witnesses, concisely, consistently—yet with a +winning tactfulness that disarmed the objections of the prosecution—he +began to lead them through the series of events that had followed the +arrival of the self-forgotten man. Out of the mouths of their own +neighbors—Devlin, Barney McGinn, Mrs. Halloran, who came down +weeping—they were made to see, as in a cyclorama, the struggle for +rehabilitation against hatred and suspicion, the courage that had dared +for a child's life, the honesty of purpose that showed in +self-surrender. The prisoner, he said, had recovered his memory before +the accusation and asserted his absolute innocence. Those who believed +him guilty of the murder of Doctor Moreau must believe him also a vulgar +liar and <i>poseur</i>. He left the inference clear: If the prisoner had +fired that cowardly shot, he knew it now; if he lied now he had lied all +along, and the later life he had lived at Smoky Mountain—eloquent of +fair-dealing, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span>straightforwardness of purpose, kindliness and +courage—had been but hypocrisy, the bootless artifice of a shallow +buffoon.</p> + +<p>It was an appeal sustained and moving, addressed to folk who, +untrammelled by a complex and variform convention, felt simply and +deeply the simplest and deepest passions of human kind. Often, as the +morning grew, Felder's glance turned toward the empty chair near-by, and +more than once, though his active thought never wavered from the serious +business in hand, his subconscious mind wondered. Mrs. Halloran had told +him of the note from Jessica—it had said only that she would return at +the earliest possible moment. The wonder in Felder's mind was general +throughout the court-room, for none who had listened to Jessica's +testimony—and the whole town had heard it—could doubt the strength of +her love. The eyes that saw the empty chair were full of pity. Only the +knot of serious faces in the jury-box was seldom turned that way.</p> + +<p>The session was prolonged past the noon hour, and when Felder rested his +case it seemed that all that was possible had been said. He had done his +utmost. He had drawn from the people of Smoky Mountain a dramatic story, +and had filled in its outlines with color, force and feeling. And yet, +as he closed, the lawyer felt a sick sense of failure.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span></p><p>Court adjourned for an hour, and in the interim Felder remained in a +little room in the building, whither Doctor Brent was to send him +sandwiches and coffee from the hotel.</p> + +<p>"You made a fine effort, Tom," the latter said, as they stood for a +moment in the emptying court-room. "You're doing wonders with no case, +and the town ought to send you to Congress on the strength of it! I +declare, some of your evidence made me feel as mean as a dog about the +rascal, though I knew all the time he was as guilty as the devil."</p> + +<p>The lawyer shook his head. "I don't blame you, Brent," he said, "for you +don't know him as I do. I have seen much of him lately, been often with +him, watched him under stress—for he doesn't deceive himself, he has no +thought of acquittal! We none of us knew Hugh Stires. We put him down +for a shallow, vulgar blackleg, without redeeming qualities. But the man +we are trying is a gentleman, a refined and cultivated man of taste and +feeling. I have learned his true character during these days."</p> + +<p>"Well," said the other, "if you believe in him, so much the better. +You'll make the better speech for it. Tell me one thing—where was Miss +Holme?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span></p><p>The doctor raised his eyebrows. "Good-by," he said. "I'll send over the +coffee and sandwiches," he added as he turned away.</p> + +<p>"She thinks he is guilty!" he said to himself as he walked up the +street. "She thinks he is guilty, too!"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XLVI</span> <span class="smaller">FACE TO FACE</span></h2> + +<p>To stand face to face with Harry Sanderson—that had been Jessica's sole +thought. The news that the bishop, with the man she suspected, was +speeding toward her—to pass the very town wherein Hugh stood for his +life—seemed a prearrangement of eternal justice. When the telegram +reached her, she had already gone by Twin Peaks. To proceed would be to +pass the coming train. At a farther station, however, she was able to +take a night train back, arriving again at Twin Peaks in the gray dawn +of the next morning. At the dingy station hotel there she undressed and +lay down, but her nerves were quivering and she could not close her +eyes. Toward noon she dressed and forced herself to breakfast, realizing +the need of strength. She spent the rest of the time of waiting walking +up and down in the crisp air, which steadied her nerves and gave her a +measure of control.</p> + +<p>When the train for which she waited came in, the curtained car at its +end, she did not wait for the bishop to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> find her on the platform, but +stepped aboard and made her way slowly back. It started again as she +threaded the last Pullman, to find the bishop on its rear platform +peering out anxiously at the receding station.</p> + +<p>He took both her hands and drew her into the empty drawing-room. He was +startled at her pallor. "I know," he said pityingly. "I have heard."</p> + +<p>She winced. "Does Aniston know?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he answered. "Yesterday's newspapers told it."</p> + +<p>She put her hand on his arm. "Can you guess why I was coming home?" she +asked. "It was to tell Harry Sanderson! I know of the fire," she went on +quickly, "and of his injury. I can guess you want to spare him strain or +excitement, but I must tell him!"</p> + +<p>"It is a matter of physical strength, Jessica," he said. "He has been a +sick man. Forgive my saying it, child, but—what good could it do?"</p> + +<p>"Believe, oh, you must believe," she pleaded, "that I do not ask this +lightly, that I have a purpose that makes it necessary. It means so +much—more than my life to me! Why, I have waited here at Twin Peaks all +through the night, till now, when this very day and hour they are trying +him there at Smoky Mountain! You must let me tell him!"</p> + +<p>He reflected a moment. He thought he guessed what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> was in her mind. If +there was any one who had ever had an influence over Hugh for good, it +was Harry Sanderson. He himself, he thought, had none. Perhaps, +remembering their old comradeship, she was longing now to have this +influence exerted, to bring Hugh to a better mind—thinking of his +eternal welfare, of his making his peace with his Maker. Beneath his +prosy churchmanship and somewhat elaborate piety, the bishop had a +spirituality almost medieval in its simplicity. Perhaps this was God's +way. His eyes lighted.</p> + +<p>"Very well," he said. "Come," and led the way into the car.</p> + +<p>Jessica followed, her hands clenched tightly. She saw the couch, the +profile on its cushions turned toward the window where forest and stream +slipped past—a face curiously like Hugh's! Yet it was different, +lacking the other's strength, even its refinement. And this man had +molded Hugh! These vague thoughts lost themselves instantly in the +momentous surmise that filled her imagination. The bishop put out his +hand and touched the relaxed arm.</p> + +<p>The trepidation that darted into the bandaged face as it turned upon the +girlish figure, the frosty fear that blanched the haggard countenance, +spoke Hugh's surprise and dread. It was she, and she knew the real<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> +Harry Sanderson was in Smoky Mountain. Had she heard of the chapel fire, +guessed the imposture, and come to denounce him, the guilty husband she +had such reason to hate? The twitching limbs stiffened. "Jessica!" he +said in a hoarse whisper.</p> + +<p>For an instant a fierce sense of triumph flamed through her every nerve. +But a cold doubt chilled it. Her suspicion might be the veriest chimera. +It seemed suddenly too wild for belief. She sat down abruptly and for a +fleeting moment hid her face. The bishop touched the bowed, brown head.</p> + +<p>"Harry," he said, "Jessica is in great trouble. She has come with sad +news. Hugh, her husband, your old college mate, is in a terrible +position. He is accused of murder. I kept the newspapers from you to-day +because they told of it."</p> + +<p>She had caught the meaning of the pity in his tone—for her, not for +Hugh! "Ah," she cried passionately, lifting her head, "but they did not +tell it all! Did they tell you that he is unjustly, wickedly accused by +an enemy? That, though they may convict him, he is innocent—innocent?"</p> + +<p>The bishop looked at her in surprise. In spite of all the past—the +shameful, conscienceless past and her own wrong—she loved and believed +in her husband!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span></p><p>Hugh's hand lifted, wavered an instant before his brow. Did she say he +was innocent? "I don't—understand," he said hoarsely.</p> + +<p>Jessica's wide eyes fastened on his as though to search his secret soul. +"I will tell it all," she said, "then you will understand." The bishop +drew a chair close, but her gaze did not waver from the face on the +cushions—the face which she must read!</p> + +<p>As she told the broken tale the car was still, save for the labored, +irregular breathing of the prostrate man, and the muffled roar that +penetrated the walls, a multitudinous, elfin din. Once the swinging +canary broke forth into liquid warbling, as though in all the world were +no throe of body or dolor of mind. In that telling Jessica's mind +traversed wastes of alternate certainty and doubt, as she hung upon the +look of the man who listened—a look that merged slowly into a fearful +understanding. Hugh understood now!</p> + +<p>Jessica had believed him to be her husband, and she believed so still. +And Harry did not intend to tell. He was safe ... safe! In the reaction +from his fear, Hugh felt sick and faint.</p> + +<p>The bishop had been listening in some anxiety, both for her and for his +charge. There was a strained intensity in her manner now that betokened +almost <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span>unbalance—so it seemed to him. The side-lights he had had of +Hugh's career led him to believe him incapable of such a self-sacrifice +as her tale recited. A strange power there was in woman's love!</p> + +<p>"You see," she ended, "that is why I know he is innocent. <i>You</i> can +not"—her eyes held Hugh's—"<i>you</i> can not doubt it, can you?"</p> + +<p>Hugh's tongue wet his parched lips. A tremor ran through him. He did not +answer.</p> + +<p>Jessica started to her feet. Self-possession was falling from her; she +was fighting to seize the vital knowledge that evaded her. She held out +her hand—in the palm lay a small emblem of gold.</p> + +<p>"By this cross," she cried with desperate earnestness, "I ask you for +the truth. It is his life or death—Hugh's life or death! He did not +kill Doctor Moreau. <i>Who did?</i>"</p> + +<p>Hugh had shrunk back on the couch, his face ghastly. "I know +nothing—nothing!" he stammered. "Do not ask me!"</p> + +<p>The bishop had risen in alarm; he thought her hysterical. "Jessica! +Jessica!" he exclaimed. He threw his arm about her and led her from the +couch. "You don't know what you are saying. You are beside yourself." He +forced her into the drawing-room and made her sit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> down. She was tense +and quivering. The cross fell from her hand and he stooped and picked it +up.</p> + +<p>"Try to calm yourself," he said, "to think of other things for a few +moments. This little cross—I wonder how you come to have it? I gave it +to Sanderson last May to commemorate his ordination." He twisted it +open. "See, here is the date, May twenty-eighth—that was the day I gave +it to him."</p> + +<p>She gave a quick gasp and the last vestige of color faded from her +cheek. She looked at him in a stricken way. "<i>Last</i> May!" she said +faintly. Harry Sanderson had been in Aniston, then, on the day Doctor +Moreau had been murdered. Her house of cards fell. She had been +mistaken! She leaned her head back against the cushion and closed her +eyes.</p> + +<p>Presently she felt a cold glass touch her lips. "Here is some water," +the bishop's voice said. "You are better, are you not? Poor child! You +have been through a terrible strain. I would give the world to help you +if I could!"</p> + +<p>He left her, and she sat dully trying to think. The regular jar of the +trucks had set itself to a rhythm—no hope, no hope, no hope! She knew +now that there was none. When the bishop reëntered she did not turn her +head. He sat beside her a while and she was aware<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> again of his voice, +speaking soothingly. At moments thereafter he was there, at others she +knew that she was alone, but she was unconscious of the flight of time. +She knew only that the day was fading. On the chilly whirling landscape +she saw only a crowded room, a jury-box, a judge's bench, and Hugh +before it, listening to the sentence that would take him from her for +ever. The bright sunlight was mercilessly, satanically cruel, and God a +sneering monster turning a crank.</p> + +<p>Into her conscious view grew distant snowy ranges, hills unrolling at +their feet, a straggling town, a staring white court-house and a grim +low building beside it. She rose stumblingly, the train quivering to the +brakes, as the bishop entered.</p> + +<p>"This is Smoky Mountain," she said with numb lips. "That is the building +where he is being tried. I am going there now."</p> + +<p>The bishop opened the door. "We stop here twenty minutes," he said. "I +will walk a little way with you."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XLVII</span> <span class="smaller">BETWEEN THE MILLSTONES</span></h2> + +<p>Hugh's haggard face peered after them through a rift in a window +curtain. What could she have suspected? Not the truth! And only that +could betray him. Presently the bishop would return, the train would +start again, and this spot of terror would be behind him. What had he to +do with Harry Sanderson?</p> + +<p>He bethought himself suddenly of the door—if some one should come in +upon him! With a qualm of fear he stood up, staggered to it and turned +the key in the lock. There was not the wonted buzz about the station; +the place was silent, save for the throb of the halted engine, and the +shadow of the train on the frosty platform quivered like a criminal. A +block away he saw the court-house—knots of people were standing about +its door, waiting for what? A fit of trembling seized him.</p> + +<p>All his years Hugh had been a moral coward. Life to him had been sweet +for the grosser, material pleasures it held. He had cared for nobody, +had held nothing sacred. When his sins had found him out, he had not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> +repented; he had only cursed the accident of discovery. The sincerest +feeling of regret he had known had been in the chapel when he had +thought of his dead mother. Since one dismal night on Smoky Mountain, +dread, dogging and relentless, had been his hateful bedfellow. He had +now only to keep silence, let Harry Sanderson pay the penalty, and he +need dread no more. Hugh Stires, to the persuasion of the law, would be +dead. As soon as might be he could disappear—as the rector of St. James +had disappeared before. He might change his name and live at ease in +some other quarter of the world, his alarm laid for ever.</p> + +<p>But a worse thing would haunt him, to scare his sleep. He would be +doubly blood-guilty!</p> + +<p>In the awful moment while he clung to the iron bars of the collapsing +rose-window, with the flames clutching at him, Hugh had looked into +hell, and shivered before the judgment: <i>The wages of sin is death</i>. In +that fiery ordeal the cheapness and swagger, the ostentation and +self-esteem had burned away, and his soul had stood naked as a winter +wood. Dying had not then been the Austere Terror. What came after—that +had appalled him. Yet Harry Sanderson was not afraid of the hereafter; +he chose death calmly, knowing that he, Hugh, was unfit to die!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span></p><p>He thought of the little gold cross Jessica had held before him. The +last time he had seen it was during that memorable game when Harry had +set it on the table. In his pocket was a battered red disk—a reminder +of the days that Harry had won, which had never been rendered. He +thought of the stabbing agony that had come and come again, to strike +each time more deeply. The death that he had cheated in the chapel might +be near him now. But whenever death should come, what should he say when +he stood before his Judge, with such a fearful double burden on his +soul? He was horribly afraid!</p> + +<p>Suppose he waited. Harry might be convicted, sentenced, but he could +save him at the last moment. When he was safe on his way to South +America, he could write the bishop—beg him to go to Smoky Mountain and +convince himself. But how soon would that be? It would be long, +long—and justice was swift. And what if death should take him unawares +beforehand? It would be too late then, too late for ever and ever!</p> + +<p>Suppose he told the truth now and saved Harry. He had never done a brave +deed for the sake of truth or righteousness, or for the love of any +human being, but he could do one now. For the one red counter that had +been a symbol of a day of evil living, he could render a deed that would +make requital for those unpaid days!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span> He would not have played the +coward's part. It would repair the wrong he had done Jessica. He would +have made expiation. Forgiveness and pity, not reproaches and shame, +would follow him. And it would balance, perhaps, the one dreadful count +that stood against him. He thought of the scaffold and shivered. Yet +there was a more terrible thought: <i>It is a fearful thing to fall into +the hands of the living God!</i></p> + +<p>He made his way again to the door and unlocked it. It was only to cross +that space, to speak, and then the grim brick building—and the penalty.</p> + +<p>With a hoarse cry he slammed the door to and frantically locked it. The +edge of the searching pain was upon him again. He stumbled back to the +couch and fell across it face down, dragging the cushions in frantic +haste over his head, to shut out the sick throbbing of the steam, that +seemed shuddering at the fate his cowering soul dared not face.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>The groups outside of the court-house made way deferentially for +Jessica, but she was unconscious of it. Some one asked a question on the +steps, and she heard the answer: "The State has just finished, and the +judge is charging."</p> + +<p>The narrow hall was filled, and though all who saw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> gave her instant +place, the space beyond the inner door was crowded beyond the +possibility of passage. She could see the judge's bench, with its sedate +gray-bearded figure, the jury-box at the left, the moving restless faces +about it, set like a living mosaic. Only the table where the lawyers and +the prisoner sat she could not see, or the empty chair where she had sat +yesterday. What had Hugh thought, she wondered dully, when he had not +seen her there that day? Had he thought that her trust had failed?</p> + +<p>She became aware suddenly that the figure at the high bench was +speaking, had been speaking all along. She could not think clearly, and +her brain struggled with the incisive matter-of-fact sentences.</p> + +<p>"With the prisoner's later career in Smoky Mountain they had nothing to +do, nor had the law. The question it asked—the only question it +asked—was, did he kill Moreau? They might be loath to believe the same +man capable of such contradictory acts—the courageous saving of a child +from death, for example, and the shooting down of a fellow-mortal in +cold blood—but it had been truly said that such contrasts were not +impossible, nay, were even matters of common observation. Prejudice and +bias aside, and sympathy and liking aside, they constituted a tribunal +of justice. This the State had a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> right to demand, and this they, the +jury, had made solemn oath to give."</p> + +<p>The words had no meaning for her ears. "What did he say?" she whispered +to herself piteously.</p> + +<p>In her abyss of torture she felt the tense expectancy stirring audibly +in the room like a still breeze in forest leaves—saw the averted faces +of the jury as they rose to file out. She caught but a glimpse of the +prisoner, as the sheriff touched his arm and led the way quickly to the +door through which he had been brought.</p> + +<p>It opened and closed upon them, and the tension of the packed room broke +all at once in a great respiration of relief and a buzz of conversation.</p> + +<p>A voice spoke beside her. It was Doctor Brent. "Come with me," he said. +"Felder asked me to watch for you. We can wait in the judge's room."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XLVIII</span> <span class="smaller">THE VERDICT</span></h2> + +<p>Meanwhile in the narrow cell Harry was alone with his bitterness. His +judicial sense, keenly alive, from the very first had appreciated the +woeful weakness, evidentially speaking, of his position. He had no +illusions on this score. A little while—after such deliberation as was +decent and seemly—and he would be a condemned criminal, waiting in the +shadow of the hempen noose. In such localities justice was swift. There +would be scant time between verdict and penalty—not enough, doubtless, +for the problem to solve itself. For the only solution possible was +Hugh's dying in the hospital at Aniston. So long as the other lived, he +must play out the rôle.</p> + +<p>And if Hugh did die, but died too late? What a satire on truth and +justice! The same error which put the rope about his own neck would fold +the real Hugh in the odor of sanctity. He would lie in the little jail +yard in a felon's grave, and Hugh in the cemetery on the hill, beneath a +marble monument erected by St.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> James Parish to the Reverend Henry +Sanderson. He was in an <i>impasse</i>. In the dock, or in the cell with the +death-watch sitting at its door, it was all one. He had elected the +path, and if it led to the bleak edge of life, to the barren abyss of +shame, he must tread it.</p> + +<p>His own life—he had come in his thinking to a point where that mattered +least of all. Harry Sanderson, the vanished rector of St. James, +mattered. And Jessica! On the cot lay a slender blue-bound +book—Tennyson's <i>Becket</i>. She had sent it to him, in a hamper of her +favorites, some days before. He picked it up and held it in his hand, +touching the limp leather gently. It was as soft as her cheek, and there +was about the leaves a hint of that intangible perfume that his mind +always associated with her—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>... the smell of the jasmin-flower</div> +<div>That she used to wear in her breast!</div> +</div></div> + +<p>Far more than his life, more than the name and fame of the Reverend +Henry Sanderson, she mattered! Could he write it for her eye, the whole +truth, so that sometime—afterward—the bishop might know, and the blot +be erased from his career? Impossible! With Hugh buried in Aniston and +he in Smoky Mountain, who was there but would smile at such a tale? She +might shout it to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> the world, and it would answer with derision. And +what comfort would the truth be to her?</p> + +<p>Could he say to her: "Your husband lies dead under my tombstone, not +innocent, but unregenerate and vile. I, who you think am your husband, +am not and never was. You have come to my call—but I am nothing to you. +You are the wife of the guilty murderer of Moreau!" Could he leave this +behind him, and, passing from her life for ever, turn the memory of +their love into an irremediable bitterness? No—no! Better never to tell +her! Better to let her live her life, holding her faith and dream, +treasuring her belief in his regeneration and innocence!</p> + +<p>He thought of the closing chapter in his life at Aniston, when in that +hour of his despair he had prayed by his study desk. The words he had +then said aloud recurred to him: "If I am delivered, it must be by some +way of Thine Own that I can not conceive, for I can not help myself." He +was powerless to help himself still. He had given over his life into the +keeping of a Power in which his better manhood had trusted. If it +exacted the final tribute for those ribald years of Satan Sanderson, the +price would be paid!</p> + +<p>A step came in the corridor—a voice spoke his name. The summons had +come. As he laid the blue book back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span> on the cot, its closing words—the +dying utterance of the martyred Becket—flashed through his mind, the +personal cry of his own soul:</p> + +<p>"Into Thy hands, O Lord—into Thy hands!"</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Before the opening door the hum of voices in the court-room sank to +stillness itself. The jury had taken their places; their looks were +sober and downcast. The judge was in his seat, his hand combing his +beard. Harry faced him calmly. The door of a side room was partly open +and a girl's white face looked in, but he did not see.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen of the jury, have you arrived at a verdict?"</p> + +<p>"We have."</p> + +<p>There was a confusion in the hall—abrupt voices and the sound of feet. +The crowd stirred and the judge frowningly lifted his gavel.</p> + +<p>"What say you, guilty or not guilty?"</p> + +<p>The foreman did not answer. He was leaning forward, looking over the +heads of the crowd. The judge stood up. People turned, and the room was +suddenly a-rustle with surprised movement. The crowd at the back of the +room parted, and up the center aisle, toward the judge's desk, staggered +a figure—a man whose face,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span> ghastly and convulsed, was partly swathed +in bandages. At the door of the judge's room a girl stood transfixed and +staring.</p> + +<p>The crowd gasped. They saw the familiar profile, a replica of the +prisoner's—the mark that slanted across the brow—the eyes +preternaturally bright and fevered.</p> + +<p>A pale-faced, breathless man in clerical dress pushed forward through +the press, as the figure stopped ... thrust out his hands blindly.</p> + +<p>"Not—guilty, your Honor!" he said.</p> + +<p>A cry came from the prisoner at the bar. He leaped toward him as he fell +and caught him in his arms.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER XLIX</span> <span class="smaller">THE CRIMSON DISK</span></h2> + +<p>The group in the judge's room was hushed in awestruck silence. The door +was shut, but through the panels, from the court-room, came the murmur +of many wondering voices. By the sofa on which lay the man who had made +expiation stood the bishop and Harry Sanderson. Jessica knelt beside it, +and the judge and those who stood with him in the background knew that +the curtain was falling upon a strange and tangled drama of life and +death.</p> + +<p>After the one long, sobbing cry of realization, throughout the +excitement and confusion, Jessica had been strangely calm. She read the +swift certainty in Doctor Brent's face, and she felt a painful +thankfulness. The last appeal would not be to man's justice, but to +God's mercy! The memories of the old blind days and the knowledge that +this man—not the one to whom she had given her love at Smoky Mountain, +at whom she dared not look—had then been her lover, rolled about her in +a stinging mist. But as she knelt by the sofa the hand that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span> chafed the +nerveless one was firm, and she wiped the cold lips deftly and tenderly.</p> + +<p>Hugh's eyes were filming. That harrowing struggle of soul, that +convulsive effort of the injured body, had demanded its price. The +direful agony and its weakness had seized him—his stiffening fingers +were slipping from the ledge of life, and he knew it.</p> + +<p>He heard the bishop's earnest voice speaking from the void: "<i>Greater +love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his +friends!</i>" The words roused his fading senses, called them back to the +outpost of feeling.</p> + +<p>"Not because I—loved," he said. "It—was because—I—was afraid!"</p> + +<p>False as his habit of life had been, in that moment only the bare truth +remained. With a last effort the dying man thrust his hand into his +pocket, drew out a small, battered, red disk, and laid it in the other's +hand. He smiled.</p> + +<p>"Satan—" he whispered, as Harry bent over him, and the flicker of light +fell in his eyes, "do you—think it will—count—when I cash in?"</p> + +<p>But Harry's answer Hugh did not hear. He had passed out of the sound of +mortal speech for ever.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span></p> + +<h2><span>CHAPTER L</span> <span class="smaller">WHEN DREAMS COME TRUE</span></h2> + +<p>There came a day when the brown ravines of Smoky Mountain laughed in +genial sunshine, when the tangled thickets, and the foliaged reaches, +painted with the cardinal and bishop's-purple of late autumn, flushed +and stirred to the touch of their golden lover, and the silver water +gushing through the flumes sang to a quicker melody. There was no wind; +everywhere, save for the breathing life of the forest, was dreamy beauty +and waiting peace.</p> + +<p>In the soft stillness Harry stood on the doorstep of the hillside +cabin—for the last time. Below him in the gulch the light glanced and +sparkled from the running flume, and beyond glimmered the long street of +the town where the dead past of Satan Sanderson had been buried for ever +and the old remorseful pain of conscience had found its surcease. In +that last lack-luster year before the rector of the old St. James had +been snuffed out in the wild motor-ride, he had come to doubt the +ultimate Prescience and Purpose. How small and futile now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> seemed those +doubts in face of the new conception he had apprehended, in the tacit +acceptance of a watchful Will and Plan not his own.</p> + +<p>Here had been the theater of his pain and his temptation. Sitting on +that very spot, with the wise stars overhead, he had drawn from Old +Despair's violin the strain that had brought him Jessica, her hand in +his, her head upon his breast! In the far distance, a tender haze +softening their outline, stood the violet silhouette of the enduring +ranges, and far beyond them lay Aniston, where waited his newer life, +his newer, better work—and the hope that was the April of his dreams.</p> + +<p>Since that tragic day in the court-room he had seen Jessica once +only—in the hour when the bishop's solemn "dust to dust" had been +spoken above the man who had been her husband. One thought had comforted +him—the town of Smoky Mountain had never known, need never know, the +secret of her wifehood. And Aniston was far away. About the coming of +Hugh injured and dying to his rescue, would be thrown a glamour of +knight-errantry that would bespeak charity of judgment. When Jessica +went back to the white house in the aspens she would meet only +tenderness and sympathy. And that was well.</p> + +<p>He shut the door of his cabin and, whistling to his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> dog, climbed the +steep path, where the wrinkled creeper flung its new splash of scarlet, +and along the trail to the Knob, under the needled song of the redwoods. +There in the dappled shade stood Jessica's rock-statue, and now it +looked upon two mounds. The Prodigal had returned at last, father and +son rested side by side, and that, too, was well.</p> + +<p>He went slowly through the brown hollows to the winding mountain road, +crossed it, and entered the denser forest. He wanted to see once more +the dear spot where he and Jessica had met—that deep, sweet day before +the rude awakening. He walked on in a reverie; his thoughts were very +far away.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>He stopped suddenly—there before him was the little knoll where she had +stood waiting, on the threshold of his Palace of Enchantment, that one +roseate morning. And she was there to-day—not standing with parted lips +and eager eyes under the twittering trees, but lying face down on the +moss, her red bronze hair shaming the gold of the fallen leaves.</p> + +<p>There was a gesture in the outstretched arms that caught at his heart. +He stepped forward, and at the sound she looked up startled.</p> + +<p>He saw the creeping color that mounted to her brow,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> the proud yet +passionate hunger of her eyes. He dropped on his knees and took her +hands and kissed them:</p> + +<p>"My dear love that is!" he whispered. "My dearer wife that is to be!"</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SATAN SANDERSON***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 39689-h.txt or 39689-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/9/6/8/39689">http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/6/8/39689</a></p> +<p> +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p> +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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B. Wenzell + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Satan Sanderson + + +Author: Hallie Erminie Rives + + + +Release Date: May 13, 2012 [eBook #39689] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SATAN SANDERSON*** + + +E-text prepared by David Edwards, Martin Pettit, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images +generously made available by Internet Archive (http://archive.org/) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 39689-h.htm or 39689-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/39689/39689-h/39689-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/39689/39689-h.zip) + + + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive. See + http://archive.org/details/satansanderson00riverich + + + + + +SATAN SANDERSON + + * * * * * + +Books by + +HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES (Mrs. Post Wheeler) + + +A FURNACE OF EARTH + +HEARTS COURAGEOUS + Illustrated by A. B. Wenzell + +THE CASTAWAY + Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy + +TALES FROM DICKENS + Illustrated by Reginald B. Birch + +SATAN SANDERSON + Illustrated by A. B. Wenzell + + * * * * * + + +[Illustration] + + +SATAN SANDERSON + +by + +HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES + +Author of +The Castaway, Hearts Courageous, etc. + +With Illustrations by A. B. Wenzell + + + + + + + +Indianapolis +The Bobbs-Merrill Company +Publishers + +Copyright 1907 +The Bobbs-Merrill Company + +August + +Press of +Braunworth & Co. +Bookbinders and Printers +Brooklyn, N. Y. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + I AS A MAN SOWS 1 + + II DOCTOR MOREAU 15 + + III THE COMING OF A PRODIGAL 20 + + IV THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING 32 + + V THE BISHOP SPEAKS 47 + + VI WHAT CAME OF A WEDDING 50 + + VII OUT OF THE DARK 60 + + VIII "AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER?" 68 + + IX AFTER A YEAR 75 + + X THE GAME 85 + + XI HALLELUJAH JONES TAKES A HAND 95 + + XII THE FALL OF THE CURTAIN 105 + + XIII THE CLOSED DOOR 108 + + XIV THE WOMAN WHO REMEMBERED 115 + + XV THE MAN WHO HAD FORGOTTEN 125 + + XVI THE AWAKENING 137 + + XVII AT THE TURN OF THE TRAIL 147 + + XVIII THE STRENGTH OF THE WEAK 155 + + XIX THE EVIL EYE 160 + + XX MRS. HALLORAN TELLS A STORY 167 + + XXI A VISIT AND A VIOLIN 171 + + XXII THE PASSING OF PRENDERGAST 179 + + XXIII A RACE WITH DEATH 187 + + XXIV ON SMOKY MOUNTAIN 198 + + XXV THE OPEN WINDOW 210 + + XXVI LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT 222 + + XXVII INTO THE GOLDEN SUNSET 229 + + XXVIII THE TENANTLESS HOUSE 238 + + XXIX THE CALL OF LOVE 250 + + XXX IN A FOREST OF ARDEN 259 + + XXXI THE REVELATION OF HALLELUJAH JONES 269 + + XXXII THE WHITE HORSE SKIN 277 + + XXXIII THE RENEGADE 282 + + XXXIV THE TEMPTATION 289 + + XXXV FELDER TAKES A CASE 302 + + XXXVI THE HAND AT THE DOOR 305 + + XXXVII THE PENITENT THIEF 311 + +XXXVIII A DAY FOR THE STATE 319 + + XXXIX THE UNSUMMONED WITNESS 331 + + XL FATE'S WAY 335 + + XLI FELDER WALKS WITH DOCTOR BRENT 339 + + XLII THE RECKONING 344 + + XLIII THE LITTLE GOLD CROSS 353 + + XLIV THE IMPOSTOR 360 + + XLV AN APPEAL TO CAESAR 369 + + XLVI FACE TO FACE 376 + + XLVII BETWEEN THE MILLSTONES 384 + + XLVIII THE VERDICT 390 + + XLIX THE CRIMSON DISK 395 + + L WHEN DREAMS COME TRUE 397 + + + + +SATAN SANDERSON + + + + +CHAPTER I + +AS A MAN SOWS + + +"_To my son Hugh, in return for the care and sorrow he has caused me all +the days of his life, for his dissolute career and his desertion, I do +give and bequeath the sum of one thousand dollars and the memory of his +misspent youth._" + +It was very quiet in the wide, richly furnished library. The May night +was still, but a faint suspiration, heavy with the fragrance of jasmin +flowers, stirred the Venetian blind before the open window and rustled +the moon-silvered leaves of the aspens outside. As the incisive +professional pronouncement of the judge cut through the lamp-lighted +silence, the grim, furrowed face with its sunken eyes and gray military +mustaches on the pillow of the wheel-chair set more grimly; a girl +seated in the damask shadow of the fire-screen caught her breath; and +from across the polished table the Reverend Henry Sanderson turned his +handsome, clean-shaven face and looked at the old man. + +A peevish misogynist the neighborhood labeled the latter, with the +parish chapel for hobby, and for thorn-in-the-flesh this only son Hugh, +a black sheep whose open breaches of decorum the town had borne as best +it might, till the tradition of his forebears took him off to an eastern +university. A reckless life there and three wastrel years abroad, had +sent him back to resume his peccadilloes on a larger scale, to quarrel +bitterly with his father, and to leave his home in anger. In what rough +business of life was Hugh now chewing the cud of his folly? Harry +Sanderson was wondering. + +"Wait," came the querulous voice from the chair. "Write in 'graceless' +before the word 'desertion'." + +"_For his dissolute career and his--graceless--desertion_," repeated the +lawyer, the parchment crackling under his pen. + +The stubborn antagonism that was a part of David Stires' nature flared +under the bushy eyebrows. "As a man sows!" he said, a kind of bitter +jocularity in the tone. "That should be the text, if this sermon of mine +needed any, Sanderson! It won't have as large an audience as your +discourses draw, but it will be remembered by one of its hearers, at +least." + +Judge Conwell glanced curiously at Harry Sanderson as he blotted the +emendation. He knew the liking of the cross-grained and taciturn old +invalid--St. James' richest parishioner--for this young man of +twenty-five who had come to the parish only two months before, fresh +from his theological studies, to fill a place temporarily vacant--and +had stayed by sheer force of personality. He wondered if, aside from +natural magnetic qualities, this liking had not been due first of all to +the curious resemblance between the young minister and the absent son +whom David Stires was disinheriting. For, as far as mold of feature +went, the young minister and the ne'er-do-well might have been twin +brothers; yet a totally different manner and coloring made this likeness +rather suggestive than striking. + +No one, perhaps, had ever interested the community more than had Harry +Sanderson. He had entered upon his duties with the marks of youth, good +looks, self-possession and an ample income thick upon him, and had +brought with him a peculiar charm of manner and an apparent incapacity +for doing things in a hackneyed way. Convention sat lightly upon Harry +Sanderson. He recognized few precedents, either in the new methods and +millinery with which he had invested the service, or in his personal +habits. Instead of attending the meeting of St. Andrew's Guild, after +the constant custom of his predecessor, he was apt to be found playing +his violin (a passion with him) in the smart study that adjoined the +Gothic chapel where he shepherded his fashionable flock, or tramping +across the country with a briar pipe in his mouth and his brown spaniel +"Rummy" nosing at his heels. His athletic frame and clean-chiselled +features made him a rare figure for the reading-desk, as his violin +practice, the cut of his golf-flannels, the immaculate elegance of his +motor-car--even the white carnation he affected in his buttonhole--made +him for the younger men a goodly pattern of the cloth; and it had +speedily grown to be the fashion to hear the brilliant young minister, +to memorize his classical aphorisms or to look up his latest quotation +from Keats or Walter Pater. So that Harry Sanderson, whose innovations +had at first disturbed and ruffled the sensibilities of those who would +have preferred a fogy, in the end had drifted, apparently without +special effort, into a far wider popularity than that which bowed to the +whim of the old invalid in the white house in the aspens. + +Something of all this was in the lawyer's mind as he paused--a +perfunctory pause--before he continued: + +"_... I do give and bequeath the sum of one thousand dollars, and the +memory of his misspent youth._" + +Harry Sanderson's eyes had wandered from the chair to the slim figure +of the girl who sat by the screen. This was Jessica Holme, the orphaned +daughter of a friend of the old man's early years, who had recently come +to the house in the aspens to fill the void left by Hugh's departure. +Harry could see the contour of throat and wrists, the wild-rose mesh of +the skin against the Romney-blue gown, the plenteous red-bronze hair +uncoiled and falling in a single braid, and the shadowy pathos of her +eyes. Clear hazel eyes they were, wide and full, but there was in them +no depth of expression--for Jessica Holme was blind. As the crisp +deliberate accent pointed the judicial period, as with a subterranean +echo of irrefutable condemnation, Harry saw her under lip indrawn, her +hands clasp tightly, then unclasp in her lap. Pliant, graceful hands, he +thought, which even blindness could not make maladroit. In the chapel +porch stood the figure of an angel which she had modelled solely by the +wonderful touch in the finger-tips. + +"Go on," rasped the old man. + +"_The residue of my estate, real and personal, I do give and bequeath to +my ward, Jessica Holme, to be and become--_" + +He broke off suddenly, for the girl was kneeling by the chair, groping +for the restless hand that wandered on the afghan, and crying in a +strained, agitated voice: "No ... no ... you must not! Please, please! I +never could bear it!" + +"Why not?" The old man's irritant query was belligerent. "Why not? What +is there for you to bear, I'd like to know!" + +"He is your son!" + +"In the eyes of the law, yes. But not otherwise!" His voice rose. "What +has he done to deserve anything from me? What has he had all his life +but kindness? And how has he repaid it? By being a waster and a +prodigal. By setting me in contempt, and finally by forsaking me in my +old age for his own paths of ribaldry." + +The girl shook her head. "You don't know where he is now, or what he is +doing. Oh, he was wild and reckless, I have no doubt. But when he +quarrelled and left you, wasn't it perhaps because he was too +quick-tempered? And if he hasn't come back, isn't it perhaps because he +is too proud? Why, he wouldn't be your son if he weren't proud! No +matter how sorry he might be, it would make no difference then. I could +give him the money you had given me, but I couldn't change the fact. +You, his own father, would have disowned him, disinherited him, taken +away his birthright!" + +"And richly he'd deserve it!" he snapped, his bent fingers plucking +angrily at the wool of the afghan. "He doesn't want a father or a home. +He wants his own way and a freedom that is license! I know him. You +don't; you never saw him." + +"I never saw you either," she said, a little sadly. + +"Come," he answered a shade more gently. "I didn't mean your eyes, my +dear! I mean that you never met him in your life. He had shaken off the +dust of his feet against this house before you came to brighten it, +Jessica. I've not forgiven him seven times; I've forgiven him seventy +times seven. But he doesn't want forgiveness. To him I am only 'the old +man' who refused to 'put up' longer for his fopperies and extravagances! +When he left this house six months ago, he declared he would never enter +it again. Very well--let him stay away! He shan't come back when I am in +my grave, to play ducks and drakes with the money he misuses! And I've +fixed it so that you won't be able to give it away either, Jessica. Give +me the pen," he said to the judge, "and, Sanderson, will you ring? We +shall need the butler to witness with you." + +As Harry Sanderson rose to his feet the girl, still kneeling, turned +half about with a hopeless gesture. "Oh, won't you help me?" she said. +She spoke more to herself, it seemed, than to either of the men who +waited. Harry's face was in the shadow. The lawyer with careful +deliberation was putting a new pen into the holder. + +"Sanderson," said the old man with bitter fierceness, lifting his hand, +"I dare say you think I am hard; but I tell you there has never been a +day since Hugh was born when I wouldn't have laid down my life for him! +You are so like! When I look at you, I seem to see him as he might have +been but for his own wayward choice! If he were only as like you in +other things as he is in feature! You are nearly the same age; you went +to the same college, I believe; you have had the same advantages and the +same temptations. Yet you, an orphan, come out a divinity student, and +Hugh--my son!--comes out a roisterer with gambling debts, a member of +the 'fast set,' one of a dissolute fraternity known as 'The Saints,' +whose very existence, no doubt, was a shame to the institution!" + +Harry Sanderson turned slowly to the light. A strange panorama in that +moment had flashed through his brain--kaleidoscopic pictures of an +earlier reckless era when he had not been known as the "Reverend Henry +Sanderson." An odd, sensitive flush burned his forehead. The hand he had +outstretched to the bell-cord dropped to his side, and he said, with +painful steadiness: + +"I think I ought to say that I was the founder, and at the time you +speak of, the Abbot of The Saints." + +The pen rattled against the mahogany, as the man of law leaned back to +regard the speaker with a stare of surprise whetted with a keen edge of +satiric amusement. The old man sat silent, and the girl crouched by the +chair with parted lips. The look in Harry's face was not now that of the +decorative young churchman of the Sabbath surplice. It held a keen +electric sense of the sharp contrasts of life, touched with a wakeful +pain of conscience. + +"I was in the same year with Hugh," Harry went on. "We sowed our wild +oats together--a tidy crop, I fancy, for us both. That page of my life +is pasted down. I speak of it now because it would be cowardly not to. I +have not seen Hugh since college closed four years ago. But then I was +all you have called him--a waster and a prodigal. And I was more; for +while others followed, I led. At college I was known as 'Satan +Sanderson'." + +He stopped. The old man cleared his throat, but did not speak. He was +looking at Harry fixedly. In the pause the girl found his gnarled hand +and laid her cheek against it. Harry leaned an elbow upon the +mantelpiece as he continued, in a low voice: + +"Colleges are not moral strait-jackets. Men have there to cast about, +try themselves and find their bearings. They are in hand-touch with +temptation, and out of earshot of the warnings of experience. The mental +and moral machine lacks a governor. Slips of the cog then may or may not +count seriously to character in the end. They sometimes signify only a +phase. They may be mere idiosyncrasy. I have thought that it stood in +this case," he added with the glimmer of a smile, "with Satan Sanderson; +he seems to me from this focus to be quite another individual from the +present rector of St. James." + +"It is only the Hugh of the present that I am dealing with," interposed +the old man. For David Stires was just and he was feeling a grim respect +for Harry's honesty. + +Harry acknowledged the brusque kindliness of the tone with a little +motion of the hand. As he spoke he had been feeling his way through a +maze of contradictory impulses. For a moment he had been back in that +old irresponsible time; the Hugh he had known then had sprung to his +mind's eye--an imitative idler, with a certain grace and brilliancy of +manner that made him hail-fellow-well-met, but withal shallow, foppish +and incorrigible, a cheap and shabby imitator of the outward manner, not +the inner graces, of good-fellowship. Yet Hugh had been one of his own +"fast set"; they had called him "Satan's shadow," a tribute to the +actual resemblance as well as to the palpable imitation he affected. +Harry shivered a little. The situation seemed, in antic irony, to be +reversing itself. It was as if not alone Hugh, but he, Harry Sanderson, +in the person of that past of his, was now brought to bar for judgment +in that room. For the instant he forgot how utterly characterless Hugh +had shown himself of old, how devoid of all desire for rehabilitation +his present reputation in the town argued him. At that moment it seemed +as if in saving Hugh from this condemnation, he was pleading for himself +as he had been--for the further chance which he, but for circumstances, +perhaps, had needed, too. His mind, working swiftly, told him that no +appeal to mere sentiment would suffice--he must touch another note. As +he paused, his eyes wandered to an oil portrait on the wall, and +suddenly he saw his way. + +"You," he said, "have lived a life of just and balanced action. It is +bred in the bone. You hate all loose conduct, and rightly. You hate it +most in Hugh for the simple reason that he is your son. The very +relation makes it more impossible to countenance. He should be like +you--of temperate and prudent habit. But did you and he start on equal +terms? Your grandfather was a Standish; your ancestry was undiluted +Puritan. Did Hugh have all your fund of resistance?" + +The old man's gaze for the first time left Harry's face. It lifted for +an instant to the portrait at which Harry had glanced--a picture of +Hugh's dark gipsy-like mother, painted in the month of her marriage, and +the year of her death--and in that instant the stern lines about the +mouth relaxed a little. Harry had laid his finger on the deepest cord of +feeling in the old man's gruff nature. The glow that had smoldered in +the cavernous eyes faded and a troubled cloud came to belie their former +wrath. + +"'As a man sows,' you say, and you deny him another seeding and it may +be a better harvest. You shut the door;--and if you shut it, it may not +swing open again! With me it was the turning of a long lane. Hugh +perhaps has not turned--yet." A breath of that past life had swept anew +over Harry, the old shuddering recoil again had rushed upon him. It gave +his voice a curious energy as he ended: "And I have seen how far a man +may go and yet--come back!" + +There was a pause. The judge had an inspiration. He folded the +parchment, and rose. + +"Perhaps it would be as well," he said in a matter-of-fact way, "if the +signing be left open for the present. Last testaments, whatever their +provisions, are more or less serious matters, and in your case,"--he +nodded toward the occupant of the chair--"there is not the element of +necessitous haste. Of course," he added tentatively, "I am at your +service at any time." + +He rose as he spoke, and laid the document on the table. + +For a moment David Stires sat in silence. Then he said, with a glint of +the old ironic fire: "You should have been a special pleader, Sanderson. +There's no client too bad for them to make out a case for! Well ... well +... we won't sign to-night. I will read it over again when I am more +equal to it." + +His visitors made their adieux, and as the door closed upon them, the +girl came to the wheel-chair and wistfully drew the parchment from his +hands. + +"You're a good girl, Jessica," he said, "too good to a rascal you've +never known. But there--go to your room, child. I can ring for Blake +when I want anything." + +For long the old man sat alone, musing in his chair, his eyes on the +painted portrait on the wall. The image there was just as young and fair +and joyous as though yesterday she had stood in bridal white beside +him, instead of so long ago--so long ago! His lips moved. "In return +for the care and sorrow," he muttered, "all the days of his life!" + +At length he sighed and took up a magazine. He was thinking of Harry +Sanderson. + +"How like!" he said aloud. "So Sanderson sowed his wild oats, too!... +When he stood there, with the light on his face--when he talked--I--I +could almost have thought it was Hugh!" + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER II + +DOCTOR MOREAU + + +Harry Sanderson and the judge parted at the gate, and Harry walked +slowly home in the moonlight. + +The youthful follies that he had resurrected when he had called himself +his old nickname of "Satan Sanderson" he had left so far behind him, had +buried so deep, that the ironic turn of circumstance that had dragged +them into view, sorry skeletons, seemed intrusive and malicious. Not +that he was desirous of sailing under false colors; he had brought into +his new career more than a _soupcon_ of the old indifference to popular +estimation, the old propensity to go his own way and to care very little +what others thought of him. The sting was a nearer one; it was his own +present of fair example and good repute that recoiled with a fastidious +sense of abasement from the recollection. + +As he stood in the library, his hand on the mantelpiece, he had been +painfully conscious of detail. He remembered vividly the half amused +smile of the lawyer, the silent, listening attitude of the girl +crouched by the wheel-chair. He had seen Jessica Holme scarcely a +half-dozen times, then only at service, or driving behind the Stires +bays. That moment when she had thrown herself beside the old man's chair +to plead for the son she had never seen--an instant revelation wrought +by the strenuous agitation of the moment--had been illuminative; it had +given him a lightning-like glimpse into the unplummeted deeps of womanly +unselfishness and sympathy. He flushed suddenly. He had not realized +that she was so beautiful. + +What a tragedy to be blind, for a woman with temperament, talent and +heart! To be sightless to the beauty of such a perfect night, with that +silver bridge of stars, those far hills rising like purple tulips--an +alluring night for those who saw! The picture she had made, kneeling +with the lamplight rosying in her hair, hung before him. The +flower-scent with which the room had been full was in his nostrils, and +verses flashed into his mind: + + + And I swear, as I thought of her thus, in that hour, + And of how, after all, old things were best, + That I smelt the smell of that jasmin-flower + Which she used to wear in her breast. + + +Under his thought the lines repeated themselves in a mystical monotone. + +He had saved an old college-mate from possible disinheritance and the +grind of poverty, for David Stires' health was precarious. He thought of +this with a tinge of satisfaction. The least of that peculiar clan, one +who had held his place, not by likable qualities but by a versatile +talent for entertainment, Hugh Stires yet deserved thus much. Harry +Sanderson had never shirked an obligation. "As a man sows"--the old +man's words recurred to him. Did any man reap what he sowed, after all? +Was he, the "Satan Sanderson" that was, getting his deserts? + +"If there is a Providence that parcels out our earthly rewards and +penalties," he said to himself, "it has missed me! If there is any +virtue in example, I ought to be the black sheep. Hugh never influenced +anybody; he was a natural camp-follower. I was in the van. All I said +was a sneer, all I did a challenge to respectability. Yet here I am, a +shepherd of the faithful, a brother of Aaron!" + +Harry stepped more briskly along the gas-lighted square, nodding now and +then to an acquaintance, and bowing on a crossing to a carriage that +bowled by with the wife of the Very Reverend, the Bishop of the Diocese. +As he passed a darkened entrance, a door with a small barred window in +its upper panel opened, and a man came into the street--a man light and +fair with watery blue eyes and a drooping, blond mustache. He lifted his +silk hat with a faded, Chesterfieldian grace as he came down the steps +with outstretched hand. + +"My dear Sanderson!" he said effusively. "In the interest of sweetness +and light, where did you stumble on your new chauffeur? His style is the +admiration of the town. Next to having your gift of eloquence, I can +think of nothing so splendid as possessing such a _tonneau_! The city is +in your debt; you have shown it that even a cleric can be 'fast' without +reproach!" + +Harry Sanderson saw the weak features and ingratiating smile, the +clayey, dry-lined skin and restless eyes, but he did not seem to see the +extended hand. He did not smile at the badinage as he replied evenly: + +"My chauffeur, Doctor, is a Finn; and his style is his own. I see, +however, that I must decrease his speed-limit." + +Doctor Moreau stood a moment looking after him, his womanish hands +clenching and his cynical glance full of an evil light. + +"The university prig!" he said under his breath. "Doesn't he take +himself for the whole thing, with his money and his buttonhole bouquet, +and his smug self-righteousness! He thinks I'm hardly fit to speak to +since I've had to quit the hospital! I'd like to take him down a peg!" + +He watched the alert, ministerial figure till it rounded the corner. He +looked up and down the street, hesitating; then, shrugging his +shoulders, he turned and reentered the door with the narrow barred +window. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE COMING OF A PRODIGAL + + +The later night was very still and the moon, lifting like a paper +lantern over the aspen tops, silvered all the landscape. In its placid +radiance the white house loomed in a ghostly pallor. The windows of one +side were blank, but behind the library shade the bulbous lamp still +drowsed like a monster glow-worm. From the shadowy side of the building +stretched a narrow L, its front covered by a rose-trellis, whose pale +blossoms in the soft night air mingled their delicate fragrance with +that of the jasmin. + +Save for the one bright pane, there seemed now no life or movement in +the house. But outside, in the moonlight, a lurching, shabbily-clothed +figure moved, making his uncertain way with the deliberation of composed +inebriety. The sash of the window was raised a few inches and he nodded +sagely at the yellow shade. + +"Gay old silver-top!" he hiccoughed; "see you in the morning!" + +He capsized against an althea bush and shook his head with owlish +gravity as he disentangled himself. Then he staggered serenely to the +rose-trellis, and, choosing its angle with an assurance that betrayed +ancient practice, climbed to the upper window, shot its bolt with a +knife, and let himself in. He painstakingly closed both windows and +inner blinds, before he turned on an electric light. + +In the room in which he now stood he had stored his boyish treasures and +shirked his maturer tasks. It should have had deeper human associations, +too, for once, before the house had been enlarged to its present +proportions, that chamber had been his mother's. The _Marechal Niel_ +rose that clambered to the window-sill had been planted by her hand. In +that room he had been born. And in it had occurred that sharp, corrosive +quarrel with his father on the night he had flung himself from the house +vowing never to return. + +As Hugh Stires stood looking about him, it seemed for an instant to his +clouded senses that the past six months of wandering and unsavory +adventure were a dream. There was his bed, with its clean linen sheets +and soft pillows. How he would like to lie down just as he was and sleep +a full round of the clock! Last night he had slept--where had he slept? +He had forgotten for the moment. He looked longingly at the spotless +coverlid. No; some one might appear, and it would not do to be seen in +his present condition. It was scarcely ten. Time enough for that +afterward. + +He drew out the drawer of a chiffonier, opened a closet and gloated over +the order and plenty of their contents. He made difficult selection from +these, and, steadying his progress by wall and chair, opened the door of +an adjoining bath-room. It contained a circular bath with a needle +shower. Without removing his clothing, he climbed into this, balancing +himself with an effort, found and turned the cold faucet, and let the +icy water, chilled from artesian depths, trickle over him in a hundred +stinging needle-points. + + +It was a very different figure that reentered the larger room a +half-hour later, from the slinking mud-lark that had climbed the +rose-trellis. The old Hugh lay, a heap of soiled and sodden garments; +the new stood forth shaven, fragrant with fresh linen and clean and fit +apparel. The maudlin had vanished, the gaze was unvexed and bright, the +whole man seemed to have settled into himself, to have grown trim, +nonchalant, debonair. He held up his hand, palm outward, between the +electric globe and his eye--there was not a tremor of nerve or muscle. +He smiled. No headache, no fever, no uncertain feet or trembling hands +or swollen tongue, after more than a week of deep potations. He could +still "sober-up" as he used to do (with Blake the butler to help him) +when it had been a mere matter of an evening's tipsiness! And how fine +it felt to be decently clad again! + +He crossed to a cheval-glass. The dark handsome face that looked out at +him was clean-cut and aristocratic, perfect save for one blemish--a pale +line that slanted across the right brow, a birth-mark, resembling a +scar. All his life this mark had been an eyesore to its owner. It had a +trick of turning an evil red under the stress of anger or emotion. + +On the features, young and vigorous as they were, subtle lines of +self-indulgence had already set themselves, and beneath their +expression, cavalier and caressing, lay the unmistakable stigmata of +inherited weakness. But these the gazer did not see. He regarded himself +with egotistic complacency. Here he was, just as sound as ever. He had +had his fling, and taught "the Governor" that he could get along well +enough without any paternal help if he chose. Needs must when the devil +drives, but his father should never guess the coarse and desperate +expediences that had sickened him of his bargain, or the stringent +calculation of his return. He was no milksop, either, to come sneaking +to him with his hat in his hand. When he saw him now, he would be +dressed as the gentleman he was! + +He attentively surveyed the room. It was clean and dusted--evidently it +had been carefully tended. He might have stepped out of it yesterday. +There in a corner was his banjo. On the edge of a silver tray was a +half-consumed cigar. It crumbled between his fingers. He had been +smoking that cigar when his father had entered the room on that last +night. There, too, was the deck of cards he had angrily flung on to the +table when he left. Not a thing had been disturbed--yes, one thing. His +portrait, that had hung over his bed, was not in its place. A momentary +sense of trepidation rushed through him. Could his father really have +meant all he had said in his rage? Did he really mean to disown him? + +For an instant he faced the hall door with clenched hands. Somewhere in +the house, unconscious of his presence, was that ward of whose coming he +had learned. Moreau was a good friend to have warned him! Was she part +of a plan of reprisal--her presence there a tentative threat to him? +Could his father mean to adopt her? Might that great house, those +grounds, the bulk of his wealth, go to her, and he, the son, be left in +the cold? He shivered. Perhaps he had stayed away too long! + +[Illustration] + +As he turned again, he heard a sound in the hall. He listened. A light +step was approaching--the swish of a gown. With a sudden impulse he +stepped into the embrasure of the window, as the figure of a girl paused +at the door. He felt his face flush; she had thrown a crimson kimono +over her white night-gown, and the apparition seemed to part the dusk of +the doorway like the red breast of a robin. She held in her hands a +bunch of the pale _Marechal Niel_ roses, and his eye caught the long +rebellious sweep of her bronze hair, and the rosy tint of bare feet +through the worsted meshes of her night-slippers. + +To his wonder the sight of the lighted room seemed to cause her no +surprise. For an instant she stood still as though listening, then +entered and placed the roses in a vase on a reading-stand by the +bedside. + +Hugh gasped. To reach the stand the girl had passed the spot where he +stood, but she had taken no note of him. Her gaze had gone by him as if +he had been empty air. Then he realized the truth; Jessica Holme was +blind! Moreau's letter had given him no inkling of that. So this was the +girl with whom his father now threatened him! Was she counting on his +not coming back, waiting for the windfall? She was blind--but she was +beautiful! Suppose he were to turn the tables on the old man, not only +climb back into his good graces through her, but even-- + +The thin line on his brow sprang suddenly scarlet. What a supple, +graceful arm she had! How adroit her fingers as they arranged the +rose-stems! Was he already wholly blackened in her opinion? What did she +think of him? Why did she bring those flowers to that empty room? Could +it have been she who had kept it clean and fresh and unaltered against +his return? A confident, daring look grew in his eyes; he wished she +could see him in that purple tie and velvet smoking-jacket! What an +opportunity for a romantic self-justification! Should he speak? Suppose +it should frighten her? + +Chance answered him. His respiration had conveyed to her the knowledge +of a presence in the room. He heard her draw a quick breath. "Some one +is here!" she whispered. + +He started forward. "Wait! wait!" he said in a loud whisper, as she +sprang back. But the voice seemed to startle her the more, and before he +could reach her side she was gone. He heard her flying steps descend the +stair, and the opening and closing of a door. + +The sudden flight jarred Hugh's pleasurable sense of novelty. He thrust +his hands deep into his pockets. Now he was in for it! She would alarm +the house, rouse the servants--he should have a staring, domestic +audience for the imminent reconciliation his sobered sense told him was +so necessary. Why could he not slip back into the old rut, he thought +sullenly, without such a boring, perfunctory ceremony? He had intended +to postpone this, if possible, until a night's sleep had fortified him. +But now the sooner the ordeal was over, the better! Shrugging his +shoulders, he went quickly down the stair to the library. + +He had known exactly what he should see there--the vivid girl with the +hue of fright in her cheeks, the shaded lamp, the wheel-chair, and the +feeble old man with his furrowed face and gray mustaches. What he +himself should say he had not had time to reflect. + +The figure in the chair looked up as the door opened. "Hugh!" he cried, +and half lifted himself from his seat. Then he settled back, and the +sunken, indomitable eyes fastened themselves on his son's face. + +Hugh was melodramatic--cheaply so. He saw the girl start at the name, +saw her hands catch at the kimono to draw its folds over the bare white +throat, saw the rich color that flooded her brow. He saw himself +suddenly the moving hero of the stagery, the tractive force of the +situation. Real tears came to his eyes--tears of insincere feeling, due +partly to the cheap whisky he had drunk that day, whose outward +consequences he had so drastically banished, and partly to sheer nervous +excitation. + +"Father!" he said, and came and caught the gaunt hand that shook against +the chair. + +Then the deeps of the old man's heart were suddenly broken up. "My son!" +he cried, and threw his arms about him. "Hugh--my boy, my boy!" + +Jessica waited to hear no more. Thrilling with gladness, and flushing +with the sudden recollection of her bare throat and feet, she slipped +away to her room to creep into bed and lie wide-eyed and thinking. + +What did he look like? Of his face she had never seen even a counterfeit +presentment. Through what adventures had he passed? Now that he had come +home, forgiving and forgiven, would he stay? He had been in his room +when she entered it with the roses--must have guessed, if he had not +already known, that she was blind. Would he guess that she had cared for +that room, had placed fresh flowers there often and often? + +Since she had come to the house in the aspens Jessica had found the +imagined figure of Hugh a dominant presence in a horizon lightened with +a throng of new impressions. The direful catastrophe of her +blindness--it had been the sudden result of an accident--had fallen like +a thunderbolt upon a nature elastic and joyous. It had brought her face +to face with a revelation of mental agony, made her feel herself the +hapless martyr of that curt thing called Chance; one moment seeing a +universe unfolding before her in line and hue, the next feeling it +thrust rudely behind a gruesome blank of darkness. The two years that +followed had been a period when despair had covered her; when +specialists had peered with cunning instruments into her darkened eyes, +to utter hopeful platitudes--and to counsel not at all. Then into her +own painful self-absorption had intruded her father's death, and the +very hurt of this, perhaps, had been a salving one. It had of necessity +changed her whole course of living. In her new surroundings she had +taken up life once more. Her alert imagination had begun to stir, to +turn diffidently to new channels of exploration and interest. She had +always lived largely in books and pictures, and her world was still full +of ideals and of brave adventures. Gratitude had made her love the +morose old invalid with his crabbed tempers; and the wandering son, +choosing for pride's sake a resourceless battle with the world--the +very mystery of his whereabouts--had taken strong hold of her +imagination. Of the quarrel which had preceded Hugh's departure, she had +made her own version. That he should have come back on this very night, +when the disinheritance she had dreaded had been so nearly consummated, +seemed now to have an especial and an appealing significance. + +Presently she rose, slipped on the red kimono, and, taking a key from +the pocket of her gown, stole from the room. She ascended a stairway and +unlocked the door of a wide, bare attic where the moonlight poured +through a skylight in the roof upon an unfinished statue. In this statue +she had begun to fashion, in the imagined figure of Hugh, her conception +of the Prodigal Son; not the battered and husk-filled wayfarer of the +parable, but a figure of character and pathos, erring through youthful +pride and spirit. The unfinished clay no eyes had seen, for those walls +bounded her especial domain. + +Carefully, one by one, she unwound the wet cloths that swathed the +figure. In the streaming radiance of the night, the clay looked white as +snow and she a crimson ghost. She passed her fingers lightly over the +features. Was the real Hugh's face like that? One day, perhaps, her own +eyes would tell her, and she would finish it. Then she might show it to +him, but not now. + +She replaced the coverings, relocked the door, and went softly down to +her bed. + + +When Hugh went shamefacedly up the stair from the library, the +artificial glow that had tingled to his finger-tips had faded. The poise +of mind, the certitude of all the faculties of eye and hand that his icy +bath had given him, were yielding. The penalties he had dislodged were +returning reinforced. He was rapidly becoming drunk. + +He groped his way to his room, turned out the light, threw himself fully +dressed upon the bed, and slept the deep sleep of deferred intoxication. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING + + +On a June day a month later, Harry Sanderson sat in his study, looking +out of the window across the dim summer haze of heat, negligently +smoking. On the distant hill overlooking the town was the cemetery, +flanked by fields of growing corn where sulky, round-shouldered crows +quarrelled and pilfered. He could see the long white marl road, bending +in a broad curve between clover-stippled meadows, to skirt the +willow-green bluff above the river. There, miles away, on the high bank, +he could distinguish the railroad bridge, a long black skeleton spanning +"the hole," a deep, fish-haunted pool, the deepest spot in the river for +fifty miles. From the nearer, elm-shaded streets came the muffled clack +of trade and the discordant treble of a huckster, somewhere a +trolley-bell was buzzing angrily, and the impudent scream of a blue jay +sheared across the monotone. Harry's gaze went past the streets--past +the open square, with its chapel spire lifting from a beryl sea of +foliage--to a white colonial porch, peering from between aspens that +quivered in the tremulous sunlight. + +The dog on the rug rose, stretching, and came to thrust an eager +insinuating muzzle into its master's lap. Rummy whined, the stubby tail +wagged, but his master paid no heed, and with dejected ears, he slunk +out into the sunshine. Harry was looking, with brows gathered to a +frown, at the far-away porch. The look was full of a troubled question, +a vague misgiving, an interrogative anxiety. He was thinking of a night +when he had saved the son of that house from the calamity of +disinheritance--to what end? + +For since that moonlighted evening of the will-making Harry had learned +that the long lane had had no true turning for Hugh. He had sifted him +through and through. At college he had put him down for a +weakling--unballasted, misdemeanant. Now he knew him for what he really +was--a moral mollusk, a scamp in embryo, a decadent, realizing an ugly +propensity to a deplorable _finale_. A consistent career of loose living +had carried Hugh far since those college days when he had been dubbed +"Satan's Shadow." While to Harry Sanderson the eccentric and agnostical +had then been, as it were, the mask through which his temperament looked +at life, to Hugh it had spelled shipwreck. Harry Sanderson had done +broadly as he pleased. He had entertained whom he listed; had gone +"slumming"; had once boxed to a finish, for a wager, a local pugilist +whose acquaintance he affected, known as "Gentleman Jim." He had been +both the hardest hitter and the hardest drinker in his class, yet withal +its most brilliant student. Native character had enabled him to persist, +as the exasperating function of success which dissipation declined to +eliminate. But the same natural gravitation which in spite of all +aberration had given Harry Sanderson classical honors, had brought Hugh +Stires to the imminent brink of expulsion. And since that time, without +the character which belonged to Harry as a possession, Hugh had +continued to drift aimlessly on down the broad lax way of profligacy. + +The conditions he found upon his return, however, had opened Hugh's eyes +to the perilous strait in which he stood. He was a materialist, and the +taste he had had of deprivation had sickened him. In the first +revulsion, when the contrast between recent famine and present plenty +was strong upon him, he had been at anxious pains to make himself secure +with his father--and with Jessica Holme. Harry's mental sight--keen as +the hunter's sight on the rifle-barrel--was sharpened by his knowledge +of the old Hugh, an intuitive knowledge gained in a significant +formative period. He saw more clearly than the townfolk who, in a +general way, had known Hugh Stires all their lives. Week by week Harry +had seen him regain lost ground in his father's esteem; day by day he +had seen him making studious appeal to all that was romantic in Jessica, +climbing to the favor of each on the ladder of the other's regard. Hugh +was naturally a _poseur_, with a keen sense of effect. He could be +brilliant at will, could play a little on piano, banjo and violin, could +sing a little, and had himself well in hand. And feeling the unconscious +cord of romance vibrate to his touch, he had played upon it with no +unskilful fingers. + +Jessica was comparatively free from that coquetry by means of which a +woman's instinct experiments in emotion. Although she had been artist +enough before the cloistered years of her blindness to know that she was +comely, she had never employed that beauty in the ordinary blandishments +of girlish fascination. But steadily and unconsciously she had turned in +her darkness more and more to the bright and tender air with which Hugh +clothed all their intercourse. Her blindness had been of too short +duration to have developed that fine sense-perception with which nature +seeks to supplement the darkened vision. The ineradicable marks which +ill-governed living had set in Hugh's face--the self-indulgence and +egotism--she could not see. She mistook impulse for instinct. She read +him by the untrustworthy light of a colorful imagination. She deemed him +high-spirited and debonair, a Prince Charming, whose prideful rebellion +had been atoned for by a touching and manly surrender. + +All this Harry had watched with a painful sense of impotence, and this +feeling was upon him to-day as he stared out from the study toward the +white porch, glistening in the sun. + +At length, with a little gesture expressive at once of helplessness and +puzzle, he turned from the window, took his violin and began to play. He +began a barcarole, but the music wandered away, through insensible +variations, into a moving minor, a composition of his own. + +It broke off suddenly at a dog's fierce snarl from the yard, and the +rattle of a thrown pebble. Immediately a knock came at the door, and a +man entered. + +"Don't stop," said the new-comer. "I've dropped in for only a minute! +That's an ill-tempered little brute of yours! If I were you, I'd get rid +of him." + +Harry Sanderson laid the violin carefully in its case and shut the lid +before he answered. "Rummy is impulsive," he said dryly. "How is your +father to-day, Hugh?" + +The other tapped the toe of his shining patent-leather with his cane as +he said with a look of ill-humor: + +"About as well as usual. He's planning now to put me in business, and +expects me to become a staid pillar of society--'like Sanderson,' as he +says forty times a week. How do you do it, Harry? There isn't an old +lady in town who thinks her parlor carpet half good enough for you to +walk on! You're only a month older than I am, yet you can wind the whole +vestry, and the bishop to boot, around your finger!" + +"I wasn't aware of the idolatry." Harry laughed a little--a distant +laugh. "You are observant, Hugh." + +"Oh, anybody can see it. I'd like to know how you do it. It was always +so with you, even at college. You could do pretty much as you liked, and +yet be popular, too. Why, there was never a jamboree complete without +you and your violin at the head of the table." + +"That is a long time ago," said Harry. + +"More than four years. Four years and a month to-morrow, since that last +evening of college. Yet I imagine it will be longer before we forget it! +I think of it still, sometimes, in the night--" Hugh went on more +slowly,--"that last dinner of The Saints, and poor Archie singing with +that wobbly smilax wreath over one eye and the claret spilled down his +shirt-front--then the sudden silence like a wet blanket! I can see him +yet, when his head dropped. He seemed to shrivel right up in his chair. +How horrible to die like that! I didn't touch a drink for a month +afterward!" He shivered slightly, and walked to the window. + +Harry did not speak. The words had torn the network of the past as +sheet-lightning tears the summer dusk; had called up a ghost that he had +labored hard to lay--a memory-specter of a select coterie whose wild +days and nights had once revolved about him as its central sun. The +sharp tragedy of that long-ago evening had been the awakening. The +swift, appalling catastrophe had crashed into his career at the pivotal +moment. It had shocked him from his orbit and set him to the +right-about-face. And the moral _bouleversement_ had carried him, in +abrupt recoil, into the ministry. + +An odd confusion blurred his vision. Perhaps to cover this, he crossed +the room to a small private safe which stood open in the corner, in +which he kept his tithes and his charities. When Hugh, shrugging his +shoulders as if to dismiss the unwelcome picture he had painted, turned +again, Harry was putting into it some papers from his pocket. Hugh saw +the action; his eyes fastened on the safe avidly. + +"I say," he said after a moment's pause, as Harry made to shut its door, +"can you loan me another fifty? I'm flat on my uppers again, and the +old man has been tight as nails with me since I came back. I'm sure to +be able to return it with the rest, in a week or two." + +Harry stretched his hand again toward the safe--then drew it back with +compressed lips. He had met Hugh with persistent courtesy, and the other +had found him sufficiently obliging with loans. Of late, however, his +nerves had been on edge. The patent calculation of Hugh's course had +sickened, and his flippant cynicism had jarred and disconcerted him. A +growing sense of security, too, had made Hugh less circumspect. More +than once during the past month Harry had seen him issue from the +shadowed door whose upper panel held the little barred window--the door +at which Doctor Moreau had entrance, though decent doors were closed in +his face. + +Hugh's lowered gaze saw the arrested movement and his cheek flushed. + +"Oh, if it's inconvenient, I won't trouble you for the accommodation," +he said. "I dare say I can raise it." + +The attempt at nonchalance cost him a palpable effort. Comparatively +small as the amount was, he needed it. He was in sore straits. By hook +or crook he must stave off an evil day whose approach he knew not how to +meet. + +"It isn't that it is inconvenient, Hugh," said Harry. "It's that I +can't approve your manner of living lately, and--I don't know where the +fifty is going." + +The mark on Hugh's brow reddened. "I wasn't aware that I was expected to +render you an accounting," he said sulkily, "if I do borrow a dollar or +two now and then! What if I play cards, and drink a little when I'm dry? +I've got to have a bit of amusement once in a while between prayers. You +liked it yourself well enough, before you discovered a sudden talent for +preaching!" + +"Some men hide their talents under a napkin," said Harry. "You drown +yours--in a bottle. You have been steadily going downhill. You are +deceiving your father--and others--with a pretended reform which isn't +skin-deep! You have made them believe you are living straight, when you +are carousing; that you keep respectable company, when you have taken up +with a besotted and discredited gambler!" + +"I suppose you mean Doctor Moreau," returned Hugh. "There are plenty of +people in town who are worse than he is." + +"He is a quack--dropped from the hospital staff for addiction to drugs, +and expelled from his club for cheating at cards." + +"He's down and out," said Hugh sullenly, "and any cur can bite him. He +never cheated me, and I find him better company than your sanctimonious, +psalm-singing sort. I'm not going to give him the cold shoulder because +everybody else does. I never went back on a friend yet. I'm not that +sort!" + +A steely look had come to Harry Sanderson's eyes; he was thinking of the +house in the aspens. While he talked, shooting pictures had been +flashing through his mind. Now, at the boast of this eager protester of +loyalty, this recreant who "never went back on a friend," his face set +like a flint. + +"You never had a friend, Hugh," he said steadily. "You never really +loved anybody or anything but yourself. You are utterly selfish. You are +deliberately lying, every hour you live, to those who love you. You are +playing a part--for your own ends! You were only a good imitation of a +good fellow at college. You are a poor imitation of a man of honor now." + +Hugh rose to his feet, as he answered hotly: "And what are you, I'd like +to know? Just because I take my pleasure as I please, while you choose +to make a stained-glass cherub of yourself, is no reason why I'm not +just as good as you! I knew you well enough before you set up for such a +pattern. You didn't go in much then for a theological diet. Pshaw!" he +went on, snapping his fingers toward the well-stocked book-shelves. "I +wonder how much of all that you really believe!" + +Harry passed the insolence of the remark. He flecked a bit of dust from +his sleeve before he answered, smiling a little disdainfully: + +"And how much do _you_ believe, Hugh?" + +"I believe in running my own affairs, and letting other people run +theirs! I don't believe in talking cant, and posing as a +little-tin-god-on-wheels! If I lived in a glass-house, I'd be precious +careful not to throw stones!" + +Harry Sanderson was staring at him curiously now--a stare of singular +inquiry. This shallow witness of his youthful misconduct, then, judged +him by himself; deemed him a mere masquerader in the domino of decorous +life, carrying the reckless and vicious humors of his nonage into the +wider issues of living, and clothing an arrant hypocrisy under the habit +of one of God's ministers! + +The elastic weight of air in the study seemed suddenly grown +suffocating. He reached and flung open the chapel door, and stood +looking across the choir, through the mellow light of the duskily tinted +nave, solemn as with the hush of past prayer. On this interior had been +lavished the special love of the invalid, who had given of his riches +that this place for the comfort of souls might be. It was an expanse of +dim colors and dark woodwork. At its eastern end was the high altar, +with tall flowers in stately gilt vases on either side, and a brass +lectern glimmered near-by. In the western wall was set a great +rose-window of rich stained glass--a picture of the eternal tragedy of +Calvary. As Harry stood gazing into the mellow light, Hugh paced moodily +up and down behind him. Suddenly he caught Harry's arm and pointed. + +Harry turned and looked. + +Above the mantel was set a mirror, and from where they stood, this +reflected Hugh's face. It startled Harry, for some trick of the +atmosphere, or the sunlight falling through the painted glass, +lightening the sallow face and leaving the hair in deeper shade--as a +cunning painter by a single line will alter a whole physiognomy--had for +the instant wiped out all superficial unresemblance and left a weird +likeness. As Hugh's mocking countenance looked from the oval frame, +Harry had a queer sensation as if he were looking at his own face, with +some indefinable smear of attaint upon it--the trail of evil. As he drew +away from the other's touch, his eye followed the bar of amber light to +the rose-window in the chapel; it was falling through the face of the +unrepentant thief. + +The movement broke the spell. When he looked again the eerie impression +of identity was gone. + +Hugh had felt the recoil. "Not complimented, eh?" he said with a +half-sneer. "Too bad the prodigal should resemble Satan Sanderson, the +fashionable parish rector who waves his arms so gracefully in the +pulpit, and preaches such nice little sermons! You didn't mind it so +much in the old days! Pardon me," he added with malice, "I forgot. It's +the 'Reverend Henry' at present, of course! I imagine your friends don't +call you 'Satan' now." + +"No," returned Harry quietly. "They don't call me 'Satan' now!" + +He went back to the safe. + +The movement set Hugh instantly to regretting his hasty tongue. If he +had only assumed penitence, instead of flying into a passion, he might +have had the money he wanted just as well as not! + +"There's no sense in us two quarrelling," he said hastily. "We've been +friends a long time. I'm sure I didn't intend to when I came in. I +suppose you're right about some things, and probably dropping Moreau +wouldn't hurt me any. I'm sorry I said all I did. Only--the money +seemed such a little thing, and I--I needed it." + +Harry stood an instant with his hand on the knob, then instead of +closing the door, he drew out a little drawer. He lifted a packet of +crisp yellow-backs and slowly counted out one hundred dollars. "I'm +trying to believe you mean what you say, Hugh," he said. + +Hugh's fingers closed eagerly over the crackling notes. "Now that's +white of you, after everything I said! You're a good fellow, Harry, +after all, and I'll always say so. I wish Old Gooseberry was half as +decent in a money way. He seems to think fifty dollars a week is plenty +till I marry and settle down. He talks of retiring then, and I suppose +he'll come down handsomely, and give me a chance to look my debts in the +face." He pocketed the money with an air of relief and picked up his hat +and cane. + +Just then from the dusty street came the sound of carriage-wheels and +the click of the gate-latch. + +"It's Bishop Ludlow," he said, glancing through the window. "He's coming +in. I think I'll slip out the side way. Thanks for the loan and--I'll +think over what you've said!" + +Avoiding the bishop, Hugh stepped toward the gate. The money was in his +pocket. Well, one of these days he would not have to grovel for a +paltry fifty dollars! He would be his own master, and could afford to +let Harry Sanderson and everybody else think what they liked. + +"So I'm playing a part, am I!" he said to himself. "Why should your +Holiness trouble yourself over it, if I am! Not because you're so +careful of the Governor's feelings; not by a long shot! It's because you +choose to think Jessica Holme is too good for me! That's where the shoe +pinches! Perhaps you'd like to play at that game yourself, eh?" + +He walked jauntily up the street--toward the door with the little barred +window. + +"The old man is fond of her. He thinks I mean to settle down and let the +moss grow over my ears, and he'll do the proper thing. It'll be a good +way to put my head above water and keep it there. It must be soon, +though!" A smile came to his face, a pretentious, boastful smile, and +his shining patent-leathers stepped more confidently. "She's the +finest-looking girl in this town, even without her eyes. She may get +back her sight sometime. But even if she doesn't, blindness in a wife +might not be such a bad thing, after all!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE BISHOP SPEAKS + + +Inside the study, meanwhile, the bishop was greeting Harry Sanderson. He +had officiated at his ordination and liked him. His eyes took in the +simple order of the room, lingering with a light tinge of disapproval +upon the violin case in the corner, and with a deeper shade of question +upon the jewel on the other's finger--a pigeon-blood ruby in a setting +curiously twisted of the two initial letters of his name. + +There came to his mind for an instant a whisper of early prodigalities +and wildnesses which he had heard. For the lawyer who had listened to +Harry Sanderson's recital on the night of the making of the will had not +considered it a professional disclosure. He had thought it a "good +story," and had told it at his club, whence it had percolated at leisure +through the heavier strata of town-talk. The tale, however, had seemed +rather to increase than to discourage popular interest in Harry +Sanderson. The bishop knew that those whose approval had been withheld +were in the hopeless minority, and that even these could not have denied +that he possessed desirable qualities--a manner by turns sparkling and +grave, picturesqueness in the pulpit, and the unteachable tone of +blood--and had infused new life into a generally sleepy parish. He had +dismissed the whisper with a smile, but oddly enough it recurred to him +now at sight of the ruby ring. + +"I looked in to tell you a bit of news," said the bishop. "I've just +come from David Stires--he has a letter from Van Lennap, the great +eye-surgeon of Vienna. He disagrees with the rest of them--thinks +Jessica's case may not be hopeless." + +The cloud that Hugh's call had left on Harry's countenance lifted. + +"Thank God!" he said. "Will she go to him?" + +The bishop looked at him curiously, for the exclamation seemed to hold +more than a conventional relief. + +"He is to be in America next month. He will come here then to examine, +and perhaps to operate. An exceptional girl," went on the bishop, "with +a remarkable talent! The angel in the chapel porch, I suppose you know, +is her modelling, though that isn't just masculine enough in feature to +suit me. The Scriptures are silent on the subject of woman-angels in +Heaven; though, mind you, I don't say they're not common on earth!" The +bishop chuckled mildly at his own epigram. + +"Poor child!" he continued more soberly. "It will be a terrible thing +for her if this last hope fails her, too! Especially now, when she and +Hugh are to make a match of it." + +Harry's face was turned away, or the bishop would have seen it suddenly +startled. "To make a match of it!" To hide the flush he felt staining +his cheek, Harry bent to close the safe. A something that had darkled in +some obscure depth of his being, whose existence he had not guessed, was +throbbing now to a painful resentment. Jessica was to marry Hugh! + +"A handsome fellow--Hugh!" said the bishop. "He seems to have returned +with a new heart--a brand plucked from the burning. You had the same +_alma mater_, I think you told me. Your influence has done the boy good, +Sanderson!" He laid his hand kindly on the other's shoulder. "The fact +that you were in college together makes him look up to you--as the whole +parish does," he added. + +Harry was setting the combination, and did not answer. But through the +turmoil in his brain a satiric voice kept repeating: + +"No, they don't call me 'Satan' now!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +WHAT CAME OF A WEDDING + + +The white house in the aspens was in gala attire. Flowers--great banks +of bloom--were massed in the hall, along the stairway and in the +window-seats, and wreaths of delicate fern trembled on the prim-hung +chandeliers. Over all breathed the sweet fragrance of jasmin. Musicians +sat behind a screen of palms in a corridor, and a long scarlet carpet +strip ran down the front steps to the driveway, up which passed bravely +dressed folk, arriving in carriages and on foot, to witness the +completion of a much-booted romance. + +For a fortnight this afternoon's event had been the chat of the town, +for David Stires, who to-day retired from active business, was its +magnate, the owner of its finest single estate and of its most important +bank. From his scapegrace boyhood Hugh Stires had made himself the +subject of uncomfortable discussion. His sudden disappearance after the +rumored quarrel with his father, and the advent of Jessica Holme, had +furnished the community sufficient material for gossip. The wedding had +capped this gossip with an appropriate climax. Tongues had wagged over +its pros and cons--for Hugh's past had induced a wholesome skepticism of +his future. But the carping were willing to let bygones be bygones, and +the wiseacres, to whose experience marriage stood as a sedative for the +harum-scarum, augured well. + +There was an additional element of romance, too, in the situation; for +Jessica, who had never yet seen her lover, would see her husband. The +great surgeon on whose prognostication she had built so much, had +arrived and had operated. He was not alone an eminent consultant in +diagnosis, but an operator of masterly precision, whose daring of +scalpel had made him well-nigh a last resort in the delicate +adventurings of eye surgery. The experiment had been completely +successful, and Jessica's hope of vision had become a sure and certain +promise. + +To see once again! To walk free and careless! To mold the plastic clay +into the shapes that thronged her brain! To finish the statue which she +had never yet shown to any one, in the great sky-lighted attic! To see +flowers, and the sunset, the new green of the trees in spring, and the +sparkle of the snow in winter, and people's faces!--to see Hugh! That +had been at the core of her thought when it reeled dizzily back from +the merciful oblivion of the anesthetic, to touch the strange gauze +wrappings on her eyes--the tight bandage that must stay for so long, +while nature plied her silent medicaments of healing. + +Meanwhile the accepted lover had become the importunate one. The +operation over, there had remained many days before the bandages could +be removed--before Jessica could be given her first glimpse of the world +for nearly three years. Hugh had urged against delay. If he had +stringent reasons of his own, he was silent concerning them. And +Jessica, steeped in the delicious wonder of new and inchoate sensations, +had yielded. + +So it had come about that the wedding was to be on this hot August +afternoon, although it would be yet some time before the eye-bandages +might be laid aside, save in a darkened room. In her girlish, passionate +ideality, Jessica had offered a sacrifice to her sentiment. She had +promised herself that the first form her new sight should behold should +be, not her lover, but her husband! The idea pleased her sense of +romance. So, hugging the fancy, she had denied herself. She was to see +Hugh for the first time in a shaded room, after the glare and nervous +excitement of the ceremony. + +Gossip had heard and had seized upon this tidbit with relish. The blind +marriage--a bride with hoodwinked eyes, who had never seen the man she +was to marry--the moment's imperfect vision of him, a poor dole for +memory to carry into the honeymoon--these ingredients had given the +occasion a titillating sense of the extraordinary and romantic, and +sharpened the buzz of the waiting guests, as they whiled away the +irksome minutes. + +It was a sweltering afternoon, and in the wide east parlor, limp +handkerchiefs and energetic fans fought vainly against the intolerable +heat. There, as the clock struck six, a hundred pairs of eyes galloped +between two centers of interest: the door at which the bride would +enter, and the raised platform at the other end of the room where, +prayer-book in hand, in his wide robes and flowing sleeves, Harry +Sanderson had just taken his stand. Perhaps more looked at Harry than at +the door. + +He seemed his usual magnetic self as he stood there, backed by the +flowers, his waving brown hair unsmoothed, the ruby-ring glowing +dull-red against the dark leather of the book he held. Few felt it much +a matter of regret that the humdrum and less personable Bishop of the +Diocese should be away at convocation, since the young rector furnished +the final esthetic touch to a perfectly appointed function. But Harry +Sanderson was far from feeling the grave, alien, figure he appeared. In +the past weeks he had waged a silent warfare with himself, bitterer +because repressed. The strange new thing that had sprung up in him he +had trampled mercilessly under. From the thought that he loved the +promised wife of another, a quick, fastidious sense in him recoiled +abashed. This painful struggle had been sharpened by his sense of Hugh's +utter worthlessness. To that rustling assemblage, the man who was to +make those solemn promises was David Stires' son, who had had his fling, +turned over his new leaf becomingly, and was now offering substantial +hostages to good repute. To him, Harry Sanderson, he was a _flaneur_, a +marginless gambler in the futures of his father's favor and a woman's +heart. He had shrunk from the ceremony, but circumstances had +constrained him. There had been choice only between an evasion--to which +he would not stoop--and a flat refusal, the result of which would have +been a footless scandal--ugly town-talk--a sneer at himself and his +motives--a quietus, possibly, to his whole career. + +So now he stood to face a task which was doubly painful, but which he +would go through with to the bitter end! + +Only a moment Harry stood waiting; then the palm-screened musicians +began the march, and Hugh took his place, animated and assured, looking +the flushed and expectant bridegroom. At the same instant the +chattering and hubbub ceased; Jessica, on the arm of the old man, erect +but walking feebly with his cane, was advancing down the roped lane. + +She was in simple white, the point-lace on the frock an heirloom. Her +bronze hair was drawn low, hiding much of the disfiguring bandage, under +which her lips were parted in a half-smile, human, intimate and eager, +full of the hope and intoxication of living. + +Harry's eyes dropped to the opened book, though he knew the office by +heart. He spoke the time-worn adjuration with clear enunciation, with +almost perfunctory distinctness. He did not look at Hugh. + +"_If any man can show just cause why they may not lawfully be joined +together, let him speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace._" In +the pause--the slightest pause--that turned the page, he felt an insane +prompting to tear off his robes, to proclaim to this roomful of heated, +gaping, fan-fluttering humanity, that he himself, a minister of the +gospel, the celebrant of the rite, knew "just cause"! + +The choking impulse passed. The periods rolled on--the long white glove +was slipped from the hand, the ring put on the finger, and the pair, +whom God and Harry Sanderson had joined together, were kneeling on the +white satin prie-dieu with bowed heads under the final invocation. As +they knelt, choir voices rose: + + + "O perfect love, all human thought transcending, + Lowly we kneel in prayer before Thy throne--" + + +Then, while the music lingered, the hush of the room broke in a confused +murmur; the white ribbon-wound ropes were let down, and a voluble wave +of congratulators swept over the spot. In a moment more Harry found +himself laying off his robes in the next room. + +With a sigh of relief, he stepped through the wide French window into +the garden, fresh with the scent of growing things and the humid odors +of the soil. The twitter and bustle he had left came painfully out to +him, and a whiff of evening coolness breathed through the oppressive +air. The strain over, he longed for the solitude of his study. But David +Stires had asked him to remain for a final word, since bride and groom +were to leave on an early evening train; the old man was to accompany +them a part of the journey, and "the Stires place" was to be closed for +an indefinite period. Harry found a bench and sat down, where camelias +dropped like blood. + +What would Jessica suffer in the inevitable awakening, when the tinted +petals of her dreams were shattered and strewn? For the first time he +looked down through his sore sense of outrage and protest to deeps in +himself--as a diver peers through a water-glass to the depths of a river +troubled and opaque, dimly descrying vague shapes of ill. Poetry, +passion and dreams had been his also, but he had dreamed too late! + +It was not long before the sound of gay voices and of carriage-wheels +came around the corner of the house, for the reception was to be +curtailed. There had been neither bridesmaids nor groomsmen, and there +was no skylarking on the cards; the guests, who on lesser occasions +would have lingered to throw rice and old shoes, departed from the house +in the aspens with primness and dignity. + +One by one he heard the carriages roll down the graveled driveway. A +bicycle careened across the lawn from a side-gate, carrying a bank +messenger--the last shaft of commerce before old David Stires washed his +tenacious mind of business. A few moments later the messenger reappeared +and rode away whistling. A last chime of voices talking together--Harry +could distinguish Hugh's voice now--and at length quiet told him the +last of the guests were gone. Thinking that he would now see his old +friends for a last farewell, he rose and went slowly back through the +French window. + +The east room was empty, save for servants who were gathering some of +the cut flowers for themselves. He stood aimlessly for a few moments +looking about him. A white carnation lay at the foot of the dais, fallen +from Jessica's shower-bouquet. He picked this up, abstractedly smelled +its perfume, and drew the stem through his buttonhole. Then, passing +into the next room, he found his robes leisurely and laid them by--he +had now only to embellish the sham with his best wishes! + +All at once he heard voices in the library. He opened the door and +entered. + +Harry Sanderson stopped stock-still. In the room sat old David Stires in +his wheel-chair opposite his son. He was deadly pale, and his fierce +eyes blazed like fire in tinder. And what a Hugh! Not the indolently gay +prodigal Harry had known in the past, nor the flushed bridegroom of a +half-hour ago! It was a cringing, a hang-dog Hugh now; with a slinking +dread in the face--a trembling of the hands--a tense expectation in the +posture. The thin line across his brow was a livid pallor. His eyes +lifted to Harry's for an instant, then returned in a kind of fascination +to a slip of paper on the desk, on which his father's forefinger rested, +like a nail transfixing an animate infamy. + +"Sanderson," said the old man in a low, hoarse, unnatural voice, "come +in and shut the door. God forgive us--we have married Jessica to a +common thief! Hugh--my son, my only child, whom I have forgiven beyond +all reckoning--has forged my name to a draft for five thousand dollars!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +OUT OF THE DARK + + +For a moment there was dead silence in the room. In the hall the tall +clock struck ponderously, and a porch blind slammed beneath a +caretaker's hand. Harry's breath caught in his throat, and the old man's +eye again impaled his hapless son. + +Hugh threw up his head with an attempt at jauntiness, but with furtive +apprehension in every muscle--for he could not solve the look he saw on +his father's face--and said: + +"You act as if it were a cool million! I'm no worse than a lot who have +better luck than I. Suppose I did draw the five thousand?--you were +going to give me ten for a wedding present. I had to have the money +then, and you wouldn't have given it to me. You know that as well as I +do. Besides, I was going to take it up myself and you would never have +been the wiser. He promised to hold it--it's a low trick for him to +round on me like this. I'll pay him off for it sometime! I don't see +that it's anybody else's business but ours, anyway," he continued, with +a surly glance at Harry. + +Harry had been staring at him, but with a vision turned curiously +backward--a vision that seemed to see Hugh standing at a carpeted dais +in a flower-hung room, while his own voice said out of a lurid shadow: +"_Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband...._" + +"Stay, Sanderson," said the old man; then turning to Hugh: "Who advanced +you money on this and promised to 'hold it'?" + +"Doctor Moreau." + +"He profited by it?" + +"He got his margin," said Hugh sullenly. + +"How much margin did he get?" + +"A thousand." + +"Where is the rest?" David Stires' voice was like a whip of steel. + +Hugh hesitated a moment. He had still a few hundreds in pocket, but he +did not mention them. + +"I used most of it. I--had a few debts." + +"Debts of honor, I presume!" + +Hugh's sensibility quivered at the fierce, grating irony of the inquiry. + +"If you'd been more decent with spending-money," he said with a flare of +the old effrontery, "I'd have been all right! Ever since I came home +you've kept me strapped. I was ashamed to stick up any more of my +friends. And of course I couldn't borrow from Jessica." + +"Ashamed!" exclaimed the old man with harsh sternness. "You are without +the decency of shame! If you were capable of feeling it, you would not +mention her name now!" + +Hugh thought he saw a glimmer through the storm-cloud. Jessica was his +anchor to windward. What hurt him, would hurt her. He would pull +through! + +"Well," he said, "it's done, and there's no good making such a row about +it. She's my wife and she'll stand by me, if nobody else does!" + +No one had ever seen such a look on David Stires' face as came to it +now--a sudden blaze of fury and righteous scorn, that burned it like a +brand. + +"You impudent blackguard! You drag my name in the gutter and then try to +trade on my self-respect and Jessica's affection. You thought you would +take it up yourself--and I would be none the wiser! And if I did find it +out, you counted on my love for the poor deluded girl you have married, +to make me condone your criminality--to perjure myself--to admit the +signature and shield you from the consequences. You imagine because you +are my son, that you can do this thing and all still go on as before! +Do you suppose I don't consider Jessica? Do you think because you have +fooled and cheated her--and me--and married her, that I will give her +now to a caught thief--a common jailbird?" + +Hugh started. A sickly pallor came to his sallow cheek. That salient +chin, that mouth close-gripped--those words, vengeful, vindictive, the +utterance of a wrath so mighty in the feeble frame as to seem almost +uncouth--smote him with a mastering terror. + +A jailbird! That was what his father called _him_! Did he mean to give +him up, then? To have him arrested--tried--put in prison? When he had +canvassed the risks of discovery, he had imagined a scene, bitter +anger--perhaps even disinheritance. His marriage to Jessica, he had +reckoned, would cover that extremity. But he had never thought of +something worse. Now, for the first time, he saw himself in the grip of +that impersonal thing known as the law--handcuffs on his wrists, riding +through the streets in the "Black-Maria"--standing at the dock an +outcast, gazed at with contempt by all the town--at length sitting in a +cell somewhere, no more pleasures or gaming, or fine linen, but dressed +in convict's dress, loose, ill-shapen, hanging on him like bags, with +broad black-and-white stripes. He had been through the penetentiary +once. He remembered the sullen, stolid faces, the rough, hobnailed +shoes, the cropped heads! His mind turned from the picture with fear and +loathing. + +In the thoughts that were darting through Hugh's mind, there was none +now of regret or of pity for Jessica. His fear was the fear of the +trapped spoiler, who discerns capture and its consequent penalties in +the patrolling bull's-eye flashed upon him. He studied his father with +hunted, calculating eyes, as the old man turned to Harry Sanderson. + +"Sanderson," said David Stires, once more in his even, deadly voice, +"Jessica is waiting in the room above this. She will not understand the +delay. Will you go to her? Make some excuse--any you can think of--till +I come." + +Harry nodded and left the room, shutting the door carefully behind him, +carrying with him the cowering helpless look with which Hugh saw himself +left alone with his implacable judge. What to say to her? How to say it? + +As he passed the hall, the haste of demolition had already begun. +Florists' assistants were carrying the plants from the east room, and +through the open door a man was rolling up the red carpet. The cluttered +emptiness struck him with a sense of fateful symbolism--as though it +shadowed forth the shattering of Jessica's ordered dream of happiness. +He mounted the stair as if a pack swung from his shoulders. He paused a +moment at the door, then knocked, turned the knob, and entered. + +[Illustration] + +There, in the middle of the blue-hung room, in her wedding-dress, with +her bandaged eyes, and her bridal bouquet on the table, stood Jessica. +Twilight was near, but even so, all the shutters were drawn save one, +through which a last glow of refracted sunlight sifted to fall upon his +face. Her hands were clasped before her, he could hear her +breathing--the full hurried respiration of expectancy. + +Then, while his hand closed the door behind him, a thing unexpected, +anomalous, happened--a thing that took him as utterly by surprise as if +the solid floor had yawned before him. Slim fingers tore away the broad +encircling bandage. She started forward. Her arms were flung about his +neck. + +"Hugh!... Hugh!" she cried. "My husband!" + +The paleness was stricken suddenly from Harry's face. An odd, dazed +color--a flush of mortification, of self-reproach, flooded it from chin +to brow. Despite himself, he had felt his lips molding to an answering +kiss beneath her own. He drew a gasping breath, his hand nervously +caught the bandage, replaced it over the eyes, and tied it tightly, +putting down her protesting hands. + +"Oh, Hugh," she pleaded, "not for a moment--not when I am so happy! Your +face is what I dreamed it must be! Why did you make me wait so long? And +I can see, Hugh! I can really see! Let it stay off, just for one little +moment more!" + +He held her hands by force. "Jessica--wait!" he said in a broken +whisper. "You must not take it off again--not now!" + +An incredible confusion enveloped him--his tongue cleaved to the roof of +his mouth. Not only had the painful _contretemps_ nonplussed and +dismayed him; not only had it heightened and horrified the realization +of what she must presently be told. It had laid a careless hand upon his +own secret, touching it with an almost vulgar mockery. It had overthrown +in an instant the barricades he had been piling. The pressure of those +lips on his had sent coursing to the furthest recesses of his nature a +great wave which dikes nor locks might ever again forbid. + +Her look, leaping to his face, had not noted the ministerial dress, nor +in the ecstasy of the moment did she catch the agitation in his voice; +or if she did, she attributed it to a feeling like her own. She was +laughing happily, while he stood, trembling slightly, holding himself +with an effort. + +"What a dear goose you are!" she said. "The light didn't hurt +them--indeed, indeed! Only to think, Hugh! Your wife will have her +sight! Do go and tell your father! He will be waiting to know!" + +Harry made some incoherent reply. He was desperately anxious to get +away--his thought was a snarl of tatters, threaded by one lucid purpose: +to spare her coming self-abasement this sardonic humiliation. He did not +think of a time in the future, when her error must naturally disclose +itself. The tangle spelled _Now_. Not to tell her--not to let her know! + +He almost ran from the room and down the stair. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +"AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER?" + + +At the foot of the landing he paused, drawing a deep breath as if to +lift a weight of air. He needed to get his bearings--to win back a +measure of calmness. + +As he stood there, Hugh came from the library. His head was down and he +went furtively and slinkingly, as though dreading even a casual regard. +He snatched his hat from the rack, passed out of the house, and was +swallowed up in the dusk. David Stires had followed his son into the +hall. He answered the gloomy question in Harry's eyes: + +"He is gone," he said, "and I hope to Heaven I may never see his face +again!" Then, slowly and feebly, he ascended the stair. + +The library windows were shadowed by shrubbery, and the sunset +splintered against the wall in a broad stripe, like cloth of crimson +silk. Harry leaned his hot forehead against the chill marble of the +mantelpiece and gazed frowningly at the dark Korean desk--an antique +gift of his own to David Stires--where the slip of paper still lay that +had spelled such ruin and shame. From the rear of the house came the +pert, tittering laugh of a maid bantering an expressman, and the heavy, +rattling thump of rolled trunks. There was something ghastly in the +incomprehension of all the house save the four chief actors of the +melodrama. The travesty was over, the curtain rung down to clapping of +hands, the scene-shifters clearing away--and behind all, in the wings, +unseen by any spectator, the last act of a living tragedy was rushing to +completion. + +Ten, fifteen minutes passed, and old David Stires reentered the room, +went feebly to his wheel-chair, and sat down. He sat a moment in +silence, looking at a portrait of Jessica--a painting by Altsheler that +hung above the mantel--in a light fleecy gown, with one white rose in +the bronze hair. When he spoke the body's infirmity had become all at +once pitifully apparent. The fiery wrath seemed suddenly to have burned +itself out, leaving only dead ashes behind. His eyes had shrunk away +into almost empty sockets. The authority had faded from his face. He was +all at once a feeble, gentle-looking, ill, old man, with white mustaches +and uncertain hands, dressed in ceremonial broadcloth. + +"I have told her," he said presently, in a broken voice. "You are kind, +Sanderson, very kind. God help us!" + +"What has God to do with it?" fell a voice behind them. Harry faced +about. It was Jessica, as he had first seen her in the upper room, with +the bandage across her eyes. + +"What has God to do with it?" she repeated, in a hard tone. "Perhaps Mr. +Sanderson can tell us. It is in his line!" + +"Please--" said Harry. + +He could not have told what he would have asked, though the accent was +almost one of entreaty. The harsh satire touched his sacred calling; +coming from her lips it affronted at once his religious instinct and his +awakened love. It was all he said, for he stopped suddenly at sight of +her face, pain-frosted, white as the folded cloth. + +"Oh," she said, turning toward the voice, "I remember what you said that +night, right here in this very room--that you sowed your wild oats at +college with Hugh--that they were 'a tidy crop'! You were strong, and he +was weak. You led, and he followed. You were 'Satan Sanderson,' Abbot of +The Saints, the set in which he learned gambling. Why, it was in your +rooms that he played his first game of poker--he told me so himself! And +now he has gone to be an outcast, and you stand in the pulpit in a +cassock, you, the 'Reverend Henry Sanderson'! You helped to make him +what he has become! Can you undo it?" + +Harry was looking at her with a stricken countenance. He had no answer +ready. The wave of confusion that had submerged him when he had restored +the bandage to her eyes had again welled over him. He stood shocked and +confounded. His hand fumbled at his lapel, and the white carnation, +crushed by his fingers, dropped at his feet. + +"I am not excusing Hugh now," she went on wildly. "He has gone beyond +excuse or forgiveness. He is as dead to me as though I had never known +him, though the word you spoke an hour ago made me his wife. I shall +have that to remember all my life--that, and the one moment I had waited +for so long, for my first sight of his face, and my bride's kiss! I must +carry it with me always. I can never wipe that face from my brain, or +the sting of that kiss from my lips--the kiss of a forger--of my +husband!" + +The old man groaned. "I didn't know he had seen her!" he said +helplessly. "Jessica, Hugh's sin is not Sanderson's fault!" + +In her bitter words was an injustice as passionate as her pain, but for +her life she could not help it. She was a woman wrenched and torn, +tortured beyond control, numb with anguish. Every quivering tendril of +feeling was a live protest, every voice of her soul was crying out +against the fact. In those dreadful minutes when her mind took in the +full extent of her calamity, Hugh's past intimacy and present grim +contrast with Harry Sanderson had mercilessly thrust themselves upon +her, and her agony had seared the swift antithesis on her brain. + +To Harry Sanderson, however, her words fell with a wholly +disproportionate violence. It had never occurred to him that he himself +had been individually and actively the cause of Hugh's downfall. The +accusation pierced through the armor of self-esteem that he had linked +and riveted with habit. The same pain of mind that had spurred him, on +that long-ago night, to the admission she had heard, had started to new +life a bared, a scathed, a rekindling sin. + +"It is all true," he said. It was the inveterate voice of conscience +that spoke. "I have been deceiving myself. I was my brother's keeper! I +see it now." + +She did not catch the deep compunction in the judicial utterance. In her +agony the very composure and restraint cut more deeply than silence. She +stood an instant quivering, then turned, and feeling blindly for the +door, swept from their sight. + +White and breathless, Jessica climbed the stair. In her room, she took +a key from a drawer and ran swiftly to the attic-studio. She unlocked +the door with hurried fingers, tore the wrappings from the tall white +figure of the Prodigal Son, and found a heavy mallet. She lifted this +with all her strength, and showered blow upon blow on the hard clay, her +face and hair and shimmering train powdered with the white dust, till +the statue lay on the floor, a heap of tumbled fragments. + + +Fateful and passionate as the scene in the library had been, her going +left a pall of silence in the room. Harry Sanderson looked at David +Stires with pale intentness. + +"Yet I would have given my life," he said in a low voice, "to save her +this!" + +Something in the tone caught the old man. He glanced up. + +"I never guessed!" he said slowly. "I never guessed that you loved her, +too." + +But Harry had not heard. He did not even know that he had spoken aloud. + +David Stires turned his wheel-chair to the Korean desk, touching the +bell as he did so. He took up the draft and put it into his pocket. He +pressed a spring, a panel dropped, and disclosed a hidden drawer, from +which he took a crackling parchment. It was the will against whose +signing Harry had pleaded months before in that same room. The butler +entered. + +"Witness my signature, Blake," he said, and wrote his name on the last +page. "Mr. Sanderson will sign with you." + + +An hour later the fast express that bore Jessica and David Stires was +shrieking across the long skeleton railroad bridge, a dotted trail of +fire against the deepening night. The sound crossed the still miles. It +called to Harry Sanderson, where he sat in his study with the evening +paper before him. It called his eyes from a paragraph he was reading +through a painful mist--a paragraph under heavy leads, on its front +page: + + + This city has seldom seen so brilliant a gathering as that + witnessed, late this afternoon, at the residence of the groom, the + marriage of Mr. Hugh Stires and Miss Jessica Holme, both of this + place. + + The ceremony was performed by the Reverend Henry Sanderson, rector + of St. James. + + The groom is the son of one of our leading citizens, and the beauty + and talent of the bride have long made her noted. The happy couple, + accompanied by the groom's father, left on an early train, carrying + with them the congratulations and good wishes of the entire + community. + + A full account of the wedding will be given in to-morrow morning's + issue. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +AFTER A YEAR + + +Night had fallen. The busy racket of wheeled traffic was still, the +pavements were garish with electric light, windows were open, and crowds +jostled to and fro on the cool pavements. But Harry Sanderson, as he +walked slowly back from a long ramble in knickerbockers and norfolk +jacket over the hills, was not thinking of the sights and sounds of the +pleasant evening. He had tramped miles since sundown, and had returned +as he set out, gloomy, unrequited, a follower of a baffled quest. Even +the dog at his heels seemed to partake of his master's mood; he padded +along soberly, forging ahead now and again to look up inquiringly at the +preoccupied face. + +Set back from the street in a wide estate of trees and shrubbery, stood +a great white-porched house that gloomed darkly from amid its aspens. +Not a light had twinkled from it for nearly a year. The little city had +wondered at first, then by degrees had grown indifferent. The secret of +that prolonged honeymoon, that dearth and absence, Harry Sanderson and +the bishop alone could have told. For the bishop knew of Hugh's +criminal act; he was named executor of the will that lay in the Korean +chest, and him David Stires had written the truth. His heart had gone +out with pity for Jessica, and understanding. The secret he locked in +his own breast, as did Harry Sanderson, each thinking the other ignorant +of it. + +Since that wedding-day no shred of news had come to either. Harry had +wished for none. To think of Jessica was a recurrent pang, and yet the +very combination of the safe in his study he had formed of the letters +of her name! In each memory of her he felt the fresh assault of a new +and tireless foe--the love which he must deny. + +Until their meeting his moral existence had been strangely without +struggle. When at a single blow he had cut away, root and branch, from +his old life, he had left behind him its vices and temptations. That +life had been, as he himself had dimly realized at the time, a phase, +not a quality, of his development. It had known no profound emotions. +The first deep feeling of his experience had come with that college +catastrophe which had brought the abrupt change to all his habits of +living. He did not know that the impulse which then drew him to the +Church was the gravitational force of an austere ancestry, itself an +inheritance from a long line of sectarian progenitors--an Archbishop of +Canterbury among them--reaching from Colony times, when King George had +sent the first Sanderson, a virile, sport-loving churchman, to the +tobacco emoluments of the Old Dominion. He did not know that in the +reaction the pendulum of his nature was swinging back along an old +groove in obeisance to the subtle call of blood. + +In his new life, problems were already solved for him. He had only to +drift with the current of tradition, whereon was smooth sailing. And so +he had drifted till that evening when "Satan Sanderson," dead and done +and buried, had risen in his grave-clothes to mock him in the person of +Hugh. Each hour since then had sensitized him, had put him through +exercises of self-control. And then, with that kiss of Jessica's, had +come the sudden illumination that had made him curse the work of his +hands--that had shown him what had dawned for him, too late! + +Outcast and criminal as he was, castaway, who had stolen a bank's money +and a woman's love, Hugh was still her husband. Hugh's wife--what could +she be to him? And this fevered conflict was shot through with yet +another pang; for the waking smart of compunction which had risen at +Jessica's bitter cry, "You helped to make him what he has become!" +would not down. That cry had shown him, in one clarifying instant, the +follies and delinquencies of his early career reduplicated as through +the facets of a crystal, and in the polarized light of conscience, +Hugh--loafer, gambler and thief--stood as the type and sign of an +enduring accusation. + +But if the recollection of that wedding-day and its aftermath stalked +always with him--if that kiss had seemed to cling again and again to his +lips as he sat in the quiet of his study--no one guessed. He seldom +played his violin now, but he had shown no outward sign. As time went +on, he had become no less brilliant, though more inscrutable; no less +popular, save perhaps to the parish heresy-hunter for whom he had never +cared a straw. But beneath the surface a great change had come to Harry +Sanderson. + +To-night, as he wended his way past the house in the aspens, through the +clatter and commotion of the evening, there was a kind of glaze over his +whole face--a shell of melancholy. + +Judge Conwell drove by in his dog-cart, with the superintendent of the +long, low hospital. The man of briefs looked keenly at the handsome face +on the pavement. "Seems the worse for wear," he remarked sententiously. + +The surgeon nodded wisely. "That's the trouble with most of you +professional people," he said; "you think too much!" The judge clucked +to his mare and drove on at a smart trot. + +The friendly, critical eye clove to the fact; it discerned the +mental state of which gloom, depression and insomnia were but the +physical reagents. Harry had lately felt disquieting symptoms of +strain--irritable weakness, fitful repose, a sense of vague, mysterious +messages in a strange language never before heard. He had found that the +long walks no longer brought the old reaction--that even the swift rush +of his motor-car, as it bore him through the dusk of an evening, gave +him of late only a momentary relief. To-morrow began his summer +vacation, and he had planned a month's pedestrian outing through the +wide ranch valleys and the further ranges, and this should set him up +again. + +Now, however, as he walked along, he was bitterly absorbed in thoughts +other than his own needs. He passed more than one acquaintance with a +stare of non-recognition. One of these was the bishop, who turned an +instant to look after him. The bishop had seen that look frequently of +late, and had wondered if it betokened physical illness or mental +unquiet. More than once he had remembered with a sigh the old whisper of +Harry Sanderson's early wildness. But he knew youth and its lapses, and +he liked and respected him. Only two days before, on the second +anniversary of Harry's ordination, he had given him for his silken +watch-guard a little gold cross engraved with his name, and containing +the date. The bishop had seen his gift sparkling against Harry's +waistcoat as he passed. He walked on with a puzzled frown. + +The bishop was pursy and prosy, conventional and somewhat stereotyped in +ideas, but he was full of the milk of human kindness. Now he promised +himself that when the hour's errand on which he was hastening was done, +he would stop at the study and if he found Harry in, would have a quiet +chat with him. Perhaps he could put his finger on the trouble. + +At a crossing, the sight of a knot of people on the opposite side of the +street awoke Harry from his abstraction. They had gathered around a +peripatetic street preacher, who was holding forth in a shrill voice. +Beside him, on a short pole, hung a dripping gasoline flare, and the +hissing flame lit his bare head, his thin features, his long hair, and +his bony hands moving in vehement gestures. A small melodeon on four +wheels stood beside him, and on its front was painted in glaring white +letters: + + + "HALLELUJAH JONES." + + "_Suffer me that I may speak; and after + that I have spoken, mock on._" + + Job, xxi, 3 + + +From over the way Harry gazed at the tall, stooping figure, pitilessly +betrayed by the thin alpaca coat, at the ascetic face burned a brick-red +from exposure to wind and sun, at the flashing eyes, the impassioned +earnestness. He paused at the curb and listened curiously, for +Hallelujah Jones with his evangelism mingled a spice of the rancor of +the socialist. In his thinking, the rich and the wicked were mingled +inextricably in the great chastisement. He was preaching now from his +favorite text: _Woe to them that are at ease in Zion_. + +Harry smiled grimly. He had always been "at ease in Zion." He wore +sumptuous clothes--the ruby in his ring would bring what this plodding +exhorter would call a fortune. At this moment, Hede, his dapper Finn +chauffeur, was polishing the motor-car for him to take his cool evening +spin. That very afternoon he had put into the little safe in the chapel +study two thousand dollars in gold, which he had drawn, a part for his +charities and quarterly payments and a part to take with him for the +exigencies of his trip. The street evangelist over there, preaching +paradise and perdition to the grinning yokels, often needed a square +meal, and was lucky if he always knew where he would sleep. Yet did the +Reverend Henry Sanderson, after all, get more out of life than +Hallelujah Jones? + +The thread of his thought broke. The bareheaded figure had ended his +harangue. The eternal fires were banked for a time, while, seated on a +camp-stool at his crazy melodeon, he proceeded to transport his audience +to the heavenly meads of the New Jerusalem. He began a "gospel song" +that everybody knew: + + + "I saw a wayworn traveller, + The sun was bending low. + He overtopped the mountain + And reached the vale below. + He saw the Golden City, + His everlasting home, + And shouted as he journeyed, + 'Deliverance will come! + + "'Palms of Victory, + Crowns of Glory! + Palms of Victory, I shall wear!'" + + +The voice was weather-cracked, and the canvas bellows of the instrument +coughed and wheezed, but the music was infectious, and half from +overflowing spirits, and half from the mere swing of the melody, the +crowd chanted the refrain: + + + "'Palms of Victory; + Crowns of Glory! + Palms of Victory, I shall wear!'" + + +Two, three verses of the old-fashioned hymn he sang, and after each +verse more of the bystanders--some in real earnestness, some in impious +hilarity--shouted in the chorus: + + + "'Palms of Victory, I shall wear!'" + + +Harry walked on in a brown study, the refrain ringing through his brain. +There came to him the memory of Hugh's old sneer as he looked at his +book-shelves--whereon Nietzsche and Pascal sat cheek by jowl with +_Theron Ware_ and _Robert Elsmere_--"I wonder how much of all that you +really believe!" How much _did_ he really believe? "I used to read +Thomas a Kempis then," he said to himself, "and Jonathan Edwards; now I +read Renan and the _Origins of Christian Mythology_!" + +At the chapel-gate lounged his chauffeur, awaiting orders. + +"Bring the car round, Hede," said Harry, "and I shan't need you after +that to-night. I'll drive her myself. You can meet me at the garage." + +Hede, the dapper, good-looking Scandinavian, touched his glossy straw +hat respectfully. It was a piece of luck that his master had not planned +a motor trip instead of a tour afoot. For a month, after to-night, his +time was his own. His quarter's wages were in his pocket, and he slapped +the wad with satisfaction as he sauntered off to the bowling-alley. + +The study was pitch-dark, and Rummy halted on the threshold with a low, +ominous growl as Harry fumbled for the electric switch. As he found and +pressed it and the place flooded with light, he saw a figure there--the +figure of a man who had been sitting alone--beside the empty hearth, who +rose, shrinking back from the sudden brilliancy. + +It was Hugh Stires. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE GAME + + +Harry Sanderson stared at the apparition with a strange feeling, like +rising from the dead. There flashed into his mind the reflection he had +seen once in the mirror above the mantel--the face on which fell the +amber ray from the chapel window, shining through the figure of the +unrepentant thief--the face that had seemed so like his own! + +The likeness, however, was not so startling now. The aristocratic +features were ravaged like a nicked blade. Dissipation, exposure, shame +and unbridled passion had each set its separate seal upon the handsome +countenance. Hugh's clothes were shabby-genteel and the old slinking +grace of wearing them was gone. A thin beard covered his chin, and his +shifty look, as he turned it first on Harry and then nervously over his +shoulder, had in it a hunted dread, a dogging terror, constant and +indefinable. From bad to worse had been a swift descent for Hugh Stires. + +The wave of feeling ebbed. Harry drew the window-curtains, swung a +shade before the light, and motioned to the chair. + +"Sit down," he said. + +Hugh looked his old friend in the face a moment, then his unsteady +glance fell to the white carnation in his lapel as he said: "I suppose +you wonder why I have come here." + +Harry did not answer the implied question. His scrutiny was deliberate, +critical and inquiring. "What have you been doing the last year?" he +asked. + +"A little of everything," replied Hugh. "I ran a bucket-shop with Moreau +in Sacramento for a while. Then I went over in the mining country. I +took up a claim at Smoky Mountain--that's worth something, or may be +sometime." + +"Why did you leave it?" + +Hugh touched his parched lips with his tongue--again that nervous, +sidelong look, that fearful glance over his shoulder. + +"I had no money to work it. I had to live. Besides, I'm tired of the +whole thing." + +The backward glance, the look of dread, were tangible tokens. Harry +translated them: + +"You are not telling the truth," he said shortly. "What have you +_done_?" + +Hugh flinched, but he made sullen answer: "Nothing. What should I have +done?" + +"That is what I am now inquiring of myself," said Harry. "Your face is a +book for any one to read. I see things written on it, Hugh--things that +tell a story of wrong-doing. You are afraid." + +Hugh shivered under the regard. Did his face really tell so much? + +"I don't care to be seen in town," he said. "You wouldn't either, +probably, under the circumstances." His gaze dropped to his frayed +coat-sleeve. In his craven fear of something that he dared not name even +to himself, and in his wretched need, he remembered a night once before, +when he had sidled into town drunken and soiled--to a luxurious room, a +refreshing bath, clean linen and a welcome. Abject drops of self-pity +started in his eyes. + +"You're the only one in the world I dared come to," he said miserably. +"I've walked ten miles to-day, for I haven't a red cent in my pocket. +Nor even decent clothes," he ended. + +"That can be partly remedied," said Harry after a pause. He took a dark +coat from its hook and tossed it to him. "Put that on," he said. "You +needn't return it." + +Hugh caught the garment. In another moment he had exchanged it for the +one he wore, and was emptying the old coat's pockets. + +"Don't sneak!" said Harry with sudden contempt. "Don't you suppose I +know a deck of cards when I see it?" + +The thin scar on Hugh's brow reddened. He thrust into his pocket the +pasteboards he had made an instinctive move to conceal and buttoned the +coat around him. It fitted sufficiently. His eyes avoided the well-set +figure standing in white negligee shirt, norfolk jacket and leather +belt. As they had been wont to do in the comfortable past, they fixed +themselves on the little safe. + +"Look here, Harry," he began, "you were a good fellow in the old days. +I'm sorry I never paid you the money I borrowed. I would have, but +for--what happened. But you won't go back on me now, will you? I want to +get out of the country and begin over again somewhere. Will you loan me +the money to do it?" + +Hugh was eager and voluble now. The man to whom he appealed was his +forlorn hope. He had come with no intention of throwing himself upon his +father's mercy. He had wished to see anybody in the world but him. In +his urgent need, he had had a wild thought of appealing to Jessica, or +at worst to get speech with Blake, the old butler who many a time of old +had hidden his backslidings from the parental eye. But he had found the +white house in the aspens closed and desolate, the servants gone. Harry +Sanderson was his last resort. + +"If you will, I'll never forget it, Harry!" he cried. "Never, the +longest day I live! I'll use every dollar of it just as I say! I will, +on my honor!" + +But the sight of the poker deck had been steel to Harry's soul. It had +touched an excoriated spot that in the past months had grown as +sensitive as an exposed nerve. The pictured squares were the ironic +badge of Hugh's incorrigibility. They had ruined him, and the ruin had +broken his father's heart, and wrecked the life of Jessica Holme. And +out of this havoc a popular rector named Harry Sanderson had emerged +pitifully the worse. + +"Honor!" he said. "Have you enough to swear by? You are what you are +because you are a bad egg! You were born a gentleman, but you choose to +be a rogue. Do you know the meaning of the word honor, or right, or +justice? Have you a single purpose of mind which isn't crooked?" + +"You're just like the rest, then," Hugh retorted. "Just because I did +that one thing, you'll give me no more chance. Yet the first thing I did +with that money was to square myself. I paid every debt of honor I had. +That's why I'm in the hole now. But I get no credit for it, even from +you. I wish you could put yourself in my place!" + +Harry had been looking steadily at the sallow face with its hoof-print +of the satyr, not seeing it, but hearing his own voice say to Jessica: +"I was my brother's keeper! I see it now." And out of the distance, it +seemed, his voice answered: + +"Put myself in your place! I wish I could! I wish to God I could!" + +The exclamation was involuntary, automatic, the cumulative expression of +every throe of conscience Harry had endured since then, the voice of +that remorse that had cried insistently for reparation, dinning in his +ears the fateful question that God asked of Cain! Suddenly a whirl of +rage seized him, unmeasured, savage, malicious. He had despised Hugh, +now he hated him; hated him because he was Jessica's husband, and more +than all, because he was the symbol of his own self-abasement. A +dare-devil side of the old Satan Sanderson that he had chained and +barred, rose up and took him by the throat. He struck the oak +wainscoting with his fist, feeling a red mist grow before his eyes. + +"So you paid every 'debt of honor' you had, eh? You acknowledge a +gamester's honor, but not the obligation of right action between man +and man! Very well! Give me that pack of cards. You want money--here it +is!" + +He swiftly turned the clicking combination of the safe, wrenched open +the door and took out two heavy canvas bags. He snapped the cord from +the neck of one of these and a ringing stream of double-eagles swept +jingling on the table. He dipped his hand in the yellow pile. A thought +mad as the hoofs of runaway horses was careening through his brain. He +felt an odd lightness of mind, a tense tingling of every nerve and +muscle. + +"Here is two thousand dollars!--yours, if you win it! For you shall play +for it, you gambler who pays his debts of 'honor' and no other! You +shall play fair and straight, if you never play again!" + +Hugh gazed at Harry in a startled way. This was not the ministerial +Harry Sanderson he had known--this _gauche_ figure, with the white +infuriate face, the sparkling eyes and the strange, veiled look. This +reminded him of the reckless spirit of his college days, that he had +patterned after and had stood in awe of. Only he had never seen him look +so then. Could Harry be in earnest? Hugh glanced from him to the pile of +coin and back again. His fingers itched. + +"How can I play," he said, "when you know very well I haven't a _sou +markee_?" + +Harry stuffed the gold back into the bag. He snatched the cards from +Hugh's hand and a box of waxen envelope wafers from his desk. There was +a strange light in his eye, a tremor in his fingers. + +"It is I who play with money!" he said. "My gold against your counters! +Each of those hundred red disks represents a day of your life--a day, do +you understand?--a red day of your sin! A day of yours against a +double-eagle! What you win you keep. But for every counter I win, you +shall pay me one straight, white day, a clean day, lived for decency and +for the right!" + +He was the old Satan Sanderson now, with the blood bubbling in his +veins--the Satan Sanderson who could "talk like Bob Ingersoll or an +angel," as the college saying was--the cool, daring, enigmatical Abbot +of The Saints, primed for any audacity. It was the old character again, +but curiously changed. The new overlaid it. Under the spur of some +driving impulse the will was travelling along a disused and preposterous +channel to a paramount end. + +Hugh's eyes were fastened on the gold in Harry's fingers. Two thousand +dollars! If luck came his way he could go far on that--far enough to +escape the nameless terror that pursued him in every shadow. Money +against red wafers? Why, it was plenty if he won, and if he lost he had +staked nothing. What a fool Harry was! + +Harry saw the shrewd, calculating look that came to his eyes. He caught +his wrist. + +"Not here!" he said hoarsely. He flung open the chapel door and pushed +him inside. He seized one of the altar candles, lit it with a match and +stuck it upright in its own wax on the small communion table that stood +just inside the altar-rail, with the cards, the red wafers and the bags +of coin. He dragged two chairs forward. + +"Now," he said in a strained voice, "put up your hand--your right +hand--and swear before this altar, on the gambler's honor you boast of, +win or lose, to abide by this game!" + +Hugh shrank. He was superstitious. The calculating look had fled. He +glanced half fearfully about him--at Harry's white face--at the high +altar with its vases of August lilies--at the great rose-window, now a +mass of white, opaque blotches on which the three black crosses stood +out with weird distinctness--at the lurking, unlighted shadows in the +corners. He looked longingly at the gold, shining yellow in the +candle-light. It fascinated him. + +He lifted his hand. It was trembling. + +"I swear I will!" he said. "I'll stand by the cards, Harry, and for +every day you win, I'll walk a chalk line--so help me God!" + +Harry Sanderson sat down. He emptied one of the bags at his elbow, and +pushed the box of wafers across the table. He shuffled the cards swiftly +and cut. + +"Your deal!" he said. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +HALLELUJAH JONES TAKES A HAND + + +Hallelujah Jones had finished his labor for the night. The crowd had +grown restive, and finally melted away, and, his audience gone, he +folded the camp-stool, turned off the gasoline flare, shut down the lid +of his melodeon, and trundled it up the street. A goodly number of +coppers had rattled into his worn hat, and to the workman belonged his +wage. There was a little settlement on the river, a handful of miles +away, and the trudge under the stars would be cool and pleasant. If he +grew tired, there was his blanket strapped atop the melodeon, and the +open night was dry and balmy. + +As he pushed up the street he came to a great motor-car standing at the +curb under the maples. There was no one in it, but somewhere in its +interior a muffled whirring throb beat evenly like a double, metallic +heart. He stopped and regarded it inquisitively; a rich man's property, +to be sure! + +He looked up--it was at the gate of the chapel. No doubt it belonged to +the fashionable rector who had been pointed out to him on the street the +day before. He remembered the young, handsome face, the stylish +broadcloth. He thought he would have liked to lean over the Reverend +Henry Sanderson's shoulder and lay his finger on a text: _How hardly +shall a rich man enter into the kingdom of Heaven_. Yet it was a +beautiful edifice that wealth had built there for Christ! He saw dimly +the stone angel standing in the porch, and, leaving his melodeon on the +pavement, entered the gate to examine it. + +He noticed now a dim flicker that lit one corner of the great +rose-window. Moving softly over the cropped grass, he approached, tilted +one of the hinged panels, and peered in. Two men were there, behind the +altar-railing, seated at the communion table. + +Hallelujah Jones started back. There on the table was a bag of coin, +cards and counters. They were playing--he heard the fall of the cards on +the hard wood, saw the gleam of a gold-piece, the smear of melted wax +marring the polished oak. The reddish glow of the candle was reflected +on the players' faces. Well he knew the devil's tools: had he not sung +and exhorted in Black Hill mining camps and prayed in frontier faro +"joints"? They were gambling! At God's holy altar, and on Christ's +table! Who would dare such a profanation? + +He craned his neck. Suddenly he gave a smothered cry. The player facing +him he recognized--it was the rector himself! He bent forward, gazing +with a tense and horrified curiosity. + +In that hazard within the altar-rail strange forces were contending, +whose meaning he could not fathom. Between the two men who played, not a +word had been spoken save those demanded by the exigencies of the game. +Harry had seemed to act almost automatically, but his mind was working +clearly, his hand was firm and cool as the blossom on his coat; he made +his play with that old steely nonchalance with which, once upon a time, +he had staked--and lost--so often. But in his brain a thousand spindles +were whirring, a maze of refractory images was rushing past him into an +eddying phantasmagoria. A kind of exaltation possessed him. He was +putting his past into the dice-box to redeem a soul in pawn, fighting +the devil with his own fire, gambling for God! + +Five times, ten times, the cards had changed hands, and with every deal +he lost. The gold disks had slipped steadily across the table. But Harry +had seemed to be looking beyond the ebb and flow of the jettons and the +pale face opposite him that gloated over its yellow pile. Though that +pile grew larger and larger, Harry's face had never changed. Hugh's was +the shaking hand when he discarded, the convulsed features when he +scanned his draw, the desperate anxiety when for a moment fortune seemed +to waver. He had never in his life had such luck! He swept his winnings +into his pockets with a discordant laugh as he noted that, of the +contents of the opened bag, Harry had but one double-eagle remaining. + +Harry paused an instant. He snapped the little gold cross he wore from +its silken tether and set it upright by him on the table. + +His hand won, and the next, and the next. Hugh hoarded his gold: he +staked the red wafers--each one a day! He had won almost a thousand +dollars, but the second bag had not yet been opened, and the vampire +intoxication was running molten-hot in his veins. The untouched bag drew +him as the magnet mountain drew the adventurous Sindbad--he could have +snatched it in his eagerness. + +But the luck had changed; his red counters diminished, melted; he would +soon have to draw on his real winnings. Cold beads of sweat broke on his +forehead. + +Neither had heard the creak of the rose-window as the hinged panel drew +back. Neither saw the face pressed against the aperture. Neither guessed +the wild and terrible thoughts that were raging through the mind of the +solitary watcher as he peered and peered. + +This minister! This corrupt, ungodly shepherd! He could be neither +hanged nor put in jail, yet he committed a crime for which hell itself +scarce held adequate penalty and punishment! The street preacher's eyes +dilated, the hand that held the panel trembled, spots of unhealthy white +sprang into his burning cheeks. The flaring candles--the table with its +carven legend, _This Do In Remembrance of Me_--the little gold cross, +set there, it seemed to him, in a satanic derision! It was the evil the +Apostle Paul wrestled against, of "wicked spirits in high places." It +was sacrilege! It was blasphemy! It was the Arch-Fiend laughing, making +a mock of God's own altar with the guilty pleasures of the pit--a very +sacrament of the damned! + +Scarce knowing what he did, he closed the panel softly and ran across +the chapel lawn. On the pavement outside he met a man approaching. It +was the bishop, on his way to his contemplated chat with Harry +Sanderson. The excited evangelist did not know the man, but his eye +caught the ministerial dress, the plain, sturdy piety of the face. In +his zeal he saw an instrument to his hand. He grasped the bishop's arm. + +"Quick! Quick!" he gasped. "There's devil's work doing in there! Come +and see!" He fairly pulled him inside the gate. + +The puzzled bishop saw the intense excitement of the other's demeanor. +He saw the faint glow in the corner of the rose-window. Were there +thieves after the altar-plate? + +He shook off the eager hand that was drawing him toward the window. "Not +there--come this way!" he said, and hurried toward the porch. He tried +the chapel door--it was fast. He had a key to this in his pocket. He +inserted it with caution, opened the door noiselessly and went in, the +street preacher at his heels. + +What the bishop saw was photographed instantaneously on his mind in +fiery, indelible colors. It ate into his soul like hot iron into +quivering flesh, searing itself upon his memory. It was destined to +haunt his sleep for many months afterward, a phantom of regret and +shame. He was, in his way, a man of the world, travelled, sophisticated, +acquainted with sin in unexpected forms and places. But this sight, in +all its coarse suggestion of license, in its harrowing implication of +hidden vice and hypocrisy, was damning and appalling. The evangelist of +the pave had been horrified, shocked to word and action; the bishop was +frozen, inarticulate, impaled. For any evil in Hugh Stires he was +prepared--since the forgery. But Hugh's companion now was the man whom +he himself had ordained and anointed, by the laying on of hands, with +the chrism of his holy ministry. + +It was sin, then, that had set the look he had marvelled at in Harry +Sanderson's face--sin, flaunting, mocking and terrible! He whom the +church had ordained to shepherd its little ones, to comfort its +afflicted, to give in marriage and to bless, to hold before the world +the white and stainless banner--a renegade, polluting the sanctuary! A +priest apostate, surprised in a hideous revel, gambling, as the Roman +soldiers gambled for the seamless garment, at the foot of the cross! An +irrepressible exclamation burst from his lips. + +With the sound both men at the table started to their feet. Hugh, with a +single glance behind him, uttering a wild laugh, leaped the railing, +dashed through the study, and vanished into the night; Harry, as though +suddenly turned to stone, stood staring at the accusatory figure, with +the eager form of the evangelist behind it. It was as if the horror on +the stern, set face of the bishop mirrored itself instantaneously upon +his countenance, his imagination opening in a shocked, awed way to the +concentrated light of feeling, so that he stood bewildered in the +paralysis of a like dismay. + +To the bishop it seemed the attitude of guilt detected. + +What was Harry Sanderson thinking, as, under that speechless regard, he +mechanically gathered the scattered cards and lifted the little cross +and the unopened bag of double-eagles from the table? Where was the odd +excitement, the strange exaltation that had possessed him? The spindles +in his brain had stilled, and an algid calm had succeeded, as abrupt as +the quiet, deadly assurance with which his mind now saw the pit into +which his own feet had led him. The paradoxical impulse that had bred +this sinister topsyturvydom had fallen away. The same judicial Harry +Sanderson who had said to Jessica, "I was my brother's keeper," +arraigned and judged himself, and pronounced the sentence on the +bishop's face conclusive, irrefutable, without the power of explanation +or appeal. + +He blew out the candle, replaced it carefully in its altar bracket, made +shift to wipe the wax from the table, and slowly, half blindly, and +without a word, went into the study. + +The bishop came forward, drew the key from the inside of the study door, +closed it and locked it from the chapel side. Harry did not turn, but he +was acutely conscious of every sound. He heard the door shut sharply, +the harsh grate of the key in the lock, and the sound came to him like +the last sentence--the realization of a soul on whom the gate of the +good closes for ever. + +In the dark silence of the chapel Hallelujah Jones smote his thin hands +together approvingly, as he followed the bishop to the outer door. There +the older man laid his hand on his shoulder. + +"_Let him that thinketh he standeth_," he said, "_take heed lest he +fall_! Let not this knowledge be spread abroad that it make the +unrighteous to blaspheme. When you pray for your own soul to-night, pray +for the soul of that man from whom God's face is turned away!" + +Something in the churchless evangelist bowed to the voice of +ecclesiastical authority. He went without a word. + + +In the study Harry Sanderson stood for a moment with the cards and the +bag of double-eagles in his hand. In his soft shirt and disordered hair, +with his preternaturally bright eyes, the white blossom on his lapel, +and the brilliant light upon his face, he might have been that +satin-sleeved colonial ancestor of his, in dissolute maturity, coming +from an unclerical bout at Loo, two hundred years ago. + +Finally he put the cards and the canvas bag methodically into the safe +and closed it. Then he knelt by his desk and said, clearly and aloud--to +that cold inner symbol of consciousness in his soul: + +"O God, I do not know if Thou art, as has been said, a seer of the good +that is in the bad, and of the bad that is in the good, and a lover of +them both. But I know that I am in a final extremity. I can no longer do +my labor consistently before the world and before Thee. If I am +delivered, it must be by some way of Thine own that I can not conceive, +for I can not help myself. Amen." + +He rose to his feet, mechanically put on a coat that was lying on a +chair--Hugh's coat, but he did not notice this--and bareheaded passed +out to the street. The motor-car stood there. He took his place in the +forward seat, and threw on the power. + +Barking joyously, Rummy, the brown spaniel, tore out of the gate, but +his master did not stop. The little creature pursued the moving car, +made a frantic leap to gain his seat, but missed, and the huge armored +wheel struck and hurled him to the gutter. + +Harry did not hear the sharp yelp of pain; his hand was on the lever, +pushing it over, over, to its last notch, and the great mechanism, +responding with a leap, sped away, faster and faster, through the night. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE FALL OF THE CURTAIN + + +Harry Sanderson was acting in a kind of fevered dream. His head and +hands were bare, his face white and immobile, and his eyes stared +straight before him with the persistent fixity of the sleep-walker's. +They did not see a bowed, plodding figure pushing a rickety, wheeled +melodeon, who scurried from before the hurtling weight that had all but +run him down. Nor could they see far behind in the eddying dust a little +dog, moaning, limping piteously on three legs, with tongue lolling and +shaggy coat caked with mud--following the hopeless, bird-like flight. + +One mile, two miles, three miles. The streets were far behind now. The +country road spun before him, a dusty white ribbon, along which the dry +battered corn rattled as if in a surge of torrid wind. The great +motor-car was reeling off the distance like a maddened thing, swooping +through the haloed dark, the throttle out, the lever pushed to its +utmost limit of speed, rocking drunkenly, every inch of tested steel +ringing and throbbing. Yet Harry's fingers had no tremor, no hesitancy, +no lack of cunning. His heart was beating measuredly. He kept the road +by a kind of instinct as rudimentary as that which points the homing +carrier-pigeon. He seemed to be moving in a mental world created by some +significant clairvoyancy, in which the purpose operated without recourse +to the spring of reason. The light of neurasthenia burned behind his +eyelids; he felt at once a consuming flame within, a paralyzing frost +without. The light autumn mist drenched him like a fine, sifting rain; +the wheel-flung dust adhered like yellow mud, and above the clatter of +the exhaust the still air shrieked past like a shrewd wind. + +Five miles, through the dark, under the breathless, expectant stars. The +car was on the broad curve now, where the road bent to the bluff above +the river to pass the skeleton railroad bridge. But Harry knew neither +place nor time. He was conscious only of motion--swift, swallow-like, +irresistible--this, and the racing pictures in his brain, stencilled on +the blur of night that closed around him. These pictures came and went; +the last revel of The Saints when he was Satan Sanderson--Hugh sneering +at his calling--Jessica facing him with unbandaged eyes--Hallelujah +Jones, preaching on the street corner. The figure of the street +evangelist recurred again and again with a singular persistency. It grew +more tangible! It threatened him! + +Something in Harry's brain seemed to snap. A tiny shutter, like that of +a camera, fell down. His hands dropped from the steering-wheel, and, +swaying in his seat, he began to sing, in a voice made high and uneven +by the speed of the car: + + + "Palms of Victory, + Crowns of Glory! + Palms of Victory, I shall wear!" + + +He sang but the three lines. For suddenly the car left the road--the +inflated tires rebounded from the steel ridge of the railroad track--the +forward axle caught an iron signal post--and the great motor-car, its +shattered lamp jingling like a gong, its pistons thrusting in midair, +reared on two wheels, hurling its occupant out like a pebble thrown from +a sling, half-turned, and, leaving a trail of sparks like the tail of a +rocket behind it, plunged heavily over the rim of the bluff into the +river. + +A moment later the deep black waters of "the hole" had closed above the +mass of sentient steel. The swift current had smoothed away every trace +of the strange monster it had engulfed, and there, by the side of the +track, huddled against the broken signal post, his clothing plastered +with mud and grime, motionless, and with a nasty cut on the temple, lay +Harry Sanderson. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE CLOSED DOOR + + +A long saturating peace, a deep and drenching darkness, had folded Harry +Sanderson. Dully at first, at length more insistently and sharply, a +rhythmic pulsing sound began to annoy the quietude. K-track, k-track, +k-track--it grew louder; it grew more momentous and material; it +irritated the calm that had wrapped the animate universe. Shreds of +confusing impression had begun to arrange themselves on a void of +nothingness, blurred inchoate images to struggle through a delicious +sensation of indifference and repose. Outlines were filling, contours +growing distinct; the brain was beginning to resume its interrupted +function. As though from an immeasurable distance he heard a low +continuous roar, and now and again, through the roar, nearer voices. + +Harry awoke. His mind awoke, but his eyes did not open at once, for the +gentle swaying that cradled him was pleasant and the muffled clack and +hum soothed him like opium. He was as serenely comfortable as a +stevedore who dozes out of the long stupefaction of exhaustion to the +realization that the day is a holiday. His blood was coursing like +quicksilver. He felt a buoyancy, a volatile pleasure, a sense of +complete emancipation from all that clogged and cloyed--the sensuous +delight of the full pulse and the perfect bodily mechanism. + +He opened his eyes. + +It was daylight. He was lying on dusty boards that rattled and vibrated +beneath him--the floor of an empty freight car in motion. The sliding +door was part-way open, and through it was borne the moist air of a +river bay and the purring wash of the tide. A small brown dog, an +abject, muddied and shivering morsel, was snuggled close to his side. It +whined, as if with joy to see his eyes opened, and its stubby tail beat +the floor. + +Harry turned his head. Two men in dingy garments were seated on the +floor a little distance away, thumbing a decrepit pack of cards over an +empty box. He could see both side-faces, one weather-beaten and +good-humored, the other crafty--knights of the road. + +The sudden movement had sent a momentary twinge to his temple; he put up +his hand--it touched a coarse handkerchief that had been bound tightly +about it. The corner hung down--it was soiled and stiff with blood. What +was he doing there? Where was he? _Who was he?_ + +It came to him with a start that he actually for the moment did not +know who he was--that he had ridiculously slipped the leash of his +identity. He smiled at his predicament. He would lie quietly for a few +moments and it would come: of course it would come! + +Yet it did not come, though he lay many moments, the fingers of his mind +fumbling for the latch of the closed door. He had waked perfectly +well--all save the slight cut on his temple, and that was clearly +superficial, a mere scratch. Not a trouble or anxiety marred his soul; +his mind was as clear and light as a lark's. Body and brain together +felt as if they had never had a serious ache in the world. But all that +had preceded his awakening was gone from him as completely as though it +had had no existence. His mind, so far as memory of incident was +concerned, was wiped clean, as a wet sponge wipes off a slate. Yet he +felt no trouble or anxiety. That part of his brain which had vibrated to +these emotions was, as it were, under a curious anesthesia. Goaded and +overkeyed into a state of hypertension, it had retaliated with +insensibility. All that had vexed and hurt was gone into the limbo with +its own disturbing memories. + +Stealthily he rose to a sitting posture and, with a frown of humorous +perplexity, took a swift and silent inventory. Here he was, in a +freight car, speeding somewhere or other, with a sore and damaged skull. +The dog clearly belonged to him, or he to the dog--there was an old +intimacy in the fawning fondness of the amber eyes. Yonder were two +tramps, diverting themselves in their own way, irresponsible and +questionable birds of passage. He scanned his own clothing. It was +little better than theirs. His coat was threadbare, and with mud, oil +and coal-dust, was in a more disreputable state. His wristbands were +grimy, and one cuff-link had been torn away. He had no hat. + +He bethought himself of his pockets, and went through them methodically +one by one. They yielded several dollars in coin, a penknife and a tiny +gold cross, but not a letter, not a scrap of paper, nothing to serve +him. The gleam of a ring on his finger caught his eye; he rubbed away +the dirt and carefully examined it, wondering if the stone was real. His +hand was slightly cut and swollen, and the circlet would not come off, +but by shifting it slightly he could see the white depression made by +long wear. The setting was an odd one, formed of the twisted letters H. +S. Those naturally should be his initials, but there he stopped. He +repeated to himself all the names he could think of beginning with S, +but they told him nothing. + +He looked himself over again, carefully, reflectively--many a time of +old he had regarded himself with the same amused, fastidious tolerance +when dressed for a "slumming" expedition--his head a little to one side, +the ghost of a smile on his lips. He put out his hand and laid it on the +spaniel's head. + +Its rough tongue licked his fingers; it held up one forepaw mutely and +lamely. He drew the feverish, dirty little creature into his lap and +examined the limp member. It was broken. + +"Poor little beggar!" said he under his breath. "So you've been knocked +out, too!" With his knife he cut a piece from the lining of his coat and +with a splinter of wood from the floor he set the fractured bone and +wrapped the leg tightly. The dog submitted without a whimper, and when +he set it down, it lay quietly beside him, watching him with +affectionate canine solicitude. + +"I wonder who we are, you and I," muttered Harry Sanderson whimsically. +"I wonder!" + +His gaze turned to where he could see the sunshine dancing and +shimmering from the tremulous water. He sniffed the warm air--it was +clear and sweet. Not a cloud was in the perfect sky. How fine he felt, +broken head and all! + +He looked across the car, where the card players were still absorbed. +Over the shoulder of one he could see the hand he held--a queen, two +aces, a seven and a deuce. For an instant something in his brain snapped +and crackled like the sputtering spark of an incomplete insulation--for +an instant the fingers almost touched the latch of the closed door. Then +the sensation faded, and left a blank as before. He rose to his feet and +walked forward. + +The players looked around. One of them nodded approvingly. + +"Right as a trivet!" he said. "I made a pretty good job of that cut of +yours. Hurt you much?" + +"No," said Harry. "I'm obliged to you for the attention." + +"Foolish to walk on a railroad track," the other went on. "By your +looks, you've been on the road long enough to know better. We figgered +it out that you was just a-going to cross the railroad bridge when the +freight raised merry hell with you. We stopped to tank there and we +picked you up, you and your four-legged mate. Must have been a bit +squiffy, eh?" + +He winked, and took a flask from his pocket. "Have a hair of the dog +that bit you?" he said. + +Harry took the flask, and, wiping the top on his sleeve, uncorked it. +Something in the penetrating odor of the contents seemed to cleave +through far mental wastes to an intimate, though mysterious goal. He put +it to his lips and drank thirstily. + +As the burning liquid scorched his throat, a recrudescence of old +impulses surged up through the crust of more modern usage. Mentally, +characteristically, he was once more the incongruous devil-may-care +figure in whom conspicuous achievement and contradictory excesses had +walked hand in hand. The Harry Sanderson of the new, remorseful, +temperate life, of chastened impulses, of rote and rule and reformed +habit--the rector of St. James--had been lost on that wild night ride. +The man who had awakened in the freight car was the Satan Sanderson of +four years before, who, under stress of mental illness and its warped +purview, in that strenuous scene in the chapel, had regained his ancient +governance. + +Harry handed back the flask with a long breath. There was a composed yet +reckless light in his eye--the old veiled gleam of vagary, and paradox, +and escapade. He seated himself beside them. + +"Thank you," he said. "With your permission, gentlemen, I will take a +hand in the game." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE WOMAN WHO REMEMBERED + + +Since that tragical wedding-day at the white house in the aspens, +Jessica had passed through a confusion of experiences. She had always +lived much in herself, and to her natural reserve her blindness had +added. As a result her knowledge both of herself and of life had been +superficial. She had been drawn to Hugh by both the weakest and the +noblest in her, in a self-obliterating worship that had counted her +restored sight only an ornament and glory for her love. In the baleful +hour of enlightenment she had been lost, whirled away, out into the +storm and void, every landmark gone, every light extinguished, her feet +set in the "abomination of desolation." The first bitter shock of the +catastrophe, however, seemed to burn up in her the very capacity for +further poignant suffering, and she went through the motions of life +apathetically. + +Change of scene and the declining health of David Stires occupied, +fortunately, much of her waking thoughts. After the first few months of +travel he failed steadily. His citric-acid moods were forgotten, his +harsh tempers put aside. Hour after hour he lay in his chair, gazing out +from the wide sun parlor of the sanatorium on the crest of Smoky +Mountain, whither their journeying had finally brought them. He had +never spoken of Hugh. But Jessica, sitting each day beside him, reading +to him till he dropped asleep, seeing the ever-increasing sadness in his +face, knew the hidden canker that gnawed his heart. + +To the northward the slope of the mountain fell gradually to fields of +violet-eyed alfalfa, and twice a day a self-important little +donkey-engine drew a single car up and down between the great glass +building on the ridge and the junction of the northern railroad. This +view did not attract her; she liked best the southern exposure, with its +flushed, serrated snow-peaks in the distance, the warmer brown shadows +of the gulch-seamed hills unrolling at her feet, and at their base the +treeless, busy little county-seat two miles away. In time her fiercer +pain had dulled, and her imagination--naturally so importunate--had +begun to seize upon her surroundings. In the summer season the +sanatorium had few guests, and for this she was thankful. Doctor Brent, +its head, rallying her on her paleness, drove her out of doors with +good-natured severity, and when she was not with David Stires she +walked or rode for hours at a time over the mountain trails. Breathing +in the crisp air of altitude her spirits grew more buoyant. The beauty +of shrub and flower, of cloud and sky, began to call to her, and the +breath of October found a tinge of color in her cheek. She fed the +squirrels, listened to the pert chirp of the whisky-jack and the +whirring drum of the partridge, or sat on a hidden elevation which she +named "The Knob," facing across the shallow valley to the south. + +The Knob overlooked a little grassy shelf a few hundred feet below, +where stood a miner's cabin, with weed-grown gravel heaps near by, in +front of which a tree bore the legend, painted roughly on a board: "The +Little Paymaster Claim." From its point of vantage, too, unobserved, she +could look down into the gulch far below, where yellowish-brown cones +reared like gigantic ant-hills--the ear-marks of the placer miner--and +gray streaks indicated the flumes in which, by tortuous meanderings, the +water descended to do its work in the sluices. She could even watch the +toiling miners, hoisting the gravel by windlasses, or shovelling it into +the long narrow boxes through which the foaming water raced. So limpid +was the air that in the little town she could distinguish each several +building lining the single straight street--a familiar succession of +gilded cafe, general emporium and drug store, with the dull terra cotta +"depot" at one end, and on the other, on a sunburned acre of its own, +the glaring white court-house, flanked by the post-office and the jail. +She could see the clouds of dust, the wagons hitched at the curb and the +drab figures grouped at the corners or passing in and out of doorways. + +Her interest had opened eagerly to these scenes. The solitudes soothed +and the life of the community below, frankly primitive and +uncomplicated, attracted her. Between the town of Smoky Mountain and the +expensive sanatorium on the ridge a great social gulf was fixed; the +latter's patrons for the most part came and went by the narrow-gage road +that linked with the northern junction; the settlement far below was +only a feature of the panorama for which they paid so well. Even Doctor +Brent--who had perched this place of healing where his patients could +breathe air fresh from the Pacific and cooled by the snow-peaks--knew it +chiefly through two of its citizens, Mrs. Halloran, the capable, +bustling wife of the proprietor of the Mountain Valley House, the town's +single hostelry, who brewed old-fashioned blackberry wine and cordials +for his patients, and Tom Felder, a young lawyer whom he had known on +the coast before ill health had sent him to hang out his shingle in a +more genial altitude. + +The latter sometimes came for a chat with the physician, and on one of +these calls Jessica and he had met. She had liked his keen, good-humored +face and waving, slightly graying hair. She had met him once since on +the mountain road, and he had walked with her and told her quaint +stories of the townspeople. She did not guess that more than once since +then he had walked there hoping to meet her again. He had taken her to +Mrs. Halloran, whose heart she had won by praise of her cherry cordial. + +As Mrs. Halloran said afterward: "'Twas no flirt with the bottle and +make love to the spoon! She ain't a bit set up. Take the word I give +you, Tom Felder, an' go and swap lies with the doctor at the santaranium +soon again. Ye can do worse." + +This had been Jessica's first near acquaintance with the town, but since +that time she had often reined up at the door of the neat hotel to pass +a word with Mrs. Halloran or to ask for another bottle of the cherry +cordial, which the sick man she daily tended found grateful to his jaded +palate. + +"It brings back my boyhood," David Stires said to her one afternoon, +tapping the bottle by his wheel-chair. "That was before the chemist +married the vintner's daughter. Somehow this has the old taste." + +"It is nearly gone," she said. "I'll get another bottle--I am going for +a ride now. I think it does you good." + +"Before you go," he said, "fetch my writing-case and I will dictate a +letter." + +She brought and opened it with a trouble at her heart, for the request +showed his increasing weakness. Until to-day the few letters he had +written had been done with his own hand. Thinking of this as she waited, +her fingers nervously plucked at the inside of the leather cover. The +morocco flap fell and disclosed a slip of paper. It was a canceled +bank-draft. It bore Hugh's name, and across its face, in David Stires' +crabbed hand, written large, was the venomous word _Forgery_. + +The room swam before her eyes. Only by a fierce effort could she compel +her pen to trace the dictated words. Hugh's misdeed, evil as it was, had +been to her but an abstract crime; now it suddenly lay bare before her, +a concrete expression of coarse thievery, a living symbol of crafty +simulation. Scarce knowing why she did it, she drew the draft covertly +from its receptacle, and slipped it into her bosom. Her fingers trembled +as they replaced the flap, and her face was pale when she put away the +writing-case and went to don her habit. + +The evidence of Hugh's sin! As the horse pounded down the winding road, +she held her hand hard against her breast, as though it were a live coal +that she would press into her flesh in self-torture. That paper must +remain, as the sin that made it remained--the sign-manual of her +dishonor and loss! The man whose hand had penned its lying signature was +the man she had thought she loved. By that act he had thrust himself +from her for ever. Yet he lived. Somewhere in the world he walked, in +shame and degradation, beyond the pale of honorable living--and she was +his wife! + +_She was his wife!_ The words hummed in the hoof-beats and taunted her. +The odors of the balsam boughs about her became all at once the scent of +jasmin, the sigh of the wind turned to the chanting of choir voices, and +beneath her closed eyelids came a face seen but once, but never to be +erased or forgotten, a face startled, quivering with a strange, +remorseful flush--which she had not guessed was guilt! + +_She was his wife!_ Though she called herself Jessica Holme, yet, in the +law, his name and fame were hers. There was deep in her the unreasoned, +intuitive regard, handed down through inflexible feminine generations, +for the relentless mandate, "let not man put asunder;" but she had no +finical conception of woman's duty to convention. To break the bond? To +divorce the husband to whom she was wife in name only? That would be to +spread abroad the disgrace under which she cringed! She thought of the +old man she had left--uncomplaining, growing feebler every day. To shame +him before the world, whose ancestors had been upright and clean-handed? +To add the final sting to his sufferings--who had done her only good? +No, she could not do that. Time must solve the problem for her in some +other way. + +The main street of the town was busy, yet quiet withal, with the +peculiar quiet which marks the absence of cobblestone and trolley-bell. +Farmers from outlying fruit ranches gossiped on the court-house square; +here and there a linen collar and white straw hat betokened the +professional man or drummer; and miners in overalls and thong-laced +boots kept a-swing the rattan half-doors of the saloons. + +"Look at that steady hand, now, an' her hair as red as glory!" said Mrs. +Halloran, gazing admiringly from the doorstep where she had been +chatting with Tom Felder. "Ye needn't stare yer gray eyes out though, or +she'll stop at th' joolry shop to buy ye a ring--to shame ye fer jest +hankerin' and sayin' nothin'!" + +Felder laughed as he crossed the street, raising his felt hat gallantly +to the approaching rider. Mrs. Halloran was a privileged character. The +ravage of drudgery had not robbed her of comeliness that gave her face +an Indian summer charm, and she was as kindly as her husband was morose. +It was not Michael Halloran who kept the Mountain Valley House popular! +The old woman hurried to the curb and tied the horse as Jessica +dismounted. + +"How did ye guess I made some more this day?" she exclaimed. "Sure, if +ye drink it yerself, my dearie, them cheeks is all th' trade-mark I +need!" She led the way into the little carpeted side room, by courtesy +denominated "the parlor." "I'll go an' put it up in two shakes," she +said. "Sit ye down an' I'll not be ten minutes." So saying she bustled +away. + +Left alone, Jessica gazed abstractedly about her. Her mind was still +full of the painful reflections of her ride. A door opened from the room +into the office. It was ajar; she stepped close and looked in. + +A group of miners lounged in the space before the front +windows--familiarly referred to by its habitues as "the Amen +Corner"--chatting and watching the passers-by. + +Suddenly she clapped her hand to her mouth to stifle a cry. A name had +been spoken--the name that was in her thought--the name of "Hugh +Stires." She leaned forward, listening breathlessly. + +"I wonder where the young blackleg's been," said one, peering through +the windows. "He'd better have stayed away for good, I'm thinking. What +does he want to come back for, to a place where there aren't three men +who will take a drink with him?" + +The reply was as contemptuous. + +"We get some rare black sheep in the hills!" The voice spoke meaningly. +"If I had my way, he'd leave this region almighty quick!" + +Jessica looked about her an instant wildly, guiltily. She could not be +mistaken in the name! Was Hugh here, whither by the veriest accident she +had come--here in this very town that she had gazed down upon every day +for weeks? _Was he?_ She pressed her cold hands to her colder cheeks. +The contempt in the voices had smitten through her like a sword. + +A revulsion seized her. No, no, it could not be! She had not heard +aright. It was only a fancy! But she had an overwhelming desire to +satisfy herself with her own eyes. From where she stood she could not +see the street. She bethought herself of the upper balcony. + +Swiftly, on tiptoe, she crossed to the hall door, threw it open, and ran +hastily up the stair. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE MAN WHO HAD FORGOTTEN + + +If the man who had been the subject of the observations Jessica had +heard had been less absorbed, as he walked leisurely along on the +opposite side of the street, he would have noticed the look of dislike +in the eyes of those he passed. They drew away from him, and one +spoke--to no one in particular and with an oath offensive and fervid. +But weather-beaten, tanned, indifferently clad, and with a small brown +dog following him, the new-comer passed along, oblivious to the sidelong +scrutiny. He did not stare about him after the manner of a stranger, +though, so far as he knew, he had never been in the place before. So far +as he knew--for Harry Sanderson had no memories save those which had +begun on a certain day a month before in a box-car. He walked with eyes +on the pavement, absorbed in thoughts of his own. + +But Harry Sanderson now was not the man who had ridden into oblivion in +the motor-car. The rector of St. James was in a strange eclipse. +Mentally and externally he had reverted to the old Satan Sanderson, of +the brilliant flashing originality, of the curt risk and daring. The +deeply human and sensitive side, that had developed during his divinity +years, was in abeyance; it showed itself only in the affection he +bestowed on the little nameless dog that followed him like a brown, +shaggy shadow. + +He was like that old self of his, and yet, if he had but known it, he +was wonderfully like some one else, too--some one who had belonged to +the long ago and garbled past that still eluded him; some one who had +been a part also of the life of this very town, till a little over a +month before, when he had left it with dread dogging his footsteps! + +Curious coincidences had wrought together for this likeness. In the past +weeks Harry had grown perceptibly thinner. A spare beard was now on his +chin, and the fiery sun that had darkened his cheeks to sallow had +lightened his brown hair a shade. The cut on his brow had healed to the +semblance of a thin red birth-mark. Most of all, the renaissance of the +old character had given his look, to the casual eye, a certain flare and +jauntiness, which dissipation and license, unclogged now with memory or +compunction, had matured and vitalized. His was now a replica of the +face he had once seen, in that lost life of his, mirrored in his chapel +study--his own face, with the trail of evil upon it, and yet weirdly +like Hugh Stires'. + +Fate--or God!--was doing strange things for Harry Sanderson! + + +Harry's game of cards in the freight-car had been a sequent of the game +in the chapel. It was an instinctive effort of the newly-stirring +consciousness to relink the broken chain, utilizing the mental formula +which had been stamped deeply upon it when the curtain of oblivion +descended--which had persisted, as the photograph of the dead retina +shows the scene upon which the living eye last looked. The weeks that +followed were reversionary. Rebellion against convention, +dissipation--these had been the mask through which the odd temperament +of Satan Sanderson had looked at life. This mask had fallen before a +career of new meanings and motives. These blotted suddenly out with +their inspirations and habits, and, the old spring touched, the mind had +automatically resumed its old viewpoint. + +He had studied himself with a sardonic, _ex parte_ interest. He had +found at his disposal a well-stocked mind, a copious vocabulary. Terms +of science, historic references, the thousand and one allusions of the +daily newspaper that the unlearned pass over, all had their +significance for him. He was no superficial observer, and readily +recognized the evidences of mental culture. But the cord that had bound +all together into character had snapped. He was a ship without a rudder; +a derelict, drifting with the avid winds of chance on the tide of fate. +A thousand ways he had turned and turned. A thousand tricks he had tried +to cajole the unwilling memory. All were vain. When he had awakened in +the freight-car, many miles had lain between him and his vanished +history, between him and St. James parish, the town he had impressed, +the desolate white house in the aspens, the chapel service and surplice, +and the swift and secret-keeping river. Between him and all that these +things had meant, there lay a gulf of silence and blankness as wide as +infinity itself. + +But drifting, adventuring, blown by the gipsy wind of chance, learning +the alphabet and the rule of three of "the road," the man was at once a +part of it and apart from it. The side that rejoiced in the liberty and +madcap adventure was overlaid by another darkling side whose fingers +were ever feeling for the lost latch. In the nomad weeks of wind and +sun, as the tissues of the brain grew slowly back to a state of normal +action, the mind seized again and again upon the bitter question of his +identity. It had obtruded into clicking leagues on steel-rails, into +miles afoot by fruit-hung lanes, on white Pacific shell-roads under +cedar branches, on busy highways. It had stalked into days of labor in +hop-fields, work with hand and foot that brought dreamless sleep and +generous wage; into nights of less savory experience in city purlieus, +where a self-forgotten man gamed and drank, recklessly, audaciously, +forbiddingly. Who was he? From what equation of life had he been +eliminated? Had he loved anything or anybody? Had he a friend, any +friend, in the world? At first it was not often that he cared; only +occasionally some deep-rooted instinct would stir, subtly conscious, +without actual contrast, of the missed and evaded. But he came to ask it +no longer quizzically or sardonically, but gloomily and fiercely. And +lacking answer, the man of no yesterdays had plunged on toward the +ardent, alien to-morrow, and further into audacious folly. He had drunk +deeper, the sign-posts of warning were set in his countenance, and his +smile had grown as dangerous as a sunstroke. + + +The man of no memories gave no heed to the men on the street who looked +at him askance. He sauntered along unconsciously, his hands thrust deep +in his pockets. With a casual glance at the hotel across the way, he +entered a saloon, where a score of patrons were standing at the bar, or +shaking dice noisily at the tables ranged against the wall. The +bartender nodded to his greeting--the slightest possible nod. The dog +who had followed him into the place leaped up against him, its forepaws +on his knee. + +"Brandy, if you please," said the new arrival, and poured indolently +from the bottle set before him. + +The conversation in the room had chilled. To its occupants the man who +had entered was no stranger; he was Hugh Stires, returned unwelcome to a +place from which he had lately vanished. Moreover, what they felt for +him was not alone the crude hatred which the honest toiler feels for the +trickster who gains a living by devious knaveries. There was an uglier +suspicion afloat of Hugh Stires! A blue-shirted miner called gruffly for +his score, threw down the silver and went out, slamming the swing-door. +Another glowered at the new arrival, and ostentatiously drew his glass +farther along the bar. + +The new-comer regarded none of them. He poured his glass slowly full, +sipped from it, and holding it in his hand, turned and glanced +deliberately about the place. He looked at everybody in the room, +suddenly sensible of the hostile atmosphere, with what seemed a careless +amusement. Then he raised his glass. + +"Will you join me, gentlemen?" he said. + +There was but one response. A soiled, shambling figure, blear, +white-haired and hesitating, with a battered violin under its arm, +slouched from a corner and grasped eagerly for the bottle the bartender +contemptuously pushed toward him. No one else moved. + +The man who waited studied the roomful with a disdainful smile, with +eyes sparkling like steel points. He as wholly misunderstood their +dislike as they misconstrued his effrontery--did not guess that to them +he stood as one whom they had known and had good reason to despise. +Their attitude struck him as so manifestly unreasonable and absurd--so +primarily the sulky hatred of the laborious boor for the manifestly more +flippant member of society--that it diverted him. He had drunk at +bar-rooms in many strange places; never before had he encountered a +community like this. His veiled, insolent smile swept the room. + +"A spirit of brotherhood almost Christian!" he said. "If I observe that +the town's brandy is of superior vintage to its breeding, let me not be +understood as complimenting the former without reservation. I have drunk +better brandy; I have never seen worse manners!" + +He looked smilingly at the soiled figure beside him--a fragment of +flotsam tossed on the tide of failure. "I erred in my general +salutation," he said. "Gentility is, after all, less a habit than an +instinct." He lifted his glass--to the castaway. "I drink to the health +of the only other gentleman present," he said, and tossed the drink off. + +A snort and a truculent shuffle came from the standing men. Their faces +were dark. Tom Felder, the lawyer, entered the saloon just in time to +see big Devlin, the owner of the corner dance-hall, rise from a table, +rolling up flannel sleeves along tattooed arms. He saw him stride +forward and, with a well-directed shove, send the shambling inebriate +reeling across the floor. + +"Two curs at the bar are enough at a time!" quoth Devlin. + +Then the lawyer saw an extraordinary thing. The emptied glass rang +sharply on the bar, the arm that held it straightened, the lithe form +behind it seemed to expand--and the big bulk of Devlin went backward +through the doorway, and collapsed in a sprawling heap on the pavement. + +"For my part," said an even, infuriate voice from the threshold, "I +prefer but one." + +The face the roomful saw now as they pushed to the outer air, and which +turned on the flocking crowd, bore anything but the slinking look they +had been used to see on the face of Hugh Stires. The smile that meant +danger played over it; there was both calculation and savagery in it. It +was the look of the man to whom all risks are alike, to whom nothing +counts. In the instant confusion, every one there recognized the element +of hardihood dumfounded. Here was one who, as Barney McGinn, the +freighter, said afterward, "hadn't the sand of a sick coyote," bearding +a bully and the most formidable antagonist the town afforded. Devlin +himself was not overpopular; his action had been plainly enough a play +to the galleries; and courage--that animal attribute which no +circumstance or condition can rob of due admiration--had appeared in an +unexpected quarter. But the man they despised had infuriated them with +insult, and Devlin had the sympathy that clings to a fair cause. An ugly +growl was running through the crowd, and several started forward. Even +when Tom Felder put up his hand with a sharp, indignant exclamation, +they fell back with an unwilling compulsion. + +The prostrate man was on his feet in an instant, wiping the blood from a +cleft lip, and peeled off his vest with a vile epithet. + +"That is incidentally a venturesome word to select from your +vocabulary," said the even voice, a sort of detonation in it. "You will +feel like apologizing presently." + +Devlin came on with a bull-like rush. The lawyer's eye, shrewdly gaging +the situation, gave the slighter man short shrift, and for several +intense seconds every breath stopped. Those seconds called up from some +mysterious covert all the skill and strength of the old hard-hitting +Satan Sanderson, all the science of parry and feint learned in those +bluff college bouts with the gloves with Gentleman Jim. And this hidden +reserve rushed into combat with an avid thirst and wild ferocity as +strange as the steady eye and hand that cloaked them beneath a sardonic +coolness. + +It was a short, sharp contest. Not a blow broke the guard of the man +whose back was to the doorway--on the other hand, Devlin's face was +puffed and bleeding. When for a breath he drew back, gulping, a sudden +glint of doubt and fear had slipped beneath the blood and sweat. + +The end came quickly. Harry stepped to meet him, there was a series of +swift passes--then one, two, lightning-like blows, and Devlin went down +white and stunned in the dust of the roadway. + +So high was the tension and so instantaneous the close, that for a +moment the crowd was noiseless, the spell still upon them. In that +moment Tom Felder came hastily forward, for, though sharing the general +dislike, admiration was strong in him, and, knowing the temper of the +bystanders, he expected trouble. + +The man who had administered Devlin's punishment, however, did not see +his approach. He was looking somewhere above their heads--at the upper +balcony of the hotel opposite--staring, in a kind of strained and +horrified expectancy, at a girl who leaned forward, her hands clenching +the balustrade, her eyes fixed on his face. The late sunlight on her +hair made it gleam like burnished copper over her green riding-habit, +and her cheeks were blanched. + +There was something in that face, in that intense look, that seemed to +cleave the gray veil that swathed Harry Sanderson's past. Somewhere, +buried in some cell of his brain, a forgotten memory tugged at its +shackles--a memory of a time when, thousands and thousands of years ago, +he had been something more than the initials "H. S." The look pierced +through the daredevil present in which the mind astray had roved +reckless and insensate, to a deeper stratum in which slept maturer +qualities of refined taste, of dignity and of repute. It stripped off +the protecting cicatrice and left him enveloped in an odd embarrassment. +A flush burned his face. + +Only an instant the gaze hung between them. It served as a distraction, +for other eyes had raced to the balcony. Loud voices were suddenly +hushed, for there was not wanting in the crowd that instinctive regard +for the proprieties which belongs to communities where gentlewomen are +few. In that instant Felder put his hand on the arm of the staring man +and drew him to the door of the hotel. + +"Inside, quickly!" he said under his breath, for a rumble from the crowd +told him the girl had left the balcony above. He pushed the other +through the doorway and turned for a second on the threshold. + +"Whatever private feelings you may have," he said in a tone that all +heard, "don't disgrace the town. Fair play--no matter who he is! McGinn, +I should think you, at least, were big enough to settle your grudges +without the help of a crowd." + +The freighter reddened angrily for a second, then with a shame-faced +laugh, shrugged his shoulders and turned away. The lawyer went in, +shutting the hotel door behind him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE AWAKENING + + +The man whose part the lawyer had taken had yielded to his touch almost +dazedly as the girl disappeared. The keen, pleasurable tang of danger +which had leaped in his blood when he faced the enmity of the crowded +street--the reckless zest with which he would have met any odds and any +outcome with the same smile, and gone down if need be fighting like the +tiger in the jungle--had been pierced through by that look from the +balcony. His poise for a puzzling moment had been shaken, his +self-command overthrown. Feeling a dull sense of anger at the curious +embarrassment upon him, he went slowly through the office to the desk, +and with his back to the room, lit a cigar. + +The action was half mechanical, but to the men gathered at the windows, +as they got down from the chairs on which they had been standing, +interested spectators of the proceedings outside, it seemed a pose of +gratuitous insolence. Tom Felder, entering, saw it with something of +resentment. + +"That was a close squeak," he said. "Do you realize that? In five +minutes more you'd have been handled a sight worse than you handled your +man, let me tell you!" + +The man of no memories smiled, the same smile that had infuriated the +bar-room--and yet somehow it was more difficult to smile now. + +"Is it possible," he asked, "that through an unlucky error I have +trounced the local archbishop?" + +Felder looked at him narrowly. Beneath the sarcasm he distinguished +unfamiliarity, aloofness, a genuine astonishment. The appearance in the +person of Hugh Stires of the qualities of nerve and courage had +surprised him out of his usual indifference. The "tinhorn gambler" had +fought like a man. His present _sang-froid_ was as singular. Had he been +an absolute stranger in the town he might have acted and spoken no +differently. Felder's smooth-shaven, earnest face was puzzled as he +answered curtly: + +"You've trounced a man who will remember it a long time." + +"Ah?" said the man addressed easily. "He has a better memory than I, +then!" + +He gazed over the heads of the silent roomful to the simmering street +where Devlin, with the aid of a supporting arm, was staggering into the +saloon in which his humiliation had begun. "They seem agitated," he +said. The feeling of embarrassment was passing, the old daring was +lifting. His glance, scanning the room, set itself on a shabby, blear +figure in the background, apologetic yet keenly and pridefully +interested. A whimsical light was in his eye. He crossed to him and, +reaching out his hand, drew the violin from under his arm. + +"Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast," he said, and, opening +the door, he tucked the instrument under his chin and began to play. + +What absolute contempt of danger, what insane prompting possessed him, +can scarcely be imagined. As he stood there on the threshold with that +veiled smile, he seemed utterly careless of consequence, beckoning +attack, flaunting an egregious impertinence in the face of anger and +dislike. Felder looked for a quick end to the folly, but he saw the men +in the street, even as they moved forward, waver and pause. With almost +the first note, it had come to them that they were hearing music such as +the squeaking fiddles of the dance-halls never knew. Those on the +opposite pavement crossed over, and men far down the street stood still +to listen. + +More than the adept's cunning, that had at first tingled in his fingers +at sight of the instrument, was in Harry Sanderson's playing. The +violin had been the single passion which the old Satan Sanderson had +carried with him into the new career. The impulse to "soothe the savage +breast" had been a flare of the old character he had been reliving; but +the music, begun in bravado, swept him almost instantly beyond its +bounds. He had never been an indifferent performer; now he was playing +as he had never played in his life, with inspiration and abandon. There +was a diabolism in it. He had forgotten the fight, the crowd, his own +mocking mood. He had forgotten where he was. He was afloat on a +fluctuant tide of melody that was carrying him back--back--into the +far-away past--toward all that he had loved and lost! + +"It's _Home, Sweet Home_," said Barney McGinn,--"no, it's _Annie +Laurie_. No, it's--hanged if I know what it is!" + +The player himself could not have told him. He was in a kind of tranced +dream. The self-made music was calling with a sweet insistence to buried +things that were stirring from a long sleep. It sent a gulp into the +throat of more than one standing moveless in the street. It brought a +suspicious moisture to Tom Felder's eyes. It drew Mrs. Halloran from the +kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. It called to a girl who crouched +in the upper hall with her miserable face buried in her hands, drew her +down the stair to the office door, her eyes wide with a breathless +wonder, her face glistening with feeling. + +From the balcony Jessica had witnessed the fight without understanding +its meaning. A fascination she could not gainsay had glued her eyes to +the struggle. It was he--it was the face she knew, seen but once for a +single moment in the hour of her marriage, but stamped indelibly upon +her memory. It was no longer smooth-shaven, and it was changed, evilly +changed. But it was the same! There was recklessness and mockery in it, +and yet strength, not weakness. Shunned and despised as he might be--the +chief actor, as it seemed to her, in a cheap and desperate bar-room +affray, a coarse affair of fisticuffs in the public street--yet there +was something intrepid in his bearing, something splendid in his +victory. In spite of the sharp, momentary sense of antagonism that had +bruised her inmost fiber, when the brutal bulk of his opponent fell she +could have wept with relief! Then, suddenly, she had found that look +chaining her own. It had given her a strange thrill, had both puzzled +and touched her. She had dragged her eyes away with a choking sensation, +a sense of helplessness and capture. When the violin sounded, a +resistless rush of feeling had swept her to the lower door, where she +stood behind the spectators, spellbound. + +In the man who played, weird forces were contending. The feel of the +polished wood on his cheek, the odor of the resined catgut in his +nostrils, were plucking, plucking at the closed door. A new note crept +to the strings. They had spoken pathos--now they told of pain. All the +struggle whose very meaning was forgotten, the unrequital, the baffled +quest, the longing of that last year which had been born of a woman's +kiss in a darkened room, never voiced in that lost life, poured forth +broken, inarticulate. + +To Jessica, standing with hands close-clasped, it seemed the agony of +remorse for a past fall, the cry of a forlorn soul, knowing itself cast +out, appealing to its good angel for pity and pardon. Hugh had often +played to her, lightly, carelessly, as he did all things. She had deemed +it only one of his many clever, amateurish accomplishments. Now it +struck her with a pang that there had been in him a deeper side that she +had not guessed. Since her wedding-day she had thought of her marriage +as a loathed bond, from which his false pretense had absolved her. Now a +doubt of her own position assailed her. Had loneliness and outlawry +driven him into the career that had made him shunned even in this rough +town--a course which she, had she been faithful to her vow "for better, +for worse," might have turned to his redemption? God forgave, but she +had not forgiven! Smarting tears scorched her eyelids. + +For Harry Sanderson the music was the imprisoned memory, crying out +strongly in the first tongue it had found. But the ear was alien, the +mind knew no by-path of understanding. It was a blind wave, feeling +round some under-sea cavern of suffering. Beneath the pressure the +closed door yielded, though it did not wholly open. The past with its +memories remained hidden, but through the rift, miraculously called by +the melody, the real character that had been the Reverend Henry +Sanderson came forth. The perplexed phantom that had been moving down +the natural declivity of resurrected predisposition, fell away. The +slumbering qualities that had stirred uneasily at sight of the face on +the balcony, awoke. Who he was and had been he knew no more than before; +but the new writhing self-consciousness, starting from its sleep, with +almost a sense of shock, became conscious of the gaping crowd, the dusty +street, the red sunset, and of himself at the end of a vulgar brawl, +sawing a violin in silly braggadocio in a hotel doorway. + +The music faltered and broke off. The bow dropped at his feet. He picked +it up fumblingly and turned back into the office, as a man entered from +a rear door. The new-comer was Michael Halloran, the hotel's proprietor, +short, thick-set and surly. Asleep in his room, he had neither seen the +fracas nor heard the playing. He saw instantly, however, that something +unusual was forward, and, blinking on the threshold, caught sight of the +man who was handing the violin back to its owner. He clenched his fist +with a scowl and started toward him. + +His wife caught his arm. + +"Oh, Michael, Michael!" she cried. "Say nothing, lad! Ye should have +heard him play!" + +"Play!" he exclaimed. "Let him go fiddle to his side-partner Prendergast +and the other riffraff he's run with the year past!" He turned blackly +to Harry. "Take yourself from this house, Hugh Stires!" he said. +"Whether all's true that's said of you I don't say, but you'll not come +here!" + +Harry had turned very white. With the spoken name--a name how +familiar!--his eyes had fallen to the ring on his finger--the ring with +the initials H. S. A sudden comprehension had darted to his mind. A +score of circumstances that had seemed odd stood out now in a baleful +light. The looks of dislike in the bar-room--the attitude of the +street--this angry diatribe--all smacked of acquaintance, and not alone +acquaintance, but obloquy. His name was Hugh Stires! He belonged to +this very town! And he was a man hated, despised, forbidden entrance to +an uncouth hostelry, an unwelcome visitant even in a bar-room! + +An hour earlier the discovery would not so have appalled him. But the +violin music, in the emergence of the real Harry Sanderson, had, as it +were, flushed the mind of its turgid silt of devil-may-care and left it +quick and quivering. He turned to Felder and said in a low voice--to +him, not to the hotel-keeper, or to the roomful: + +"When I entered this town to-day, I did not know my name, or that I had +ever set foot in it before. I was struck by a train a month ago, and +remember nothing beyond that time. It seems that the town knows me +better than I know myself." + +Halloran looked about him with a laugh of derision and incredulity, but +few joined in it. Those who had heard the playing realized that in some +eerie way the personality of the man they had known had been altered. +Before the painful, shocked intensity of his face, the lawyer felt his +instant skepticism fraying. This was little like acting! He felt an +inclination to hold out his hand, but something held him back. + +Harry Sanderson turned quietly and walked out of the door. Pavement and +street were a hubbub of excited talk. The groups parted as he came out, +and he passed between them with eyes straight before him. + +As he turned down the street, a fragment of quartz, thrown with +deliberate and venomous aim, flew from the saloon doorway. It grazed his +head, knocking off his hat. + +Tom Felder had seen the flying missile, and he leaped to the center of +the street with rage in his heart. "If I find out who threw that," he +said, "I'll send him up for it, so help me God!" + +Harry stooped and picked up his hat, and as he put it on again, turned a +moment toward the crowd. Then he walked on, down the middle of the +street, his eyes glaring, his face white, into the dusky blue of the +falling twilight. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +AT THE TURN OF THE TRAIL + + +The scene in the hotel office had left Jessica in a state of mental +distraction in which reason was in abeyance. In the confusion she had +slipped into the little sitting-room unnoticed, feeling a sense almost +of physical sickness, to sit in the half-light, listening to the +diminishing noises of the spilling crowd. She was wind-swept, +storm-tossed, in the grip of primal emotions. The surprise had shocked +her, and the strange appeal of the violin had disturbed her equipoise. + +The significant words of awakening spoken in the office had come to her +distinctly. In their light she had read the piteous puzzle of that gaze +that had held her motionless on the balcony. Hugh had forgotten the +past--all of it, its crime, its penalty. In forgetting the past, he had +forgotten even her, his wife! Yet in some mysterious way her face had +been familiar to him; it had touched for an instant the spring of the +befogged memory. + +As she spurred through the transient twilight past the selvage of the +town and into the somber mountain slope, she struck the horse sharply +with her crop. He who had entrapped her, who had married her under the +shadow of a criminal act, who had broken her future with his, when his +whole bright life had crashed down in black ruin--could such a one look +as he had looked at her? Could he make such music that had wrung her +heart? + +All at once the horse shied violently, almost unseating her. A man was +lying by the side of the road, tossing and muttering to himself. She +forced the unwilling animal closer, and, leaning from the saddle, saw +who it was. In a moment she was off and beside the prostrate form, a +spasm of dread clutching at her throat at sight of the nerveless limbs, +the chalky pallor of the brow, the fever spots in the cheeks. + +A wave of pity swept over her. He was ill and alone; he could not be +left there--he must have shelter. She looked fearfully about her. What +could she do? In that town, whose intolerance and dislike she had seen +so actively demonstrated, was there no one who would care for him? She +turned her head, listening to a nearing sound--footsteps were plodding +up the road. She called, and presently a pedestrian emerged from the +half-dark and came toward her. + +He bent over the form she showed him. + +"It's Stires," he said with a chuckle. "I heard he'd come back." The +chuckle turned to a cough, and he shook his head. "This is sad! You +could never believe how I have labored with the boy, but"--he turned out +his hands--"you see, there is the temptation. It is his unhappy +weakness." + +Jessica remembered the yellow, smirking face now. She had passed him on +the day Tom Felder had walked with her from the Mountain Valley House, +and the lawyer had told her he lived in the cabin just below the Knob, +where she so often sat. She felt a quiver of repulsion. + +"He is not intoxicated," she said coldly. "He is ill. You know him, +then?" + +"Know him!" he echoed, and laughed--a dry, cackling laugh. "I ought to. +And I guess he knows me." He shook the inert arm. "Get up, Hugh!" he +said. "It's Prendergast!" + +There flashed through her mind the phrase of the surly hotel-keeper: +"His side-partner, Prendergast!" Could it be? Had Hugh really lived in +the cabin on which she had so often peered down during those past weeks? +And with this chosen crony! + +She touched Prendergast's arm. "He is ill, I say," she repeated. "He +must be cared for at once. Your cabin is on the hillside, isn't it?" + +"_His_ cabin," he corrected. "A rough place, but it has sheltered us +both. I am but guide, philosopher and friend." + +She bit her lips. "Lift him on my horse," she said. She stooped and put +her hands under the twitching shoulders. "I will help you. I am quite +strong." + +With her aid he lifted the swaying form on to the saddle and supported +it while Jessica led the way up the darkening road. + +"Here is the cut-off," he said presently. "Ah, you know it!" for she had +turned into the side-path that led along the hill, under the gray, +snake-like flume--the shortest route to the grassy shelf on which the +cabin stood. + +The by-way was steep and rugged, and rhododendron clumps caught at her +ankles, and once she heard a snake slip over the dry rustle of leaves, +but she went on rapidly, dragging at the bridle, turning back now and +then anxiously to urge the horse to greater speed. She scarcely heard +the offensively honied compliments which Prendergast offered to her +courage and resource. Her pulses were throbbing unsteadily, her mind in +a ferment. + +It seemed an eternity they climbed; in reality it was scarcely twenty +minutes before they reached the grassy knoll and the cabin whose crazy +swinging door stood wide to the night air. She tied the horse, went in +and at Prendergast's direction found matches and lit a candle. The bare, +two-room interior it revealed, was unkempt and disordered. Rough bunks, +a table and a couple of hewn chairs were almost its only furniture. The +window was broken and the roof admitted sun and rain. Prendergast laid +the man they had brought on one of the bunks and threw over him a shabby +blanket. + +"My dear young lady," he said, "you are a good Samaritan. How shall we +thank you, my poor friend here and I?" + +Jessica had taken money from her pocket and now she held it out to him. +"He must have a doctor," she said. "You must fetch one." + +The yellow eyes fastened on the bill, even while his gesture protested. +"You shame me!" he exclaimed. "And yet you are right; it is for him." He +folded it and put it into his pocket. "As soon as I have built a fire, I +will go for our local _medico_. He will not always come at the call of +the luckless miner. All are not so charitable as you." + +He untied her horse and extended a hand, but she mounted without his +help. "He will thank you one day--this friend of mine," he said, "far +better than I can do." + +"It is not at all necessary to tell him," she replied frigidly. "The +sick are always to be helped, in every circumstance." + +She gave her horse the rein as she spoke and turned him up the steep +path that climbed back of the cabin, past the Knob, and so by a narrow +trail to the mountain road. + +Emmet Prendergast stood listening to the dulling hoof-beats a moment, +then reentered the cabin. The man on the bunk had lifted to a sitting +position, his eyes were open, dazed and staring. + +"That's right," the older man said. "You're coming round. How does it +feel to be back in the old shebang? Can't guess how you got here, can +you? You were towed on horseback by a beauty, Hughey, my boy--a +rip-staving beauty! I'll tell you about it in the morning, if you're +good." + +The man he addressed made no answer; his eyes were on the other, +industrious and bewildered. + +"I heard about the row," went on Prendergast. "They didn't think it was +in you, and neither did I." He looked at him cunningly. "Neither did +Moreau, eh, eh? You're a clever one, Hugh, but the lost-memory racket +won't stand you in anything. You hadn't any call to get scared in the +first place--_I_ don't tell all I know!" + +He shoved the candle nearer on the table. "There's a queer look in your +face, Hugh!" he said, with a clumsy attempt at kindness. "That rock they +threw must have hurt you. Feel sort of dizzy, eh? Never mind, I'll show +you a sight for sore eyes. You went off without your share of the last +swag, but I've saved it for you. Prendergast wouldn't cheat a pal!" + +From a cranny in the clay-chinked wall he took a chamois-skin bag. It +contained a quantity of gold-dust and small nuggets, which he poured +into a miner's scales on the table and proceeded to divide in two +portions. This accomplished, he emptied one of the portions on to a +paper and pushed it out. + +"That's yours," he said. + +Harry's eyes were on his with a piercing intensity now, as though they +looked through him to a vast distance beyond. He was staring through a +gray mist, at something far off but significant that eluded his direct +vision. The board table, the yellow gold, the flickering candle-light +recalled something horrifying, in some other world, in some other life, +millions of ages ago. + +He lurched to his feet, overturning the table. The gold-dust rattled to +the floor. + +"Your deal!" he said. Then with a vague laugh, he fell sidewise upon +the bunk. + +Emmet Prendergast stared at him with a look of amazement on his yellow +face. "He's crazy as a chicken!" he said. + +He sat watching him a while, then rose and kindled a fire on the unswept +hearth. From a litter of cans and dented utensils in a corner he +proceeded to cook himself supper, after which he carefully brushed up +the scattered gold-dust and returned it all to its hiding-place. Lastly +he rummaged on a shelf and found a phial; this proved to be empty, +however, and he set it on the table. + +"I guess you'll do well enough without any painkiller," he said to +himself. "Doctors are expensive. Anyway, I'll be back by midnight." + +He threw more wood on the fire, blew out the candle, and, closing the +door behind him, set off down the trail to the town--where a faro-bank +soon acquired the bill Jessica had given him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE STRENGTH OF THE WEAK + + +It was pitch-dark when Jessica reached the sanatorium, though she went +like a whirlwind, the chill damp smell of the dewy balsams in her +nostrils, the dust rising ghost-like behind the rapid hoofs. She found +David Stires anxious and peevish over her late coming. + +Sitting beside him as he ate his supper, and reading to him afterward, +she had little time for coherent thought; all the while she was +maintaining her self-control with an effort. Since she had ridden away +that afternoon, she felt as if years had gone over her with all their +changes. She was oppressed with a new sense of fate, of power beyond and +stronger than herself, and her mind was enveloped in a haze of futurity. +She felt a relief when the old man grew tired and was wheeled to his +bedroom. + +Left alone, her reflections returned. She began to be tortured. She +tried to read--the printed characters swam beyond her comprehension. At +length she drew a hood over her head and stole out on to the wide porch. + +It was only nine o'clock, and along the gravel paths that wound among +the shrubbery a few dim forms were strolling--she caught the scent of a +cigar and the sound of a woman's laugh. The air was crisp and bracing, +with a promise of frost and painted leaves. She gazed down across the +dark gulches toward the town, a straggling design pricked in blinking +yellow points. Halfway between, folded in the darkness, lay the green +shelf and the cabin to which her thought recurred with a kind of +compulsion. + +Her eyes searched the darkness anxiously. He had seemed dangerously ill; +he might die, perhaps. If he did, what would it be for her, his wife, +but freedom from a galling bond? She thought of the violin playing. Had +that been but the soul's swan-song, the last cry of his stained and +desolate spirit before it passed from this world that knew its +temptation and its fall? If she could only know what the doctor had +said! + +There was no moon, but the stars were glowing like tiny, green-gilt +coals, and the yellow road lay plain and clear. With a sudden +determination she drew her light cloak closely about her, stepped down, +sped across the grass to a footpath, and so to the road. + +As she ran on down the curving stretch under the trees, moving like a +hastening, gray phantom through a purple world of shadows, the +crackling slip of bank-paper that lay in her bosom seemed to burn her +flesh. She was stealing away to gaze upon the outcast who had shamed and +humbled her--going, she knew not why, with burning cheeks and hammering +heart. + +She slipped through the side trail to the cabin with a choking +sensation. She stole to the window and peered in--in the firelight she +could see the form on the bunk, tossing and muttering. Otherwise the +place was empty. She lifted the latch softly and entered. + +The strained anxiety of Jessica's look relaxed as she gazed about her. +She saw the phial on the table--the doctor had been there, then. If he +were in serious case, Prendergast would be with him. She threw back her +hood, drew one of the chairs to the side of the bunk and sat down, her +eyes fixed on his face. The weakness and helplessness of his posture +struck through and through her. Two sides of her were struggling in a +chaotic combat for mastery. + +"I hate you! I hate you!" she said under her breath, clenching her cold +hand. "I _must_ hate you! You stole my love and put it under your feet! +You have disgraced my present and ruined my future! What if you have +forgotten the past--your crime? Does that make you the less guilty, or +me the less wretched?" + +But withal a silent voice within her gave the lie to her vehemence. +Some element of her character that had been rigid and intact was +crumbling down. An old, sweet something, that a dreadful mill had ground +and crushed and annihilated, was rising whole and undefiled, superior to +any petty distinction, regardless of all that lifted combative in her +inheritance, not to be gainsaid or denied. + +She leaned closer, listening to the incoherent words and broken phrases +borne on the turbid channels of fever. But she could not link them +together into meaning. Only one name he spoke clearly over and over +again--the name Hugh Stires--repeated with the dreary monotony of a +child conning a lesson. She noted the mark across his brow. Before her +marriage, in her blindness, she had used to wonder what it was like. It +was not in the least disfiguring--it gave a touch of the extraordinary. +It was so small she did not wonder that in that ecstatic moment of her +bride's kiss she had not seen it. + +Slowly, half fearfully, she stretched out her hand and laid it on his. +As if at the touch the mutterings ceased. The eyes opened, and a +confused, troubled look crept to them. Then they closed again, and the +look faded out into a peace that remained. + +Jessica dropped to her knees and buried her face in the blanket, +burning and chilling with an indescribable sensation of mingled pain and +pleasure. She scarcely knew what she was thinking. It seemed to her that +his very weakness and helplessness voiced again the something that had +sounded in the music of the violin, when the buried, forgotten past had +cried out its pain and shame and plea, half unconsciously--to her! A +thrill ran through her, the sense of moral power of the weak over the +strong, of the feminine over the masculine. + +A rising flush stained her cheeks. With a sudden impulse, and with a +guilty backward glance, she bent and touched her lips to his forehead. + +She drew back quickly, her face flooded with color, caught her breath, +then, drawing her hood over her head, went swiftly to the door and was +swallowed up in the darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE EVIL EYE + + +Harry Sanderson, harking back from the perilous pathway of fever, was to +see himself in the light of reawakened instincts. The man of no +memories, in his pointless wanderings, had felt dissatisfaction, a +fierce resentment, a savage unrest, but morally he had not suffered. The +spiritual elements of the maturer growth had slept. At a woman's look +they had awakened, to rise to full stature under the strange spell of +melody. When the real, remorseful nature, newly emerged, found itself an +object of animadversion and contempt, face to face with a past of shame +and reproach, the shock had been profound. The stirring of the old +conscience was as painful as is the first gasp of air to the drowned +lung. It had thrown the brain into a fever to whose fierce onslaught the +body had temporarily succumbed. + +When, toward midnight, the fever ebbed, he had fallen into a deep sleep +of exhaustion, from which he opened his eyes next morning upon the +figure of Prendergast, sitting pipe in mouth in the sunny doorway. + +He lifted himself on his elbow. That crafty face had been inexplicably +woven with the delirious fantasies of his fever. Where and when had he +known it? Then in a great wave welled over him the memory of his last +conscious hours--the scene in the saloon, the fight, the music, the +sudden appalling discovery of his name and repute. He remembered the +sickening wave of self-disgust, the fierce agony of resentment that had +beat in his every vein as he walked up the darkening street. He +remembered the thrown quartz. No doubt another missile had struck home, +or he had been set upon, kicked and pommelled into insensibility. This +old man--a miner probably, for there were picks and shovels in the +corner--had succored him. He had been ill, there was lassitude in every +limb, and shadowy recollections tantalized him. As in the garish day one +mistily recalls a dream of the night before, he retained a dim +consciousness of a woman's face--the face he had seen on the +balcony--leaning near him, bringing into a painful disorder a sense of +grateful coolness, of fragrance, and of rest. + +He turned his head. Through the window he could see the blue, ravined +mountain--a slope of verdure soaked in placid, yellow sunshine, rising +gradually to the ridge, peaceful and Arcadian. + +As he stared again at the seated figure, the grim fact reared like a +grisly specter, deriding, thrusting its haggard presence upon him. In +this little community, which apparently he had forsaken and to which he +had by chance returned, he stood a rogue and a scoundrel, a thing to +point the finger at and to avoid! The question that had burned his brain +to fire flamed up again. The town despised him. What had been his +career? How had he become a pariah? And by what miracle had he been so +altered as to look upon himself with loathing? + +He was dimly conscious withal that some fundamental change had passed +over him, though how or when he could not tell. Some mysterious moral +alchemy had transmuted his elements. What he had been he was no more. He +was no longer even the man who had awakened in the box-car. Yet the +debts of the unknown yesterday must be paid in the coin of the known +to-day! + +He lifted himself upright, dropping his feet to the floor. At the +movement the man on the doorstep rose quickly and came forward. + +"You're better, Hugh," he said. "Take it easy, though. Don't get up just +yet--I'm going to cook you some breakfast." He turned to the hearth, +kicked the smoldering log-ends together and set a saucepan on them. +"You'll be stronger when you've got something between your ribs," he +added. + +"How long have I been lying here?" asked Harry. + +"Only since last night. You've had a fever." + +"Where is my dog?" + +"Dog?" said the other. "I never knew you had one." + +Harry's lips set bitterly. It had fared more hardly, then, than he. It +had been a ready object for the crowd to wreak their hatred upon, +because it belonged to him--because it was Hugh Stires' dog! He leaned +back a moment against the cabin wall, with closed eyes, while +Prendergast stirred the heating mixture, which gave forth a savory +aroma. + +"Is this your cabin, my friend?" + +The figure bending over the hearth straightened itself with a jerk and +the blinking yellow eyes looked hard at him. Prendergast came close to +the bunk. + +"That's the game you played in the town," he said with a surly sneer. +"It's all right for those that take it in, but you needn't try to +bamboozle me, pretending you don't know your own claim and cabin! I'm no +such fool!" + +A dull flush came to Harry's face. Here was a page from that iniquitous +past that faced him. His own cabin? And his own claim? Well, why not? + +"You are mistaken," he said calmly. "I am not pretending. I can not +remember you." + +Prendergast laughed in an ugly, derisive way. "I suppose you've +forgotten the half-year we've lived here together, and the gold-dust +we've gathered in now and again--slipped it all, have you?" + +Harry stood up. The motion brought a temporary dizziness, but it passed. +He walked to the door and gazed out on the pleasant green of the +hillside. On a tree near-by was nailed a rough, weather-beaten board on +which was scrawled "The Little Paymaster Claim." He saw the grass-grown +gravel-trenches, evidence of abandoned work. He had been a miner. That +in itself was honest toil. Across the waving foliage he could look down +to the distant straggling street with its huddles of houses and its +far-off swinging signs. Some of these signs hung above resorts of +clicking wheels and green baize tables; more than once in the past month +on such tables he had doubled many times over a paltry stake with that +satiric luck which smiles on the uncaring. His eye ran back up the +slope. + +"The claim is good, then," he said over his shoulder. "We found the +pay?" + +Prendergast contemplated him a moment in grim silence, with a scowl. +"You're either really fuddled, Hugh," he said then, "or else you're a +star play-actor, and up to something deep. Well, have it your own +way--it's all the same to me. But you can't pull the wool over my eyes +long!" + +There was mockery and threat in his tone, but more than both, the evil +intimacy in his words gave Harry a qualm of disgust. This man had been +his associate. That one hour in the town had shown him what his own life +there had been. + +What should he do? Forsake for ever the neighborhood where he had made +his blistering mark? Fling all aside and start again somewhere? And +leave behind this disgraceful present, with that face that had looked +into his from above the dusty street? + +If fate intended that, why had it turned him back? Why had he been +plucked rudely from his purpose and set once more here, where every +man's hand was against him--every one but this sorry comrade? There was +in him an intuitive obstinacy, a steadfastness under stress which +approved this drastic coercion. If such was the bed he had made, he +would lie in it. He would drink the gall and vinegar without whimpering. +Whatever lay behind, he would live it down. This man at least had +befriended him. + +He turned into the room. "Perhaps I shall remember after a while." He +took the saucepan from Prendergast's hand. "I'll cook the breakfast," he +said. + +Prendergast filled his pipe and watched him. "I guess there _are_ bats +in your belfry, sure enough, Hugh," he said at length. "You never +offered to do your stint before." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +MRS. HALLORAN TELLS A STORY + + +From the moment her kiss fell upon the forehead of the delirious man in +the cabin, Jessica began to be a prey to new emotions, the significance +of which she did not comprehend. She was no longer a child; she had +attained to womanhood on that summer's wedding-day that seemed so far +away. But her woman's heart was untried, and it felt itself opening to +this new experience with a strange confusion. + +That kiss, she told herself that night, had been given to her dead +ideal, that had lain there in its purifying grave-clothes of +forgetfulness. Yet it burned on her lips, as that other kiss in a +darkened room had burned afterward, but with a sense of pleasure, not of +hurt. It took her back into crimson meadows with her lost girlhood and +its opaled outlook--and Hugh. Then the warring emotions racked her +again; she felt a whirl of anger at herself, of hot impatience, of +mortification, of self-pity, and of stifled longing for she knew not +what. + +But largest of all in her mind next day was anxiety. She must know how +he fared. In the open daylight she could not approach the cabin, but she +reflected that the doctor had been there, and no doubt had carried some +report of him to the town. So, as the morning grew, she rode down the +mountain, ostensibly to get the cherry cordial she had left behind her +the day before--really to satisfy her hunger for news. + +As it happened, Mrs. Halloran's first greeting set her anxiety at rest. +Prendergast had bought some tobacco at the general store an hour before, +while she had been making her daily order, and the store-keeper had +questioned him. Prendergast had a fawning liking for the notice of his +fellows--save for his saloon cronies, few enough in the town, where it +was currently reported that he had a prison record in Arkansas, ever +exchanged more than a nod with him--and he had responded eagerly to the +civil inquiries. To an interested audience he had told of the finding of +Hugh on the mountain road in a sort of crazy fever, and enlarged upon +the part the girl on horseback had played. Hugh was all right now, he +said, except that he didn't remember him, or the cabin, or Smoky +Mountain. + +Here was new interest. Though her name was known to few, Jessica had +come to be a familiar figure on the streets--she was the only lady rider +the place knew--and the description was readily recognizable without +the name which Mrs. Halloran supplied. In an hour the story had found a +hundred listeners, and as Jessica rode by that day, many a passer-by had +turned to gaze after her. + +What Prendergast had said Mrs. Halloran told her in a breath. Before she +finished she found that Jessica had not heard of the incident in the +saloon which had precipitated the fight with Devlin, and with +sympathetic rhetoric Mrs. Halloran told this, too. + +"He deserved it, ye see, dearie," she finished. "But no less was it a +brave thing that--what ye did last night, alone on the mountain with +them two, an' countin' yerself as safe as if ye were in God's pocket! To +hear that scalawag Prendergast talk, he's been Hugh Stires' good +angel--the oily hypocrite! An' do ye think it's true that he's lost his +memory--Stires, I mean--an' don't know nothin' that's ever happened with +him? Could that be, do ye think?" + +"I've often heard of such a thing, Mrs. Halloran," responded Jessica. +Her heart was throbbing painfully. "But why does Smoky Mountain hate him +so? What has he done?" + +Mrs. Halloran shook her head. "I never knew anything myself," she said +judiciously. "I reckon the town allus counted him just a general +low-down. The rest is only suspicion an' give the dog a bad name." + +There had been comfort for Jessica in this interview. The burden of that +illness off her mind--she had not realized how great a load this had +been till it was lifted--she turned eagerly toward this rift in the +cloud of infamy that seemed to envelop the reputation of the man whose +life her own had again so strangely touched. She was feeling a new +kinship with the town; it was now not alone a spot upon which she had +loved to gaze from the height; it was the place wherein the man she had +once loved had lived and moved. + +Mrs. Halloran's story had materially increased the poignant force of her +pity. What had seemed to her a vulgar brawl, had been in reality a +courageous and unselfish championship of a defenseless outcast. Thinking +of this, the self-blame and contrition which she had felt when she +listened to the violin assailed her anew, till she seemed a very part of +the guilt, an equal sinner by omission. + +Yet she rode homeward that day with almost a light heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +A VISIT AND A VIOLIN + + +Prendergast's first view had been one of suspicion, but this had been +shaken, and thereafter he had studied Harry with a sneering tolerance. +There had been little talk between them during the meal which the +younger man had cooked, taking the saucepan from the other's hands. +Shrinking acutely from the details of the dismal past which he must +learn, Harry had asked no questions and Prendergast had maintained a +morose silence. The latter had soon betaken himself down the +mountain--to his audience in the general store. + +As Harry stood in the cabin doorway, looking after him, toward the town +glistening far below in the morning sunlight, he thought bitterly of his +reception there. + +"They all knew me," he thought; "every one knew me, on the street, in +the hotel. They know me for what I have been to them. Yet to me it is +all a blank! What shameful deeds have I done?" He shrank from memory +now! "What was I doing so far away, where was I going, on the night when +I was picked up beside the railroad track? I may be a drunkard," he +said to himself. "No, in the past month I have drunk hard, but not for +the taste of the liquor! I may be a gambler--the first thing I remember +is that game of cards in the box-car! I may be a cheat, a thief. Yet how +is it possible for bad deeds to be blotted out and leave no trace? +Actions breed habit, if they do not spring from it, and habit, +automatically repeated, becomes character. I feel no inherent propensity +to rob, or defraud. Shall I? Will these things come back to me if my +memory does? Shall I become once more one with this vile old man, my +'side-partner,' to share the evil secrets that I see in his eyes--as I +must once have shared them?" He shuddered. + +There welled over him again, full force, the passionate resentment, the +agony of protest, that had been the gift of the resuscitated character. +He found himself fighting a wild desire to fling his resolution behind +him and fly from his reputation and its penalties. + +In the battle that he fought now he turned, even in his weakness, to +manual labor, striving to dull his thought with mechanical movement. He +cleaned and put to rights both rooms and sorted their litter of odds and +ends. But at times the inclination to escape became well-nigh +insupportable. When the conflict was fiercest he would think of a +girl's face, once seen, and the thought would restrain him. Who was she? +Why had her look pierced through him? In that hateful career that seemed +so curiously alien, could she have had a part? + +He did not know that she of whom he wondered, in the bitterest of those +hours had been very near him--that on her way up the mountain she had +stolen down to the Knob to look through the parted bushes to the cabin +with the blue spiral rising from its chimney. He could not guess that +she gazed with a strained, agitated interest, a curiosity even more +intense than his own, the look of a heart that was strangely learning +itself with mingled and tremulous emotions. + +Though the homely task to which he turned failed to allay his struggle, +by nightfall Harry had put the warring elements under. When Prendergast +returned at supper-time the candle was lighted in its wall-box, the +dinted tea-kettle was singing over a crackling fire, and Harry was +perspiring over the scouring of the last utensil. + +Prendergast looked the orderly interior over on the threshold with a +contemptuous amusement. "Almost thought I was in church," he said. He +took off his coat and lazily watched the other cook the frugal evening +meal. "Excuse my not volunteering," he observed; "you do it so nicely +I'm almost afraid you'll have another attack of that forgettery of +yours, and go back to the old line." + +Presently he looked at the bunk, clean and springy with fresh cut +spruce-shoots. He went to it, knelt down and thrust an arm into the +empty space beneath it. He got up hastily. + +"What have you done with that?" he demanded with an angry snarl. + +"With what?" Harry turned his head, as he set two tin plates on the bare +table. + +"With what was under here." + +"There was nothing there but an old horse skin," said Harry. "It is +hanging on the side of the cabin." + +With an oath Prendergast flung open the door and went outside. He +reentered quickly with the white hide in his arms, wrapped it in a +blanket and thrust it back under the bunk. + +"Has any one been here to-day--since you put it out there?" he asked +quickly. + +"No," said Harry, surprised. "Why?" + +Prendergast chuckled. The chuckle grew to a guffaw and he sat down, +slapping his thigh. Presently he went to the wall, took the chamois-skin +bag from its hiding-place and poured some of its yellow contents into +his palm. "That's why. Do you remember that, eh?" + +Harry looked at it. "Gold-dust," he said. "I seem to recall that. I am +going to begin work in the trench to-morrow; there should be more where +that came from." + +Prendergast poured the gold back into the bag with a cunning look. The +other had asked for no share of it. At that moment he decided to say +nothing of the evening before, of the girl or the horseback +journey--lest Hugh, cudgelling his brains, might remember he had been +offered a half. If Hugh's peculiar craziness wanted to dig in the dirt, +very well. It might be profitable for them both. He put the pouch into +his pocket with a grin. + +"There's plenty more where that came from, all right," he said, "and +I'll teach you again how to get it, one of these days." + +Prendergast said little during the meal. When the table was cleared he +lit his pipe and took from a shelf a board covered with penciled figures +and scrutinized it. + +"Hope you remember how to play old sledge," he said. "When we stopped +last game you owed me a little over seventeen thousand dollars. If you +forget it isn't a cash game some day and pay up, why, I won't kick," he +added with rough jocularity. He threw a pack of cards on to the table +and drew up the chairs. + +Harry did not move. As they ate he had been wondering how long he could +abide that sinister presence. The garish cards themselves now smote him +with a shrinking distaste. As he was about to speak a knock came at the +cabin door and Prendergast opened it. + +The visitor Harry recognized instantly; it was the man who had called +for fair play at the fight before the saloon, who had drawn him into the +hotel. + +Felder carried a bundle under his arm. He nodded curtly to Prendergast +and addressed himself to Harry. + +"I am the bearer of a gift from some one in the town," he said. "I have +been asked to deliver this to you." He put the bundle into the other's +hands. + +Harry drew up one of the chairs hastily. "Please sit down," he said +courteously. He looked at the bundle curiously. "_Et eos dona +ferentes_," he said slowly. "A gift from some one in the town!" + +A keen surprise flashed into the lawyer's glance. "The quotation is +classic," he said, "but it need not apply here." He took the bundle, +unwrapped it and disclosed a battered violin. "Let me explain," he +continued. "For the owner of this you fought a battle yesterday. You +tested its tone a little later--it seems that you are a master of the +most difficult of instruments. There was a time, I believe, when the old +man was its master also; he was once, they say, the conductor of an +orchestra in San Francisco. Drink and the devil finally brought him +down. For three years past he has lived in Smoky Mountain. Nobody knows +his name--the town has always called him 'Old Despair.' You did him what +is perhaps the first real kindness he has ever known at its hands. He +has done the only thing he could to requite it." + +Harry had colored painfully as Felder began to speak. The words brought +back that playing and its strange rejuvenescence of emotion, with acute +vividness. His voice was unsteady as he answered: + +"I appreciate it--I am deeply grateful--but it is quite impossible that +I accept it from him." + +"You need not hesitate," said the lawyer. "Old Despair needs it no +longer. He died last night in Devlin's dance-hall, where he played--when +he was sober enough--for his lodging. I happened to be near-by, and I +assure you it was his express wish that I give the violin to you." + +Rising, he held out his hand. "Good night," he said. "I hope your memory +will soon return. The town is much interested in your case." + +The flush grew deeper in Harry's cheek, though he saw there was nothing +ironical in the remark. "I scarcely hope so much," he replied. "I am +learning that forgetfulness has its advantages." + +As the door closed behind the visitor, Prendergast kicked the chair back +to the table. + +"You're getting on!" he sneered, his oily tone forgotten. "Damn his +impertinence! He didn't offer to shake with _me_! Come on and play." + +Harry opened the door again and sat down on the cool step, the violin in +his hands. + +"I think I don't care for the cards to-night," he said. "I'd rather play +this." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE PASSING OF PRENDERGAST + + +The little town had been unconsciously grateful for its new sensation. +The return of Hugh Stires and his apparent curious transformation was +the prime subject of conversation. For a half-year the place had known +but one other event as startling: that was the finding, some months +before, of a dead body--that of a comparative stranger in the +place--thrust beneath a thicket on Smoky Mountain, on the very claim +which now held Prendergast and his partner. + +The "Amen Corner" of the Mountain Valley House had discussed the pros +and cons exhaustively. There were many who sneered at the loss of memory +and took their cue from Devlin who, smarting from his humiliation and +nursing venom, revamped suspicions wherever he showed his battered face. +In his opinion Hugh Stires was "playing a slick game." + +"Your view is colored by your prejudices, Devlin," said Felder. "He's +been a blackleg in the past--granted. But give the devil his due. As +for the other ugly tale, there's no more evidence against him than there +is against you or me!" + +"They didn't find the body on _my_ ground," had been the other's surly +retort, "and _I_ didn't clear out the day before, either!" + +The phenomenon, however, whether credited or pooh-poohed, was a drawing +card. More than a few found occasion to climb the mountain by the +hillside trail that skirted the lonely cabin. These, as likely as not, +saw Prendergast lounging in the doorway smoking, while the younger man +worked, leading a trench along the brow of the hill to bring the water +from its intake--which Harry's quick eye had seen was practicable--and +digging through the shale and gravel to the bed-rock, to the sparse +yellow grains that yielded themselves so grudgingly. Some of the +pedestrians nodded, a few passed the time of day, and to each Harry +returned his exact coin of salutation. + +The spectacle of Hugh Stires, who had been used to pass his days in the +saloons and his nights in even less becoming resorts, turned practical +miner, added a touch of _opera bouffe_ to the situation that, to a +degree, modulated the rigor of dispraise. It was the consensus of +opinion that the new Hugh Stires seemed vastly different from the old; +that if he were "playing a game," it was a curious one. + +The casual espionage Prendergast observed with a scowl, as he watched +Harry's labors--when he was at the cabin, for after the first few days +he spent most of his time in haunts of his own in the town, returning +only at meal-time, gruff and surly. Harry, however, recognized nothing +unusual in the curious glances. He worked on, intent upon his own +problem of dark contrasts. + +On the one side was a black record, exemplified in Prendergast, clouded +infamy, a shuddering abhorrence of his past self as he saw it through +the pitiless lens of public opinion; on the other was a grim constancy +of purpose, a passionate wish to reconstruct the warped structure of +life of which he found himself the tenant, days of healthful, +peace-inspiring toil, a woman's face that threaded his every thought. As +he wielded his pick in the trench or laboriously washed out the few +glistening grains that now were to mean his daily sustenance, he turned +often to gaze up the slope where, set in its foliage, the glass roof of +the sanatorium sparkled softly through the Indian haze. Strange that the +sight should mysteriously suggest the face that haunted him! + + +Emmet Prendergast saw the abstracted regard as he came up the trail +from the town. He was in an ugly humor. The bag of gold-dust which he +had shown to Harry he had not returned to the hiding-place in the wall, +and with this in his pocket the faro-table had that day tempted him. The +pouch was empty now. + +Harry's back was toward him, and the gold-pan in which he had been +washing the gravel lay at his feet. With a noiseless, mirthless laugh +Prendergast stole into the cabin and reached down from the shelf the +bottle into which each day Harry had poured his scanty findings. He +weighed it in his hand--almost two ounces, a little less than twenty +dollars. He hastily took the empty bag from his pocket. + +But just then a shadow darkened the doorway and Harry entered. He saw +the action, and, striding forward, took the bottle from the other's +hand. + +Prendergast turned on him, a sinister snarl under his affectation of +surprise. "Can't you attend to your own rat-killing?" he growled. "I +guess I've got a right to what I need." + +"Not to that," said Harry quietly. "We shall touch the bottom of the +flour sack to-morrow. You expect to get your meals here, I presume." + +"I still look forward to that pleasure," answered Prendergast with an +evil sneer. "Three meals a day and a rotten roof over my head. When I +think of the little I have done to deserve it, the hospitality overcomes +me! All I have done is to keep you from starving to death and out of +quod at the same time. I only taught you a safe way to beat the game--an +easier one than you seem to know now--and to live on Easy Street!" + +"I am looking for no easy way," responded Harry, "whatever you mean by +that. I expect to earn my living as I'm earning it now--it's an honest +method, at all events." + +"You've grown all-fired particular since you lost your memory," retorted +Prendergast, his eyes narrowing. "You'll be turning dominie one of these +days! Perhaps you expect to get the town to take up with you, and to +make love to the beauty in the green riding-habit that brought you here +on her horse the night you were out of your head!" + +Harry started. "What do you mean?" he asked thickly. + +Prendergast's oily manner was gone now. His savage temper came +uppermost. + +"I forgot you didn't know about that," he scoffed. "I made a neat story +of it in the town. They've been gabbling about it ever since." + +Harry caught his breath. As through a mist he saw again that green +habit on the hotel balcony--that face that had haunted his waking +consciousness. It had not been Prendergast alone, then, who had brought +him here. And her act of charity had been made, no doubt, a thing for +the tittering of the town, cheapened by chatter, coarsened by joke! + +"I wonder if she'd done it if she'd known all I know," continued the +other malevolently. "You'd better go up to the sanatorium, Hugh, and +give her a nice sweet kiss for it!" + +A lust of rage rose in Harry's throat, but he choked it down. His hand +fell like iron on Prendergast's shoulder, and turned him forcibly toward +the open door. His other hand pointed, and his suppressed voice said: + +"This cabin has grown too small for us both. The town will suit you +better." + +Prendergast shrank before the wrath-whitened face, the dangerous sparkle +in the eyes. "You've got through with me," he glowered, "and you think +you can go it alone." The old suspicion leaped in the malicious +countenance. "Well, it won't pay you to try it yet. I know too much! Do +you understand? _I know too much!_" + +Harry went out of the cabin. At the door he turned. "If there is +anything you own here," he said, "take it with you. You needn't be here +when I come back." + +His fingers shaking with the black rage in his heart, Prendergast +gathered his few belongings, rolled them in the white horse-skin which +he drew from beneath his bunk, and wrapped the whole in a blanket. He +fastened the bundle in a pack-strap, slung it over his shoulder, and +left the cabin. Harry was seated on one of the gravel-heaps, some +distance away, looking out over the valley, his back toward him. As he +took the steep path leading toward the little town Prendergast shot the +figure an envenomed look. + +"What's your scheme, I wonder?" he muttered darkly. "Whatever it is, +I'll find out, never fear! And if there's anything in it, you'll come +down from that high horse!" He settled his burden and went rapidly down +the trail, turning over in his mind his future schemes. + +As it chanced, there was one who saw his vindictive face. Jessica, +crouched on the Knob, had seen him come and now depart, pack on back, +and guessed that the pair had parted company. Her whole being flamed +with sympathy. She could see his malignant scowl plainly from where she +leaned, screened by the bushes. It terrified her. What had passed +between them in the cabin? She left the Knob wondering. + +All that evening she was ill at ease. At midnight, sleepless, she was +looking out from her bedroom window across the phantom-peopled shadows, +where on the face of the pale sky the stars trembled like slow tears. +Anxiety and dread were in her heart; a pale phantom of fear seemed +lurking in the shadows; the night was full of dread. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +A RACE WITH DEATH + + +On the day following the expulsion of Prendergast, Harry woke restless +and unrefreshed. Fleeting sensations mocked him--a disturbing conviction +that the struggling memory in some measure had succeeded in reasserting +itself in the shadowy kingdom of sleep. Waking, the apparitions were +fled again into their obscurity, leaving only the wraiths of +recollection to startle and disquiet. + +A girl's face hovered always before him--ruling his consciousness as it +had ruled his sleeping thought. "Is it only fancy?" he asked himself. +"Or is it more? It was there--my memory--in shreds and patches, on my +sleep; now when I wake, it is only the fraying mist of dreams.... +Dreams!" He drew a deep breath. "Yet the overmastering sense of reality +remains. Last night I walked in intimate, forgotten ways--and she was in +them--_she!_" He flushed, an odd, sensitive flush. "Dreams!" he said. +"All dreams and fancies!" + +At length he took down from its shelf the bottle he had rescued from +Prendergast's intention and emptied it of its glistening grains--enough +to replenish his depleted stock of provisions. He paused a moment as he +put on his hat, smiling whimsically, a little sadly. He dreaded entering +the town. But there could be no remedy in concealment. If he was to live +and work there, appear he must on the streets sooner or later. Smoky +Mountain must continue to think of him as it might; what he was from +that time on, was all that could count to him. + +If he had but known it, there was good reason for hesitation to-day. +Early that morning an angry rumor had disturbed the town; the sluice of +the hydraulic company had been robbed again. Some two months previously +there had occurred a series of depredations by which the company had +suffered. The boxes were not swept of their golden harvest each day, and +in spite of all precautions, coarse gold had disappeared mysteriously +from the riffles--this, although armed men had watched all night. There +had been much guess-work. The cabin on the hillside was the nearest +habitation--the company's flume disgorged its flood in the gulch beneath +it--and suspicion had eventually pointed its way. The sudden ceasing of +the robberies with the disappearance of Hugh Stires had given focus to +this suspicion. Now, almost coincident with his return, the thievery +had recommenced. It had been a red-letter day for Devlin and his ilk who +cavilled at the more charitable. Of all this, however, the object of +their "I-told-you-so" was serenely ignorant. + +As Harry walked briskly down the mountain, a feeling of unreality stole +upon him. The bell was ringing in the steeple of the little Catholic +church below, and the high metallic sound came to him with a mysterious +and potential familiarity. With the first note, his hand in his pocket +closed upon an object he always carried--the little gold cross he had +found there when he awakened in the freight-car, the only token he +possessed of his vanished past. More than once it had been laid for a +mascot on the faro-table or the roulette-board with his last coin. +Always it had brought the stake back, till he had gained a whimsical +belief in its luck. + +He drew it out now and looked at it. "Strange that the sound of a bell +always reminds me of that," he muttered. "Association of ideas, I fancy, +since there is a cross on the church steeple. And what is there in that +bell? It is a faint sound even from here, yet night after night, up +there in the cabin, that far-off peal has waked me suddenly from sleep. +Why is it, I wonder?" + +Entering the town, there were few stirring on the sunny streets, but he +could not but be aware that those he met stopped to gaze after him. +Some, indeed, followed. His first objective point was a jeweler's, where +he could turn his gold-dust into readier coin for needful purchases. He +saw a sign next the Mountain Valley House, and entered. + +The jeweler weighed the dust with a distrustful frown, but Harry's head +was turned away. He was reading a freshly printed placard tacked on the +wall--an offer of reward for the detection of the sluice thief. He read +it through mechanically, for as he read there came from the street +outside a sound that touched a muffled chord in his brain. It was the +exhaust of a motor-car. + +He thrust the money the goldsmith grudgingly handed him into his pocket +and turned to the door. A long red automobile had stopped at the curb. +Two men whom it carried were just entering the hotel. + +Harry had seen many such machines in his wanderings, and they had +aroused no baffling instinct of habitude. But the old self was stirring +now, every sense alert. Hour by hour he had found himself growing more +delicately susceptible to subtle mental impressions, haunted by shadowy +reminders of things and places. Something in the sight of the long, low +"racer" reminded him--of what? His eye traced its polished lines, +noting its cunning mechanism, its build for silent speed, with the eager +lighting of a connoisseur. He took a step toward it, oblivious to all +about him. + +He did not note that men were gathering, that the nearest saloon was +emptying of its occupants. Nor did he see a girl on horseback, with a +tiny child before her on the saddle, who reined up sharply opposite. + +The rider was Jessica; the child, an ecstatic five-year-old she had +picked up on the fringe of the town, to canter in with her hands +gripping the pommel of the saddle. She saw Harry's position instantly +and guessed it perilous. What did the men mean to do? She leaned +forward, a swift apprehension in her face. + +Harry came back suddenly to a realization of his surroundings. He looked +about him, startled, his cheek darkening its red, every muscle +instinctively tightening. He saw danger in the lowering faces, and the +old lust of daring leaped up instantly to grapple with the rejuvenated +character. + +Devlin's voice came over the heads of the crowd as, burly and +shirt-sleeved, he strode across the street: + +"Hand over the dust you've stolen before you are tarred and feathered, +Hugh Stires!" + +Harry looked at him surprised, his mind instantly recurring to the +placard he had seen. Here was a tangible accusation. + +"I have stolen nothing," he responded quietly. + +"Where did he get what he just sold me?" The jeweler's sour query rose +behind him from the doorway. + +"We'll find that out!" was the rough rejoinder. + +In face of his threatening peril, Jessica forgot all else--the restive +horse, the child. She sprang to the ground, her face pained and +indignant, and started to run across the street. But with a cry of +dismay she turned back. The horse had caught sight of the red +automobile, and, snorting and wild-eyed, had swung into the roadway. + +"It's Devlin's kid!" some one cried out, and Devlin, turning, went +suddenly ashen. The baby was the one soft spot in his ruffianly heart. +He sprang toward the animal, but the movement and the hands clutching at +the bridle sent it to a leaping terror. In another instant it had broken +through the ring of bystanders, and, frenzied at its freedom, dashed +down the long, level street with the child clinging to the +saddle-pommel. + +It was all the work of a moment, one of panic and confusion, through +which rang Jessica's scream of remorse and fright. Torpor held the +crowd--all save one, whose action followed the scream as leap follows +the spur. In a single step Harry gained the automobile. With an +instantaneous movement he pushed the lever down and jerked the throttle +wide. The machine bounded into its pace, the people rolling back before +it, and, gathering headway, darted after the runaway. + +The spectators stood staring. "He'll never catch him," said Michael +Halloran, who had joined the crowd. "Funeral Hollow's only a mile away." +With others he hurried to the hotel balcony, where he could watch the +exciting race. Jessica stood stock-still, as blanched as Devlin, +wringing her hands. + +Harry Sanderson had acted with headlong intention, without calculation, +almost without consciousness of mental process. Standing on the +pavement, with the subtle lure of the motor creeping in his veins, his +whole body responding--as his fingers had tingled at sight of the +violin--to the muffled vibrations of that halted bundle of steel, in the +sharp exigency he had answered an overmastering impulse. In the same +breath he had realized Jessica's presence and the child's peril, both +linked in that anguished cry. With the first bound of the car under him, +as the crowd was snatched behind, a weird, exultant thrill shot through +every nerve. Each bolt and bar he knew as one would tell his fingers. +Somewhere, at some time, he had known such flight--through mellow +sunlight, with the air singing past. Where? When? + +Not for the fraction of a second, however, did his gaze waver. He knew +that the flat on which the town was built fell away in a hollow ravine +to the southward--he could see it from the cabin doorway--a stretch of +breakneck road only a mile ahead. Could the child hold on? Could he +distance those frenzied hoofs in time? The arrow of the indicator stole +forward on the dial. + +Far behind, as the crowd watched, a cry rose from the hotel balcony. It +was Barney McGinn, the freighter, with a glass at his eye. "He's +gaining!" he shouted. "He has almost overtaken the horse!" + +The horse's first fury of speed was tiring. The steel steed was creeping +closer. A thunder of hoofs in pursuit would have maddened the flying +animal, but the gliding thing that was now so close to him came on with +noiseless swiftness. Harry had reserved, with the nicety of a practised +hand, a last increment of speed. With the front wheels at the horse's +flank, he drew suddenly on this. As the car responded, he swerved it +sharply in, and, holding with one hand, leaned far out from the step, +and lifted the child from the saddle. + +The automobile halted again before the hotel amid a hush. The men who a +little while before had been ripe for violence, now stood in shamefaced +silence. It was Jessica who ran forward and took the child, still +sobbing a little, from Harry's hands. One long look passed between +them--a look on her part brimming with a great gratitude for his lifting +of her weight of dread and compunction, and with something besides that +mantled her cheeks with rich color. She kissed the child and placed her +in her father's arms. + +Devlin's countenance broke up. He struggled to speak, but could not, +and, burying his face in the child's dress and crying like a baby, he +crossed the street hastily to his own door. + +Harry stepped to the pavement with a dull kind of embarrassment at the +manifold scrutiny. He had misconstrued Jessica's flushing silence, and +the inference stung. The fierce zest was gone, and the rankling barb of +accusation smarted. He should apologize to the owner, he reflected +satirically, for helping himself to the automobile--he who stole +gold-dust, he at whose door the town laid its unferreted thieveries! He +who was the scapegoat for the town's offenses! + +That owner, in very fact, stood just then in the hotel doorway regarding +him with interest. He was the sheriff of the county. He was about to +step forward, when an interruption occurred. A scuffle and a weak bark +sounded, and a lean brown streak shot across the pavement. + +"Rummy!" cried Harry. "Rummy!" + +Through some chink of the dead wall in his brain the name slipped out, a +tiny atom of flotsam retrieved from the wreck of memory. That was all, +but to the animal which had just found its lost master, the word meant a +sublimation of delight, the clearing of the puzzle of namelessness that +had perplexed its canine brain. The dog's heaven was reached! + +Down on his knees on the pavement went Harry, with his arms about the +starved, palpitating little creature, and his cheek against its shaggy +coat. In another moment he had picked it up in his arms and was walking +up the street. + +Late that night Tom Felder, sitting in his office, heard the story of +the runaway from the sheriff's lips. He himself had been in court at the +time. + +"And the horse?" he asked. + +"In the Hollow, with his back broken," said the sheriff. + +The lawyer sprang from his chair. "Good God!" he exclaimed. "How can a +man like that ever have been a scoundrel?" + +The sheriff relit his dead cigar reflectively. "It's a curious thing," +he said. "They are saying on the street that he's sent Prendergast +packing. He'll have to watch out--the old tarantula will sting him if he +can!" + +Harry Sanderson went back to his cabin with a strange feeling of +exaltation and disappointment--exaltation at the recurrence of something +of his old adventures, disappointment at the flushed silence with which +Jessica had received the child. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +ON SMOKEY MOUNTAIN + + +Jessica bore back from the town that afternoon a spirit of tremulous +gladness. In the few moments of that thrilling ride and rescue, a +mysterious change had been wrought in her. + +In the past days her soul had been possessed by a painful agitation +which she did not attempt to analyze. At moments the ingrained hatred of +Hugh's act, the resentment that had been the result of that year of +pain, had risen to battle for the inherent justice of things. At such +times she was restless and _distraite_, sitting much alone, and puzzling +David Stires by meaningless responses. + +She could not tell him that the son whose name he never took upon his +lips was so near: that he whose crime his father's pride of name had +hidden, through all the months since then, had gone down with the +current, shunned by honest folk, adding to his one dismal act the weight +of persistent repetition! She could not tell him this, even though that +son now lived without memory of the evil he had done; though he +struggled under a cloud of hatred, reaching out to clean deed and high +resolve. + +Now, however, all distrust and trepidation had vanished. Strangely and +suddenly the complex warfare in her mind had stilled. Standing with Mrs. +Halloran, she had listened to the comment with shining eyes. Not that +she distinguished any sudden and violent _volte-face_ of opinion to turn +persecution to popularity and make the reprobate of to-day the favorite +of to-morrow. But in its very reserve she instinctively felt a new +tension of respect. Suspicion and dislike aside, there was none there +who would again hinder the man who had made that race with death! + +For her own part, she only knew that she had no longer fear of soul or +sense of irrevocable loss, or suffering. What were those old Bible words +about being born again? What was that rebirth but a divine forgetting, a +wiping out, a "remembering no more?" If it was the memory of his shame +that had dragged him down, that memory was gone, perhaps for ever. The +Hugh she now loved was not the Hugh who had sinned! + +She sat by David Stires that evening chatting gaily--he had been much +weaker and more nervous of late and she would not have him told of the +runaway--talking of cheerful things, radiating a glow from her own +happiness that warmed the softly-lighted sick-room. All the while her +heart was on the hillside where a rough cabin held him who embodied for +her all the mystery and meaning of life. By a kind of clairvoyance she +saw him sitting in the snug firelight, thinking perhaps of the instant +their eyes had met. She did not guess that for him that moment had held +an added pang. + +So the hours had passed, and the sun, when it rose next day, shone on a +freshly created world. The wind no longer moaned for the lost legends of +the trees. There was a bloom on every flowering bush, a song in the +throat of every bird. She was full of new feelings that yielded in their +sway only to new problems that loomed on her mental horizon. As the +puzzle of the present cleared, the future was become the all-dominating +thing. She knew now that she had never hated, had never really ceased to +love. And Hugh? Love was not a mere product of times and places. It was +only the memory that was gone, his love lived on underneath. Surely that +was what the violin--what the look on his face had said! When the broken +chain was welded, he would know her! Would it be chance--some sudden +mental shock--that would furnish the clue? She had heard of such things. + +But suppose he did not recover his memory. In the very nature of the +case, he must sometime learn the facts of his past. Was it not better to +know the very worst it contained now, to put all behind him, and face a +future that held no hidden menace? She alone could tell him what had +clouded his career--the thing whose sign and symbol was the forged +draft. She carried the slip of paper in the bosom of her dress, and +every day she took it out and looked at it as at some maleficent relic. +It was a token of the old buried misery that, its final purpose +accomplished, should be forgotten for ever. How to convey the truth with +as little pain as might be--this was the problem--and she had found the +solution. She would leave the draft secretly in the cabin, where he must +see it. It bore his own name, and the deadly word David Stires' cramped +fist had written across it, told its significant story. How it got there +Hugh would not question; it would be to him only a detail of his +forgotten life there. + +She was glad when in the late afternoon Doctor Brent came for his chat +with David Stires, and the latter sent her out for a walk. It was a +garlanded day, a day of clear blue spaces between lavender clouds +lolling in the sky, and over all the late summer landscape a dull gold +wash of sun. There had long ceased to be for her any direction save +one--down the mountain road to where a rambling, overgrown path led to +the little grassy plateau with its jutting rock, which was her point of +observation. She did not keep to the main road, but chose a short-cut +through the thick underbrush that brought her more quickly to the Knob. +There she sat down, and, parting the bushes, peered through them. + +All was quiet. No wisp of smoke curled from the cabin chimney, no work +was forward; for Harry had climbed far up the mountain, alone with his +thoughts. It was a favorable opportunity. + +Jessica had the fateful draft in her hand as she ran quickly down the +trail and across the cleared space to the cabin door. It was wide open. +Peering warily she saw that both rooms were empty, and, with a guilty +last glance about her, she entered. A smile curved her lips as she saw +the plain neatness of the interior; the scoured cooking-utensils, the +coarse Mackinaw clothing hung from wooden pegs, the clean bacon +suspended from the rafters. A nail in the wall held an old violin, and +beneath it was a shelf of books. + +To these, battered and dog-eared novels rescued from the mildewed litter +of the cabin, Harry had turned eagerly in the long evenings for lack of +mental pabulum. She took one from the meager row, and opened it +curiously. It was _David Copperfield_, and she saw with kindling +interest that heavy lines were drawn along certain of the pages. The +words that had been marked revealed to the loving woman something of his +soul. + +She looked about her. Where should she put the draft? He had left a +marker in the book; he would open it again, no doubt. She laid the draft +between the printed leaves, beyond the marker. Then, replacing the +volume on the shelf, she ran from the door and hastened back up the +steep trail to the Knob. + +Leaning back against the warm rock, lapped in the serene peacefulness of +the spot, Jessica fell into reverie. Never since her wedding-day had she +said to herself boldly: "I love him!"--never till yesterday. Now all was +changed. Her thought was a tremulous assurance: "I shall stay here near +him day after day, watching. Some day his memory will come back, and +then my love will comfort him. The town will forget it has hated, and +will come to honor him. Sometime, seeing how he is changed, his father +will forgive him and take him back, and we shall all three go home to +the white house in the aspens. If not, then my place will still be with +Hugh! Perhaps we shall live here. Perhaps a cabin like that will be +home, and I shall live with him, and work with him, and care for him." + +Thus she dreamed--a new day-dream, unravaged by the sordid tests of +verity. + +So absorbed was she that she did not hear a step approaching over the +springy moss--a sharply drawn breath, as the intruder stifled an +exclamation. She had drawn her handkerchief across her eyes against the +dancing glimmer of sunlight. Suddenly it dropped to her lap, and she +half turned. + +In the instant of surprise, as Harry's look flashed into hers, a name +sprang unbidden to her lips--a name that struck his strained face to +sudden whiteness, ringing in his ears like the note of a sunken bell. +All that was clamoring in him for speech rushed into words. + +"You call my name!" he cried. "You know me! Have I ever been 'Hugh' to +you? Is that what your look said to me? Is that why your face has +haunted me? Tell me, I pray you!" + +She had struggled to her feet, her hands pressed to her bosom. The +surprise had swung her from her moorings. Her heart had been so full in +her self-communings that now, between the impulse toward revealment and +the warning of caution, she stood confused. + +"I had never seen you in the town before that day," she said. "I am +stopping there"--she pointed to the ridge above, where the roof of the +sanatorium glistened in the sunlight. "I was at the hotel by merest +accident when--you played." + +The light died in his eyes. He turned abruptly and stared across the +foliaged space. There was a moment's pause. + +"Forgive me!" he said at length, in a voice curiously dull. "You must +think me a madman to be talking to you like this. To be sure, every one +knows me. It is not strange that you should have spoken my name. It was +a sudden impulse to which I yielded. I had imagined ... I had dreamed +... but no matter. Only, your face--that white band across your +eyes--your voice--they came to me like something far away that I have +known. I was mistaken. I was crazy to think that you--" + +He stopped. A wave of sympathy passed over her. She felt a mad wish to +throw all aside, to cry to him: "You _did_ know me! You loved me once! I +am Jessica--I am your wife!" So intense was her emotion that it seemed +to her as if she had spoken his name again audibly, but her lips had not +moved, and the tap of a woodpecker on a near-by trunk sounded with harsh +distinctness. + +"I have wanted to speak to you," she said, after an instant in which she +struggled for self-control. "You did a brave thing yesterday--a +splendid thing. It saved me from sorrow all my life!" + +He put aside her thanks with a gesture. "You saved me also. You found me +ill and suffering and your horse carried me to my cabin." + +"I want to tell you," she went on hastily, her fingers lacing, "that I +do not judge you as others do. I know about your past life--what you +have forgotten. I know you have put it all behind you." + +His face changed swiftly. To-day the determination with which he had +striven to put from his mind the problem of his clouded past had broken +down. In the light of the charge which had been flung in his teeth the +afternoon before, his imagination had dwelt intolerably on it. "Better +to have ended it all under the wheels of the freight-engine," he had +told himself. "What profit to have another character, if the old lies +chuckling in the shadow, an old-man-of-the-sea, a lurking thing, like a +personal devil, to pull me down!" In these gloomy reflections her +features had recurred with a painful persistence. He had had a bad +half-hour on the mountain, and now, before her look and tone, the +ever-torturing query burst its bonds. + +"You know!" he said hoarsely. "Yet you say that? They stoned me in the +street the day I came back. Yesterday they counted me a thief. It is +like a hideous nightmare that I can't wake from. Who am I? Where did I +come from? I dare not ask, for fear of further shame! Can you imagine +what that means?" + +He broke off, leaning an unsteady hand against a tree. "I've no excuse +for this raving!" he said, in a moment, his face turned away. "I have +seen you but twice. I do not even know your name. I am a man snatched +out of the limbo and dropped into hell, to watch the bright spirits +passing on the other side of the gulf!" + +Pain lay very deep in the words, and it pierced her like a bodily pang, +so close did she seem to him in spirit. She felt in it unrest, +rebellion, the shrinking sensibility that had writhed in loneliness, and +the longing for new foothold on the submerged causeway of life. + +She came close to him and touched his arm. + +"I know all that you suffer," she said. "You are doing the strong thing, +the brave thing! The man in you is not astray now; it was lost, but it +has found its way back. When your memory comes, you will see that it is +fate that has been leading you. There was nothing in your past that can +not be buried and forgotten. What you have been you will never be again. +I know that! I saw you fight Devlin and I know why you did it. I heard +you play the violin! Whatever has been, I have faith in you now!" + +She spoke breathlessly, in very abandon, carried away by her feeling. As +she spoke he had turned toward her, his paleness flushed, his eyes +leaping up like hungry fires, devouring her face. At the look timidity +rushed upon her. She stopped abruptly and took a startled step from him. + +He turned from her instantly, his hands dropped at his sides. The word +that had almost sprung to speech had slipped back into the void. + +"I thank you for the charity you have for me," he said, "which I in no +way deserve. I ... I shall always remember it." + +She hesitated an instant, made as if to speak. Then, turning, she went +quickly from him. At the edge of the bushes she stopped with a sudden +impulse. She looked at the handkerchief she held in her hand. Some tiny +lettering was embroidered in its corner, the word _Jessica_. She looked +back--he had not moved. Rolling it into a ball, she threw it back, over +the bushes, then ran on hastily through the trees. + +After a time Harry turned slowly, his shoulders lifting in a deep +respiration. He drew his hand across his brow as though to dispel a +vision. This was the first time he had hit upon the place. He saw the +flat ledge, with the bushes twisted before it for a screen. She had +known the place before, then! The white and filmy cambric caught his +eye, lying at the base of the great, knob-like rock. He went to it, +picked it up, and looked at it closely. + +"Jessica!" he whispered. The name clung about him; the very leaves +repeated it in music. He had a curious sensation as if, while she spoke, +that very name had half framed itself in some curtained recess of his +thought. He pressed the handkerchief to his face. The faint perfume it +exhaled, like the dust of dead roses, gave him a ghostly impression of +the familiar. + +He thought of what she had said; she had not known him! And yet that +look, the strange dreaming sense of her presence, his name on her lips +in the moment of bewilderment! + +He struck his forehead sharply with his open hand. + +"Fool!" he said, with a bitter laugh. "Fool!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE OPEN WINDOW + + +Over the sanatorium on the ridge sleep had descended. On its broad +grounds there was no light of moon or stars, and its chamber windows +were dark, save where here and there the soft glow of a night-lamp +sifted through a shutter. The evening had closed gloomily, breeding +storm. The air was sultry and windless, and now and then sheet-lightning +threw into blunt relief the dark bodies of the trees. Inside the +building all slumbered, soundly or fitfully as health or illness +decreed, carrying the humors of the stirring day into the wider realm of +sleep. + +Jessica had closed her eyes, thinking of a time when secrecy would all +be ended, disguise done, when she would wear again the ring she had +taken off in bitterness, when indeed and in name she would be a wife +before the world. She had picked a great bowl of wild star-jasmin and +set it by her bedside and the room was sweet with the delicate scent. +The odor carried her irresistibly back to the far-away mansion that had +since seemed a haunted dwelling, to the days of her blindness and of +Hugh's courtship. Before she extinguished the light she searched in a +drawer and found her wedding-ring--the one she had worn for less than an +hour. It was folded away in a box which she had not opened since the +dreadful day when she had broken in pieces her model of the Prodigal +Son. When she crept into bed, the ring was on her finger. She had fallen +asleep with her cheek resting on it. + +She awoke with a start, with a vague, inexplicable uneasiness, an +instinct that the night had voiced an unusual sound. She sat up in bed, +staring into the dark depths of the room. Her instant thought had been +of David Stires, but the tiny bell on the wall whose wire led to his +bedroom was not vibrating. She listened a moment, but there was only a +deep silence. + +Slipping out of bed, she crossed the room and parted the curtain from +before the tall French window. The room was on the ground floor and the +window gave directly on the lawn. The wind seemed dead, and the world +outside--the broad, cleared expanse of trees and shrubs, and the +descending forest that closed it round--was wrapped in a dense +blackness. While she gazed there came a sudden yellow flare of lightning +and far-distant mutter of thunder spoke behind the hills. + +Still with the unreasoning uneasiness holding her, she groped to the +door, drew the bolt and looked out into the wide, softly carpeted hall, +lighted dimly by a lamp set just at the turn of the staircase. All at +once a shiver ran through her. There, a dozen steps away, the light full +upon him, stood the man who filled her thoughts. + +He stood perfectly still, without movement or gesture, gazing at her. +She could see his face distinctly, silhouetted on the pearl-gray wall. +It wore an expression of strained concern and of deep helplessness. The +instant agitation and surprise blotted the puzzle of his presence there. +She forgot that it was the dead of night, that she was in her nightgown. +It flashed across her mind that some near and desperate trouble had +befallen him. All the protective and maternal in her love welled up. She +went quickly toward him. + +He did not move or stir, and then she realized that though his eyes +seemed to look at her, it was with a passive tranced fixity. They saw +nothing. He was asleep. + +It was the mind which was conscious, the action of the brain was at +rest. The body, through the operation of some irreducible law of the +subjective self, was moving in an automatic somnambulism. The +intermittent memory that had begun to emerge in sleep, that had given +him on waking the eerie impression of a dual identity, had led him, +involuntarily and unerringly, to her. + +She halted, a deep compassion and a painful wonderment holding her, +feeling with a thrill the power she possessed over him. Then, like a +cold wave, surged over her a numbing sense of his position. How had he +entered? Had he broken locks like a burglar? The situation was +anomalous. What should she do? Waked abruptly, the result might be +disastrous. Discovered, his presence there when all slumbered, suspected +as he had been, would be ruinous. She must get him away, out of the +house, and quickly. + +A breath of cool air swept past her, putting out the lamp--an outer door +was open. At the same instant she heard steps beyond the curve of the +hall, Doctor Brent's voice peremptory and inquiring. Her nerves chilled; +he blocked the sole avenue of retreat. No, there was one other, and only +one--a single way to shield him. Quiet and resourceful now, though her +cheeks were hot, she took the hand of the unconscious man, drew him +silent and unresisting into the friendly shadow of her room, closed the +door noiselessly and bolted it. + +For a moment she stood motionless, her heart beating violently. Had he +been seen? Or had the open door created an alarm? Releasing his hand +gently, she found her way softly to a stand, lighted a tiny night-taper, +and threw a shawl about her. Through its ground-glass the light cast a +wan glimmer which showed the shadowy outlines of the room, its white +rumpled bed, its scattered belongings eloquent of a woman's ownership, +and the pallid countenance of the sleeping man. He had stopped still; a +troubled frown was on his face, and his head was bent as if listening. + +A sudden confusion tingled through her veins, a sense of maidenly shame +that she could be there beside him _en deshabille_, opposing the sweet +reminder of their real relationship--was he not in fact her +husband?--that lay ever beneath her thought to justify and explain. He +must wake before he left that room. What would he think? She flushed +scarlet in the semi-darkness; she could not tell him--that! Not there +and then! The blood forsook her heart as footsteps sounded outside the +door. They paused, passed on, returned and died away. + +Suddenly, in the tense silence of the room, the mantel-clock struck +three, a deep chime, like the vibration of a far-off church bell. The +tone was not loud--indeed the low roll of the thunder had been well-nigh +as loud--but there was in the intrusive metallic cadence a peculiar +suggestion to the dormant mind. As the sound of the church bell in the +town had done so often, it penetrated the crust of sleep; it touched the +inner ear of the conscious intelligence that stirred so painfully, +throbbing keenly to sights and sounds and odors that to the wakeful mind +left only a cloudy impression eddying to some unfamiliar center. Harry +started, a shudder ran through his frame, he swayed dizzily, his hand +went to his forehead. + +In the instant of shocked awakening, Jessica was at his side in an agony +of apprehension, her arm thrown about him, her hand pressed across his +lips, her own lips at his ear in an agonized warning: + +"Hush, do not speak! It is I, Jessica. Make no noise." + +She felt her wrist caught in a grasp that made her wince. His whole body +was trembling violently. "Jessica!" he said in a painfully articulated +whisper. "You? Where am I?" + +"This is my room," she breathed. "You have been walking in your sleep. +Make no sound. We shall be heard." + +A low exclamation broke from his lips. He looked bewilderedly about him, +his eyes returning to her face with a horrified realization. "I ... came +here ... to your room?" The voice was scarcely audible. + +"It was I who brought you here. You were in the hall--you would have +been found. The house is roused." + +He turned abruptly to the door, but she caught his arm. "What are you +going to do? You will be seen!" + +"So much the better; it will be at my proper measure--as a prowler, a +housebreaker, a disturber of honest sleep!" + +"No, no!" she protested in a panic. "You shall not; I will not have you +taken for what you are not! I know--but they would not know! No one must +see you leave this room! Do you not think of me?" + +He caught his breath hard. "Think of you!" he repeated huskily. "Is +there ever an hour when I do not think of you? Is there a day when I +would not die to serve you? Yet in my very sleep--" + +He paused, gazing at her where she stood in the half-light, a misty, +uncertain figure. She was curiously happy. The delicious and pangless +sense of guilt, however--the guilt of the hidden, not the blameworthy +thing--that was tingling through her was for him a shrinking and acute +self-reproach. + +"Here!" he said under his breath. "To have brought myself here, of all +places, for you of all women to risk yourself for me! I only know that I +was wandering for years and years in a shadowy desert, searching for +something that would not be found--and then, suddenly I was here and +you were speaking to me! You should have left me to be dragged away +where I could trouble no one again." + +She was silent. "Forgive me," he said, "if you can. I--I can never +forgive myself. How can I best go?" + +For answer she moved to the window, slender and wraith-like. He followed +silently. A million vague new impressions were clutching at him; the +fragrance in the room was like a hypnotic incense veiling shadowy forms. +Lines started from the blank: + + + And I swear, as I thought of her thus, in that hour, + And how, after all, old things were best, + That I smelt the smell of that jasmin-flower + Which she used to wear in her breast! + + +As she parted the curtain, a second of bright lightning revealed the +landscape, the dark hedges and clustered trees. It blackened, and she +drew him back with a hushed word, pointing where a lantern was flashing +through the shrubbery. + +"It is a watchman," she said. "He will be gone presently." + +Looking at her, where she stood in the dim light, half turned away, one +hand against her cheek, there welled through him a wave of that hopeless +longing which her kiss had awakened in that epoch moment of the +Reverend Henry Sanderson. The clinging white gown, with the filmy lace +at its throat, the taper's faint glow glimmering to a numbus in her +loosened hair, the sweet intangible suggestions of the room--all these +called to him potently, through the lines that raced in his brain. + + + But O, the smell of that jasmin-flower! + And O that music! and O the way + That voice rang out from the donjon tower-- + + +"God help me!" he whispered, the pent passion of his dreams rushing to +utterance. "Why did I ever see your face? I was reckless and careless +then. I had damned the decent side of me that now is quivering alive! I +have tried to blot your face from my memory. But it is useless. I shall +always see it." + +A rumble of nearer thunder sounded and a tentative dash of rain struck +the pane. She was shaken to her depths. She stood in a whirlwind of +emotion. She seemed to feel his arms clasping her, his lips on hers, his +adjuring words in her ears. The odor of the flowers wreathed them both. +The beating of her heart seemed to fill all the silent room. + +On the lawn just outside the window, low voices were heard through the +increasing rain. They passed, and after a moment he softly unlatched the +window. + +"Good-by," he said. + +She stretched out her hand. He touched it, then drew the window wide. As +he stepped noiselessly down on to the springy turf, the lightning +flashed again--a pale-green glow that seemed almost before her face. She +drew back, and the same instant, through the thunder, the electric bell +on the wall rang sharply. She threw on her dressing-gown, thrust her +feet into slippers, and hastened from the room. + +The same flash that had startled Jessica lighted brightly the physician +and the watchman, who stood at the corner of the building, having +finished their tour of inspection. It was the latter who had found the +open door and who had aroused the doctor, insisting that he had seen a +man in the hall. The other had pooh-poohed this, but now by the +lightning both saw the figure emerge from the French window and +disappear in the darkness. + +They ran back, the physician ahead. The window was not locked, and they +stepped through it into an empty room. + +"To be sure!" said the doctor disgustedly. "He was here all the +time--heard us searching the halls, and took the first unlocked door he +found. Miss Holme, no doubt, is sitting up with Mr. Stires. Not a word +of this," he added as they walked along the hall. "Unless she misses +something, there is no need of frightening her." + +He barred the outer door behind the watchman and went on. As he reached +David Stires' room, the door opened and Jessica came out. She spoke to +him in a low, anxious voice. "I was coming for you," she said. "I am +afraid he is not so well. I can not rouse him. Will you come in and see +what you can do?" + +The doctor entered, and a glance at his patient alarmed him. Until dawn +he sat with Jessica watching. When the early sunlight was flooding the +room, however, David Stires opened his eyes and looked upon her quite +naturally. + +"Where is Harry Sanderson?" he asked. "I thought he was here." + +She looked at him with a forced smile. "You have been dreaming," she +answered. + +He seemed to realize where he was. "I suppose so," he said with a sigh, +"but it was very real. I thought he came in and spoke your name." + +She stroked his hand. "It was fancy, dear." If he but knew who had +really been there that night! If she could only tell him all the happy +truth! + +He lay silent a moment. Then he said: "If it could only have been Harry +you married instead of Hugh! For he loved you, Jessica." + +She flushed as she said: "Ah, that was fancy, too!" + +It was the first time since the day of her marriage that he had spoken +Hugh's name. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT + + +Dawn had come with an unleashed wind and the crash of thunder. The +electric storm, which had muttered and menaced like a Sabbath of witches +till daylight, had broken at length and turned the world to a raving +turmoil, pitilessly scarring the mountain and deluging the gulches with +cloud-burst. + +In the cabin on the hillside Harry had watched the rage of the elements +with a dull sense of accord; it typified the wild range of feeling in +which his soul had been harried. Battle had been the keynote of a series +of days and doings of which the tense awakening in Jessica's chamber, +with its supreme moment of passion and longing, had been a weird +culmination. + +As he made his way down the mountain in the blank and heavy dark, +correcting his path by the lightning, he had faced squarely the question +that in that dim room had become an imminent demand. + +"_What if I love her!_ What right have I to love her, with a wretched +name like mine? She has refinement, a measure of wealth, no doubt, and +I am poor as poverty, dependent on the day's grubbing in the ditch for +to-morrow's bacon and flour. Yet that would not stand in the way! I am +no venal rogue, angling for the loaves and fishes. Whatever else she +cursed me with, Nature gave me a brain, and culture and experience have +educated it. With hand or brain I can hew my own niche to stand in! Must +I put away the longing that drove me to her in sleep, with her dawning +love that shielded me? And if, knowing all, she love me, must the past, +that is so unreal to me, block my way to happiness? I am putting it deep +underground, and its ghost shall not rise! Time passes, reputations +change. Mine will change. And when I have squared my living here, the +world is wide. What does it matter who she is, if she is the one woman +for me? What does it matter what I have been, if I shall be that no +longer?" + +So he had argued, but his argument ended always with the same stern and +unanswerable conclusion: "To drag her down in order to lift myself! +Because she pities me--pity is akin to love!--shall I take advantage of +her interest and innocence? Shall I play upon divine compassion and +sinister propinquity, like any mean adventurer who inveigles a romantic +girl into marrying a rascal to reform him?" + +In the cabin, through the long hours till the dawn began to infiltrate +the dark hollows of the wood he had lain wide-eyed, thinking. When day +came he had cooked his breakfast and thereafter sat watching the havoc +of the storm through the window. Hours passed thus before the fury of +the wind had spent itself, and with the diminution of the rain, a +crouching mist had crept over the range from the west, from which Smoky +Mountain jutted like a drenched emerald island. At length he rose, threw +open the door and stood looking out upon the wind-whipped foliage and +the drab desolation of the fog. Then he threw on his Mackinaw coat, +picked up his gold-pan and climbed down the slope. Beneath all other +problems must lie the sordid problem of his daily food. He had uncovered +a crevice in the bed-rock at the end of his trench the day before, and +now he scraped a pailful of the soggy gravel it contained and carried it +back to the cabin. A fresh onslaught of rain came just then, and setting +the heaped-up pan on the doorstep, he reentered the room. + +With a sigh he took off his damp coat and threw a log on the fire. He +abstractedly watched it kindle, then filled and lit his pipe and turned +to the book-shelf. He ran his hand absently along the row. Where had +been that wide, dim expanse of library walls that hovered like a mirage +beyond his visual sight? He chose a volume he had been reading, and +turned the pages. + +All at once his hand clenched. He gave a choked cry. He was staring at a +canceled bank-draft bearing his own name--a draft across whose face was +written, in the cramped hand resembling the signature, a word that +seemed etched in livid characters of shame--_Forgery!_ + +"Pay to Hugh Stires"--"the sum of five thousand dollars"--he read the +phrases in a hoarse, husky monotone, every vein beating fiercely, his +body hot with the heat of a forge. There it was, a hideous chapter of +it, the damnable truth from which he had shrunk! "I may be a thief!"--he +had said that to himself long ago. His mind had revolted at the idea, +yet the thought had clung. It had made him a coward. When the allegation +had passed before the jeweler's shop, it had stung the deeper for his +dread. He had been the beneficiary of that forgery. He alone could have +perpetrated it. The popular suspicion was well grounded: he was a common +criminal! + +Did the town know? He snatched at the draft and read the date. More than +a year ago, and it had been presented for payment in a distant city, the +city near which he had been picked up beside the railroad track. The +forged name was the same as his own. Who was David Stires? His father? +Had that city been his home once, and that infamous act the forerunner +of his flight or exile? He looked at the paper again with painful +intentness. It was canceled--therefore had been paid without question. +Yet the man it had robbed had stamped it with that venomous hall-mark. +Clearly the law had not stepped in--for here he was at liberty, owning +his name. He had been let go, then, disowned, to carry his badge of +crime here into the wilderness! And how had he lived since then? Harry +shuddered. + +What now? It was no longer a question only of his life and repute here +at Smoky Mountain. The trail led infinitely further; it led to the +greater world, into which he had fondly dreamed of going. The words +Jessica had spoken on the hillside sounded in his ears: "_Whatever has +been_ I have faith in you now." His face lightened. That assurance had +swept the past utterly aside, had leaned only on the present. His +present, at least, was clean! + +He drew a sudden breath and the color faded from his cheek; a baleful +suggestion had insinuated itself with a harrowing pain. _Was_ it clean? +He had forced an entrance in the dead of night to tread dark halls like +a thief--and he had laid that flattering unction to his soul! Suppose he +had not gone there innocent of purpose? What if, not alone the memory, +but the lusts and vices of the former man were reasserting themselves in +sleep? What if the new Hugh Stires, unknown to the waking consciousness, +was carrying on the deeds of the old? What if the town was right? What +if there was, indeed, good reason for suspecting him? + +He stumbled to a chair and sat down, his frame rigid. He thought of the +robbed sluice in the gulch below, of his own unhappy adventure of the +night. How could he tell what he had done--what he might do? Minutes +went by as he sat motionless, his mind catching strange kaleidoscopic +pictures that fled past him into the void. At length he rose and went to +the window. Far down the hillside, a faint line through the mist spanned +the gulch bottom. A groan burst from his lips: + +"That is the hydraulic flume," he said aloud. "Gold has been stolen +there in the past, again and again. Some was stolen two nights ago. _How +do I know but that I am the thief?_" Was that what Prendergast had meant +by the "easier way"? A shiver ran over him. "How do I know!" he thought. +"I can see myself--the evil side of me--when the dark had fallen, waking +and active ... I see myself creeping down there, stealing from shadow to +shadow, to scoop the gold from the riffles when the moon is under a +cloud. I see men sitting from dark to daylight, with loaded rifles +across their knees, watching. I see a flash of fire ... I hear a report. +I see myself there by the sluice-boxes, dead, shot down in the act of a +thief, making good the name men know me by!" + +The figure of Jessica came before him, standing in her soft white gown, +her hand against her cheek and the jasmin odors about her. The dream he +had dreamed could not be--never, never, never! All that was left was +surrender, ignominious flight to scenes barren of suggestion. + +To a place where he could work and save and repay! He looked at the slip +of bank-paper in his hand. + +At that instant a shining point caught his eye. It came from the pan of +gravel on the doorstep on which the rain had been beating. He thrust the +draft into his pocket and seized a double handful of the gravel. He +plunged it into a pail of water and held it to the light. It sparkled +with coarse, yellow flakes of gold. He dropped the handful with a sharp +exclamation, threw on his coat and rushed from the cabin. + +All day, alone on the fog-soaked hillside, Harry toiled in the trench +without food or rest. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +INTO THE GOLDEN SUNSET + + +It was a fair, sweet evening, and the room where Jessica sat beside +David Stires' bed, reading aloud to him, was flooded with the failing +sunlight. The height was still in brightness, but the gulches below were +wine-red and on their rims the spruces stood shadow-straight against the +golden ivory of the southern sky. Since the old man's seizure in the +night he had been much worse and she had scarcely left his room. To-day, +however, he had sat propped by pillows, able to read and chat, and the +deep personal anxiety that had numbed her had yielded. She was reading +now from a life of that poetess whose grave has made a lonely Colorado +mountain a place of pilgrimage. She read in a low voice, holding the +page to the dimming light: + + + "The spot she chose was a bare knoll, facing out across the curved + chasm, the wide empty gulf on three sides, a plot hounded by a knot + of noble trees that whispered softly together. Here above the sky + was beautifully blue, the searching fall wind that numbed the + fingers in the draw of the gorge was gone, and the warm sunshine + was mellow and pleasant. It was a spot to dream in, leaning upon + the great facts of God that He teaches best to those who love His + Nature. A spot in which to be laid at last for the long sleep, when + mortal dreams are over and work is done." + + +"That is beautiful," he said. "I should choose a spot like that." He +pointed down the long slope, where a red beam of the sun touched the +gray face of the Knob and turned it to a spot of crimson-lake. "That +must be such a place." + +Her cheeks flushed. She knew what he was thinking. He would not wish to +lie in the far-away cemetery that looked down on the white house in the +aspens, the theater of his son's downfall! The Knob, she thought with a +thrill, overlooked the place of Hugh's regeneration. + +A knock came at the door. It was a nurse with letters for him from the +mail, and while he opened them Jessica laid aside the book and went +slowly down the hall to the sun-parlor, where the doctor stood with the +group gathered after the early supper, chatting of the newest "strike" +on the mountain. + +"We'll be famous if we keep on," he was saying, as she looked out of the +wide windows across the haze where the sunlight drifted down in dust of +gold. "I've a mind to stake out a claim myself." + +"We pay you better," said one of the occupants grimly. "Anyway, the +whole of Smoky Mountain was staked in the excitement a year ago. There's +no doubt about this find, I suppose?" + +"It's on exhibition at the bank," the doctor replied. "More than five +thousand dollars, _cached_ in a crevice in the glacial age, as neat as a +Christmas stocking!" + +"Wish it was _my_ stocking," grunted the other. "It would help pay my +bill here." + +The man of medicine laughed and nodded to Jessica where she stood, her +cheeks reddened by the crimsoning light. She had scarcely listened to +the chatter, or, if she did, paid little heed. All her thoughts were +with the man she loved. Watching the luminous purple shadows grow slowly +over the landscape, she longed to run down to the Knob, to sit where she +had first spoken to him, perhaps by very excess of yearning to call him +to her side. She had a keen sense of the compunction he must feel, and +longed, as love must, to reassure him. + +The talk went on about her. + +"Where is the lucky claim?" some one asked. + +"Just below this ridge," the doctor replied. "It is called the 'Little +Paymaster.'" + +The name caught her ear now. The Little Paymaster? That was the name on +the tree--on Hugh's claim! At that instant she thought she heard David +Stires calling. She turned and ran quickly up the long hall to his open +door. + +The sight of his face at first startled her, for it was held captive of +emotion; but it was an emotion of joy, not of pain. A letter fluttered +in his grasp. He thrust it into her hands. + +"Jessica!" he exclaimed. "Hugh has paid it! He has sent the five +thousand dollars, interest and principal, to the bank, to my account." + +For a moment she stood transfixed. The talk she had mechanically heard +leaped into significance, and her mind ran back to the hour when she had +left the draft at the cabin. She caught the old man's hand and knelt by +his chair, laughing and crying at once. + +"I knew--oh, I knew!" she cried, and hid her face in the coverlet. + +"It is what I have prayed for," he said, after a moment, in a shaking +voice. "I said I hoped I would never see his face again, but I was +bitter then. He was my only son, after all, and he is your husband. I +have thought it all over lying here." + +Jessica lifted her eyes, shining with a great thankfulness. During these +last few days the impulse to tell all that she had concealed had been +almost irresistible; now the barrier had fallen. The secret she had +repressed so long came forth in a rush of sentences that left him mute +and amazed. + +"I should have told you before," she ended, "but I didn't know--I wasn't +sure--" She broke down for very joy. + +He looked at her with eyes unnaturally bright. "Tell me everything, +Jessica!" he said. "Everything from the beginning!" + +She drew the shade wider before the open window, where he could look +down across the two miles of darkening foliage to the far huddle of the +town--a group of toy houses now hazily indistinct--and, seated beside +him, his hand in hers, poured out the whole. She had never framed it +into words; she had pondered each incident severally, apart, as it were, +from its context. Now, with the loss of memory and the pitiful struggle +of recollection as a background, the narrative painted itself in vivid +colors to whose pathos and meaning her every instinct was alive. Her +first view of Hugh, the street fight and the revelation of the +violin--the part she and Prendergast had taken--the rescue of the +child--the leaving of the draft in the cabin, and the strange +sleep-walking that had so nearly found a dubious ending--she told all. +She did not realize that she was revealing the depths of her own heart +without reserve. If she omitted to tell of his evil reputation and the +neighborhood's hatred, who could blame? She was a woman, and she loved +them both. + +Dusk came before the moving recital was finished. The rose of sunset +grew over the trellised west, faded, and the gloom deepened to darkness, +pricked by stars. The old man from the first had scarcely spoken. When +she ended she could hardly see his face, and waited anxiously to hear +what he might say. Presently he broke the silence. + +"He was young and irresponsible, Jessica," he said. "Money always came +so easily. He didn't realize what he was doing when he signed that +draft. He has learned a lesson out in the world. It won't hurt his +career in the end, for no one but you and I and one other knows it. +Thank God! If his memory comes back--" + +"Oh, it will!" she breathed. "It must! That day on the Knob he only +needed the clue! When I tell him who I am, he will know me. He will +remember it all. I am sure--sure! Will you let me bring him to you?" she +added softly. + +"Yes," he said, pressing her hand, "to-morrow. I shall be stronger in +the morning." + +She rose and lighted the lamp, shading it from his eyes. + +"Do you remember the will, Jessica?" he asked her presently. "The will +I drew the day he came back? You never knew, but I signed it--the night +of your wedding. Harry Sanderson was right, my dear, wasn't he? + +"I wish now I hadn't signed it, Jessica," he added. "I must set it +right--I must set it right!" He watched her with a smile on his face. "I +will rest now," he said, and she adjusted the pillows and turned the +lamp low. + +Crossing the room, she stepped through the long window on to the porch, +and stood leaning on the railing. From the dark hedges where the brown +birds built came a drowsy twitter as from a nest of dreams. A long time +she stood there, a thousand thoughts busy in her brain--of Hugh, of the +beckoning future. She thought of the day she had destroyed the model +that her fingers longed to remold, now that the Prodigal was indeed +returned. The words of the biblical narrative flashed through her mind: +_And he arose and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way +off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his +neck, and kissed him._ So Hugh's father would meet him now! The dewed +odors of the jasmin brought the memory of that stormy night when he had +come to her in his sleep. She imagined she heard again his last +word--his whispered "Good-by" in the sound of the rain. + +She thought it a memory, but the word that flashed into her mind was +carried to her from the shadow, where a man stood in the shrubbery +watching her dim figure and her face white and beautiful in the light +from a near-by window, with a passionate longing and rebellion. + +Harry was seeing her, he told himself, for the last time. He had made up +his mind to this on that stormy morning when he had found the lucky +crevice. For days he had labored, spurred by a fierce haste to make +requital. Till the last ounce of the rich "pocket" had been washed, and +the whole taken to the bank in the town, no one had known of the find. +It had repaid the forgery and left him a handful of dollars over--enough +to take him far away from the only thing that made life worth the +effort. He had climbed to the ridge on the bare chance of seeing +Jessica--not of speaking to her. Watching her, it required all his +repression not to yield to the reckless desire that prompted him to go +to her, look into her eyes, and tell her he loved her. He made a step +forward, but stopped short, as she turned and vanished through the +window. + +Standing on the porch, a gradual feeling of apprehension had come to +Jessica--an impression of blankness and chill that affected her +strangely. Inside the room she stood still, frightened at the sudden +sense of utter soundlessness. + +She caught up the lamp, and, turning the wick, approached the bed. She +put out her hand and touched the wasted one on the coverlet. Then a +sobbing cry came from her lips. + +David Stires was gone. A crowning joy had goldened his bitterness at the +last moment, and he had gone away with his son's face in his heart and +the smile of welcome on his lips. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THE TENANTLESS HOUSE + + +Dark was falling keen and cool, for frost was in the air, touching the +fall foliage on the hills to crimson and amber, silvering the long +curving road that skirted the river bluff, and etching delicate hoar +tracery on the spidery framework of the long black railroad bridge that +hung above "the hole." The warning light from a signal-post threw a +crimson splash on the ground. Its green pane cast a pallor on a bearded +face turned out over the gloomy water. + +The man who had paused there had come from far, and his posture +betokened weariness, but his features were sharp and eager. He turned +and paced back along the track to the signal-post. + +"It was here," he said aloud. He stood a moment, his hands clenched. +"The new life began here. Here, then, is where the old life ended." From +where he stood he could see blossoming the yellow lights of the little +city, five miles away. He set his shoulders, whistled to the small dog +that nosed near-by, and set off at a quick pace down the road. + +What had brought him there? He scarcely could have told. Partly, +perhaps, a painful curiosity, a flagellant longing to press the iron +that had seared him to his soul. So, after a fortnight of drifting, the +dark maelstrom of his thoughts had swept him to its dead center. This +was the spot that held the key to the secret whose shame had sent him +hither by night, like a jailbird revisiting the haunts that can know him +no more. He came at length to a fork in the road; he mechanically took +the right, and it led him soon to a paved road and to more cheerful +thoroughfares. + +Once in the streets, a bar to curious glances, he turned up his coat +collar and settled the brim of his felt hat more closely over his eyes. +He halted once before a shadowed door with a barred window set in its +upper panel--the badge of a gambling-house. As he had walked, baffling +hints of pictures, unfilled outlines like a painter's studies had been +flitting before him, as faces flit noiselessly across the opaque ground +of a camera-obscura. Now, down the steps from that barred door, a filmy, +faded, Chesterfieldian figure seemed to be coming toward him with +outstretched hand--one of the ghosts of his world of shadows. + +He walked on. He crossed an open square and presently came to the gate +of a Gothic chapel, set well back from the street. Its great +rose-window was alight, for on this evening was to be held a memorial +service for the old man whose money had built the pile, who had died a +fortnight before in a distant sanatorium. A burnished brass plate was +set beside the gate, bearing the legend: "St. James Chapel. Reverend +Henry Sanderson, Rector." The gaze with which the man's eye traced the +words was as mechanical as the movement with which his hand, in his +pocket, closed on the little gold cross; for organ practice was +beginning, and the air, throbbing to it, was peopled with confused +images--but no realization of the past emerged. + +He turned at the sound of wheels, and the blur shocked itself apart to +reveal a kindly face that looked at him for an instant framed in the +window of a passing carriage. With the look a specter plucked at the +flesh of the wayfarer with intangible fingers. He shrank closer against +the palings. + +Inside the carriage Bishop Ludlow settled back with a sigh. "Only a face +on the pavement," he said to his wife, "but it reminded me somehow of +Harry Sanderson." + +"How strange it is!" she said--the bishop had no secrets from his +wife--"never a word or a sign, and everything in his study just as he +left it. What can you do, John? It is four months ago now, and the +parish needs a rector." + +He did not reply for a moment. The question touched the trouble that was +ever present in his mind. The whereabouts of Harry Sanderson had caused +him many sleepless hours, and the look of frozen realization which had +met his stern and horrified gaze that unforgetable night--a look like +that of a tranced occultist waked in the demon-constrained commission of +some rueful impiety--had haunted the good man's vigils. He had knowledge +of the by-paths of the human soul, and the more he reflected the less +the fact had fitted. The wild laugh of Hugh's, as he had vanished into +the darkness, had come to seem the derisive glee of the tempter +rejoicing in his handiwork. Recollection of Harry's depression and the +insomnia of which he had complained had deepened his conviction that +some phase of mental illness had been responsible. In the end he had +revolted against his first crass conclusion. When the announced vacation +had lengthened into months, he had been still more deeply perplexed, for +the welfare of the parish must be considered. + +"I know," he said at length. "I may have failed in my whole duty, but I +haven't known how to tell David Stires, especially since we heard of his +illness. I had written to him--the whole story; the ink was not dry on +the paper when the letter came from Jessica telling us of his death." + +Behind them, as they talked, the man on the pavement was walking on +feverishly, the organ music pursuing him, the dog following with a +reluctant whine. + +At last he came to a wide, dark lawn set thick with aspens clustering +about a white house that loomed grayly in the farther shadow. He +hesitated a moment, then walked slowly up the broad, weed-grown garden +path toward its porch. In the half light the massive silver door-plate +stood out clearly. He had known instinctively that that house had been a +part of his life, and yet a tremor caught him as he read the +name--STIRES. The intuition that had bent his steps from the street, the +old stirring of dead memory, had brought him to his past at last. This +house had been his home! + +He stood looking at it with trouble in his face. He seemed now to +remember the wide colonnaded porch, the tall fluted columns, the green +blinds. Clearly it was unoccupied. He remembered the scent of jasmin +flowers! He remembered-- + +He started. A man in his shirt-sleeves was standing by a half-open side +door, regarding him narrowly. + +"Thinking of buying?" The query was good-humoredly satiric. "Or maybe +just looking the old ranch over with a view to a shake-down!" + +The trespasser smiled grimly. It was not the first time he had seen that +weather-beaten face. "You have given up surgery as a profession, I see," +he said. + +The other came nearer, looked at him in a puzzled way, then laughed. + +"If it isn't the card-sharp we picked up on the railroad track!" he +said, "dog and all! I thought you were far down the coast, where it's +warmer. Nothing much doing with you, eh?" + +"Nothing much," answered the man he addressed. Others might recognize +him as the black sheep, but this nondescript watchman whom chance had +set here could not. He knew him only as the dingy vagabond whose broken +head he had bandaged in the box-car! + +"I'm in better luck," went on the man in shirt-sleeves. "I struck this +about two months ago, as gardener first, and now I'm a kind of a sort of +a watchman. They gave me a bunk in the summer-house there"--he jerked +his thumb backward over his shoulder--"but I know a game worth two of +that for these cold nights. I'll show you. I can put you up for the +night," he added, "if you like." + +The wayfarer shook his head. "I must get away to-night, but I'm much +obliged." + +"Haven't done anything, have you?" asked his one-time companion +curiously. "You didn't seem that sort." + +The bearded face turned away. "I'm not 'wanted' by the police, no. But +I'm on the move, and the sooner I take the trail the better. I don't +mind night travel." + +"You'd be better for a rest," said the watchman, "but you're the doctor. +Come in and we'll have a nip of something warm, anyhow." + +He led the way to the open door and beckoned the other inside, closing +it carefully to. "It's a bully old hole," he observed, as he lit a brace +of candles. "It wasn't any trick to file a key, and I sleep in the +library now as snug as a bug in a rug." He held the light higher. "You +look a sight better," he said. "More flesh on your bones, and the beard +changes you some, too. That scar healed up fine on your forehead--it's +nothing but a red line now." + +His guest followed him into a spacious hall, scarce conscious of what he +did. A double door to the left was shut, but he nevertheless knew +perfectly that the room it hid had a tall French window, letting on to a +garden where camelias had once dropped like blood. The open door to the +right led to the library. + +There the yellow light touched the dark wainscoting, the marble +mantelpiece, dim paintings on the wall, and a great brass-bound Korean +desk in a corner. What black thing had once happened in that room? What +face had once looked at him from that wheel-chair? It was an old face, +gray and lined and passionate--his father, doubtless. He told himself +this calmly, with an odd sense of apartness. + +The other's glance followed his pridefully. "It's a fine property," he +said. "The owner's an invalid, I hear, with one leg in the grave. He's +in some sanatorium and can't get much good of it. Nice pictures, them," +he added, sweeping a candle round. "That's a good-looker over +there--must be the old man's daughter, I reckon. Well, I'll go and get +you a finger or two to keep the frost out of your lungs. It'll be cold +as Billy-be-dam to-night. Make yourself at home." The door closed behind +him. + +The man he left was trembling violently. He had scarcely repressed a +cry. The portrait that hung above the mantelpiece was Jessica's, in a +house-dress of soft Romney-blue and a single white rose caught in her +hair. "The old man's daughter!"--the words seemed to echo and reecho +about the walls, voicing a new agony without a name. Then Jessica was +his sister! + +The owner of the house, his father, an invalid in a sanatorium? It was a +sanatorium on the ridge of Smoky Mountain where she had stayed, into +which he had broken that stormy night! Had his father been there then, +yearning in pain and illness over that evil career of his in the town +beneath? Was relationship the secret of Jessica's interest, her +magnanimity, that he had dreamed was something more? A dizzy sickness +fell upon him, and he clenched his hands till the nails struck purple +crescents into the palms. + +As he stared dry-eyed at the picture in the candle-light, the misery +slowly passed. He must _know_. Who she was, what she was to him, he must +learn beyond peradventure. He cast a swift glance around him; orderly +rows of books stared from the shelves, the mahogany table held only a +pile of old magazines. He strode to the desk, drew down its lid and +tried the drawers. They opened readily and he rapidly turned over their +litter of papers, written in the same crabbed hand that had etched the +one damning word on the draft he had found in the cabin on Smoky +Mountain. + +This antique desk, with its crude symbols and quaint brass-work, a gift +to him once upon a time from Harry Sanderson, had been David Stires' +carry-all; he had been spending a last half-hour in sorting its contents +when the bank-messenger, on that fateful day, had brought him the slip +of paper that had told his son's disgrace. Most of the papers the +searcher saw at a glance were of no import, and they gave him no clue to +what he sought. Then, mysteriously guided by the subtle memory that +seemed of late to haunt him, though he was but half conscious of its +guidance, his nervous fingers suddenly found and pressed a spring--a +panel fell down, and he drew out a folded parchment. + +Another instant and he was bending over it with the candle, his fingers +tracing familiar legal phrases of a will laid there long ago. He read +with the blood shrinking from his heart: + +"_To my son Hugh, in return for the care and sorrow he has caused me all +the days of his life, for his dissolute career and his graceless +desertion, I do give and bequeath the sum of one thousand dollars and +the memory of his misspent youth. The residue of my estate, real and +personal, I do give and bequeath to my ward, Jessica Holme_--" + +The blood swept back to his heart in a flood. Ward, not daughter! He +could still keep the one sweet thing left him. His love was justified. +Tears sprang to his eyes, and he laid the parchment back and closed the +desk. He hastily brushed the drops away, as the rough figure of the +watchman entered and set down two glasses and a bottle with a flourish. + +"There you are; that'll be worth five miles to you!" He poured noisily. +"Here's how!" he said. + +His guest drank, set down the glass and held out his hand. "Good luck," +he said. "You've got a good, warm berth here; maybe I shall find one, +too, one of these days." + +The dog thrust a cold muzzle into his hand as he walked down the gravel +path slowly, feeling the glow of the liquor gratefully, with the +grudging release it brought from mental tension. He had not consciously +asked himself whither now. In some subconscious corner of his brain this +had been asked and answered. He was going to his father. Not to seek to +change the stern decree; not to annul those bitter phrases: _his +dissolute career--the memory of his misspent youth!_ Only to ask his +forgiveness and to make what reparation was possible, then to go out +once more to the world to fight out his battle. His way was clear before +him now. Fate had guided him, strangely and certainly, to knowledge. He +was thankful for that. He had come a silent shadow; like a shadow he +would go. + +He retraced his steps, and again stood on the square near where the +rose-window of the Gothic chapel cast a tinted luster on the clustering +shrubbery. The audience-room was full now, a string of carriages waited +at the curb, and as he stood on the opposite pavement the treble of the +choir rose full and clear: + + + "Lead, kindly Light, amid th' encircling gloom, + Lead Thou me on; + The night is dark, and I am far from home, + Lead Thou me on! + Keep Thou my feet! I do not care to see + The distant scene; one step enough for me." + + +He drew his hat-brim over his eyes, and mingled with the hurrying +street. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE CALL OF LOVE + + +The bell was tapping in the steeple of the little Catholic church on the +edge of the town, and the mellow tone came clearly up the slope of the +mountain where once more the one-time partner of Prendergast stood on +the threshold of the lonely cabin, sentinel over the mounds of yellow +gravel that marked his toil. + +The returned wanderer had met with a distinct surprise in the town. As +he passed through the streets more than one had nodded, or had spoken +his name, and the recognition had sent a glow to his cheek and a +lightness to his step. + +Since the daring feat in the automobile, the tone of the gossip had +changed. His name was no longer connected with the sluice robberies. The +lucky find, too, constituted a material boom for Smoky Mountain and +bettered the stock in its hydraulic enterprises, and this had been +written on the credit side of the ledger. Opinion, so all-powerful in a +new community, had altered. Devlin had abruptly ordered from his place +one who had done no more than to repeat his own earlier gibes, and even +Michael Halloran, the proprietor of the Mountain Valley House, had given +countenance to the more charitable view championed by Tom Felder. All +this he who had been the outcast could not guess, but he felt the change +with satisfaction. + +As he gazed up the slope, all gloriously afire with the marvellous +frost-hues of the autumn--dahlia crimsons, daffodil golds and maple +tints like the flames of long-sought desires--toward the glass roof that +sparkled on the ridge above, one comfort warmed his breast. If it had +been the subtle stirring of blood kinship, the blind instinct of love, +that had drawn him to that nocturnal house-breaking, not the lawless +appetence of the natural criminal! Whether his father was indeed there +he must discover. + +Till the sun was low he sat in the cabin thinking. At length he called +the dog and fastened it in its accustomed place, and began slowly to +climb the steep ascent. When he came to a certain vine-grown trail that +met the main path, he turned aside. Here lay the spot where he had first +spoken with her, face to face. Here she had told him there was nothing +in his past which could not be buried and forgotten! + +As he parted the bushes and stepped into the narrow space beside the +jutting ledge, he stopped short with an exclamation. The place was no +longer a tangle of vines. A grave had been lately made there, and behind +it, fresh-chiseled in the rock, was a statue: a figure seated, chin on +hand, as if regarding the near-by mound. As in a dream he realized that +its features were his own. Awestruck, the living man drew near. + +It was Jessica's conception of the Prodigal Son, as she had modelled it +in Aniston in her blindness, after Hugh's early return to the house in +the aspens. That David Stires should have pointed out the distant Knob +as a spot in which he would choose to be buried had had a peculiar +significance to her, and the wish had been observed. Her sorrow for his +death had been deepened by the thought that the end had come too +suddenly for David Stires to have reinstated his son. This sorrow had +possessed one comfort--that he had known at the last and had forgiven +Hugh. Of this she could assure him when he returned, for she could not +really believe--so deep is the heart of a woman--that he would not +return. In the days of vigil she had found relief in the rough, hard +work of the mallet. None had intruded in that out-of-the-way spot, save +that one day Mrs. Halloran, led by curiosity to see the grave of the +rich man whose whim it had been to be buried on the mountain side, had +found her at her work, and her Jessica had pledged to silence. She was +no fool, was Mrs. Halloran, and to learn the name of the dead man was to +put two and two together. The guess the good woman evolved undershot the +mark, but it was more than sufficient to summon all the romance that +lurked beneath that prosaic exterior; nevertheless she shut her lips +against temptation, and all her motherly heart overflowed to the girl +who worked each day at that self-appointed task. Only the afternoon +before Jessica had finished carving the words on the base of the statue +on which the look of the startled man was now resting: _I will arise and +go unto my father_. + +The gazer turned from the words, with quick question, to the mound. He +came close, and in the fading light looked at the name on the low +headstone. So he had come too late! + +_And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in +thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son._ Though for him +there could have been no robe or ring, or fatted calf or merriment, yet +he had longed for the dearer boon of confession and understanding. If he +could only have learned the truth earlier! If he might only put back the +hands of the clock! + +Hours went by. The shadows dreamed themselves away and dark fell, +cloudless and starry. The half-moon brightened upon him sitting moveless +beside the stone figure. At length he rose to his feet, his limbs +cramped and stiffened, and made his way back to the lonely cabin on the +hillside. + +There he found fuel, kindled a blaze in the fireplace and cooked his +frugal supper. The shock of surprise past, he realized his sorrow as a +thing subjective and cerebral. The dead man had been his father; so he +told himself, but with an emotion curiously destitute of primitive +feeling. The very relationship was a portion of that past that he could +never grasp; all that was of the present was Jessica! + +He thought of the losing battle he had fought there once before, when +tempest shrieked without--the battle which had ended in _debacle_ and +defeat. He thought of the will he had seen, now sealed with the Great +Seal of Death. He was the shorn beggar, she the beneficiary. What duty +she had owed his father was ended now. Desolate she might be--in need of +a hand to guide and guard--but she was beyond the reach of penury. This +gave him a sense of satisfaction. Was she there on the mountain at that +moment? There came upon him again the passionate longing that had held +him in that misty sanatorium room when the odor of the jasmin had +wreathed them both--when she had protected and saved him! + +At last he took Old Despair's battered violin from the wall, and, +seating himself in the open doorway, looking across the mysterious +purple of the gulches to the skyline sown with pale stars, drew the bow +softly across the strings. In the long-past days, when he had been the +Reverend Henry Sanderson, in the darker moods of his study, he had been +used to seek the relief to which he now turned. Never but once since +then had he played with utter oblivion of self. Now his struggle and +longing crept into the music. The ghosts that haunted him clustered +together in the obscurity of the night, and stood between his opening +future and her. + +Through manifold variations the music wandered, till at length there +came from the hollowed wood an air that was an unconscious echo of a +forgotten wedding-day--"O perfect love, all human thought transcending." +After the fitful medley that had spoken, the placid cadence fell with a +searching pathos that throbbed painfully on the empty silence of the +mountain. + +Empty indeed he thought it. But the light breeze that shook the +pine-needles had borne the sound far to an ear that had grown tense with +listening--to one on the ridge above to whom it had sounded the supreme +call of youth and life. He did not feel her nearer presence as she +stole breathless across the dark path, and stood there behind him with +outstretched hands, her whole being merged in that mute appeal. + +The music died, the violin slipped from beneath his chin, the bow +dropped and his head fell on his arms. Then he felt a touch on his +shoulder and heard the whisper: "Hugh! Hugh!" + +"Jessica!" he cried, and sprang to his feet. + +In those three words all was asked and answered. It did not need the low +cry with which she flung herself on her knees beside the rough-hewn +steps, or the broken sentences with which he poured out the fear and +hope that he had battled with. + +"I have watched every day and listened every night," she said. "I knew +that you would come--that you _must_ come back!" + +"If I had never gone, Jessica!" he exclaimed. "Then I might have seen my +father! But I didn't know--" + +She clasped her hands together. "You know now--you remember it all?" + +He shook his head. "I have been there"--he pointed to the hillside--"and +I have guessed who it is that lies there. I know I sinned against him +and against myself, and left him to die unforgiving. That is what the +statue said to me--as he must have said: _I am no more worthy to be +called thy son_." + +"Ah," she cried, "he knew and he forgave you, Hugh. His last thought was +of your coming! That is why I carved the figure there." + +"You carved it?" he exclaimed. She bent her forehead to his hands, as +they clasped her own. + +"The prodigal is yourself," she said. "I modelled it once before when +you came back to him, in the time you have forgotten. But I destroyed +it,"--the words were very low now--"on my wedding-day." + +His hands released hers, and, looking up, she saw, even in the +moonlight, that with the last word his face had gone ghastly white. At +the sight, timidity, maidenly reserve, fell, and all the woman in her +rushed uppermost. She lifted her arms and clasped his face. + +"Hugh," she cried, "can't you remember? Don't you understand? Think! I +was blind, dear, blind--a white bandage was across my eyes, and you came +to me in a shaded room! Why did you come to me?" + +A spark seemed to dart through his brain, like the prickling discharge +from a Leyden jar. A spot of the mental blackness visualized, and for an +instant sprang out in outlines of red. He smelled the odor of jasmin +flowers. He saw himself standing, facing a figure with bandaged eyes. +He saw the bandage torn off, felt that yielding body in his arms, heard +a voice--her voice--crying, "Hugh--Hugh! My husband!" and felt those +lips pressed to his own in the tense air of a darkened room. + +A cry broke from his lips: "Yes, yes! I remember! Jessica, my wife!" His +arms went round her, and with a little sob she nestled close to him on +the doorstep. + +The blank might close again about him now! He had had that instantaneous +glimpse of the past, like lightning through a rifted pall, and in that +glimpse was joy. For him there was now no more consciousless past or +remorseful present. No forgery or exile, no Prendergast, or hatred, or +evil repute. For her, all that had embittered, all that stood for loss +and grieving, was ended. The fire on the hearth behind them domed and +sank, and far below the lights of the streets wavered unheeded. + +The shadowed silence of the cathedral pines closed them round. Above in +the calm sky the great constellations burned on and swung lower, and in +that dim confessional she absolved him from all sin. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +IN A FOREST OF ARDEN + + +Keen, morning sunlight, a sky clean as a hound's tooth, and an air cool +and tinctured with the wine of perfect autumn! Jessica breathed it +deeply as her buoyant step carried her along the mountain trails, brave +in the pageant of the passing year. Her face reflected the rich color +and her eyes were deep as the sky. + +Only last night had been that sweet unfolding in which the past had been +swept away for ever. To-day her heart was almost too full to bear, +beating to thought of the man to whose arms the violin had called her. +That had been the hour of confidence, of love's sacrament, the closure +of all her distrust and agony. Now she longed inexpressibly for the +further assurance she knew would look from his eyes to hers; yet her joy +was so poignant that it was near to pain, and withal was so enwound with +maidenly consciousness that, knowing him near, she must have fled from +him. She walked rapidly on, losing herself in the windings of blind +wood-paths, revelling in the beauty of the silent, empty forest. + +The morning had found the man whose image filled her mental horizon no +less a prey to conflicting emotions than herself. That hour on the +mountain-side, under the stars, had left Harry possessed of a melee of +perplexing emotions. Dreaming and waking, Jessica's face hung before his +eyes, her voice sounded in his ear. Yet over his happiness more than +once a chill had fallen, an odd shrinking, an unexplainable sense of +flush, of fastidiousness, of mortification. This subtle conflict of +feeling, not understood, had driven him, in sheer nervousness, to the +peaceful healing of the solitudes. + +The future held no longer any doubt--it held only her. Where was that +future to be? Back in the city to which his painful curiosity had so +lately driven him? This lay no longer in his own choice; it was for her +to decide now, Jessica--his wife. He said the word softly, under his +breath, to the sweet secret grasses, as something mysterious and sacred. +How appealing, how womanly she was--how incommunicably dear, how-- + +He looked up transfixed, for she stood there before him, ankle-deep in a +brown whirlwind of leaves from a frost-stung oak, her hand to her cheek +in an adorable gesture that he knew, her lips parted and eager. She said +no word, nor did he, but he came swiftly and caught her to him, and her +face buried itself on his breast. + +As he looked down at her thus folded, the trouble, the sense of vexing +complexity vanished, and the primitive demand reasserted its sway. +Presently he released her, and drew her gently to a seat on the +sprawling oak roots. + +"I wanted so to find you," she said. "I have so many, many things to +say." + +"It is all wonderfully strange and new!" he said. "It is as though I had +rubbed Aladdin's lamp, and suddenly had my heart's desire." + +"Ah," she breathed, "am I that?" + +"More than that, and yet once I--Jessica, Jessica! When I woke this +morning in the cabin down there, it seemed to me for a moment that only +last night was real, and all the past an ugly dream. How could you have +loved me? And how could I have thrown my pearl away?" + +"We are not to think of that," she protested, "never, never any more." + +"You are right," he rejoined cheerfully; "it is what is to come that we +must think of." He paused an instant, then he said: + +"Last night, when you told me of the white house in the aspens, I did +not tell you that I had just come from there--from Aniston." + +She made an exclamation of wonder. "Tell me," she said. + +Sitting with her hand in his, he told of that night's experiences, the +fear that had held him as he gazed at her portrait in the library, the +secret of the Korean desk that had solaced his misery and sent him back +to the father he was not to see. + +At mention of the will she threw out her hand with a passionate gesture. +"The money is not mine!" she cried. "It is yours! He intended to change +it--he told me so the day he died. Oh, if you think I--" + +"No, no," he said gently. "There is no resentment, no false pride in my +love, Jessica. I am thinking of you--and of Aniston. You would have me +go back, would you not?" + +She looked up smiling and slowly shook her head. "You are a blind +guesser," she said. "Don't you think I know what is in your mind? Not +Aniston, Hugh. Sometime, but not now--not yet. It is nearer than that!" + +His eyes flowed into hers. "You understand! Yes, it is here. This is +where I must finish my fight first. Yesterday I would have left Smoky +Mountain for ever, because you were here. Now--" + +"I will help you," she said. "All the world besides counts nothing if +only we are together! I could live in a cabin here on the mountain +always, in a Forest of Arden, till I grow old, and want nothing but +that--and you!" She paused, with a happy laugh, her eye turned away. + +[Illustration] + +A log cabin, but a home glorified by her presence! In a dozen words she +had sketched a sufficient Paradise. As he did not answer, she faced him +with crimsoning cheeks, then reading his look she suddenly threw her +arms about his neck. + +"Hugh," she cried, "we belong to each other now. There is no one else to +consider, is there? I want to be to you what I haven't been--to bear +things with you, and help you." + +He kissed her eyes and hair. "You _have_ helped, you _do_ help me, +Jessica!" he urged. "But I am jealous for your love. It must not be +offended. The town of Smoky Mountain must not sneer--and it would sneer +now." + +"Let it!" she exclaimed resentfully. "As if I would care!" + +"But _I_ would care," he said softly. "I want to climb a little higher +first." + +She was silent a moment, her fingers twisting the fallen leaves. "You +don't want them to know that I am your wife?" + +"Not yet--till I can see my way." + +She nodded and smiled and the cloud lifted from her face. "You must know +best," she said. "This is what I shall do, then. I shall leave the +sanatorium to-morrow. The people there are nothing to me, but the town +of Smoky Mountain is yours, and I must be a part of it, too. I am going +to the Mountain Valley House. Mrs. Halloran will take care of me." She +sprang to her feet as she added: "I shall go to see her about it now." + +He knew the dear desire her determination masked--to do her part in +softening prejudice, in clearing his way--and the thought of her +great-heartedness brought a mist to his eyes. He rose and walked with +her through the bracken to the road. They came out to the driveway just +below the trail that led to the Knob. The bank was high, and leaping +first he held up his arms to her and lifted her lightly down. In the +instant, as she lay in his arms, he bent and kissed her on the lips. + +Neither noted two figures walking together that at that moment rounded +the bend of the road a little way above. They were Tom Felder and Doctor +Brent, the latter swinging a light suit-case, for he was on his way to +the station of the valley railroad. He had chosen to walk that he might +have a longer chat with his friend. Both men saw the kiss and +instinctively drew back, the lawyer with a sudden color on his face, +the doctor with a look of blank astonishment. + +The latter, in one way, knew little about the town. Beside Felder and +Mrs. Halloran, whose surly husband he had once doctored when the town's +practitioner was away--thereby earning her admiration and +gratitude--there were few with whom he had more than a nodding +acquaintance. He had liked David Stires, and Jessica he genuinely +admired, though he had thought her at times somewhat distant. He himself +had introduced Felder to her, on one of the latter's visits. He had not +observed that the young lawyer's calls had grown more frequent, nor +guessed that he had more than once loitered on the mountain trails +hoping to meet her. + +The doctor noted now the telltale flush on his companion's face. + +"We have surprised a romance," he said, as the two unconscious figures +disappeared down the curving stretch. "Who is the man?" + +"He is the one we have been talking about." + +The other stared. "Not your local Jekyll and Hyde, the sneak who lost +his memory and found himself an honest man?" + +Felder nodded. "His cabin is just below here, on the hillside." + +"Good Lord!" ejaculated the doctor. "What an infernal pity! What's his +name?" + +"Hugh Stires." + +"Stires?" the other repeated. "Stires? How odd!" He stood a moment, +tapping his suit-case with his stick. Suddenly he took the lawyer's arm +and led him into the side-path. + +"Come," he said, "I want to show you something." + +He led the way quickly to the Knob, where he stopped, as much astonished +as his companion, for he had known nothing of the statue. They read the +words chiselled on its base. "The prodigal son," said Felder. + +"Now look at the name on the headstone," said the physician. + +Felder's glance lifted from the stone, to peer through the screening +bushes to the cabin on the shelf below, and returned to the other's face +with quick comprehension. "You think--" + +"Who could doubt it? _I will arise and go unto my father._ The old man's +whim to be buried here had a meaning, after all. The statue is Miss +Holme's work--nobody in Smoky Mountain could do it--and I've seen her +modelling in clay at the sanatorium. What we saw just now is the key to +what might have been a pretty riddle if we had ever looked further than +our noses. It's a case of a clever rascal and damnable propinquity. The +ward has fallen in love with the black sheep!" + +They betook themselves down the mountain in silence, the doctor +wondering how deep a hurt lay back of that instant's color on his +friend's now imperturbable face, and more than disturbed on Jessica's +account. Her care for the cross-grained, likable invalid had touched +him. + +"A fine old man to own a worthless son," he said at length, musingly. "A +gentleman of the old school. Your amiable blackleg has education and +good blood in him, too!" + +"I've wondered sometimes," said Felder, "if the old Hugh Stires, that +disreputable one that came here, wasn't the unreal one, and the Hugh +Stires the town is beginning to like, the real one, brought back by the +accident that took his memory. You medical men have cases of such double +identity, haven't you?" + +"The books have," responded the other, "but they're like Kellner's +disease or Ludwig's Angina--nobody but the original discoverer ever sees +'em." + +As they parted at the station the doctor said: "We needn't take the town +into our confidence, eh? Some one will stumble on the statue sooner or +later, but we won't help the thing along." He looked shrewdly in the +other's face as they shook hands. + +"You know the old saying: There's as many good fish in the sea as ever +were caught." + +The lawyer half laughed. "Don't worry," he said. "If I had been in +danger, the signal was hung out in plenty of time!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +THE REVELATION OF HALLELUJAH JONES + + +Hallelujah Jones was in his element. With his wheezy melodeon, his +gasoline flare and his wild earnestness, he crowded the main street of +the little mining-town, making the engagement of the "San Francisco +Amazons" at the clapboard "opera house" a losing venture. The effete +civilization of wealthy bailiwicks did not draw forth his powers as did +the open and unveneered debaucheries of less restricted settlements. +Against these he could inveigh with surety, at least, of an appreciative +audience. + +He had not lacked for listeners here, for he was a new sensation. His +battered music-box, with its huge painted text, was far and away more +attractive than the thumping pianolas of the saloons or the +Brobdignagian gramophone of the dance-hall, and his old-fashioned songs +were enthusiastically encored. When he lit his flare in the court-house +square at dusk on the second evening, the office of the Mountain Valley +House was emptied and the bar-rooms and gaming-tables well-nigh +deserted of their patrons. + +Jessica had seen the mustering crowd from the hotel entrance. Mrs. +Halloran had welcomed her errand that day and given her her best room, a +chamber overlooking the street. She had persuaded her visitor to spend +the afternoon and insisted that she stay to supper, "just to see how she +would like it for a steady diet." Now, as Jessica passed along toward +the mountain road, the spectacle chained her feet on the outskirts of +the gathering. She watched and listened with a preoccupied mind; she was +thinking that on her way to the sanatorium she would cross to the cabin +for a good-night word with the man upon whom her every thought centered. + +As it happened, however, Harry was at that moment very near her. Alone +on the mountain, the perplexing conflict of feeling had again descended +upon him. He had fought it, but it had prevailed, and at nightfall had +driven him down to the town, where the street preacher now held forth. +He stood alone, unnoted, a little distance away, near the court-house +steps, where, by reason of the crowd, Jessica could see neither him nor +the dog which sniffed at the heels of the circle of bystanders as if to +inquire casually of salvation. + +Numbers were swelling now, and the street preacher, shaking back his +long hair, drew a premonitory, wavering chord from his melodeon, and +struck up a gospel song: + + + "My days are gliding swiftly by, + And I, a pilgrim stranger, + Would not detain them as they fly, + These hours of toil and danger. + For Oh, we tread on Jordan's strand, + Our friends are passing over, + And just before the shining shore + We may almost discover." + + +The song ended, he mounted his camp-stool to propound his usual fiery +text. + +The watcher by the steps was gazing with a strange, alert intentness. +Something in the scene--the spluttering, dripping flame, the music, the +forensic earnestness of the pilgrim--held him enthralled. The dormant +sense that in the recent weeks had again and again stirred at some +elusive touch of memory, was throbbing. Since last night, with its +sudden lightning flash of the past that had faded again into blankness, +he had been as sensitive as a photographic plate. + +Hallelujah Jones knew the melodramatic value of contrast. As his mood +called, he passed abruptly from exhortation to song, from prayer to +fulmination, and he embellished his harangue with anecdotes drawn from +his lifelong campaign against the Arch-Enemy of Souls. Of what he had +said the solitary observer had been quite unconscious. It was the +_ensemble_--the repetition of something experienced somewhere +before--that appealed to him. Suddenly, however, a chance phrase pierced +to his understanding. + +Another moment and he was leaning forward, his eyes fixed, his breath +straining at his breast. For each word of the speaker now was knocking a +sledge-hammer blow upon the blank wall in his brain. Hallelujah Jones +had launched into the recital of an incident which had become the _chef +d'ouvre_ of his repertory--a story which, though the stern charge of a +bishop had kept him silent as to name and locality, yet, possessing the +vividness of an actual experience, had lost little in the telling. It +was the tale of an evening when he had peered through the tilted window +of a chapel, and seen its dissolute rector gambling on the table of the +Lord. + +Back in the shadow the listener, breathless and staring, saw the scene +unroll like the shifting slide of a stereopticon--the epitaph on his own +dead self. Nerve and muscle and brain tightened as if to withstand a +shock, for the man who moved through the pictures was himself! He saw +the cards and counters falling on the table, the entrance of the two +intruding figures, heard Hugh's wild laugh as he fled, and the grate of +the key in the lock behind him as he stood in his study. He heard the +rush of the wind past the motor-car, the rustle of dry corn in the +hedges, and felt the mist beating on his bare head-- + + + "Palms of Victory, + Crowns of Glory! + Palms of Victory + I shall wear!" + + +He did not know that it was the voice of the street preacher which was +singing now. The words shrieked themselves through his brain. Harry +Sanderson, not Hugh Stires! Not an outcast! Not criminal, thief and +forger! The curtain was rent. The dead wall in his brain was down, and +the real past swept over him in an ungovernable flood. Hallelujah Jones +had furnished the clue to the maze. His story was the last great wave, +which had crumbled, all at once, the cliff of oblivion that the normal +process of the recovered mind had been stealthily undermining. The +formula, lost so long in the mysterious labyrinth of the brain, had +reestablished itself, and the thousand shreds of recollection that he +had misconstrued had fallen into their true place in the old pattern. +Harry Sanderson at last knew his past and all of puzzlement and distress +that it had held. + +Shaking in every limb and feeling all along the court-house wall like a +drunken man, he made his way to the further deserted street. A passer-by +would have shrunk at sight of his face and his burning eyes. + +For these months, he, the Reverend Henry Sanderson, disgraced, had +suffered eclipse, had been sunk out of sight and touch and hearing like +a stone in a pool. For these months--through an accidental facial +resemblance and a fortuitous concurrence of circumstances--he had owned +the name and ignominy of Hugh Stires. And Jessica? Deceived no less than +he, dating her piteous error from that mistaken moment when she had torn +the bandage from her eyes on her wedding-day. She had never seen the +real Hugh in Smoky Mountain. She must learn the truth. Yet, how to tell +her? How could he tell her _all_? + +At any hour yesterday, hard as the telling must have been, he could have +told her. Last night the hour passed. How could he tell her now? Yet she +was the real Hugh's wife by law and right; he himself could not marry +her! If God would but turn back the universe and give him yesterday! + +Why not _be_ Hugh Stires? The wild idea came to him to throw away his +own self for ever, never to tell her, never to return to Aniston, to +live on here or fly to some distant place, till years had made +recognition impossible. He struck his forehead with his closed hand. He, +a priest of God, to summon her to an illegal union? To live a serial +story of hypocrisy, with the guilty shadow of the living Hugh always +between them, the sword of Damocles always suspended above their heads, +to cleave to the heart of his Fool's Paradise? The mad thought died. Yet +what justice of Heaven was it that Jessica, whose very soul had been +broken on the wheel, should now, through no conscious fault, be led by +his hand through a new Inferno of suffering? + +His feet dragging as though from cold, he climbed the mountain road. As +he walked he took from his pocket the little gold cross, and his +fingers, numb with misery, tied it to his thong watch-guard. It had been +only a bauble, a pocket-piece acquired he knew not when or how; now he +knew it for the badge of his calling. He remembered now that, pressed a +certain way, it would open, and engraved inside were his name and the +date of his ordination. + +He might shut the cabin door, but he could not forbid the torturer that +came with him across the threshold. He might throw himself upon his +knees and bury his face in the rough skin of the couch, but he could not +shut out words that blent in golden-lettered flashes across his +throbbing eyeballs: _Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife_. + +So he crouched, a man under whose feet life had crashed, leaving him +pinned beneath the wreck, to watch the fire that must creep nearer and +nearer. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +THE WHITE HORSE SKIN + + +Curiosity held Jessica until the evangelist closed his melodeon +preparatory to a descent upon the dance-hall. Then, thinking of the +growing dark with some trepidation--for the recent "strike" had brought +its influx of undesirable characters to the town--she started toward the +mountain. + +Ahead of her a muffled puff-puff sounded, and the dark bulk of an +automobile--the sheriff's, the only one the town of Smoky Mountain +boasted--was moving slowly in the same direction, and she quickened her +pace, glad of this quasi-company. It soon forged ahead, but she had +passed the outskirts of the town then and was not afraid. + +A little way up the ascent a cumbrous shadow startled her. She saw in a +moment that it was the automobile, halted at the side of the road. Her +footsteps made no sound and she was close upon it when she saw the three +men it had carried standing near-by. She made to pass them, and had +crossed half the intervening space, when some instinct sent her to the +shade of the trees. They had stopped opposite the hydraulic concession, +where a side path left the main road--it was the same path by which she +and Emmet Prendergast had taken their unconscious burden on a night long +ago--leading along the hillside, overlooking the snake-like flume, and +forming a steeper short-cut to the cabin above. They were conversing in +low tones, and as they talked they pointed, she thought toward it. + +Jessica had never in her life been an eavesdropper, but her excited +senses made her anxious. Moreover, she was in a way committed, for she +could not now emerge without being seen. As she waited, a man came from +the path and joined the others. The sky had been overcast and gloomy, +but the moon drew out just then and she saw that the new-comer, +evidently a patrol, carried a rifle in the hollow of his arm. She also +saw that one of the first three was the automobile's owner. + +For some minutes they conversed in undertones, whose very secrecy +inflamed her imagination. It seemed to her that they made some reference +to the flume. Had there been another robbery of the sluice-boxes, and +could they still suspect Hugh? + +Dread and indignation made her bold. When they turned into the path she +followed, treading noiselessly, till she was close behind them. They +had stopped again, and were looking intently at a shadowy gray something +that moved in the bottom below. + +She heard the man who carried the rifle say, with a smothered laugh: + +"It's only Barney McGinn's old white horse taking a drink out of the +sluice-box. He often does that." + +Then the sheriff's voice said: "McGinn's horse is in town to-night, with +Barney on her back. Horse or no horse, I'm going to"--the rest was lost +in the swift action with which he snatched the firearm from the first +speaker, sighted, and fired. + +In the still night the concussion seemed to rock the ground, and roused +a hundred echoes. It startled and shocked the listening girl, but not so +much as the sound that followed it--a cry that had nothing animal-like, +and that sent the men running down the slope toward an object that lay +huddled by the sluice-box. + +In horrified curiosity Jessica followed, slipping from shadow to shadow. +She saw the sheriff kneel down and draw a collapsed and empty horse's +skin from a figure whose thieving cunning it would never cloak again. + +"So it was you, after all, Prendergast!" the sheriff said +contemptuously. + +The white face stared up at them, venomous and writhing, turning about +the circle as though searching for some one who was not there. + +"How did--you guess?" + +The sheriff, who had been making a swift examination, answered the +panted question. "You have no time to think of that now," he said. + +A sinister look darted into the filming yellow eyes, and hatred and +certainty rekindled them. Prendergast struggled to a sitting posture, +then fell back, convulsed. "Hugh Stires! He was the only--one who +knew--how it was done. He's clever, but he can't get the best of +Prendergast!" A spasm distorted his features. "Wait--wait!" + +He fumbled in his breast and his fingers brought forth a crumpled piece +of paper. He thrust it into the sheriff's hands. + +"Look! Look!" he gasped. "The man they found murdered on the claim +there"--he pointed wildly up the hillside--"Doctor Moreau. I found +him--dying! Stires--" + +Strength was fast failing him. He tried again to speak, but only +inarticulate sounds came from his throat. + +A blind terror had clutched the heart of the girl leaning from the +shadow. "Doctor Moreau"--"murdered." Why, he had been one of Hugh's +friends! Why did this man couple Hugh's name with that worst of crimes? +What dreadful thing was he trying to tell? She hardly repressed a desire +to scream aloud. + +"Be careful what you say, Prendergast," said the sheriff sternly. + +The wretched man gathered force for a last effort. His voice came in a +croaking whisper: + +"It was Stires killed him. Moreau wrote it down--and I--kept the paper. +Tell Hugh--we break--even!" + +That was all. His head fell back with a shiver, and Emmet Prendergast +was gone on a longer journey than ever his revenge could warm him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +THE RENEGADE + + +While the man whom the town knew as Hugh Stires listened to the tale of +the street preacher, another, unlike yet curiously like him in feature, +had slowly climbed the hilly slope from the north by the sanatorium +road. He walked with a jaunty swagger bred of too frequent applications +to a flask in his pocket. + +Since the evening of the momentous scene in the chapel with Harry +Sanderson, Hugh had had more and more recourse to that black comforter. +It had grown to be his constant companion. When, late on the night of +the game, some miles away, he had gloatingly counted the money in his +pockets, he had found nearly a thousand dollars in double-eagles, and a +single red counter--the last he had had to stake against Harry's gold. +He put the crimson disk into his pocket, "to remember the bishop by," he +thought with a chuckle, but the fact that for each of the counters Harry +had won he had sworn to render a day of clean and decent living, he +straightway forgot. For the other's position he had wasted no pity. +Harry would find it difficult to explain the matter to the bishop! Well, +if it "broke" him, served him right! What business had he to set himself +so far above every one else? + +For some time thereafter Hugh had seriously contemplated going abroad, +for a wholesome fear had dogged him in his flight from Smoky Mountain. +For weeks he had travelled by night, scanning the daily newspapers with +a desperate anxiety, his ears keen for hue and cry. But with money in +his pocket, courage returned, and in the end fear lulled. There had been +no witness to that deed on the hillside. There might be suspicion, but +no more! At length the old-time attraction of the race-course had +absorbed him. He had followed the horses in "the circuit," winning and +losing, consorting with the tipsters, growing heavier with generous +living, and welcoming excitement and change. But the ghost of Doctor +Moreau haunted him, and would not be exorcized. + +Money, however, could not last always, and a persistent run of ill luck +depleted his store. When poverty again was at his elbow a vagrant rumor +had told him, with the usual exaggerations, of the rich "find" on the +Little Paymaster Claim on Smoky Mountain. Too late he cursed the +reasonless panic that had sent him into flight. Had the ground been +"jumped" by some one who now profited? Nevertheless, it was still his +own to claim; miners' law gave him a year, and he had left enough +possessions in the cabin, he thought cunningly, to disprove abandonment. +He dreaded a return, but want and cupidity at length overcame his fears. +He had arrived at Smoky Mountain on this night to claim his own. + +As he walked unsteadily along, Hugh drank more than once from the flask +to deaden the superstitious dread of the place which was stealing over +him. On the crest of the ridge he skirted the sanatorium grounds and at +length gained the road that twisted down toward the lights of the town. +In the dubious moonlight he mistook the narrow trail to the Knob for the +lower path to the cabin. As he turned into it, the report of a rifle +came faintly from the gulch below. It seemed to his excited senses like +the ghostly echo of a shot he had himself fired there on a night like +this long before--a hollow echo from another world. + +He quickened his steps and stumbled all at once into the little clearing +that held the new-made grave and Jessica's statue. The sight terrified +his intoxicated imagination. His hair rose. The name on the headstone +was STIRES, and there was himself--no, a ghost of himself!--sitting +near! He turned and broke into a run down the steep slope. In his +fear--for he imagined the white figure was pursuing him--he tripped and +fell, regained his feet, rushed across the level space, threw his weight +against the cabin door, and burst into the room. + +A dog sprang up with a growl, and in the light of the fire that burned +on the hearth, a man sitting at the rough-hewn table lifted a haggard +face from his arms and each recognized the other. + +The ghost was gone now before firelight and human presence, and Hugh, +with a loud laugh of tipsy incredulity, stood staring at the man before +him. + +"Harry Sanderson!" he cried. "By the great horn spoon!" His shifty eyes +surveyed the other's figure--the corduroys, the high laced boots, the +soft blue flannel shirt. "Not exactly in purple and fine linen," he +said--the impudent swagger of intoxication had slipped over him again, +and his boisterous laugh broke with a hiccough. "I thought the gospel +game was about played out that night in the chapel. And now you are +willing to take a hint from the prodigal. How did you find my nest? And +perhaps you can tell me who has been making himself so infernally at +home here lately?" + +"_I_ have," said Harry evenly. + +Hugh's glance, that had been wavering about the neat interior, returned +to Harry, and knowledge and anger leaped into it. "So it was you, was +it? You are the one who has been trying his hand as a claim-jumper!" He +lurched toward the table and leaned upon it. "I've always heard that the +devil took care of his own. The runaway rector stumbles on my manor, and +with his usual luck--'Satan's luck' we called it at college--steps in +just in time to strike it rich!" + +He stretched his hand suddenly and caught a tiny object that glittered +against Harry's coat--the little gold cross, which the other had tied to +his watch-guard. The thong snapped and Hugh sent the pendant rattling +across the doorway. + +"You were something of a howling swell as a parson," he said insolently, +"but you don't need the jewelry now!" + +Harry Sanderson's eyes had not left Hugh's face; he was thinking +swiftly. The bolt from the blue had been so recent that this sudden +apparition seemed a natural concomitant of the situation. Only the +problem was no longer imminent; it was upon him. Jessica was not for +him--he had accepted that. Though the clock might not turn backward, +this man must stand between them. Yet his presence now in the +predicament was intolerable. This drunken, criminal maligner had it in +his power to precipitate the climax for her in a coarse and brutal +_expose_. Hugh had no idea of the true tangle, else he had not been seen +in the town. But if not to-night, then to-morrow! Harry's heart turned +cold within him. If he could eliminate Hugh from the problem till he +could see his way! + +"Well," said Hugh with a sneer, "what have you got to say?" + +Harry rose slowly and pushed the door shut. "When we last met," he said, +"what you most wanted was to leave the country." + +"I changed my mind," retorted Hugh. "I've got a right to do that, I +suppose. I've come back now to get what is mine, and I'll have it, too!" +He rapped the table with his knuckles. + +Hugh had no recollection now of past generosities. His selfish +materialism saw only money that might be his. "I know all about the +strike," he went on, "and there's no green in my eye!" + +"How much will you take for the property?" + +Hugh laughed again jeeringly. "That's your game, is it? But I'm not such +a numskull! Whatever you could offer, it's worth more to me. You've +found a good thing here, and you'd like to skin me as a butcher skins a +sheep." In the warmer air of the cabin the liquor he had drunk was +firing his brain, and an old suspicion leaped to his tongue. + +"I know you, Satan Sanderson," he sneered. "You were always the same +precious hypocrite in the old days, pretending to be so almighty +virtuous, while you looked out for number one. I saw through you then, +too, when you were posing as my friend and trying your best all along to +queer me with the old man! I knew it well enough. I knew what the reason +was, too! You wanted Jessica! You--" + +Self-control left Harry suddenly, as a ship's sail is whipped from its +gaskets in a white squall. Before the words could be uttered, his +fingers were at Hugh's throat. + +At that instant there was the sound of running feet outside, a hurried +knock at the door and an agitated voice that chilled Harry's blood to +ice. + +His hands relaxed their hold; he dragged Hugh to the door of the inner +room, thrust him inside, shut and bolted it upon him. + +Then he went and opened the outer door. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +THE TEMPTATION + + +Jessica's eyes met Harry's in a look he could not translate, save that +it held both yearning and anguish. + +The accusation of Prendergast had stunned her faculties. As in an evil +dream, with the low breeze murmuring by and the fitful moon overhead, +she had seen the sheriff rise to his feet and methodically put the +fragment of paper into his pocket-book. A moment later she was running +up the dark path, her thoughts a confusion in which only one coherent +purpose stood distinct--to warn him. They would know no need to hasten. +If the man she loved had reached the cabin, she would be before them. + +Not that she believed him guilty; in his lost past there could be no +stain so dark as that! She recalled the look of personal hatred she had +once surprised on Prendergast's face. He hated Hugh, and dying, had left +this black lie behind to do him a mischief. He was innocent, innocent! +But would the charge not be believed? They would arrest him, drag him +down to the town, to the brick jail on the court-house square. The +community was prejudiced. Innocent men had been convicted before of +crimes they never committed. In those breathless minutes she did not +reason further; she knew only that a vital danger threatened him, and +that he must fly from it. The lighted pane had told her the occupant of +the cabin had returned. + +She stood before the door, her hands clasped tightly, her eyes on +Harry's face, even in this crucial moment drinking in thirstily what she +saw there; for in this crisis, hanging on the narrow verge of +catastrophe, when he had need to summon all his store of poise and +contained strength, his look melted over her in a mist of tenderness. + +"What has happened?" he asked. + +He did not offer to touch or to kiss her, but this she did not remember +till afterward. In what words could she tell him? Would he think she +believed him guilty when she besought him to fly? She answered simply, +directly, with only a deep appeal in her eyes: + +"Men will be here soon--men from the town. I overheard them. I wanted to +let you know!" she hesitated; it had grown all at once difficult to put +into words. + +"Coming here? Why?" + +"To arrest a man who is accused of murder." + +If her eyes could have pierced the bolted door a few feet away! If she +could have seen that listening face behind it, as her clear tones fell, +grow instinct with recognition, amazement, and evil suspicion--a look +that her last word swept into a sickly gray terror! If she could have +heard the groan from the wretched man beyond! + +"Whose murder?" + +"Doctor Moreau's." + +In all Harry Sanderson's life was to be never such a moment of +revealment. He knew that she meant himself. The murderer of Doctor +Moreau--Hugh's one-time crony and loose associate, who had shared in the +plunder of the forged draft, and had then abandoned his cat's-paw to +discovery! The man Hugh had promised to "pay off for it some time!" Had +Moreau also made this his stamping-ground? A swift memory swept him of +Hugh's hang-dog look, his nervous dread when he had begged in the chapel +study for money with which to leave the country. It did not need the +smothered gasp from behind the bolted door to point the way to the swift +conclusion Harry's mind was racing to. A dull flush spread to his +forehead. + +Jessica waited with caught breath, searching his countenance. It was +told now, but he must know that she had not credited it--that "for +better, for worse," she must believe in him now. "I knew, oh, I knew!" +she cried. "You need not tell me!" + +The hell of two passions that were struggling within him--a savage +exultation and a submerging wave of pity for her utter ignorance, her +blind faith, for the painful denouement that was rushing upon her--died, +and left him cold and still. "No," he said gravely, "I am not the man +they want. It has all come back to me--the past that I had lost. Such a +crime has no part in it." + +At another time the abrupt news of this retrieval must have affected her +strangely, for she had wondered much concerning the return of that +memory that held alike their early love and his own tragedy and shame. +Now, however, a greater contingency absorbed her. He must go, and +without delay. Her lips were opened to speak when he closed the door +behind him and stepped quickly down toward her. At all odds, he was +thinking, she must not see the man in that inner room! If she remained +he could not guess what shock might result. + +"Jessica," he said, "you have tried to save me from danger to-night. I +need a greater service of you now; it is to ask no questions, but to go +at once. I can not explain why, but you must not stay here a moment." + +"Oh," she cried bitterly, "you don't intend to leave! You choose to face +it, and you want to spare me. If you really want to spare me, you will +go! Why, you would have no chance where they have hated you so. +Prendergast was killed robbing the sluice to-night, and he +lied--lied--lied! He swore you did it, and they will believe it!" + +He put back her beseeching hands. How could he explain? Only to get her +away--to gain time--_to think_! + +"Listen!" she went on wildly. "They will wait to carry him to the town. +I can go and bring my horse here for you. There is time! You have only +to send me word, and I will follow you to the end of the world! Only say +you will go!" + +He caught at the straw. The expedient might serve. + +"Very well," he said; "bring him to the upper trail, and wait there for +me." + +She gave a sob of relief at his acquiescence. "I will hurry, hurry!" she +cried, and was gone, swift as a swallow-flight, into the darkness. + +As he reentered the cabin, the calmness fell from Harry Sanderson as a +mask drops, and the latent passion sprang in its place. He crossed the +room and drew the bolt for the wretched man who, after one swift glance +at his face, grovelled on his knees before him, sobered and shivering. + +"For God's sake, Harry, you won't give me up?" Hugh cried. "You can't +mean to do that! Why, we were in college together! I'd been drinking +to-night, or I wouldn't have talked to you as I did. I'm sober enough +now, Harry! You can have the claim. I'll give it to you and all you've +got out of it. Only let me go before they come to take me!" + +Harry drew his feet from the frantic hands that clasped them. "Did you +kill Moreau?" he asked shortly. + +"It was an accident," moaned Hugh. "I never intended to--I swear to +Heaven I didn't! He hounded me, and he tried to bleed me. I only meant +to frighten him off! Then--then--I was afraid, and I ran for it. That +was when I came to you at Aniston and--we played." Hugh's breath came in +gasps and drops of sweat stood on his forehead. + +A weird, crowding clamor was sweeping through Harry's brain. When, at +the sound of Jessica's voice, he had thrust Hugh into the inner room, it +had been only to gain time, to push further back, if by but a moment, +the shock which was inevitable. Then, in the twinkling of an eye, Fate +had swept the board. Hugh's worthless life was forfeit. He would stand +no longer between him and Jessica! The enginery of the law would be +their savior. + +Neither crime nor penalty was of his making. He owed Hugh nothing--the +very money he had taken from the ground, save a bare living, had gone to +pay his thievery. He could surrender him to the law, then take Jessica +far away where the truth would come mercifully softened by distance and +lightened by future happiness. It was not his to intervene, to cozen +Justice, to compound a felony and defeat a righteous Providence! He owed +mercy to Jessica. He owed none to this cringing, lying thing before him, +who now reminded him of that chapel game that had ruined the Reverend +Henry Sanderson! + +"When we played!" he echoed. "How have you settled your debt--the 'debt +of honor' you once counted so highly? How have you lived since then? +Have you paid me those days of decent living you staked, and lost?" + +Hugh looked past him with hollow, hunted gaze. There was no escape, no +weapon to his hand, and those eyes were on him like unwavering sparks of +iron. + +"But I will!" he exclaimed desperately. "If you'll only help me out of +this, I'll live straight to my dying day! You don't know how I've +suffered, Harry, or you'd have some mercy on me now! I can never get +away from it! That's why I was drunk to-day. Night and day I see +him--Moreau, as I saw him lying here that night on the hillside. He +haunts me! You don't know what it means to be always afraid, to wake up +in the night with the feel of handcuffs on your wrists, to know that +such a thing is behind you, following you, following you, never letting +you rest, never forgetting!" A choking sob burst from his lips. "Let me +go, Harry," he pleaded; "for my father's sake!" + +"Your father is dead," said Harry. + +"Then for old-time's sake!" He tried to clasp Harry's knees. "They may +be here at any minute! I must have been seen as I crossed the mountain! +I thought it would never come out, or I wouldn't have come! I'll go far +enough away. I'll go to South America, and you will never see me alive +again, neither you nor Jessica! I knew her voice just now--I know she's +here. I don't care how or why! You don't need to give me up to get her! +I'll give her to you! For God's sake, Harry, listen! Jessica wouldn't +want to see me hung! For _her_ sake!" + +Harry caught his breath sharply. The thrust had gone deep; it had +sheared through the specious arguments he had been weaving. The +commandment that an hour before had etched itself in letters of fire +upon his eyelids hung again before him. He had coveted his neighbor's +wife. This man, felon as he was--pitiful hound to whom the news of his +father's death brought no flicker of sorrow or remorse, who now offered +to barter Jessica for his own safety!--he himself, however unwittingly, +had irreparably wronged. Between them stood the accusing wraith of one +immortal hour, when the heart of love had beat against his own. If he +delivered Hugh to the hangman, would it be for justice's sake? + +The scales fell from his eyes. For him, loving Jessica, it could be only +a dastard act. Yet if he aided the real Hugh to escape, he, the +supposititious Hugh who had played his role, must continue it. He must +second the villainy, and in so doing play the cheaply tragic part. He +must pose as an accused murderer before the town whose good opinion he +had longed to gain--before Jessica!--until Hugh had had time to win safe +away! He might do even more. The real Hugh would stand small chance; +even were the evidence not flawless, the old record would condemn him. +But he himself had lightened that record. He had gained liking and +sympathy; there might be a chance for him of acquittal. + +If this might only be! The truth then need never be known and Hugh +Stires, to all belief having been put once in jeopardy, need fear no +more. Life would be before him again, to pay the days of righteous +living he had played for in the chapel game, to reverse the record of +his selfish and remorseless career. If the trial went against him--Hugh +would have had his chance, would be far away. He, Harry Sanderson, would +not have betrayed him. A hundred people, if he chose to summon them, +would establish his own identity. It would be cheating justice, making a +mock of law, but he was in a position where human statute must yield to +a higher rule of action. The law might punish, but he would have been +true to his own soul. Jessica would understand. The truth held pain and +shame for her, but he would have tried to save her from a greater. And +he would have cancelled his debt to Hugh! + +It was the Harry Sanderson of St. James parish, of the scrupulous +conscience--whose college career as Satan Sanderson had come to be a +fiery sore in his breast--who now spoke: + +"Get up!" he said. "Have you any money?" + +Hugh rose, trembling and ashen. "Hardly ten dollars," he answered. + +Harry considered hastily. He was almost penniless; nearly all his share +of the strike had gone to repay the forged draft. "I have no ready +cash," he said, "but the night we played in the chapel, I left a +thousand dollars in my study safe. I have not been there since." He +took pencil and paper from his pocket and wrote down some figures +hastily. "Here is the combination. You must try to get that money." + +"Wait," he added, as Hugh's hand was on the latch. He must risk nothing; +he could make assurance doubly sure. "A half-mile from the foot of the +mountain, where the road comes in from Funeral Hollow, wait for me. I +will bring a horse there for you." + +Hugh crushed the paper into his pocket and opened the door. "I'll wait," +he said. He darted out, slipped around the corner of the cabin, and +stealthily disappeared. + +Harry sat down upon the doorstep. The strain had been great; in the +reaction, he was faint, and a mist was before his eyes. The die was +cast. Hugh could easily escape; until he himself spoke, he would not +even be hunted. He, Harry Sanderson, was the scapegoat, left to play his +part. + +How long he sat there he did not know. He sprang up at a muffled sound. +He had still a work to do before they came--for Hugh! He saw in an +instant, however, that it was Jessica, leading her horse by the bridle. + +"I could not wait," she breathed. "You did not come, and I was afraid!" + +Mounting, he leaned from the saddle and took both her hands in +his--still he did not kiss her. + +"Jessica, you believe I am innocent?" he asked anxiously. + +"Yes--yes!" + +"Will you believe what I am doing is for the best?" + +"Always, always!" she whispered, her voice vibrating. "Only go!" + +"Whatever happens?" + +"Whatever happens!" + +He released her hands and rode quickly up the grassy path. + +As she stood looking after him, a dog's whine came from the cabin. She +ran and released the spaniel and took him up in her arms. + +As she did so a sparkle caught her eye. It came from the tiny gold cross +lying where Hugh had flung it, near the lighted doorway. She picked it +up, looked at it a moment abstractedly and thrust it into her +pocket--scarce consciously, for her heart was keeping time to the +silenced hoof-beat that was bearing the man she loved from danger. + + +Where the way opened into the gloomy cut of Funeral Hollow, Harry +dismounted and went forward slowly afoot, leading the horse, till a +figure stepped from a clump of bushes to meet him with an exclamation of +relief. Hugh had waited at the rendezvous in shivering apprehension and +dismal suspicion of Harry's intentions, and had not approached till he +had convinced himself that the other came alone. He wrung Harry's hand +as he said: + +"If I get out of this, I'll do better the rest of my life, I will, upon +my soul, Harry!" + +"You may not be able to get into the chapel," said Harry; "my rooms"--he +felt his cheek burn as he spoke--"may be occupied. On the chance that +you fail, take this." He took off the ruby ring, whose interlaced +initials had once fortified him in his error of identity. "The stone is +worth a good deal. It should be enough to take you anywhere." + +Hugh nodded, slipped the ring on his finger, and rode quickly off. Then +Harry turned and walked rapidly back toward the town. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +FELDER TAKES A CASE + + +The sheriff stopped his automobile before the dingy telegraph office. +The street had been ringing that evening with more exciting events than +it had known in a year. + +"He's off," he said disgustedly to the men who had curiously gathered. +"He must have got wind of it somehow, and he had a horse ready. We +traced the hoof-prints from the cabin as far as the Hollow. I'm going to +use the wire." + +"That's a lie!" rumbled an angry voice behind him, as Devlin strode into +the crowd. "Hugh Stires gave himself up fifteen minutes ago at the +jail." + +"How do you know that?" demanded the sheriff, relieved but chagrined at +his fool's-errand. + +"Because I saw him do it," answered Devlin surlily. "I was there." + +"Well, it saves trouble for me. That'll tickle you, Felder," the sheriff +added satirically, turning toward the lawyer. "You're a sentimentalist, +and he's been your special fancy. What do you think now, eh?" + +"I'll tell you what _I_ think," said Devlin, his big hands working. "I +think it's a damned lie of Prendergast's!" + +"Oh, ho!" exclaimed the sheriff amusedly. "You once danced to a +different tune, Devlin!" + +The blood was in the big, lowering face. "I did," he admitted. "I went +up against him when the liquor was in me, and by the same token he wiped +this street with me. He stood me fair and he whipped me, and I needed +it, though I hated him well enough afterwards. An'--an'--" + +He gulped painfully. No one spoke. + +"It's many's the time since then I've wished the hand was shrivelled +that heaved that rock at him in the road! The day when I saw my bit of a +lass, holdin' to the horse's mane, ridin' to her death in the +Hollow--an'--when he brought her back--" He stopped, struggling with +himself, tears rolling down his cheeks. + +"No murderer did that!" he burst out. "We gave him the back of the hand +an' the sole of the foot, an' we kept to it, though he fought it down +an' lived straight an' decent. He never did it! I don't care what they +say! I'll see Prendergast in hell before I'll believe it, or any dirty +paper he saved to swear a man's life away." + +The listeners were silent. No one had ever heard such a speech from the +huge owner of the dance-hall. The sheriff lighted a cigar before he +said: + +"That's all right, Devlin. We all understand your prejudices, but I'm +afraid they haven't much weight with legal minds, like Mr. Felder's +here, for instance." + +"Excuse me," said Felder. "I fear my prejudices are with Devlin. Good +night," he added, moving up the street. + +"Where are you bound?" asked the other casually. + +"To the jail," answered the lawyer, "to see a client--I hope." + +The sheriff emitted a low whistle. "_I_ hope there'll be enough sane men +left to get a jury!" he said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +THE HAND AT THE DOOR + + +At the sound of steps in the jail corridor and the harsh grating of the +key in the lock, Harry rose hastily from the iron cot whereon he had +been sitting and took a step forward. + +"Jessica!" he exclaimed. + +She came toward him, her breath hurried, her cheek pale. Tom Felder's +face was at her shoulder. "I have a little matter to attend to in the +office," he said, nodding to Harry. "I shall wait for you there, Miss +Holme." + +She thanked him with a grateful look, and as he vanished, Harry took her +hand and kissed it. He longed to take her in his arms. + +"I heard of it only at noon," she began, her voice uncertain. "I was +afraid they would not let me see you, so I went to Mr. Felder. They were +saying on the street that he had offered to defend you." + +"I had not been here an hour when he came," he said. + +"I know you have no money," she went on; "I know what you did with the +gold you found. And I have begged him to let me pay for any other +counsel he will name. I have not told him--what I am to you, but I have +told him that I am far from poor, and that nothing counts beside your +life. He says you have forbidden him to do this--forbidden him to allow +any help from any one. Hugh, Hugh! Why do you do this? The money should +be yours, not mine, for it was your father's! It _is_ yours, for I am +your wife!" + +He kissed her hand again without answering. + +"Haven't I a right now to be at your side? Mayn't I tell them?" + +He shook his head. "Not yet, Jessica." + +"I must obey you," she said with a wan smile, "yet I would share your +shame as proudly as your glory! You are thinking me weak and despicable, +perhaps, because I wanted you to go away. But women are not men, and +I--I love you so, Hugh!" + +"I think you are all that is brave and good," he protested. + +"I want you to believe," she went on, "that I knew you had done no +murder. If an angel from Heaven had come to declare it, I would not have +believed it. I only want now to understand." + +"What do you not understand?" he asked gently. + +She half turned toward the door, as she said, in a lower key: "Last +night I was overwrought. I had no time to reason, or even to be glad +that you had recovered your memory. I thought only of your escaping +somewhere--where you would be safe, and where I could follow. But after +you had gone, many things came back to me that seemed strange--something +curious in your manner. You had not seemed wholly surprised when I told +you you were accused. Why did you shut the cabin door, and speak so low? +Was there any one else there when I came?" + +He averted his face, but he did not answer. She was treading on near +ground. + +"My horse came back this afternoon," she continued. "He had been ridden +hard in the night and his flanks were cut cruelly with a whip. You did +not use him, but some one did." + +She waited a moment, still he made no reply. + +"I want to ask you," she said abruptly, "do you know who killed Doctor +Moreau?" + +His blood chilled at the question. He looked down at her speechless. +"You must let me speak," she said. "You won't answer that. Then you do +know who really did it. Oh, I have thought so much since last night! For +some reason you are shielding him. Was it the man who was in the +cabin--who rode my horse? If he is guilty, why do you help him off, and +so make yourself partly guilty?" + +He looked down at her and put a finger on her lips. "Do you remember +what you told me last night--that you would believe what I did was for +the best?" + +"But I thought then you were going away! How can I believe it now? Why, +they hang men who murder, and it is you who are accused! If you protect +the real murderer, you will have to stand in his place. The whole town +believes you are guilty--I see it in all their faces. They are sorry, +many of them, for they don't hate you as they did, but they think you +did it. Even Mr. Felder, though I have told him what I suspect, and +though he is working now to defend you!" + +"Jessica," he urged, "you must trust me and have faith in me. I know it +is hard, but I can't explain to you! I can't tell you--yet--why I do as +I am doing, but you must believe that I am right." + +She was puzzled and confused. When she had put this and that together, +guided by her intuition, the conclusion that he knew the guilty one had +brought a huge relief. Now this fell into disarray. She felt beneath his +manner a kind of appeal, a deprecation, almost a hidden pity for her--as +though the danger were hers, not his, and she the one caught in this +catastrophe. She looked at him pale and distraught. + +"You speak as if you were sorry for me," she said, "and not for +yourself. Is it because you know you are not in real danger--that you +know the truth must come out, only you can't tell it yourself, or tell +me either? Is that it?" + +A wave of feeling passed over Harry, of hopeless longing. Whichever way +the issue turned there was anguish for her--for she loved him. If he +were acquitted, she must learn that past love between them had been +illicit, that present love was shame, and future love an impossibility. +Convicted, there must be added to this the bitter knowledge that her +husband in very truth was a murderer, doomed to lurk in hiding so long +as he might live. Yet not to reassure her now was cruelty. + +"It is not that, Jessica," he said gravely; "yet you must not fear for +me--for my life. Try to believe me when I say that some time you will +understand and know that I did only what I must." + +"Will that be soon?" she asked. + +"I think it may be soon," he answered. + +Her face lighted. The puzzle and dread lifted. "Oh, then," she +said--"oh, then, I shall not be afraid. I can not share your thoughts, +nor your secret, and I must rebel at that. You mustn't blame me--I +wouldn't be a woman if I did not--but I love you more than all the +world, and I shall believe that you know best. Hugh," she added softly, +"do you know that--you haven't kissed me?" + +Before her upturned, pleading eyes and trembling lips, the iron of his +purpose bent to the man in him, and he took her into his arms. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +THE PENITENT THIEF + + +A frosty gloom was over the city of Aniston, moon and stars hidden by a +cloudy sky, from which a light snow--the first of the season--was +sifting down. The streets were asleep; only occasional belated +pedestrians were to be seen in the chilly air. These saw a man, his face +muffled from the snowflakes, pass hurriedly toward the fountained +square, from whose steeple two o'clock was just striking. The wayfarer +skirted the square, keeping in cover of the buildings as though avoiding +chance observation, till he stood on the pavement of a Gothic chapel +fronting the open space. + +Here he paused and glanced furtively about him. He could see the +entrance to the minister's study, at which he had so often knocked and +the great rose-window of the audience-room where he had once gamed with +Harry Sanderson. This was the building he must enter like a thief. + +On the night of his flight from Smoky Mountain, Hugh had ridden hard +till dawn, abandoning the horse to find its way back as best it might. +Hidden in a snug retreat, he had slept through the next day, to +recommence his journeying at nightfall. He had thus been obliged to make +haste slowly and had lost much valuable time. For two days after his +arrival, he had hung about outside the town in a fever of impatience; +for though he had readily ascertained that the premises were unoccupied, +the first night he had been frightened away by the too zealous scrutiny +of a policeman, and on the next he had been unable to force the door. +That morning he had secured a skeleton-key, and now the weather was +propitious for his purpose. + +After a moment's reconnoitering, he scaled the frost-fretted iron +palings and gained the shelter of the porch. He tried the key anxiously; +to his relief it fitted. Another minute and he stood in the study, the +door locked behind him, his veins beating with excitement. + +He felt along the wall, drawing his hand back sharply as it encountered +the electric switch. He struck a wax _fusee_ and by its feeble ray gazed +about him. The room looked as it had always looked, with Harry's books +on the shelves, and his heavy walking-stick in the corner, and there +against the wall stood the substantial iron safe that held his own +ransom. Crouching down before it, he took from his pocket the paper upon +which was written the combination; ten to the right, five to the left, +twice nineteen to the right-- + +The match scorched his fingers, and he lighted another and began to turn +the knob. The lock bore both figures and letters in concentric rings, +and he saw that the seven figures Harry had written formed a word. Hugh +dropped the match with a smothered exclamation, for the word was +Jessica! So Harry really had loved her in the old days! Had he profited +by that wedding-day expulsion to make love to her himself? Yet on the +night of the game with Harry in the chapel the house in the aspens had +been closed and dark. How had she come to be in Smoky Mountain? His +father was dead--so Harry had said. If so, the money had gone to her, no +doubt. Well, at any rate, she had never been anything to him and he was +no dog-in-the-manger. What he needed now was the thousand dollars, and +here it was. He swung the massive door wide and took out the canvas bag. +With this and the ruby ring--it must easily be worth as much again--he +could put the round world between himself and capture. + +He closed the safe, and with the bag of coin in his hand, groped his way +to the door of the chapel. It was less dark there, for the snow was +making a white night outside, and the stained glass cast a wan glimmer +across the aisles. He could almost see himself and Harry Sanderson +sitting in the candle-light at the communion table inside the +altar-rail, almost hear the musical chink of the gold! His hand wandered +to his pocket, where lay the one wax wafer he had kept as a +pocket-piece. At that altar he had sworn to pay a day of clean living +for each of the counters he had lost. He had not kept that oath, and now +vengeance was near to overtaking him. He shuddered. He had turned over a +new leaf this time in earnest, and he would make up for the broken vow! + +But meanwhile he greatly needed sleep, and to-night in the open that was +out of the question. He could gain several good hours' rest where he +was, and still get away before daybreak. He drew together the +altar-cushions and lay down, the canvas bag beside him, but he was cold, +and at length he rose and went into the vestry for a surplice. He +wrapped this about him, and, lighting a cigarette, lay down again. He +was very tired, but his limbs twitched from nervousness. He lighted one +cigarette after another, but sleep was coy. He tried to woo it with +nonsense rhymes, but the lines ran together. He tried the remedy of his +restless, precocious childhood--the counting of innumerable sheep as +they leaped the hurdle one by one; but now all of the sheep were black. +There came before his eyes, uncalled, the portrait of his dead mother, +that had always hung at home in the wainscoted library. In her memory +his father had built this very chapel. He wondered again whether she had +looked like the picture. + +A softer feeling came to him. She would be sorry if she could know his +plight. Perhaps if she had lived his life might have been different. +Slow tears stole down his cheeks--not now of affected sentimentalism, or +of hysterical self-pity, but warmer drops from some deeper well that had +not overflowed since he was a little boy. If he had the chance he would +live from now on so that if she were alive she need not be ashamed! The +promise he made himself at that moment was an honester one than all his +selfish years had known, for it sprang not from dread, but from the +better feeling that his maturity had trampled and denied. He felt a kind +of peace--the first real peace he had known since his school-days--and +with it drowsiness came at last. With the drops wet on his cheek, +forgetfulness found him. In a few minutes he was sleeping heavily. + +The last half-consumed cigarette dropped from his relaxing fingers to +the cushion, where it made a smoldering nest of fire. A tiny tongue of +flame caught the edge of a wall-hanging, ran up to the dry oaken rafters +and speedily ignited them. In fifteen minutes the interior of the +chapel was a mass of flame, and Hugh woke gasping and bewildered. + +With a cry of alarm he sprang to his feet, seized the bag of coin and +ran to the door of the study. In his haste he stumbled against it, and +the dead-lock snapped to. He was a prisoner now, for he had left the +skeleton-key in the inside of the outer door. Clutching his treasure, he +ran to the main entrance; it was fast. He tried the smaller windows; +iron bars were set across them. He made shift to wrap the surplice about +his mouth, against the stifling smoke and fiery vapors. The bag dropped +from his hand and the gold rolled about the floor. He stooped and +clutched a handful of the coins and crammed them into his pocket. Was he +to die after all like this, caught like a rat in a trap? In his panic of +terror he forgot all necessity of concealment; he longed for nothing so +much as discovery by those whose cries he now heard filling the waking +street. Many voices were swelling the clamor there. Bells were pealing a +terror-tongued alarm, but those on the spot saw that the structure was +doomed. Hugh screamed desperately, but the roar of the flames overhead +and the angry crackling of the woodwork drowned all else. The roof +timbers were snapping, the muffling surplice was scorching, a thousand +luminous points about him were bursting into fire in the sickening +heat. He pounded with all his might upon the door panels, but in vain. +Who outside could have imagined that a human being was pent within that +fiery furnace? + +Uttering a hoarse cry, with the strength of despair, Hugh wrenched a pew +from the floor and made of it a ladder to reach the rose-window. +Mounting this, he beat frantically with his fist upon the painted glass. +The crystal shivered beneath the blows, and clinging to the iron +supports, his beard burnt to the skin, he set his face to the aperture +and drew a gulping breath of the sweet, cold air. In his agony, with +that fiery hell opening beneath him, he could see the massed people +watching from the safety that was so near. + +"Look! Look!" The sudden cry went up, and a thrill of awe ran through +the crowd. The glass Hugh had shattered had formed the face of the +Penitent Thief in the window-design, and his outstretched arms fitted +those of the figure. It was as though by some ghastly miracle the +painted features had suddenly sprung into life, the haggard eyes opened +in appeal. The watchers gasped in amazement. + +The flame was upon him now. He was going to his last account--with no +time to alter the record. But had not his sleeping vow been one of +reformation? He tried to shriek this to the deaf heavens, but all the +spellbound watchers heard was the cry: "Lord, Lord, remember--" And this +articulate prayer from the crucified malefactor filled them with a +superstitious horror. In the crowd more than one covered his face with +his hands. + +All at once there came a shout of warning. The wall opened outward, +tottered and fell. + +Then it was that they saw the writhing figure, tangled in the twisted +lead bars of the wrecked rose-window. Shielding their faces from the +unendurable heat, they reached and bore it to safety, laying it on the +crisp, snowy grass, and tearing off the singed and smoking ministerial +robes. + +Judge Conwell was one of these. In the flaring confusion he leaned over +the figure--the gleam of the ruby ring on the finger caught his eye. He +bent forward to look into the drawn and distorted face. + +"Good God!" he said. "It's Harry Sanderson!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +A DAY FOR THE STATE + + +In communities such as Smoky Mountain the law moves with fateful +rapidity. Harry had been formally arraigned the second morning after his +self-surrender and had pleaded not guilty. The Grand Jury was in +session--indeed, had about finished its labors--and there had been no +reason for delay. All necessary witnesses for the state were on the +ground, and Felder for his part had no others to summon. So that when +Doctor Brent, one keen forenoon, swung himself off a Pullman at the +station, returning from his ten days' absence, he found the town +thrilling with the excitement of the first day of the trial. Before he +left the station, he had learned of Prendergast's death and accusation +and knew that Tom Felder had come to the prisoner's defense. + +Doctor Brent had taken no stock in the young lawyer's view of Hugh +Stires. The incident that they had witnessed on the mountain road--it +had troubled him during his trip--had been to him only another chapter +in the hackneyed tragedy of romantic womanhood flattered by a rascal. +He was inclined now to lay the championship as much to interest in +Jessica as in the man who had won her love. + +He walked thoughtfully to his friend's deserted office, and leaving his +suit-case there, betook himself to the filled court-room, where Smoky +Mountain had gathered to watch Felder's fight for the life and liberty +of the man who for days past had been the center of interest. The court +had opened two hours before and half the jury had been selected. He +found a seat with some difficulty, and thereafter his attention was +given first to the bench where the prisoner sat, and second to a chair +close to the railing beside Mrs. Halloran's, where a girl's face +glimmered palely under a light veil. + +Toward this chair the hundreds of eyes in the room that morning had +often turned. Since the day Mrs. Halloran had surprised Jessica at work +upon the rock statue, she had kept her counsel, but as the physician had +conjectured, the monument had been stumbled upon and had drawn curious +visitors. Thus the name on the grave had become common property and the +coincidence had been chattered of. That Jessica had chiselled the statue +was not doubted--she had bought the tools in town, and old Paddy Wise, +the blacksmith, had sharpened them for her. The story Prendergast had +told in the general store, too, had not been forgotten, and the aid she +had given the fever-stricken man had acquired a new significance in face +of the knowledge that she had more than once been admitted to the jail +with Felder. No one in Smoky Mountain would have ventured to "pump" the +lawyer, and the town had been too mindful of its manners to catechize +her, but it had buzzed with theories. From the moment of the opening of +the trial she had divided interest with the prisoner. + +The first appearance of the latter, between two deputies, had caused a +murmur of surprise. In the weeks of wholesome toil and mountain air, the +sallow, haggard look that Harry had brought to the town had gradually +faded; his step had grown more elastic, his cheek ruddier, his eye a +clearer blue. The scar on his temple had become less noticeable. Day by +day, he had been growing back to the old look. The beard and mustache +now were gone; the face they saw was smooth-shaven, calm, alien and +absorbed. He had bowed slightly to the judge, shaken hands gravely with +Felder and sat down with a quick, flashing smile at the quivering face +behind the veil. He had seemed of all there the one who had least +personal concern in the deliberations that were forward. Yet beneath +that mask of calmness Harry's every nerve was stretched, every sense +restive. + +In the interviews he had had with his client, Felder had been puzzled +and nonplussed. To tell the truth, when he had first come to his defense +it had been not with a conviction of his innocence, but with a belief in +the present altered character that made the law's penalty seem excessive +and supererogatory; in fine, that whatever he might have deserved when +he did it--assuming that he did it--he did not deserve hanging now. But +the man's manner had made him lean more and more upon an assumption of +actual innocence. In the end, while discarding Jessica's reasoning, he +had accepted her conclusion. The man was certainly guiltless. Since this +time, he had felt his position keenly. It had been one thing to do the +very best possible for a presumptively guilty man--to get him off +against the evidence if he could; it was a vastly different thing to +defend one whom he believed actually guiltless against damning +circumstance. + +With the filling of the jury-box the court adjourned for an hour and +Doctor Brent saw the two women's figures disappear with Felder into a +side room, while the prisoner was taken in charge by the deputies. The +doctor lunched hastily at the Mountain Valley House, irritated out of +his usual urbanity by the chatter of the crowded dining-room, realizing +then how busy gossip had been with Jessica's name. He walked back to +the court-room moodily smoking. + +The afternoon session commenced with a concise opening by the district +attorney; Felder's reply was as brief, and the real business of the day +began with the witnesses for the state. + +Circumstantially speaking, the evidence was flawless. Doctor Moreau, +while little known and less liked, had figured in the town as a promoter +and an inventor of "slick" stock schemes. He had come there with Hugh +Stires, from Sacramento, where they had had a business partnership--of +short duration. There had been bad blood between them there, as the +latter had once admitted. The prisoner had preempted the claim on Smoky +Mountain in an abortive "boom" which Moreau had engineered, and over +whose proceeds the pair, it was believed, had fallen out. He had then, +to use the attorney's phrase, "swapped the devil for the witch," and had +taken up with Prendergast, who by the manner of his taking off had +finally justified a jail record in another state. Soon after this break +Hugh Stires had vanished. On the day following his last appearance in +the town, the body of Moreau had been found on the Little Paymaster +Claim, shot by a cowardly bullet through the back--a fact which +precluded the possibility that the deed had been done in self-defense. +There was evidence that he had died a painful and lingering death. +Suspicion had naturally pointed to the vanished man, and this suspicion +had grown until, after some months' absence, he had returned, alleging +that he had lost his memory of the past, to resume his life in the cabin +on the mountain and his partnership with the thief Prendergast. The two +had finally quarrelled and Prendergast had taken up his abode in the +town. Subsequent to this, the latter had been heard to make dark +insinuations, unnoted at the time but since grown significant, hinting +at criminal knowledge of the prisoner. The close of this chapter had +been Prendergast's dismal end in the gulch, when he had produced the +scrap of paper which was the crux of the case. He declared he had found +Moreau dying; that the latter had traced with his own hand the +accusation which fastened the crime upon Hugh Stires. Specimens of +Moreau's handwriting were not lacking and seemed to prove beyond +question its authenticity. + +Such were the links of the coil which wound, with each witness, closer +and closer--none knew better how closely than Harry Sanderson himself. +As witness succeeded witness, his heart sank. Jessica's burden was not +to be lightened; Hugh must remain a Cain, a dweller in the dark places +of the earth. In the larger part, his own sacrifice was to fail! + +In his cross-examination Felder had fought gamely to lighten the weight +of the evidence: The prisoner's old associations with Moreau had been +amicable, else they would not have come to Smoky Mountain together; if +he had been disliked and avoided, the circumstance was referable rather +to his companionships than to his own actions; whatever the pervasive +contempt, there had been nothing criminal on the books against him. The +lawyer's questions touched the baleful whisper that had become +allegation and indictment, a prejudged conviction of guilt. They made it +clear that the current belief had been the fruit of antipathy and bias; +that it had been no question of evidence; so far as that went, he, +Felder, might have done the deed, or Prendergast, or any one there. But +Smoky Mountain would have said, as it did say, "It was Hugh Stires!" He +compelled the jury to recognize that but one bit of actual evidence had +been offered--there had been no eye-witness, no telltale incident. All +rested upon a single scrap of paper, a fragment of handwriting in no way +difficult of imitation, and this in turn upon the allegation of a thief, +struck down in an act of crime, whose word in an ordinary case of fact +would not be worth a farthing. No motive had been alleged for the +killing of Moreau by the prisoner, but Prendergast had had motive enough +in his accusation. It had been open knowledge that he hated Hugh Stires, +and his own character made it evident that he would not have scrupled to +fasten a murder upon him. + +But as Felder studied the twelve grave faces in the jury-box, who in the +last analysis were all that counted, he shared his client's +hopelessness. Judgment and experience told him how futile were all +theories in the face of that inarticulate but damning witness that +Prendergast had left behind him. So the afternoon dragged through, a day +for the State. + +Sunset came early at that season. Dark fell and the electric bulbs made +their mimic day, but no one left the room. The outcome seemed a foregone +conclusion. The jurymen no longer gazed at the prisoner, and when they +looked at one another, it was with grim understanding. As the last +witness for the State stepped down and the prosecutor rested, the judge +glanced at the clock. + +"There is a bare half-hour," he said tentatively. "Perhaps the defense +would prefer not to open testimony till to-morrow." + +Felder had risen. He saw his opportunity--to bring out sharply a +contrasting point in the prisoner's favor, the one circumstance, +considered apart, pointing toward innocence rather than guilt--to leave +this for the jury to take with them, to off-set by its effect the weight +of the evidence that had been given. + +"I will proceed, if your Honor pleases," he said, and amid a rustle of +surprise and interest called Jessica to the stand. + +As she went forward to the witness chair, she put back the shielding +veil, and her face, pale as bramble-bloom under her red-bronze hair, +made an appealing picture. A cluster of white carnations was pinned to +her coat and as she passed Harry she bent and laid one in his hand. The +slight act, not lost upon the spectators, called forth a sibilant +flutter of sympathy. For it wore no touch of designed effect; its +impulse was as pure and unmistakable as its meaning. + +Harry had started uncontrollably as she rose, for he had had no inkling +of the lawyer's intention, and a flush darkened his cheek at the cool +touch of the flower. But this faded to a settled pallor, as under +Felder's grave questioning she told in a voice as clear as a child's, +yet with a woman's emotion struggling through it, the story of her +disregarded warning. While she spoke pain and shame travelled through +his every vein, for--though technically she had not brought herself into +the perplexing purview of the law--she was laying bare the secret of +her own heart, which now he would have covered at any cost. + +"That is all, your Honor," said Felder, when Jessica had finished her +story. + +"Do you wish to cross-examine?" asked the judge perfunctorily. + +The prosecutor looked at her an instant. He saw the faintness in her +eyes, the twitching of the gloved hand on the rail. "By no means," he +said courteously, and turned to his papers. + +At the same moment, as Jessica stepped into the open aisle, the ironic +chance which so often relieves the strain of the tragic by a breath of +the banal, treated the spellbound audience to a novel sensation. Every +electric light suddenly went out, and darkness swooped upon the town and +the court-room. A second's carelessness at the power-house a half-mile +away--the dropping of a bit of waste into a cog-wheel--and the larger +mechanism that governed the issues of life and death was thrown into +instant confusion. Hubbub arose--people stood up in their places. + +The judge's gavel pounded viciously and his stentorian voice bellowed +for order. + +"Keep your seats, everybody!" he commanded. "Mr. Clerk, get some +candles. This court is not yet adjourned!" + +To Jessica the sudden blankness came with a nervous shock. Since that +first meeting in the jail she had pinned her faith on the reassurance +that had been given her. She had fought down doubt and questioning and +leaned hard upon her trust. But in her overwrought condition, as the end +drew near with no solution of the enigma, this faith sometimes faltered. +The mystery was so impenetrable, the peril so imminent! To-day, in the +court-room, her subtle sense had told her that, belief and conviction +aside, a pronounced feeling of sympathy existed for the man she loved. +She had not needed Mrs. Halloran's comforting assurances on this score, +for the atmosphere was surcharged with it. She had felt it when she laid +the carnation in his hand, and even more unmistakably while she had +given her testimony. She had realized the value of that one unvarnished +fact, introduced so effectively--that he had had time to get away, and +instead had chosen to surrender himself. + +Yet even as she thrilled to the responsive current, Jessica had not been +deceived. She felt the pitiful impotence of mere sympathy against the +apparent weight of evidence that had frightened her. Surely, surely, if +he was to save himself, the truth must come out speedily! But the end of +it all was in sight and he had not spoken. To-day as she watched his +face, the thought had come to her that perhaps his reassurance had been +given only to comfort her and spare her anguish. The thought had come +again and again to torture her; only by a great effort had she been able +to give her testimony. As the pall of darkness fell upon the court-room, +it brought a sense of premonition, as though the incident prefigured the +gloomy end. She turned sick, and stumbled down the aisle, feeling that +she must reach the outer air. + +A pushing handful opened the way to the corridor, and in a moment more +she was in the starlit out-of-doors, fighting down her faintness, with +the babble of talk behind her and the cool breeze on her cheek. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +THE UNSUMMONED WITNESS + + +In the room Jessica had left, the turmoil was simmering down; here and +there a match was struck and showed a circle of brightness. The glimmer +of one of them lit the countenance of a man who had brushed her sleeve +as he entered. It was Hallelujah Jones. The evangelist had prolonged his +stay at Smoky Mountain, for the town, thrilling to its drama of crime +and judgment, had seemed a fruitful vineyard. He had no local interest +in the trial of Hugh Stires, and had not attended its session; but he +had been passing the place when the lights went out and in curiosity had +crowded into the confusion, where now he looked about him with eager +interest. + +A candle-flame fluttered now, like a golden butterfly, on the judge's +desk, another on the table inside the bar. More grew along the walls +until the room was bathed in tremulous yellow light. It touched the +profile of the prisoner, turned now, for his look had followed Jessica +and was fixed questioningly on her empty seat. In the unseeing darkness +Harry had held the white carnation to his lips before he drew its stem +through his lapel. + +The street preacher's jaw dropped in blank astonishment, for what he saw +before him brought irresistibly back another scene that, months before, +had bit into his mind. The judge's high desk turned instantly to a +chapel altar, and the table back of the polished railing to a communion +table. The minister that had looked across it in the candle-light had +worn a white carnation in his buttonhole. His face-- + +Hallelujah Jones started forward with an exclamation. A thousand times +his zealot imagination had pictured the recreant clergyman he had +unmasked as an outcast, plunging toward the lake of brimstone. Here it +was at last in his hand, the end of the story! The worst of criminals, +skulking beneath an alias! He sprang up the aisle. + +"Wait! wait!" he cried. "I have evidence to give!" He pointed excitedly +toward Harry. "This man is not what you think! He is not--" + +Forensic thunder loosed itself from the wrathful judge's desk, and +crashed across the stupefied room. His gavel thumped upon the wood. "How +dare you," he vociferated, "break in upon the deliberations of this +court! I fine you twenty dollars for contempt!" + +Felder had leaped to his feet, every sense on the _qui vive_. Like a +drowning man he grasped at the straw. What could this man know? He took +a bill from his pocket and clapped it down on the clerk's desk. + +"I beg to purge him of contempt," he said, "and call him as a witness." + +The district attorney broke in: + +"Your Honor, I think I am within my rights in protesting against this +unheard-of proceeding. The man is a vagrant of unknown character. His +very action proclaims him mentally unbalanced. Beyond all question he +can know nothing of this case." + +"I have not my learned opponent's gift of clairvoyance," retorted Felder +tartly. "I repeat that I call this man as a witness." + +The judge pulled his whiskers and looked at the evangelist in severe +annoyance. "Take the stand," he said gruffly. + +Hallelujah Jones snatched the Bible from the clerk's hands and kissed +it. Knowledge was burning his tongue. The jury were leaning forward in +their seats. + +"Have you ever seen the prisoner before?" asked Felder. + +"Yes." + +"When?" + +"When he was a minister of the gospel." + +Felder stared. The judge frowned. The jury looked at one another and a +laugh ran round the hushed room. + +The merriment kindled the evangelist's distempered passion. Sudden anger +flamed in him. He leaned forward and shook his hand vehemently at the +table where Harry sat, his face as colorless as the flower he wore. + +"That man's name," he blazed, "is not Hugh Stires! It is a cloak he has +chosen to cover his shame! He is the Reverend Henry Sanderson of +Aniston!" + + + + +CHAPTER XL + +FATE'S WAY + + +Harry's pulses had leaped with excitement when the street preacher's +first exclamation startled the court-room; now they were beating as +though they must burst. He was not to finish the losing struggle. The +decision was to be taken from his hands. Fate had interfered. This bigot +who had once been the means of his undoing, was to be the _deus ex +machina_. Through the stir about him he heard the crisp voice of the +district attorney: + +"I ask your Honor's permission, before this extraordinary witness is +examined further," he said caustically, "to read an item printed here +which has a bearing upon the testimony." He held in his hand a newspaper +which, earlier in the afternoon, with cynical disregard of Felder's +tactics, he had been casually perusing. + +"I object, of course," returned Felder grimly. + +"Objection overruled!" snapped the irritated judge. "Read it, sir." + +Holding the newspaper to a candle, the lawyer read in an even voice, +prefacing his reading with the journal's name and date: + + + "This city, which was aroused in the night by the burning of St. + James Chapel, will be greatly shocked to learn that its rector, the + Reverend Henry Sanderson, who has been for some months on a + prolonged vacation, was in the building at the time, and now lies + at the city hospital, suffering from injuries from which it is + rumored there is grave doubt of his recovery." + + +In the titter that rippled the court-room Harry felt his heart bound and +swell. Under the succinct statement he clearly discerned the fact. He +saw the pitfall into which Hugh had fallen--the trap into which he +himself had sent him on that fatal errand with the ruby ring on his +finger. "Grave doubt of his recovery!"--a surge of relief swept over him +to his finger-tips. Dead men can not be brought to bar--so Jessica would +escape shame. With Hugh passed beyond human justice, he could declare +himself. The bishop had guarded his secret, and saved the parish from an +unwelcome scandal. He could explain--could tell him that illness and +unbalance lay beneath that chapel game! He could take up his career! He +would be free to go back--to be himself again--to be Jessica's--if Hugh +died! The reading voice drummed in his ears: + + + "The facts have not as yet been ascertained, but it seems clear + that the popular young minister returned to town unexpectedly last + night, and was asleep in his study when the fire started. His + presence in the building was unguessed until too late, and it was + by little short of a miracle that he was brought out alive. + + "As we go to press we learn that Mr. Sanderson's condition is much + more hopeful than was at first reported." + + +Harry's heart contracted as if a giant hand had clutched it. His elation +fell like a rotten tree girdled at the roots. If Hugh _did not_ die! He +chilled as though in a spray of liquid air. Hugh's escape--the chance +his conscience had given him, was cut off. He had not betrayed him when +the way was open; how could he do so now when flight was barred? If to +deliver him then to the hangman would have been cowardice, how much more +cowardly now, when it was to save himself, and when the other was +helpless? And the law demanded its victim! + +As a drowning man sees flit before him the panorama of his life, so in +this clarifying instant these lurid pictures of the tangle of his past +flashed across Harry's mental vision. + +The judge reached for the newspaper the lawyer held, ran his eye over +it, and brought his gavel down with an angry snort. + +"Take him away," he said. "His testimony is ordered stricken from the +records. The fine is remitted, Mr. Felder--we can't make you responsible +for lunatics. Bailiff, see that this man has no further chance to +disturb these proceedings. The court stands adjourned." + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + +FELDER WALKS WITH DOCTOR BRENT + + +Felder had been among the last to leave the court-room. He was +discomfited and angry. He had meant to make a telling point for the +defense, and the unbalanced imagination of a strolling, bigot gospeller +had undone him. His own precipitate and ill-considered action had +uncovered an idiotic mare's-nest, to taint his appeal with bathos and +open his cause with a farcical anti-climax. He glumly gathered his +scattered papers, put with them the leaf of the newspaper from which the +district attorney had read, and despatched the lot to his office by a +messenger. + +At the door of the court-house Doctor Brent slipped an arm through his. + +"Too bad, Tom," he said sympathizingly. "I don't think you quite +deserved it." + +Felder paced a moment without speaking. "I need evidence," he said then, +"--anything that may help. I made a mistake. You heard all the +testimony?" + +The other nodded. + +"What did you think of it?" + +"What could any one think? I give all credit to your motive, Tom, but +it's a pity you're mixed up in it." + +"Why?" + +"Because, if there's anything in human evidence, he's a thoroughly +worthless reprobate. He lay for Moreau and murdered him in cold blood, +and he ought to swing." + +"The casual view," said the lawyer gloomily. "Just what I should have +said myself--if this had happened a month ago." + +His friend looked at him with an amused expression. "I begin to think he +must be a remarkable man!" he said. "Is it possible he has really +convinced you that he isn't guilty?" + +Felder turned upon the doctor squarely. "Yes," he returned bluntly. "He +has. Whatever I may have believed when I took this case, I have come to +the conclusion--against all my professional instincts, mind you--that he +never killed Moreau. I believe he's as innocent as either you or I!" + +The physician looked puzzled. "You believe Moreau's hand didn't write +that accusation?" + +"I don't know." + +"Do you think he lied?" + +"I don't know what to think. But I am convinced Hugh Stires isn't +lying. There's a mystery in the thing that I can't get hold of." He +caught the physician's half-smile. "Oh, I know what you think," he said +resentfully. "You think it is Miss Holme. I assure you I am defending +Hugh Stires for his own sake!" + +"She played you a close second to-day," observed the doctor shrewdly. +"That carnation--I never saw a thing better done." + +Felder drew his arm away. "Miss Holme," he said almost stiffly, "is as +far from acting--" + +"My dear fellow!" exclaimed the other. "Don't snap me up. She's a +gentlewoman, and everything that is lovely. If she were the reason, I +should honor you for it. I'm very deeply sorry for her. For my part, I'm +sure I wish you might get him off. She loves him, and doesn't care who +sees it, and if he were as bad as the worst, a woman like that could +make a man of him. But I know juries. In towns like this they take +themselves pathetically in earnest. On the evidence so far, they'll +convict fast enough." + +"I know it," said the lawyer despondently. "And yet he's innocent. I'd +stake my life on it. It's worthless as evidence and I shan't introduce +it, but he has as good as admitted to her that he knows who did it." + +"Come, come! Putting his neck into the noose for mere Quixotic feeling? +And who, pray, in this Godforsaken town, should he be sacrificing +himself for?" the doctor asked satirically. + +"That's the rub," said the lawyer. "Nobody. Yet I hang by my +proposition." + +"Well, he'll hang by something less tenuous, I'm afraid. But it won't be +your fault. The crazy evangelist was only an incident. He merely served +to jolt us back to the normal. By the way, did you hear him splutter +after he got out?" + +"No." + +"You remember the story he told the other night of the minister who was +caught gambling on his own communion table? Well, Hugh Stires is not +only the Reverend Henry Something-or-other, but he is that man, too! The +crack-brained old idiot would have told the tale all over again, only +the crowd hustled him. + +"There he is now," he said suddenly, as a light sprang up and voices +broke out on the opposite corner. "The gang is standing by. I see your +friend Barney McGinn," he added, with a grim enjoyment. "I doubt if +there are many converts to-night." + +Even as he spoke, there came a shout of laughter and warning. The +spectators scattered in all directions, and a stream of water from a +well-directed hose deluged the itinerant and his music-box. + +Ten minutes later the street preacher, drenched and furious, was +trundling his melodeon toward Funeral Hollow, on his way to the coast. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + +THE RECKONING + + +As Harry stood again in the obscure half-darkness of his cell, it came +to him that the present had a far-reaching significance--that it was but +the handiwork and resultant of forces in his own past. He himself had +brewed the bitter wormwood he must drink. Jessica's quivering +arraignment on that lurid wedding-day in the white house in the +aspens--it had been engraven ever since on his buried memory!--rang in +his mind: + +_You were strong and he was weak. You led and he followed. You were +"Satan Sanderson," Abbot of the Saints, the set in which he learned +gambling. You helped to make him what he has become!_ + +They had made variant choice, and that choice had left Harry Sanderson +in training for the gaiters of a bishop, and Hugh Stires treading the +paths of dalliance and the gambler. But he himself had set Hugh's feet +on the red path that had pointed him to the shameful terminus. He had +gambled for Hugh's future, forgetting that his past remained, a thing +that must be covered. He had won Hugh's counters, but his own right to +be himself he had staked and lost long before that game on the communion +table under the painted crucifixion. + +The words he had once said to Hugh recurred to him with a kind of awe: +"Put myself in your place? I wish to God I could!" + +Fate--or was it God?--had taken him at his word. He had been hurled like +a stone from a catapult into Hugh's place, to bear his knavery, to +suffer his dishonor, and to redeem the baleful reputation he had made. +He had been his brother's keeper and had failed in the trust; now the +circle of retribution, noiseless and inexorable as the wheeling of that +vast scorpion cluster in the sky, evened the score and brought him again +to the test! And, in the supreme strait, was he, a poor poltroon, to +step aside, to cry "enough," to yield ignobly? Even if to put aside the +temptation might bring him face to face with the final shameful penalty? + +This, then, was the meaning of the strange sequence of events through +which he had been passing since the hour when he had awakened in the +box-car! Living, he was not to betray Hugh; the Great Purpose behind all +meant that he should go forward on the path he had chosen to the end! + +A step outside the cell, the turning of the key. The door opened, and +Jessica, pale and trembling, stood on the threshold. + +"I can not help it," she said, as she came toward him, "though you told +me not to come. I have trusted all the while, and waited, and--and +prayed. But to-day I was afraid." + +She paused, locking her hands before her, looking at him in an agony of +entreaty. When she had fled from the court-room to the open air, she had +walked straight away toward the mountain, struggling in the cool wind +and motion against the feeling of physical sickness and anguish. But she +had only partly regained her self-possession. Returning, the thinning +groups about the dim-lit door had made it clear that the session was +over. In her painful confusion of mind she had acted on a peremptory +impulse that drove her to the jail, where her face had quickly gained +her entrance. + +"Surely, surely," she went on, "the man you are protecting has had time +enough! Hasn't he? Won't you tell them the truth now?" + +He knew not how to meet the piteous reproach and terror of that look. +She had not heard the street preacher's declaration, he knew, but even +if she had, it would have been to her only an echo of the old mooted +likeness. He had given her comfort once--but this was no more to be. No +matter what it meant to him, or to her! + +"Jessica," he said steadily, "when you came to me here that first day, +and I told you not to fear for me, I did not mean to deceive you. I +thought then that it would all come right. But something has happened +since then--something that makes a difference. I can not tell who was +the murderer of Moreau. I can not tell you or any one else, either now +or at any time." + +She gazed at him startled. She had a sudden conception of some element +hitherto unguessed in his make-up, something inveterate and adamant. +Could it be that he did not intend to tell at all? The very idea was +monstrous! Yet that clearly was his meaning. She looked at him with +flashing eyes. + +"You mean you will not?" she exclaimed bitterly. "You are bent on +sacrificing yourself, then! You are going to take this risk because you +think it brave and noble, because somehow it fits your man's gospel! +Can't you see how wicked and selfish it is? You are thinking only of +him, and of yourself, not of me!" + +"Jessica, Jessica!" he protested with a groan. But in the self-torture +of her questionings she paid no heed. + +"Don't you think I suffer? Haven't I borne enough in the months since I +married you, for you to want to save me this? Do you owe me nothing, me +whom you so wronged, whose--" + +She stopped suddenly at the look on his face of mortal pain, for she had +struck harder than she knew. It pierced through the fierce resentment to +her deepest heart, and all her love and pity gushed back upon her in a +torrent. She threw herself on her knees by the bare cot, crying +passionately: + +"Oh, forgive me! Forget what I said! I did not mean it. I have forgiven +you a thousand times over. I never ceased to love you. I love you now, +more than all the world." + +"It is true," he said, hoarse misery in his tone. "I have wronged you. +If I could coin my blood drop by drop, to pay for the past, I could not +set that right. If giving my life over and over again would save you +pain, I would give it gladly. But what you ask now is the one thing I +can not do. It would make me a pitiful coward. I did not kill Moreau. +That is all I can say to you or to those who try me." + +"Your life!" she said with dry lips. "It will mean that. That counts so +fearfully much to me--more than my own life a hundred times. Yet there +is something that counts more than all that to you!" + +His face was that of a man who holds his hand in the fire. "Jessica," +he said, "it is like this with me. When you found me here--the day I saw +you on the balcony--I was a man whose soul had lost its compass and its +bearings. My conscience was asleep. You woke it, and it is fiercely +alive now. And now with my memory has come back a debt of my past that I +never paid. Whatever the outcome, for my soul's sake I must settle it +now and wipe it from the score for ever. Nothing counts--nothing can +count--more than you! But I must sail by the needle; I must be truthful +to the best that is in me." + +She rose slowly to her feet with a despairing gesture. + +"'_He saved others_,'" she quoted in a hard voice, "'_himself he could +not save!_' I once heard a minister preach from that text at home; it +was your friend, the Reverend Henry Sanderson. I thought it a very +spiritual sermon then--that was before I knew what his companionship had +been to you!" + +In the exclamation was the old bitterness that had had its spring in +that far-away evening at the white house in the aspens, when Harry +Sanderson had lifted the curtain from his college career. In spite of +David Stires' predilection, since that day she had distrusted and +disliked, at moments actively hated him. His mannerisms had seemed a +pose and his pretensions hypocrisy. On her wedding-day, when she lashed +him with the blame of Hugh's ruin, this had become an ingrained +prejudice, impregnable because rooted deeper than reason, in the +heritage of her sex, the eternal proclivity, which saw Harry Sanderson, +his motley covered with the sober domino of the Church, standing +self-righteously in surplice and stole, while Hugh slid downward to +disgrace. + +"If there were any justice in the universe," she added, "it should be he +immolating himself now, not you!" + +His face was not toward her and she could not see it go deadly white. +The sudden shift she had given the conversation had startled him. He +turned to the tiny barred window that looked out across the court-yard +square--where such a little time since he had found his lost self. + +"I think," he said, "that in my place, he would do the same." + +"You always admired him," she went on, the hard ring of misery in her +tone. "You admire him yet. Oh, men like him have such strange and wicked +power! Satan Sanderson!--it was a fit name. What right has he to be +rector of St. James, while you--" + +He put out a hand in flinching protest. "Jessica! Don't!" he begged. + +"Why should I not say it?" she retorted, with quivering lips. "But for +him you would never be here! He ruined your life and mine, and I hate +and despise him for a selfish hypocrite!" + +That was what he himself had seemed to her in those old days! The edge +of a flush touched his forehead as he said slowly, almost appealingly: + +"He was not a hypocrite, Jessica. Whatever he was it was not that. At +college he did what he did too openly. That was his failing--not caring +what others thought. He despised weakness in others; he thought it none +of his affair. So others were influenced. But after he came to see +things differently, from another standpoint--when he went into the +ministry--he would have given the world to undo it." + +"That may have been the Harry Sanderson you knew," she said stonily. +"The one I knew drove an imported motor-car and had a dozen fads that +people were always imitating. You are still loyal to the old college +worship. As men go, you count him still your friend!" + +"As men go," he echoed grimly, "the very closest!" + +"Men's likings are strange," she said. "Because he never had temptations +like yours, and has never done what the law calls wrong, you think he is +as noble as you--noble enough to shield a murderer to his own danger." + +"Ah, no, Jessica," he interposed gently. "I only said that in my place, +he would do the same." + +"But _you_ are shielding a murderer," she insisted fiercely. "You will +not admit it, but I know! There can be no justice or right in that! If +Harry Sanderson is all you think him--if he stood here now and knew the +whole--he would say it was wicked. Not brave and noble but wicked and +cruel!" + +He shook his head, and the sad shadow of a bitter smile touched his +lips. "He would not say so," he said. + +A dry sob answered him. He turned and leaned his elbows on the narrow +window-sill, every nerve aching, but powerless to comfort. He heard her +step--the door closed sharply. + +Then he faced into the empty cell, sat down on the cot and threw out his +arms with a hopeless cry: + +"Jessica, Jessica!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + +THE LITTLE GOLD CROSS + + +Jessica left the jail with despair in her heart. The hope on which she +had fed these past days had failed her. What was there left for her to +do? Like a swift wind she went up the street to Felder's office. + +A block beyond the court-house a crowd was enjoying the watery +discomfiture of Hallelujah Jones, and shrinking from recognition even in +the darkness--for the arc lights were still black--she crossed the +roadway and ran on to the unpretentious building where the lawyer had +his sanctum. She groped her way up the unlighted stair and tapped on the +door. There was no answer. She pushed it open and entered the empty +outer room, where a study lamp burned on the desk. + +A pile of legal looking papers had been set beside it and with them lay +a torn page of a newspaper whose familiar caption gave her a stab of +pain. Perhaps the news of the trial had found its way across the ranges, +to where the names of Stires and Moreau had been known. Perhaps every +one at Aniston already knew of it, was reading about it, pitying her! +She picked it up and scanned it hastily. There was no hint of the trial, +but her eye caught the news which had played its role in the court-room, +and she read it to the end. + +Even in her own trouble she read it with a shiver. Yet, awful as the +fate which Harry Sanderson had so narrowly missed, it was not to be +compared with that which awaited Hugh, for, awful as it was, it held no +shame! + +In a gust of feeling she slipped to her knees by the one sofa the room +contained and prayed passionately. As she drew out her handkerchief to +stanch the tears that came, something fell with a musical tinkle at her +feet. It was the little cross she had found in front of the hillside +cabin, that had lain forgotten in her pocket during the past anxious +days. She picked it up now and held it tightly in her hand, as if the +tangible symbol brought her closer to the Infinite Sympathy to which she +turned in her misery. As she pressed it, the ring at the top turned and +the cross parted in halves. Words were engraved on the inside of the +arms--a date and the name _Henry Sanderson_. + +The recurrence of the name jarred and surprised her. Hugh had dropped +it--an old keepsake of the friend who had been his _beau ideal_, his +exemplar, and whose ancient influence was still dominant. He had clung +loyally to the memento, blind in his constant liking, to the wrong that +friend had done him. She looked at the date--it was May 28th. She +shuddered, for that was the month and day on which Doctor Moreau had +been killed--the point had been clearly established to-day by the +prosecution. To the original owner of that cross, perhaps, the date that +had come into Hugh's life with such a sinister meaning, was a glad +anniversary! + +Suddenly she caught her hand to her cheek. A weird idea had rushed +through her brain. The religious symbol had stood for Harry Sanderson +and the chance coincidence of date had irresistibly pointed to the +murder. To her excited senses the juxtaposition held a bizarre, uncanny +suggestion. This cross--the very emblem of vicarious sacrifice!--suppose +Harry Sanderson had never given it to Hugh! Suppose he had lost it on +the hillside himself! + +She snatched up the paper again: "Who has been for some months on a +prolonged vacation"--the phrase stared sardonically at her. That might +carry far back--she said it under her breath, fearfully--beyond the +murder of Doctor Moreau! Her face burned, and her breath came sharp and +fast. Why, when she brought her warning to the cabin, had Hugh been so +anxious to get her away, unless to prevent her sight of the man who was +there--to whom he had taken her horse? Who was there in Smoky Mountain +whom he would protect at hazard of his own life? Yet in this crisis, +even, her appeal to his love had been fruitless. He had called Harry +Sanderson his closest friend, had said that in his place Harry would do +the same. She remembered his cry: "What you ask is the one thing I can +not do. It would make me a pitiful coward!" She had asked only that he +tell the truth. To protect a vulgar murderer was not courageous. But +what if they were bound by ties of old friendship and college +_camaraderie_? Men had their standards. + +Jessica's veins were all afire. A rector-murderer? A double career? Was +it beyond possibility? At the sanatorium she had re-read _The Mystery of +Edwin Drood_; now she thought of John Jasper, the choir-master, stealing +away from the cathedral to the London opium den to plan the murder of +his nephew. The mad thought gripped her imagination. Harry Sanderson had +been wild and lawless in his university days, a gamester, a skeptic--the +Abbot of the Saints! To her his pretensions had never seemed more than a +graceful sham, the generalities of religion he spread for the +delectation of fashionable St. James only "as sounding brass and a +tinkling cymbal." He had been a hard drinker in those days. What if the +old desire had run on beneath the fair exterior, denied and repressed +till it had burst control--till he had fled from those who knew him, to +Hugh, in whose loyalty he trusted, to give it rein in a debauch? Say +that this had happened, and that in the midst of it Moreau, whom he had +known in Aniston, had come upon him. Anticipating recognition, to cover +his own shame and save his career, in drunken frenzy perhaps, he might +have fired the shot on the hillside--that Moreau, taken unawares, had +thought was Hugh's! + +It came to her like an impinging ray of light--the old curious likeness +that had sometimes been made a jest of at the white house in the aspens. +Moreau and Prendergast had believed it to be Hugh! So had the town, for +the body had been found on his ground! But on the night when the real +murderer came again to the cabin--perhaps it was his coming that had +brought back the lost memory!--Hugh had known the truth. In the light of +this supposition his strained manner then, his present determination not +to speak, all stood plain. + +What had he meant by a debt of his past that he had never paid? He could +owe no debt to Harry Sanderson. If he owed any debt, it was to his dead +father, a thousand times more than the draft he had repaid. Could he be +thinking in his remorse that his father had cast him off--counting +himself nothing, remembering only that Harry Sanderson had been David +Stires' favorite, and St. James, which must be smirched by the odium of +its rector, the apple of his eye? + +Jessica had snatched at a straw, because it was the only buoyant thing +afloat in the dragging tide; now with a blind fatuousness she hugged it +tighter to her bosom. The joints of her reasoning seemed to dovetail +with fateful accuracy. She was swayed by instinct, and apparent +fallacies were glozed by old mistrust and terror of the outcome which +was driving her to any desperate expedient. Beside Hugh's salvation the +whole universe counted as nothing. She was in the grip of that fierce +passion of love's defense which feeds the romance of the world. One +purpose possessed her: to confront Harry Sanderson. What matter though +she missed the remainder of the trial? She could do nothing--her hands +were tied. If the truth lay at Aniston she would find it. She thought no +further than this. Once in Harry Sanderson's presence, what she should +say or do she scarcely imagined. The horrifying question filled her +thought to the exclusion of all that must follow its answer. It was +surety and self-conviction she craved--only to read in his eyes the +truth about the murder of Moreau. + +She suddenly began to tremble. Would the doctors let her see him? What +excuse could she give? If he was the man who had been in Hugh's cabin +that night, he had heard her speak, had known she was there. He must not +know beforehand of her coming, lest he have suspicion of her errand. +Bishop Ludlow--he could gain her access to him. Injured, dying perhaps, +maybe he did not guess that Hugh was in jeopardy for his crime. Guilty +and dying, if he knew this, he would surely tell the truth. But if he +died before she could reach him? The paper was some days old; he might +be dead already. She took heart, however, from the statement of his +improved condition. + +She sprang to her feet and looked at her chatelaine watch. The +east-bound express was overdue. There was no time to lose--minutes might +count. She examined her purse--she had money enough with her. + +Five minutes later she was at the station, a scribbled note was on its +way to Mrs. Halloran, and before a swinging red lantern, the long +incoming train was shuddering to a stop. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + +THE IMPOSTOR + + +In the long hospital the air was cool and filtered, drab figures passed +with soft footfalls and voices were measured and hushed. But no sense of +coolness or repose had come to the man whose racked body had been +tenderly borne there in the snowy dawn which saw the blackened ruins of +Aniston's most perfect edifice. + +Because of him tongues clacked on the street corner and bulletins were +posted in newspaper windows; carriages of tasteful equipment halted at +the hospital porte-cochere, messages flew back and forth, and the +telephone in the outer office whirred busily at unseasonable hours; but +from the clean screened room where he lay, all this was shut out. Only +the surgeons came and went, deftly refreshing the bandages which swathed +one side of his face, where the disfiguring flame had smitten--the other +side was untouched, save for a line across the brow, seemingly a thin, +red mark of excoriation. + +Hugh had sunk into unconsciousness with the awestruck exclamation +ringing in his ears: "Good God! It's Harry Sanderson!" He had drifted +back to conscious knowledge with the same words racing in his brain. +They implied that, so far as capture went, the old, curious resemblance +would stand his friend till he betrayed himself, or till the existence +of the real Harry Sanderson at Smoky Mountain did so for him. The +delusion must hold till he could have himself moved to some place where +his secret would be safer--till he could get away! + +This thought grew swiftly paramount; it overlapped the rigid agony of +his burns that made the bed on which he lay a fiery furnace; it gave +method to his every word and look. He took up the difficult part, and +after the superficial anguish dulled, complained no more and +successfully counterfeited cheerfulness and betterment. He said nothing +of the curiously recurrent and sickening stab of pain, searching and +deep-seated, that took his breath and left each time an increasing +giddiness. Whatever inner hurt this might betoken, he must hide it, the +sooner to leave the hospital, where each hour brought nearer the +inevitable disclosure. + +He thanked fortune now for the chapel game; few enough in Aniston would +care to see the unfrocked, disgraced rector of St. James! He did not +know that the secret was Bishop Ludlow's own, until the hour when he +opened his eyes, after a fitful sleep, upon the latter's face. + +The bishop was the first visitor and it was his first visit, for he had +been in a distant city at the time of the fire. Waiting the waking, he +had been mystified at the change a few months had wrought in the +countenance of the man whose disappearance had cost him so many +sleepless hours. The months of indulgence and rich living--on the money +he had won from Harry--had taken away Hugh's slightness, and his fuller +cheeks were now of the contour of Harry's own. But the bishop +distinguished new lines in the face on the pillow, an expression +unfamiliar and puzzling; the firmness and strength were gone, and in +their place was a haunting something that gave him a flitting suggestion +of the discarded that he could not shake off. + +Waking, the unexpected sight of the bishop startled Hugh; to the good +man's pain he had turned his face away. + +"My dear boy," the bishop had said, "they tell me you are stronger and +better. I thank God for it!" + +He spoke gently and with deep feeling. How could he tell to what extent +he himself, in mistaken severity, had been responsible for that +unaccustomed look? When Hugh did not answer, the bishop misconstrued the +silence. He leaned over the bed; the big cool hand touched the fevered +one on the white coverlid, where the ruby ring glowed, a coal in snow. + +"Harry," he said, "you have suffered--you are suffering now. But think +of me only as your friend. I ask no questions. We are going to begin +again where we left off." + +The words and tone had shown Hugh the situation and given him his cue. +He could put himself fairly in Harry's place, and with the instinct of +the actor he did so now, meeting the other's friendliness with a +hesitant eagerness. + +"I would like to do that," he said, "--to begin again. But the chapel is +gone." + +"Never mind that," said the bishop cheerfully. "You are only to get +well. We are going to rebuild soon, and we want your judgment on the +plans. Aniston is hanging on your condition, Harry," he went on. +"There's a small cartload of visiting-cards down-stairs for you. But I +imagine you haven't begun to receive yet, eh?" + +"I--I've seen nobody." Hugh spoke hurriedly and hoarsely. "Tell the +doctor to let no one come--no one but you. I--I'm not up to it!" + +"Why, of course not," said the bishop quickly. "You need quiet, and the +people can wait." + +The bishop chatted a while of the parish, Hugh replying only when he +must, and went away heartened. Before he left Hugh saw his way to hasten +his own going. On the next visit the seed was dropped in the bishop's +mind so cleverly that he thought the idea his own. That day he said to +the surgeon in charge: + +"He is gaining so rapidly, I have been wondering if he couldn't be taken +away where the climate will benefit him. Will he be able to travel +soon?" + +"I think so," answered the surgeon. "We suspected internal injury at +first, but I imagine the worst he has to fear is the disfigurement. +Mountain or sea air would do him good," he added reflectively; "what he +will need is tonic and building up." + +The bishop had revolved this in his mind. He knew a place on the coast, +tucked away in the cypresses, which would be admirable for +convalescence. He could arrange a special car and he himself could make +the journey with him. He proposed this to the surgeon and with his +approval put his plan in motion. In two days more Hugh found his going +fully settled. + +The idea admirably fitted his necessity. The spot the bishop had +selected was quiet and retired, and more, was near the port at which he +could most readily take ship for South America. Only one reflection made +him shiver: the route lay through the town of Smoky Mountain. Yet who +would dream of looking for a fugitive from the law in the secluded car +that carried a sick man? The risk would be small enough, and it was the +one way open! + +On the last afternoon before the departure, Hugh asked for the clothes +he had worn when he was brought to the hospital, found the gold-pieces +he had snatched in the burning chapel and tied them in a handkerchief +about his neck. They would suffice to buy his sea-passage. The one red +counter he had kept--it was from henceforth to be a reminder of the good +resolutions he had made so long ago--he slipped into a pocket of the +clothes he was to wear away, a suit of loose, comfortable tweed. + +Waiting restlessly for the hour of his going, Hugh asked for the +newspapers. Since the first he had had them read to him each day, +listening fearfully for the hue and cry. But to-day the surgeon put his +request aside. + +"After you are there," he said, "if Bishop Ludlow will let you. Not now. +You are almost out of my clutches, and I must tyrannize while I can." + +A quick look passed from him to his assistant as he spoke, for the +newspapers that afternoon had worn startling head-lines. The sordid +affairs of a mining town across the ranges had little interest for +Aniston, but the names of Stires and Moreau on the clicking wire had +waked it, thus late, to the sensation. The professional caution of the +tinker of human bodies wished, however, that no excitement should be +added to the unavoidable fatigue of his patient's departure. + +This fatigue was near to spelling defeat, after all, for the exertion +brought again the dreadful, stabbing pain, and this time it carried Hugh +into a region where feeling ceased, consciousness passed, and from which +he struggled back finally to find the surgeon bending anxiously over +him. + +"I don't like that sinking spell," the latter confided to his assistant +an hour later as they stood looking through the window after the +receding carriage. "It was too pronounced. Yet he has complained of no +pain. He will be in good hands at any rate." He tapped the glass +musingly with his forefinger. "It's curious," he said after a pause; "I +always liked Sanderson--in the pulpit. Somehow he doesn't appeal to me +at close range." + +The special car which the bishop had ready had been made a pleasant +interior; fern-boxes were in the corners, a caged canary swung from a +bracket, and a softly cushioned couch had been prepared for the sick +man. A moment before the start, as it was being coupled to the rear of +the resting train, while the bishop chatted with the conductor, a +flustered messenger boy handed him a telegram. It read: + + + I arrive Aniston to-morrow five. Confidential. Must see + you. Urgent. JESSICA. + + +The bishop read it in some perplexity. It was the first word he had +received from her since her marriage, but, aware of Hugh's forgery and +disgrace, he had not wondered at this. Since the news of David Stires' +death, he had looked for her return, for she was the old man's heir and +mistress now of the white house in the aspens. But he realized that it +would need all her courage to come back to this town whence she had fled +with her trouble--to lay bare an unsuspected and shameful secret, to +meet old friends, and answer questions that must be asked. The +newspapers to-day pictured a still worse shame for her, in the position +of the man who, in name still, was her husband--who had trod so swiftly +the downward path from thievery to the worst of crimes. Could Jessica's +coming have to do with that? He must see her, yet his departure could +not now be delayed. He consulted with the conductor and the latter pored +over his tablets. + +As a result, his answering message flashed along the wires to Jessica's +far-away train: + + + Sanderson injured. Taking him to coast train forty-eight due Twin + Peaks two to-morrow afternoon. + + +And thus the fateful moment approached when the great appeal should be +made. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV + +AN APPEAL TO CAESAR + + +The evidence of the first day's trial of the case of the People against +Hugh Stires was the all-engrossing topic that night in Smoky Mountain. +In the "Amen Corner" of the Mountain Valley House it held sway. Among +the sedate group there gathered, there seemed but one belief: that the +accused man was guilty--but one feeling: that of regret. Gravity lay so +heavily upon the atmosphere there that when Mrs. Halloran momentarily +entered the discussion to declare fiercely that "if Hugh Stires was a +murderer, then they were all thieves and she a cannibal" she aroused no +smile. Barney McGinn perhaps aptly expressed the consensus of opinion +when he said: "I allow we all know he's guilty, but nobody believes it." + +Late as Smoky Mountain sat up that night, however, it was on hand next +morning, rank and file, when the court convened. + +All the previous evening, save for a short visit to the cell of his +client, Felder had remained shut in his office, thinking of the morrow. +In his talk with Harry he had not concealed his deep anxiety, but to +his questions there was no new answer, and he had returned from the +interview more nonplussed than ever. He had wondered that Jessica, on +this last night, did not come to his office, but had been rather +relieved than otherwise that she did not. He had gone to bed heavy with +discouragement and had waked in the morning with foreboding. + +As he shook hands with the prisoner in the packed court-room, Felder +felt a keen admiration that his sense of painful impotence could not +overlay. He read in the composed face the same prescience that possessed +him, but it held no fear or shadow of turning. He was facing the +scaffold; facing it--if the woman he loved was right in her +conclusions--in obedience to a set idea of self-martyrdom and with +indomitable spirit. It was inconceivable that a sane man would do this +for a sneaking assassin. It was either aberration or a relentless +purpose so extraordinary that it lay far removed from the ordinary +courses of reasoning. Felder's own conviction had no bolstering of fact, +no logical premise; indeed, as he had admitted to Doctor Brent, it was +thoroughly unprofessional. Even to cite the circumstances on which +Jessica based her belief that Hugh knew the real murderer would weaken +his case. The suggestion would seem a mere bungling expedient to inject +the tantalizing fillip of mystery and unbelievable Quixotic motive, +and, lacking evidence to support it, would touch the whole fabric with +the taint of the meretricious. The sense of painful responsibility and +hopelessness oppressed him, for, so far as real evidence went, he had +entered on this second day of the struggle without a tangible theory of +defense. + +As he turned from greeting his client, Felder noted with surprise that +Jessica was not in her place. Not that he needed her further testimony, +for he had drawn from her the day before all he intended to utilize, but +her absence disturbed him, and instinctively he turned and looked across +the sea of faces toward the door. + +Harry's glance followed his, and a deeper pain beleaguered it as his +eyes returned to the empty chair. He saw Mrs. Halloran whisper eagerly +with the lawyer, who turned away with a puzzled look. In his bitterness +the thought came to him that the testimony had sapped her conviction of +his innocence--that his refusal to answer her entreaties had been the +last straw to the load under which it had gone down--that she believed +him indeed the murderer of Moreau. To seem the cringing criminal, the +pitiful liar and actor in her eyes! The thought stung him. Her faith had +meant so much! + +The ominous feeling weighed heavily on Felder when he rose to continue +the testimony for the prisoner, so rudely disturbed the evening before. +In such a community pettifogging was of no avail. Throwing expert dust +in jurors' eyes would be worse than useless. In his opening words he +made no attempt to conceal the weakness of the defense, evidentially +considered. Stripped of all husk, his was to be an appeal to Caesar. + +Through a cloud of witnesses, concisely, consistently--yet with a +winning tactfulness that disarmed the objections of the prosecution--he +began to lead them through the series of events that had followed the +arrival of the self-forgotten man. Out of the mouths of their own +neighbors--Devlin, Barney McGinn, Mrs. Halloran, who came down +weeping--they were made to see, as in a cyclorama, the struggle for +rehabilitation against hatred and suspicion, the courage that had dared +for a child's life, the honesty of purpose that showed in +self-surrender. The prisoner, he said, had recovered his memory before +the accusation and asserted his absolute innocence. Those who believed +him guilty of the murder of Doctor Moreau must believe him also a vulgar +liar and _poseur_. He left the inference clear: If the prisoner had +fired that cowardly shot, he knew it now; if he lied now he had lied all +along, and the later life he had lived at Smoky Mountain--eloquent of +fair-dealing, straightforwardness of purpose, kindliness and +courage--had been but hypocrisy, the bootless artifice of a shallow +buffoon. + +It was an appeal sustained and moving, addressed to folk who, +untrammelled by a complex and variform convention, felt simply and +deeply the simplest and deepest passions of human kind. Often, as the +morning grew, Felder's glance turned toward the empty chair near-by, and +more than once, though his active thought never wavered from the serious +business in hand, his subconscious mind wondered. Mrs. Halloran had told +him of the note from Jessica--it had said only that she would return at +the earliest possible moment. The wonder in Felder's mind was general +throughout the court-room, for none who had listened to Jessica's +testimony--and the whole town had heard it--could doubt the strength of +her love. The eyes that saw the empty chair were full of pity. Only the +knot of serious faces in the jury-box was seldom turned that way. + +The session was prolonged past the noon hour, and when Felder rested his +case it seemed that all that was possible had been said. He had done his +utmost. He had drawn from the people of Smoky Mountain a dramatic story, +and had filled in its outlines with color, force and feeling. And yet, +as he closed, the lawyer felt a sick sense of failure. + +Court adjourned for an hour, and in the interim Felder remained in a +little room in the building, whither Doctor Brent was to send him +sandwiches and coffee from the hotel. + +"You made a fine effort, Tom," the latter said, as they stood for a +moment in the emptying court-room. "You're doing wonders with no case, +and the town ought to send you to Congress on the strength of it! I +declare, some of your evidence made me feel as mean as a dog about the +rascal, though I knew all the time he was as guilty as the devil." + +The lawyer shook his head. "I don't blame you, Brent," he said, "for you +don't know him as I do. I have seen much of him lately, been often with +him, watched him under stress--for he doesn't deceive himself, he has no +thought of acquittal! We none of us knew Hugh Stires. We put him down +for a shallow, vulgar blackleg, without redeeming qualities. But the man +we are trying is a gentleman, a refined and cultivated man of taste and +feeling. I have learned his true character during these days." + +"Well," said the other, "if you believe in him, so much the better. +You'll make the better speech for it. Tell me one thing--where was Miss +Holme?" + +"I don't know." + +The doctor raised his eyebrows. "Good-by," he said. "I'll send over the +coffee and sandwiches," he added as he turned away. + +"She thinks he is guilty!" he said to himself as he walked up the +street. "She thinks he is guilty, too!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI + +FACE TO FACE + + +To stand face to face with Harry Sanderson--that had been Jessica's sole +thought. The news that the bishop, with the man she suspected, was +speeding toward her--to pass the very town wherein Hugh stood for his +life--seemed a prearrangement of eternal justice. When the telegram +reached her, she had already gone by Twin Peaks. To proceed would be to +pass the coming train. At a farther station, however, she was able to +take a night train back, arriving again at Twin Peaks in the gray dawn +of the next morning. At the dingy station hotel there she undressed and +lay down, but her nerves were quivering and she could not close her +eyes. Toward noon she dressed and forced herself to breakfast, realizing +the need of strength. She spent the rest of the time of waiting walking +up and down in the crisp air, which steadied her nerves and gave her a +measure of control. + +When the train for which she waited came in, the curtained car at its +end, she did not wait for the bishop to find her on the platform, but +stepped aboard and made her way slowly back. It started again as she +threaded the last Pullman, to find the bishop on its rear platform +peering out anxiously at the receding station. + +He took both her hands and drew her into the empty drawing-room. He was +startled at her pallor. "I know," he said pityingly. "I have heard." + +She winced. "Does Aniston know?" + +"Yes," he answered. "Yesterday's newspapers told it." + +She put her hand on his arm. "Can you guess why I was coming home?" she +asked. "It was to tell Harry Sanderson! I know of the fire," she went on +quickly, "and of his injury. I can guess you want to spare him strain or +excitement, but I must tell him!" + +"It is a matter of physical strength, Jessica," he said. "He has been a +sick man. Forgive my saying it, child, but--what good could it do?" + +"Believe, oh, you must believe," she pleaded, "that I do not ask this +lightly, that I have a purpose that makes it necessary. It means so +much--more than my life to me! Why, I have waited here at Twin Peaks all +through the night, till now, when this very day and hour they are trying +him there at Smoky Mountain! You must let me tell him!" + +He reflected a moment. He thought he guessed what was in her mind. If +there was any one who had ever had an influence over Hugh for good, it +was Harry Sanderson. He himself, he thought, had none. Perhaps, +remembering their old comradeship, she was longing now to have this +influence exerted, to bring Hugh to a better mind--thinking of his +eternal welfare, of his making his peace with his Maker. Beneath his +prosy churchmanship and somewhat elaborate piety, the bishop had a +spirituality almost medieval in its simplicity. Perhaps this was God's +way. His eyes lighted. + +"Very well," he said. "Come," and led the way into the car. + +Jessica followed, her hands clenched tightly. She saw the couch, the +profile on its cushions turned toward the window where forest and stream +slipped past--a face curiously like Hugh's! Yet it was different, +lacking the other's strength, even its refinement. And this man had +molded Hugh! These vague thoughts lost themselves instantly in the +momentous surmise that filled her imagination. The bishop put out his +hand and touched the relaxed arm. + +The trepidation that darted into the bandaged face as it turned upon the +girlish figure, the frosty fear that blanched the haggard countenance, +spoke Hugh's surprise and dread. It was she, and she knew the real +Harry Sanderson was in Smoky Mountain. Had she heard of the chapel fire, +guessed the imposture, and come to denounce him, the guilty husband she +had such reason to hate? The twitching limbs stiffened. "Jessica!" he +said in a hoarse whisper. + +For an instant a fierce sense of triumph flamed through her every nerve. +But a cold doubt chilled it. Her suspicion might be the veriest chimera. +It seemed suddenly too wild for belief. She sat down abruptly and for a +fleeting moment hid her face. The bishop touched the bowed, brown head. + +"Harry," he said, "Jessica is in great trouble. She has come with sad +news. Hugh, her husband, your old college mate, is in a terrible +position. He is accused of murder. I kept the newspapers from you to-day +because they told of it." + +She had caught the meaning of the pity in his tone--for her, not for +Hugh! "Ah," she cried passionately, lifting her head, "but they did not +tell it all! Did they tell you that he is unjustly, wickedly accused by +an enemy? That, though they may convict him, he is innocent--innocent?" + +The bishop looked at her in surprise. In spite of all the past--the +shameful, conscienceless past and her own wrong--she loved and believed +in her husband! + +Hugh's hand lifted, wavered an instant before his brow. Did she say he +was innocent? "I don't--understand," he said hoarsely. + +Jessica's wide eyes fastened on his as though to search his secret soul. +"I will tell it all," she said, "then you will understand." The bishop +drew a chair close, but her gaze did not waver from the face on the +cushions--the face which she must read! + +As she told the broken tale the car was still, save for the labored, +irregular breathing of the prostrate man, and the muffled roar that +penetrated the walls, a multitudinous, elfin din. Once the swinging +canary broke forth into liquid warbling, as though in all the world were +no throe of body or dolor of mind. In that telling Jessica's mind +traversed wastes of alternate certainty and doubt, as she hung upon the +look of the man who listened--a look that merged slowly into a fearful +understanding. Hugh understood now! + +Jessica had believed him to be her husband, and she believed so still. +And Harry did not intend to tell. He was safe ... safe! In the reaction +from his fear, Hugh felt sick and faint. + +The bishop had been listening in some anxiety, both for her and for his +charge. There was a strained intensity in her manner now that betokened +almost unbalance--so it seemed to him. The side-lights he had had of +Hugh's career led him to believe him incapable of such a self-sacrifice +as her tale recited. A strange power there was in woman's love! + +"You see," she ended, "that is why I know he is innocent. _You_ can +not"--her eyes held Hugh's--"_you_ can not doubt it, can you?" + +Hugh's tongue wet his parched lips. A tremor ran through him. He did not +answer. + +Jessica started to her feet. Self-possession was falling from her; she +was fighting to seize the vital knowledge that evaded her. She held out +her hand--in the palm lay a small emblem of gold. + +"By this cross," she cried with desperate earnestness, "I ask you for +the truth. It is his life or death--Hugh's life or death! He did not +kill Doctor Moreau. _Who did?_" + +Hugh had shrunk back on the couch, his face ghastly. "I know +nothing--nothing!" he stammered. "Do not ask me!" + +The bishop had risen in alarm; he thought her hysterical. "Jessica! +Jessica!" he exclaimed. He threw his arm about her and led her from the +couch. "You don't know what you are saying. You are beside yourself." He +forced her into the drawing-room and made her sit down. She was tense +and quivering. The cross fell from her hand and he stooped and picked it +up. + +"Try to calm yourself," he said, "to think of other things for a few +moments. This little cross--I wonder how you come to have it? I gave it +to Sanderson last May to commemorate his ordination." He twisted it +open. "See, here is the date, May twenty-eighth--that was the day I gave +it to him." + +She gave a quick gasp and the last vestige of color faded from her +cheek. She looked at him in a stricken way. "_Last_ May!" she said +faintly. Harry Sanderson had been in Aniston, then, on the day Doctor +Moreau had been murdered. Her house of cards fell. She had been +mistaken! She leaned her head back against the cushion and closed her +eyes. + +Presently she felt a cold glass touch her lips. "Here is some water," +the bishop's voice said. "You are better, are you not? Poor child! You +have been through a terrible strain. I would give the world to help you +if I could!" + +He left her, and she sat dully trying to think. The regular jar of the +trucks had set itself to a rhythm--no hope, no hope, no hope! She knew +now that there was none. When the bishop reentered she did not turn her +head. He sat beside her a while and she was aware again of his voice, +speaking soothingly. At moments thereafter he was there, at others she +knew that she was alone, but she was unconscious of the flight of time. +She knew only that the day was fading. On the chilly whirling landscape +she saw only a crowded room, a jury-box, a judge's bench, and Hugh +before it, listening to the sentence that would take him from her for +ever. The bright sunlight was mercilessly, satanically cruel, and God a +sneering monster turning a crank. + +Into her conscious view grew distant snowy ranges, hills unrolling at +their feet, a straggling town, a staring white court-house and a grim +low building beside it. She rose stumblingly, the train quivering to the +brakes, as the bishop entered. + +"This is Smoky Mountain," she said with numb lips. "That is the building +where he is being tried. I am going there now." + +The bishop opened the door. "We stop here twenty minutes," he said. "I +will walk a little way with you." + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII + +BETWEEN THE MILLSTONES + + +Hugh's haggard face peered after them through a rift in a window +curtain. What could she have suspected? Not the truth! And only that +could betray him. Presently the bishop would return, the train would +start again, and this spot of terror would be behind him. What had he to +do with Harry Sanderson? + +He bethought himself suddenly of the door--if some one should come in +upon him! With a qualm of fear he stood up, staggered to it and turned +the key in the lock. There was not the wonted buzz about the station; +the place was silent, save for the throb of the halted engine, and the +shadow of the train on the frosty platform quivered like a criminal. A +block away he saw the court-house--knots of people were standing about +its door, waiting for what? A fit of trembling seized him. + +All his years Hugh had been a moral coward. Life to him had been sweet +for the grosser, material pleasures it held. He had cared for nobody, +had held nothing sacred. When his sins had found him out, he had not +repented; he had only cursed the accident of discovery. The sincerest +feeling of regret he had known had been in the chapel when he had +thought of his dead mother. Since one dismal night on Smoky Mountain, +dread, dogging and relentless, had been his hateful bedfellow. He had +now only to keep silence, let Harry Sanderson pay the penalty, and he +need dread no more. Hugh Stires, to the persuasion of the law, would be +dead. As soon as might be he could disappear--as the rector of St. James +had disappeared before. He might change his name and live at ease in +some other quarter of the world, his alarm laid for ever. + +But a worse thing would haunt him, to scare his sleep. He would be +doubly blood-guilty! + +In the awful moment while he clung to the iron bars of the collapsing +rose-window, with the flames clutching at him, Hugh had looked into +hell, and shivered before the judgment: _The wages of sin is death_. In +that fiery ordeal the cheapness and swagger, the ostentation and +self-esteem had burned away, and his soul had stood naked as a winter +wood. Dying had not then been the Austere Terror. What came after--that +had appalled him. Yet Harry Sanderson was not afraid of the hereafter; +he chose death calmly, knowing that he, Hugh, was unfit to die! + +He thought of the little gold cross Jessica had held before him. The +last time he had seen it was during that memorable game when Harry had +set it on the table. In his pocket was a battered red disk--a reminder +of the days that Harry had won, which had never been rendered. He +thought of the stabbing agony that had come and come again, to strike +each time more deeply. The death that he had cheated in the chapel might +be near him now. But whenever death should come, what should he say when +he stood before his Judge, with such a fearful double burden on his +soul? He was horribly afraid! + +Suppose he waited. Harry might be convicted, sentenced, but he could +save him at the last moment. When he was safe on his way to South +America, he could write the bishop--beg him to go to Smoky Mountain and +convince himself. But how soon would that be? It would be long, +long--and justice was swift. And what if death should take him unawares +beforehand? It would be too late then, too late for ever and ever! + +Suppose he told the truth now and saved Harry. He had never done a brave +deed for the sake of truth or righteousness, or for the love of any +human being, but he could do one now. For the one red counter that had +been a symbol of a day of evil living, he could render a deed that would +make requital for those unpaid days! He would not have played the +coward's part. It would repair the wrong he had done Jessica. He would +have made expiation. Forgiveness and pity, not reproaches and shame, +would follow him. And it would balance, perhaps, the one dreadful count +that stood against him. He thought of the scaffold and shivered. Yet +there was a more terrible thought: _It is a fearful thing to fall into +the hands of the living God!_ + +He made his way again to the door and unlocked it. It was only to cross +that space, to speak, and then the grim brick building--and the penalty. + +With a hoarse cry he slammed the door to and frantically locked it. The +edge of the searching pain was upon him again. He stumbled back to the +couch and fell across it face down, dragging the cushions in frantic +haste over his head, to shut out the sick throbbing of the steam, that +seemed shuddering at the fate his cowering soul dared not face. + + +The groups outside of the court-house made way deferentially for +Jessica, but she was unconscious of it. Some one asked a question on the +steps, and she heard the answer: "The State has just finished, and the +judge is charging." + +The narrow hall was filled, and though all who saw gave her instant +place, the space beyond the inner door was crowded beyond the +possibility of passage. She could see the judge's bench, with its sedate +gray-bearded figure, the jury-box at the left, the moving restless faces +about it, set like a living mosaic. Only the table where the lawyers and +the prisoner sat she could not see, or the empty chair where she had sat +yesterday. What had Hugh thought, she wondered dully, when he had not +seen her there that day? Had he thought that her trust had failed? + +She became aware suddenly that the figure at the high bench was +speaking, had been speaking all along. She could not think clearly, and +her brain struggled with the incisive matter-of-fact sentences. + +"With the prisoner's later career in Smoky Mountain they had nothing to +do, nor had the law. The question it asked--the only question it +asked--was, did he kill Moreau? They might be loath to believe the same +man capable of such contradictory acts--the courageous saving of a child +from death, for example, and the shooting down of a fellow-mortal in +cold blood--but it had been truly said that such contrasts were not +impossible, nay, were even matters of common observation. Prejudice and +bias aside, and sympathy and liking aside, they constituted a tribunal +of justice. This the State had a right to demand, and this they, the +jury, had made solemn oath to give." + +The words had no meaning for her ears. "What did he say?" she whispered +to herself piteously. + +In her abyss of torture she felt the tense expectancy stirring audibly +in the room like a still breeze in forest leaves--saw the averted faces +of the jury as they rose to file out. She caught but a glimpse of the +prisoner, as the sheriff touched his arm and led the way quickly to the +door through which he had been brought. + +It opened and closed upon them, and the tension of the packed room broke +all at once in a great respiration of relief and a buzz of conversation. + +A voice spoke beside her. It was Doctor Brent. "Come with me," he said. +"Felder asked me to watch for you. We can wait in the judge's room." + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII + +THE VERDICT + + +Meanwhile in the narrow cell Harry was alone with his bitterness. His +judicial sense, keenly alive, from the very first had appreciated the +woeful weakness, evidentially speaking, of his position. He had no +illusions on this score. A little while--after such deliberation as was +decent and seemly--and he would be a condemned criminal, waiting in the +shadow of the hempen noose. In such localities justice was swift. There +would be scant time between verdict and penalty--not enough, doubtless, +for the problem to solve itself. For the only solution possible was +Hugh's dying in the hospital at Aniston. So long as the other lived, he +must play out the role. + +And if Hugh did die, but died too late? What a satire on truth and +justice! The same error which put the rope about his own neck would fold +the real Hugh in the odor of sanctity. He would lie in the little jail +yard in a felon's grave, and Hugh in the cemetery on the hill, beneath a +marble monument erected by St. James Parish to the Reverend Henry +Sanderson. He was in an _impasse_. In the dock, or in the cell with the +death-watch sitting at its door, it was all one. He had elected the +path, and if it led to the bleak edge of life, to the barren abyss of +shame, he must tread it. + +His own life--he had come in his thinking to a point where that mattered +least of all. Harry Sanderson, the vanished rector of St. James, +mattered. And Jessica! On the cot lay a slender blue-bound +book--Tennyson's _Becket_. She had sent it to him, in a hamper of her +favorites, some days before. He picked it up and held it in his hand, +touching the limp leather gently. It was as soft as her cheek, and there +was about the leaves a hint of that intangible perfume that his mind +always associated with her-- + + + ... the smell of the jasmin-flower + That she used to wear in her breast! + + +Far more than his life, more than the name and fame of the Reverend +Henry Sanderson, she mattered! Could he write it for her eye, the whole +truth, so that sometime--afterward--the bishop might know, and the blot +be erased from his career? Impossible! With Hugh buried in Aniston and +he in Smoky Mountain, who was there but would smile at such a tale? She +might shout it to the world, and it would answer with derision. And +what comfort would the truth be to her? + +Could he say to her: "Your husband lies dead under my tombstone, not +innocent, but unregenerate and vile. I, who you think am your husband, +am not and never was. You have come to my call--but I am nothing to you. +You are the wife of the guilty murderer of Moreau!" Could he leave this +behind him, and, passing from her life for ever, turn the memory of +their love into an irremediable bitterness? No--no! Better never to tell +her! Better to let her live her life, holding her faith and dream, +treasuring her belief in his regeneration and innocence! + +He thought of the closing chapter in his life at Aniston, when in that +hour of his despair he had prayed by his study desk. The words he had +then said aloud recurred to him: "If I am delivered, it must be by some +way of Thine Own that I can not conceive, for I can not help myself." He +was powerless to help himself still. He had given over his life into the +keeping of a Power in which his better manhood had trusted. If it +exacted the final tribute for those ribald years of Satan Sanderson, the +price would be paid! + +A step came in the corridor--a voice spoke his name. The summons had +come. As he laid the blue book back on the cot, its closing words--the +dying utterance of the martyred Becket--flashed through his mind, the +personal cry of his own soul: + +"Into Thy hands, O Lord--into Thy hands!" + + +Before the opening door the hum of voices in the court-room sank to +stillness itself. The jury had taken their places; their looks were +sober and downcast. The judge was in his seat, his hand combing his +beard. Harry faced him calmly. The door of a side room was partly open +and a girl's white face looked in, but he did not see. + +"Gentlemen of the jury, have you arrived at a verdict?" + +"We have." + +There was a confusion in the hall--abrupt voices and the sound of feet. +The crowd stirred and the judge frowningly lifted his gavel. + +"What say you, guilty or not guilty?" + +The foreman did not answer. He was leaning forward, looking over the +heads of the crowd. The judge stood up. People turned, and the room was +suddenly a-rustle with surprised movement. The crowd at the back of the +room parted, and up the center aisle, toward the judge's desk, staggered +a figure--a man whose face, ghastly and convulsed, was partly swathed +in bandages. At the door of the judge's room a girl stood transfixed and +staring. + +The crowd gasped. They saw the familiar profile, a replica of the +prisoner's--the mark that slanted across the brow--the eyes +preternaturally bright and fevered. + +A pale-faced, breathless man in clerical dress pushed forward through +the press, as the figure stopped ... thrust out his hands blindly. + +"Not--guilty, your Honor!" he said. + +A cry came from the prisoner at the bar. He leaped toward him as he fell +and caught him in his arms. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX + +THE CRIMSON DISK + + +The group in the judge's room was hushed in awestruck silence. The door +was shut, but through the panels, from the court-room, came the murmur +of many wondering voices. By the sofa on which lay the man who had made +expiation stood the bishop and Harry Sanderson. Jessica knelt beside it, +and the judge and those who stood with him in the background knew that +the curtain was falling upon a strange and tangled drama of life and +death. + +After the one long, sobbing cry of realization, throughout the +excitement and confusion, Jessica had been strangely calm. She read the +swift certainty in Doctor Brent's face, and she felt a painful +thankfulness. The last appeal would not be to man's justice, but to +God's mercy! The memories of the old blind days and the knowledge that +this man--not the one to whom she had given her love at Smoky Mountain, +at whom she dared not look--had then been her lover, rolled about her in +a stinging mist. But as she knelt by the sofa the hand that chafed the +nerveless one was firm, and she wiped the cold lips deftly and tenderly. + +Hugh's eyes were filming. That harrowing struggle of soul, that +convulsive effort of the injured body, had demanded its price. The +direful agony and its weakness had seized him--his stiffening fingers +were slipping from the ledge of life, and he knew it. + +He heard the bishop's earnest voice speaking from the void: "_Greater +love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his +friends!_" The words roused his fading senses, called them back to the +outpost of feeling. + +"Not because I--loved," he said. "It--was because--I--was afraid!" + +False as his habit of life had been, in that moment only the bare truth +remained. With a last effort the dying man thrust his hand into his +pocket, drew out a small, battered, red disk, and laid it in the other's +hand. He smiled. + +"Satan--" he whispered, as Harry bent over him, and the flicker of light +fell in his eyes, "do you--think it will--count--when I cash in?" + +But Harry's answer Hugh did not hear. He had passed out of the sound of +mortal speech for ever. + + + + +CHAPTER L + +WHEN DREAMS COME TRUE + + +There came a day when the brown ravines of Smoky Mountain laughed in +genial sunshine, when the tangled thickets, and the foliaged reaches, +painted with the cardinal and bishop's-purple of late autumn, flushed +and stirred to the touch of their golden lover, and the silver water +gushing through the flumes sang to a quicker melody. There was no wind; +everywhere, save for the breathing life of the forest, was dreamy beauty +and waiting peace. + +In the soft stillness Harry stood on the doorstep of the hillside +cabin--for the last time. Below him in the gulch the light glanced and +sparkled from the running flume, and beyond glimmered the long street of +the town where the dead past of Satan Sanderson had been buried for ever +and the old remorseful pain of conscience had found its surcease. In +that last lack-luster year before the rector of the old St. James had +been snuffed out in the wild motor-ride, he had come to doubt the +ultimate Prescience and Purpose. How small and futile now seemed those +doubts in face of the new conception he had apprehended, in the tacit +acceptance of a watchful Will and Plan not his own. + +Here had been the theater of his pain and his temptation. Sitting on +that very spot, with the wise stars overhead, he had drawn from Old +Despair's violin the strain that had brought him Jessica, her hand in +his, her head upon his breast! In the far distance, a tender haze +softening their outline, stood the violet silhouette of the enduring +ranges, and far beyond them lay Aniston, where waited his newer life, +his newer, better work--and the hope that was the April of his dreams. + +Since that tragic day in the court-room he had seen Jessica once +only--in the hour when the bishop's solemn "dust to dust" had been +spoken above the man who had been her husband. One thought had comforted +him--the town of Smoky Mountain had never known, need never know, the +secret of her wifehood. And Aniston was far away. About the coming of +Hugh injured and dying to his rescue, would be thrown a glamour of +knight-errantry that would bespeak charity of judgment. When Jessica +went back to the white house in the aspens she would meet only +tenderness and sympathy. And that was well. + +He shut the door of his cabin and, whistling to his dog, climbed the +steep path, where the wrinkled creeper flung its new splash of scarlet, +and along the trail to the Knob, under the needled song of the redwoods. +There in the dappled shade stood Jessica's rock-statue, and now it +looked upon two mounds. The Prodigal had returned at last, father and +son rested side by side, and that, too, was well. + +He went slowly through the brown hollows to the winding mountain road, +crossed it, and entered the denser forest. He wanted to see once more +the dear spot where he and Jessica had met--that deep, sweet day before +the rude awakening. He walked on in a reverie; his thoughts were very +far away. + + +He stopped suddenly--there before him was the little knoll where she had +stood waiting, on the threshold of his Palace of Enchantment, that one +roseate morning. And she was there to-day--not standing with parted lips +and eager eyes under the twittering trees, but lying face down on the +moss, her red bronze hair shaming the gold of the fallen leaves. + +There was a gesture in the outstretched arms that caught at his heart. +He stepped forward, and at the sound she looked up startled. + +He saw the creeping color that mounted to her brow, the proud yet +passionate hunger of her eyes. He dropped on his knees and took her +hands and kissed them: + +"My dear love that is!" he whispered. "My dearer wife that is to be!" + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SATAN SANDERSON*** + + +******* This file should be named 39689.txt or 39689.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/9/6/8/39689 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. 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