young man can possess than a broken heart. In the ensuing weeks I bore
about with me if not a broken, at least a very much bruised and wounded
one. It is a tragic fact in the course of mortality that a slip of a
girl should have the power to shut the gates of happiness on a man.
There were times when I rebelled against myself at being as big a fool
as I knew myself to be, and endeavored to console myself by reverting to
those wise bits of philosophy which our friends are always offering to
us in our distress from their vantage ground of serene indifference.
There were doubtless as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it, but
I was not after fishing--somehow I could not get a grasp on the idea
that there were as lovely and attractive girls in the world whom I was
likely to meet as Eleanor Leigh, whom I now felt I had lost and might
possibly never recover.
I walked the streets for some time that evening in a very low state of
mind, and Dix, as he trudged solemnly along with his head now against my
leg, now a step in the rear, must have wondered what had befallen me. By
midnight he looked as dejected as I felt. Even when at length, having
formulated my letter, I took him out for a run, he did not cheer up as
he usually did. That dog was very near a human being. He sometimes
appeared to know just what went on in my mind. He looked so confoundedly
sorry for me that night that I found it a real consolation. He had the
heart of a woman and the eyes of an angel. The letter I wrote was one of
the best pieces of advocacy I ever did. I set forth the facts simply and
yet clearly and, I felt, strongly. I told the plain truth about the
paper, and I had the sense not to truckle, even while I expressed my
regret that my work had been made the basis of the unauthorized and
outrageous attack on her father and the lie about herself. With regard
to the rights of the public and the arrogance of the class that ran the
railways and other quasi-public corporations, I stood to my guns.
This letter I mailed and awaited, with what patience I could command,
her reply. Several days passed before I received any reply, and then I
got a short, little cool note saying that she was glad to see that I
felt an apology was due to her honored father, and was happy to know
that I was not the author of the outrageous headlines. It was an icy
little reply to a letter in which I had put my whole heart and I was in
a rage over it. I made up my mind that I would show her that I was not
to be treated so. If this was the way in which she received a
gentleman's full and frank amende, why, I would have no more to do with
her. Anger is a masterful passion. So long as it holds sway no other
inmate of the mind can enter. So long as I was angry I got on very well.
I enjoyed the society of my friends and was much gayer to outward
appearances than usual. I spent my evenings with Marvel and Wolffert or
some of my less intimate companions, treated myself and them to the
theatre, and made altogether a brave feint at bravery. But my anger died
out. I was deeply in love and I fell back into a slough of despond. I
thought often of confiding in John Marvel; but for some reason I could
not bring myself to do so.
Adam driven suddenly out of Paradise with Eve left behind to the
temptation of the serpent will give some idea of what I felt. I had the
consolation of knowing that I had done the right thing and the only
thing a gentleman could have done; but it was a poor consolation when I
looked back on the happiness I had been having of late in the presence
of Eleanor Leigh. And now between her and me was the flaming sword which
turned every way.
My heart gave a sudden drop into my boots one evening when I came across
an item in the society columns of an afternoon paper, stating that it
was believed by the friends of the parties, that Mr. Canter would,
before very long, lead to the altar one of the reigning belles of the
city. I had always disliked "Society Columns," as the expression of a
latter-day vulgarity. Since then I have detested them.
I finally determined to try to get an interview with her whose absence
clouded my world, and wrote her a note rather demanding one. As I
received no reply to this, I called one evening to see her, if possible.
The servant took in my card and a moment later returned with the
statement that Miss Leigh was not at home. I was sure that it was not
true. I came down the steps white with rage and also with a sinking of
the heart. For I felt that it was all over between us.
Those whom the Gods hate they first make mad, and it was by no accident
that the passion of anger and the state of madness have come to be known
by the same terms in our tongue. I have always held since then that
every true lover has something of madness in him while the passion
rages. I could cheerfully have stormed her house and carried Eleanor
Leigh away. I recalled with grim envy William the Conqueror's savage
wooing when he met the Count's daughter who had insulted him and rode
her down, to receive soon afterward her full submission. This somewhat
barbarous form of proving one's passion having passed out of vogue, I
testified my spleen by falling into a state of general cynicism which I
vented so generously that Wolffert finally asked me what had happened to
me, and conjectured that I must have met with a cross in love. This
recalled me sufficiently to myself to make me dissemble my feelings, at
least when in his presence. But I was certainly not rational for some
time, and, sleeping or waking, I was haunted by the voice of the siren
to whom I had fatally listened. What must I do in my folly the next time
I met Miss Leigh, which I did quite accidentally one day on the street,
but carry my head so high and bow so slightly that the next time we met,
which was far from being as accidental as it might have appeared, she
carried her head very high and did not bow at all. It was at some sort
of a fair held for charity--and, ever since then I have hated them.
Feeling assured that Eleanor Leigh would go, I attended myself with no
more charitable object than to benefit a very wretched young lawyer, who
was deeply conscious that he had made a fool of himself the last time he
saw her. When I arrived, she was nowhere to be seen and I was on the
point of leaving when, turning, I found her standing in the midst of a
group, her arms full of flowers, which she was selling. All I have to
say is that since that time I have felt that Pluto was entirely
justified in that little affair in the Sicilian meadows. Thinking to
make the amende for my foolish airiness when I last saw her, I made my
way up to Miss Eleanor Leigh; but as I approached and was in the very
act of speaking to her she turned her back on me. It was a dead cut--a
public insult, as humiliating as she could make it. I left the fair in a
rage which lasted long. As I wandered through the forlorn streets that
night I fed my heart on instances of woman's inconstancy, and agreed
with the royal lover that, "Mal habil qui s'y fie." But it was a poor
occupation and brought me little consolation. In his "Inferno," Dante
has given twelve different and successive circles in the depths of
perdition, each lower than the other. I passed through every one of
them, and with no companion but my own folly.
XXX
SEEKING ONE THAT WAS LOST
One may not hate his personal enemy; but one should hate an enemy to
mankind. Had I known what fresh cause I had to hate Pushkin, I should
not have been so supine.
Since I began to work seriously my practice had increased, and I was so
interested in working on my old ladies' case that I was often detained
at my office until late at night; and several times on my way home I
observed a man acting somewhat curiously. He would keep along behind me,
and if I turned back, would turn up a by-street or alley. He was a big,
brawny fellow, and I never saw him except at night. At first, it had
made no impression on me; but at length, I noticed him so often that it
suddenly struck me that he was following me. Rendered suspicious by my
former experience, I began quietly to test him, and was having a very
interesting time leading him around the town, when unexpectedly I
discovered who he was. It was a singular feeling to find oneself
shadowed; to discover that the man who has passed all others
indifferently in the crowd has singled you out and follows you, bound to
you by some invisible thread, tracking you through the labyrinth of the
thoroughfares; disregarding all the thousands who pass with their
manifold interests and affairs, and that, singling you out with no
known reason, he sticks to you through all the mazes of the multitudes.
It comes to you gradually, dawning by degrees; then bursts on you
suddenly with a light that astonishes and amazes. You are startled,
frightened, incredulous; then you suspect, test, and are convinced; you
suddenly spring from obscurity and indifference into an object of
interest to yourself; and then it becomes an intellectual game between
hunter and hunted. New powers awaken, dormant since the days when man
lived in the forest.
When I awoke to the fact that the big man I had noticed was following
me, for a moment the sensation was anything but pleasant. My hair almost
stirred on my head. The next moment anger took the place of this
feeling--indignation that one should dare to shadow me, to spy on my
actions. I determined to confront the spy and thwart him. It was not
difficult to do; he was an awkward fellow. The game was easier than I
had supposed. One night when I had observed him following me, waiting
until I reached a favorable spot, I turned quickly with my hand on my
pistol, which I had put in my pocket, and faced him under a street lamp,
stepping immediately in front of him and blocking his way.
"Otto!"
With a growl he pulled his hat down closer over his brow and, stepping
aside, passed on. I went home in a maze. Why should he follow me? I had
not long to wait before I was enlightened.
One evening shortly afterward I was about to leave my office when there
was a heavy step outside the door, and without a knock the door flew
open, and the old Drummer entered. He looked so haggard and broken that
I was on my feet in a second.
"What is the matter?" I gasped. "Is any one dead?"
"Vorser! Elsa?--Vere iss Elsa?" He stood before me like a wounded bison
at bay, his eyes red with passion.
"Elsa! What!--'Where is she?' Tell me----?"
"Fhat haf you done vit my daughter?"
"Your daughter! What do you mean?" I asked quietly. "I have not seen her
since I left your house. Tell me what has occurred."
He soon saw that I knew nothing of her, and his face changed. Yet he
hesitated.
"Ze Count said--" He began hesitatingly and stopped, thinking over
something in his mind.
It all came to me in a second. That scoundrel! It was all accounted for
now--the change in the family toward me--the notice to leave--the spying
of Otto. Count Pushkin had used me as a blind to cover his own
wickedness. I suddenly burst out into a wrath which opened the old
Drummer's eyes. What I said of Pushkin cannot be repeated. What I
proceeded to do was wiser. Why had I not pitched him out of the window
that first evening, and so have ended his wicked career! I felt as if I
were the cause of my friend's wretchedness; of Elsa's destruction. I sat
the old fellow down in a chair, and made him tell me all the facts.
He informed me that for some time past he and her mother had noticed
that Elsa had not been the same to Otto, and Otto had been unhappy, and
had thrown up his place; then she had wished to break with him; but they
would not let her. And of late she had been staying out a good deal,
visiting her friends, she said, and when they urged her to marry Otto,
she had always begged off, and Otto was wretched, and they were all
wretched. Count Pushkin had intimated that she was in love with me, and
that I was the cause of her action. They could not believe it.
"Yet, ze Count--?" The old fellow was not able to go on. I relieved him
and he took up the thread elsewhere, and told of Otto's following me to
find out. And two or three nights before there had been trouble; she had
come in late, and her mother had scolded her, and insisted on knowing
where she had been, and she had told her a lie--and they had insisted on
her carrying out her agreement with Otto, to which she assented. And
this morning she was missing.
The old fellow broke down again. His grief was almost more for Otto than
for himself. "He iss a good boy; he iss a good boy," he repeated again
and again.
"Maybe, we were too harsh with her, sir, and now she may be dead." He
was overcome by grief.
I did not believe she was dead; but I feared for her a worse fate. He
still did not suspect Pushkin. The Count was his friend, he said; he had
known him since his boyhood.
"I will find her," I said. And I knew I should if I had to choke the
truth out of Pushkin's throat.
"If you do, I vill bless you, and her mother vill, too!"
I told him to go home and console her mother.
"She has gone to see the preacher. He will know how to console her--and
he will help her also."
"Why do you not go to the police?"
"Oh! Ze police! Ze police! Efery one say 'Ze police!' Ze police vill nod
do notings for me. I ham nod von Union-man. Zay haf zeir orders. Ven I
hax ze police zay say, 'Don't vorry, Elsa vill come home by-m-by, ven
she get readee.'"
I had heard the same thing said about the police, and recalled what I
had heard McSheen say to Wringman about keeping them from interfering.
But I felt that they were probably right in their views about Elsa.
I had recourse to my detective again, and gave him all the information I
possessed.
"Oh! We'll find out where she is," he said, with that inscrutably placid
look on his face which I had learned was the veil under which he masked
both his feelings and his purposes. "You can tell her father she isn't
dead." This in answer to the old man's suggestion that she had been
murdered, which I had repeated. Then he added, "But there are worse
things than death."
His eyes glistened and he buttoned up his coat in a way he had when
there was any sharp work on hand. It always reminded me of a duellist.
In a few days he had a clew to the lost girl, and justified my
suspicions.
It was as I feared. Pushkin had inveigled her from her home and had
taken her to a house which, if not precisely what I apprehended, was not
less vile. It was one of those doubly disreputable places which, while
professing to be reasonably respectable, is really more dangerous than
the vilest den. The girl was possibly not actually at the place now, but
had been there. Getting some suspicion of the place, she had insisted on
leaving, but the woman of the house, said Langton, knew where she was.
"She is a hard one to handle. She has protection."
"Of the police?"
"Of those who control the police. She has powerful friends."
"I don't care how powerful they are, I will get that girl," I said.
I hesitated what to do. I had not wholly abandoned hope of making up my
trouble with Eleanor Leigh. I did not wish my name to be mixed up in a
scandal which probably would get into the papers. I determined to
consult John Marvel, and I said so to Langton.
"You mean the preacher? Won't do any harm. He's straight. He's helping
to hunt for her, too. I saw him just after I located her, and he had
already heard."
I determined to go and see him, and told Langton to keep on following up
his clew. When I went to Marvel's house, however, he was not at home. He
had been away all day, since early morning, the girl who opened the door
told me. I went to the police station. Marvel had been there and made a
complaint about a house, and they were going to send a man around to
investigate.
He was a terrible crank, that preacher was, but all the same he was a
good sort of a fellow, the officer said. Some people thought he was too
meddlesome and mixed up too much with affairs that did not concern him,
but for his part, he had seen him do things and go where it took a man
to go. As the officer was going in a short while, I determined to
accompany him, so waited an hour or so till he was detailed, and then
set out. When we arrived the place, for all outward signs of evil, might
have been a home for retired Sunday-school teachers--a more decent and
respectable little hotel in a quiet street could not have been found in
town. Only the large woman, with heightened complexion, Mrs. Snow, who,
at length, appeared in answer to the summons of the solemn officer,
seemed to be excited and almost agitated. She was divided between
outraged modesty and righteous indignation. The former was exhibited
rather toward me, the latter toward the officer. But this was all. She
swore by all the Evangelists that she knew nothing of the girl, and with
yet more vehemence that she would have justice for this outrage. She
would "report the officer to the Captain and to his Honor the Mayor, and
have the whole --th precinct fired." The officer was very apologetic.
All we learned was that, "A lady had been brought there by a gentleman
who said he was her husband, but she had refused to let her in. She did
not take in people she did not know." As there was nothing to
incriminate her, we left with apologies.
The strongest ally a man can enlist in any cause is a clear-headed,
warm-hearted woman. In all moral causes they form the golden guard of
the forces that carry them through. John Marvel's absence when I called
to consult him was due to his having got on the trace of Elsa. Another
of my friends had also got on her trace, and while I was hesitating and
thinking of my reputation, they were acting. As soon as he learned of
Elsa's disappearance he consulted the wisest counsellor he knew. He
went, with rare good sense, to Eleanor Leigh. He had a further reason
for going to her than merely to secure her aid. He had heard my name
connected with the affair, and old John had gone to set me straight with
her. He did not know of the trouble at the Charity Fair, and Miss Leigh
did not enlighten him. Miss Eleanor Leigh, having learned through Marvel
that the Loewens were in great trouble, as soon as her school was out
that day, went to the Loewens' house to learn what she could of the
girl, with a view to rendering all the aid she could. A new force had
been aroused in her by John Marvel. Precisely what she learned I never
knew, but it was enough, with what she had gleaned elsewhere, to lead to
action. What she had learned elsewhere pointed to a certain place in
town as one where she might secure further information. It was not a
very reputable place--in fact, it was a very disreputable place--part
saloon, part dance-hall, part everything else that it ought not to have
been. It was one of the vilest dens in this city of Confusion, and the
more vile because its depths were screened beneath a mass of gilding and
tinsel and glitter. It lay on one of the most populous streets and,
dazzling with electric lights, furnished one of the showiest places on
that street. It was known as "The Gallery," an euphemism to cover a line
of glaring nude figures hung on the walls, which, by an arrangement of
mirrors, were multiplied indefinitely. Its ostensible owner was the same
Mr. Mick Raffity, who kept the semi-respectable saloon opening on the
alley at the back of the building where I had my office. Its keeper was
a friend of Mr. Raffity's, by the name of Gallagin, a thin, middle-aged
person with one eye, but that an eye like a gimlet, a face impervious to
every expression save that which it habitually wore: a mixture of
cunning and ferocity.
The place was crowded from a reasonable hour in the evening till an
unreasonable hour in the morning, and many a robbery and not a few
darker crimes were said to have been planned, and some perpetrated,
around its marble tables.
At the side, in a narrow street, was a private entrance and stairway
leading to the upper stories, over the door of which was the sign,
"Ladies' Entrance." And at the rear was what was termed by Mr. Gallagin,
a "Private Hotel."
Young women thronged the lower floor at all hours of the night, but no
woman had ever gone in there and not come out a shade worse, if
possible, than when she entered. The Salvation Army had attempted the
closing of this gilded Augean Stable, but had retired baffled. Now and
then a sporadic effort had been made in the press to close or reform it,
but all such attempts had failed. The place was "protected." The police
never found anything amiss there, or, if they did, were promptly found
to have something amiss with their own record. To outward appearance it
was on occasions of inspection as decorous as a meeting-house. It was
shown that the place had been offered for Sunday afternoon services, and
that such services had actually been held there. In fact, a
Scripture-text hung on the wall on such occasions, while close at hand
hung the more secular notice that "No excuse whatever would be taken if
one lady or gentleman took another lady's or gentleman's hat or wrap."
This gilded saloon on the evening of the day I called on John Marvel
was, if anything, more crowded than usual, and into it just as it was
beginning to grow gay and the clouds of cigarette and cigar smoke were
beginning to turn the upper atmosphere to a dull gray; just as the
earlier hum of voices was giving place to the shrieking laughter and
high screaming of half-sodden youths of both sexes, walked a young
woman. She was simply dressed in a street costume, but there was that
about her trim figure, erect carriage, and grave face which marked her
as different from the gaudy sisterhood who frequented that resort of
sin, and as she passed up through the long room she instantly attracted
attention.
The wild laughter subsided, the shrieks died down, and as if by a
common impulse necks were craned to watch the newcomer, and the
conversation about the tables suddenly hushed to a murmur, except where
it was broken by the outbreak of some half-drunken youth.
"Who is she? What is she?" were questions asked at all tables, along
with many other questions and answers, alike unprintable and incredible.
The general opinion expressed was that she was a new and important
addition to the soiled sisterhood, probably from some other city or some
country town, and comments were freely bandied about as to her future
destination and success. Among the throng, seated at one of the tables,
was a large man with two bedizened young women drinking the champagne he
was freely offering and tossing off himself, and the women stopped
teasing him about his diamond ring, and rallied him on his attention to
the newcomer, as with head up, lips compressed, eyes straight before
her, and the color mounting in her cheek, she passed swiftly up the room
between the tables and made her way to the magnificent bar behind which
Mr. Gallagin presided, with his one eye ever boring into the scene
before him. Walking up to the bar the stranger at once addressed Mr.
Gallagin.
"Are you the proprietor here?"
"Some folks says so. What can I do for yer?"
"I have come to ask if there is not a young woman here--?" She hesitated
a moment, as the bar-keepers all had their eyes on her and a number of
youths had come forward from the tables and were beginning to draw
about her. Mr. Gallagin filled in the pause.
"Quite a number, but not one too many. In fact, there is just one
vacancy, and I think you are the very peach to fill it." His discolored
teeth gleamed for a second at the murmur of approval which came from the
men who had drawn up to the bar.
"I came to ask," repeated the girl quietly, "if there is not a young
woman here named Elsa Loewen."
The proprietor's one eye fixed itself on her with an imperturbable gaze.
"Well, I don't know as there is," he drawled. "You see, there is a good
many young women here, and I guess they have a good many names among
'em. But may I ask you what you want with her?"
"I want to get her and take her back to her home."
Mr. Gallagin's eye never moved from her face.
"Well, you can look around and see for yourself," he said quietly.
"No, I don't think she would be here, but have you not a sort of a hotel
attached to your place?"
"Oh! Yes," drawled Mr. Gallagin. "I can furnish you a room, if you have
any friends--and if you haven't a friend, I might furnish you one or two
of them."
"No, I do not wish a room."
"Oh!" ejaculated the proprietor.
"I wish to see Elsa Loewen, and I have heard that she is here."
"Oh! you have, and who may be your informant?" demanded the bar-keeper,
coldly. "I'd like to know what gentleman has sufficient interest in me
to make me the subject of his conversation."
"I cannot give you my informant, but I have information that she is
here, and I appeal to you to let me see her."
"To me? You appeal to me?" Mr. Gallagin put his hand on his thin chest
and nodded toward himself.