he had begun to consider the problem, as seeming difficulties arose, he
had turned coolly from one alternative to another. And then slowly a
sickening sense of the truth had begun to dawn upon him--and like a man
lost in a great forest, peril around him, he had plunged then
desperately in this direction and in that, as a glimmering point of
light here or there had seemed to promise an avenue of escape--only to
find it vanish at almost the first step, the way closed as by some
invisible, remorseless power. No, not invisible--it seemed to take the
form of the Patriarch--for at every turn the majestic figure stood and
would not let him pass.
Madison's face was gray now as he walked up and down the room--there was
his own revulsion, his abhorrence at the part he had played, a frantic,
honorable eagerness to be rid of it; there were these others too who
looked to him, the Flopper and Pale Face Harry; and there was--Helena!
He did not dare to look at the misery in her face again--he was unmanned
enough now.
And then Helena spoke.
"It--it seems," she said, in a low broken way, "as if--as if God did not
want to pardon us--as if our repentance had come too late, and that
there was no Eleventh Hour for us." Then, in passionate pleading, facing
Madison: "God cannot mean that--it is we who cannot see. There is some
way out--there must be--there _must_ be."
"It begins and ends with the Patriarch," said Madison monotonously. "We
can't sacrifice him--can we! What's the use of going over it again? It
all comes back to the same point--the Patriarch."
"Yes, yes; I know, I know," she said piteously. "But think,
Doc--_think_! See now, we just send back all the money and jewels--we
know to whom they belong."
"Well, what reason do we give?" Madison said heavily. "The Patriarch is
alive and well. The immediate corollary is that from the moment we do
that, to-morrow morning for instance, every gift, every offering here is
suddenly refused. What reason do we give? If it were only the donors who
were to be considered it might be done. It's human nature that
ninety-nine out of every hundred of them"--his voice rose a little
bitterly--"would probably be only too glad to get their money back--and
the mere statement that you, as the Patriarch's grand-niece, his only
relative, on mature thought did not consider the project as planned
advisable might suffice. But this thing goes beyond that, beyond even
the remaining few who are earnestly interested and would cause us
trouble--it is world-wide in its publicity! Every newspaper in the land
would snatch at it for a headline, and ask--why? And they would not be
content with simply asking why--this thing is too big for that--too much
before the people's eyes--too good 'copy.' They'd start in to find
out--and the result is inevitable. Our safety so far has lain in the
fact that there has been no suspicion aroused; but snooping around a
bank vault at midnight with a mask on and a bull's-eye lantern fades to
a whisper as a suspicion-arouser compared with anybody willingly
coughing up a bunch of money once they've got their claws on it--and a
yellow journal, let alone an army corps of them, on the scent of a
possible sensation has all the detective bureaus in the country pinned
to the ropes--they'd have us uncovered quicker than I like to think
about it--and that means--"
He stopped, and with a hurried motion, carried his hands across his
eyes--Helena, pure as one of God's own angels now, to come to that, to
come to--
It was the Flopper who completed the sentence.
"Ten spaces up de river," said the Flopper, and shivered, and his tongue
sought his lips; "or mabbe--mabbe twenty."
Pale Face Harry stirred uneasily.
"There's the other way," he said without looking up, his eyes on his
finger nail that traced the grain of the wood again. "Get the money and
the sparklers all done up and addressed to the ones they came from, send
'em off in a bunch to Thornton--and we fly the coop before he gets them,
disappear, fade away--and take our chances of getting caught."
"An' den it's all off wid me an' Mamie"--the Flopper's face grew hard.
"Nix on dat! Dat don't go!"
"We cannot do that, Harry," said Helena, in a tired voice. "There
is--the Patriarch."
"Yes," said Madison, beginning his stride up and down the room again.
"After all, whether we could give back the money without being caught,
or whether we couldn't, is not the vital thing; there is--the
Patriarch."
Helena's eyes were on the silent figure in the shadows by the fireplace.
"If--if it were not for him," she said, "I think that perhaps--perhaps I
might be brave enough to confess it all, and--and not try to escape
from the punishment that I deserve. But he would know--he cannot see,
nor hear, nor speak, but he would know--as he seems so strangely, so
wonderfully, so supernaturally to know and understand everything. And,
oh, he means so much to me, to us all, for it is he, more than any one
else, who has saved us from--from what we were. And he loves us. It
would shatter his faith, ruin all that his life has meant to him,
and--and we cannot bring him grief and sorrow like that. Oh, what can we
do! What _can_ we do! We cannot stop--and we cannot go on! We cannot
stay here even if we returned the money successfully, and we cannot stay
here if we kept it as it is; for things would still have to go on as
they are, even if we didn't mean to steal any more, no matter what we
might say or do, for it's beyond our control now, and to stay means that
we should still have to live and lead our double lives, still have to
practise hypocrisy and deceit, and--and I cannot--we cannot do that any
more. And the only way to get away from it all is to run away--and we
can't do that, either! There is--the Patriarch. We cannot leave him--to
break his heart--with none he loves to care for him. We can't do that.
He is a very old, old man, and--and I think he has been happy with us,
and--and we must make him happy always as long as he lives. We cannot go
away and leave him. We can't do that." Then, in a heartbroken,
despairing cry: "We can't do--_anything_!"
No one answered her. She had begged Madison to go over it all again--and
she had summed it up herself. There was--the Patriarch.
There was utter silence in the room now, save only for that low, solemn
boom of distant surf--for Madison had stopped his nervous pacing up and
down, and stood now by the Patriarch's armchair gazing into the
fireplace.
The minutes passed, and the silence in that dim, shadowed room grew
tense--and tenser still--until the very shadows themselves, as the lamp
flickered now and then, seemed to creep and shift and readjust
themselves in stealth. No sound--no movement--utter stillness--only,
from without, the mourning of the surf, like a dirge now.
And then, with a sudden sob, Helena flung out her arms across the table
toward the Patriarch.
"Oh, if he could only speak!" she cried pitifully. "If he could only
speak--he would show us the way out."
The words seemed to come to Madison as an added pang. He turned his eyes
instinctively from the fireplace to the Patriarch beside him--and then,
a moment, as a man stricken, he stood there--and then reaching quickly
for the lamp from the table he held it up, and leaned forward toward the
figure in the chair.
Helena, startled at the act, rose almost unconsciously to her feet, her
hands holding tightly to the table edge--looking at Madison, looking at
the silent form where Pale Face Harry, where the Flopper looked.
"What is it?" she asked tensely, under her breath.
Madison's lips moved--silently. His face was white, ashen--there was no
color in it. Then his lips moved once more.
"The way out," he said; and again, in a low, awed way: "_The way out_.
We can make restitution now--we can give it all back--he _has_ shown us
the way out."
Helena's lips were quivering, tears were dimming the brown eyes,
trembling on the lashes, as she stepped now to Madison's side.
"It is God who has shown us the way out," she whispered brokenly--and
dropping down before the chair, her little form shaken with sobs, she
hid her face on the Patriarch's knees.
And serene and peaceful as a child in sleep, a smile like a benediction
on the saintly face, the Patriarch sat in his armchair by the fireplace
where he had been wont to sit in years gone by--and so he had passed on.
The Patriarch was dead.
--XXIV--
VALE!
The years have passed--but in their passing have brought few changes to
the little village nestling in the Maine pines that border on the sea.
Not many changes--it is as though Time had touched it loath to touch at
all; as though some spirit lingering there, sweet and fresh and vernal,
had bade Time stay its hand.
Not many changes--the same familiar faces gather around the stove in the
hotel office; and, neither as a memory, nor yet as of one who has gone,
but as if he were amongst them, living still, they speak of the
Patriarch as of yore.
And with this little circle of kindly, simple folk Time has dealt gently
too, for there is only one who is no more--Cale Rodgers, the proprietor
of the general store.
But the general store on the village street still flourishes, and in
Cale Rodgers' place is one whose speech is still a marvelous thing in
staid old New England ears--it is an Irish brogue perhaps, for his name
is Michael Coogan. There are little Coogans too, and Mamie is a happy
wife. And to the Coogans come sometimes letters from a far-western farm
to say that things are well and that prosperity has come to one who
signs himself--facetiously it always seems to Mamie who reads the
letters to her husband--as Pale Face Harry.
And so the years have passed, and it is summer time again. The fields
are green; the trees in leaf; the flowers in bloom. And there are
visitors who have come again to the scenes of yesterday--a man and
woman--and between them a sturdy little lad of eight. They stop at the
end of the wagon track and look out across the lawn.
It is still and peaceful, tranquil--and to them conies the soft, low
murmur of the surf. Slowly they walk across the lawn, and pass beneath
the splendid maples--and pause again.
The cottage is like some poet's fancy, hidden shyly in its creepers and
its vines; and seems to speak and breathe in its simple beauty of the
gentle soul who once had lived there--and loved his fellow-men. It is as
it always was, open, free for all to pass within who wish to enter; for
loving hands have cared for it, and grateful purses, opened to its
needs, have kept it as--a Shrine.
But they do not enter now, for Madison points to where the sunlight, as
it glints through the trees at the far end of the cottage, falls on a
slender shaft of marble.
"Let us go there, Helena," he said softly.
And so they walked that way, past the trellises laden with flowers,
past the end of the cottage; and presently they stopped again where,
beneath the maples' shade, rises the pure white stone--and beyond it is
the sweep of the eternal sea.
Madison, his hair streaking just a little gray at the temples now,
removed his hat--and his face softened, saddened, as he read the simple
inscription:
THE PATRIARCH
The boy glanced at his father a little wonderingly--and then spelt out
the words. He shook his head.
"I don't know what that means," he said. "What does that word mean?"
Madison patted his head.
"You tell him, Helena," he said--and came and stood beside her.
And so Helena told the boy in simple language as much of the Patriarch's
story as she thought he could understand--and when she had finished the
boy's face was aglow.
"And!" he said breathlessly, "and--and did he ever do a really,
truly-truly miracle?"
There was silence for an instant--then a tender smile came trembling to
Helena's lips, and into the brown eyes crept the love-light, as she
reached out to Madison and her hand found his and held it very tightly.
And Madison bent and kissed her; and drew the little lad between them
and laid his hand on the boy's head, and answered for Helena.
"Yes, my son," he said; "and some day when you are a man you will
understand how great a miracle it was."
THE END