"House across the street burning--and probably his house, too," cut in
the policeman. "He's been raising hell--he has. But it's coming home
to him at last. Take him to the hospital."
"Jane," cried Selma, "make this man pass us!"
Jane faced the policeman, explained who she was. He became humbly
civil at once. "I've just told her, ma'am," said he, "that his house
is burning. The mob's gutting the New Day office and setting fire to
everything."
"My house is in the next street," said Colman. "Drive there. Some of
you people get Dr. Charlton--and everything. Get busy. Whip up,
driver. Here, give me the lines!"
Thus, within five minutes, Victor was lying upon a couch in the parlor
of Colman's cottage, and within ten minutes Dr. Charlton was beside him
and was at work. Selma and Jane and Mrs. Colman were in the room. The
others--a steadily increasing crowd--were on the steps outside, in the
front yard, were filling the narrow street. Colman had organized fifty
Leaguers into a guard, to be ready for any emergencies. Over the tops
of the low houses could be seen the vast cloud of smoke from the fire;
the air was heavy with the odors of burning wood; faintly came sounds
of engines, of jubilant drunken shouts.
"A fracture of the skull and of the jaw-bone. Not necessarily
serious," was Dr. Charlton's verdict.
The young man, unconscious, ghastly pale, with his thick hair mussed
about his brow and on the right side clotted with blood, lay breathing
heavily. Ellen Clearwater came in and Mrs. Colman whispered to her the
doctor's cheering statement. She went to Jane and said in an undertone:
"We can go now, Jane. Come on."
Jane seemed not to hear. She was regarding the face of the young man
on the couch.
Ellen touched her arm. "We're intruding on these people," she
whispered. "Let's go. We've done all we can."
Selma did not hear, but she saw and understood.
"Yes--you'd better go, Jane," she said. "Mrs. Colman and I will do
everything that's necessary."
Jane did not heed. She advanced a step nearer the couch. "You are
sure, doctor?" she said, and her voice sounded unnatural.
"Yes, miss----" He glanced at her face. "Yes, Miss Hastings. He'll be
out in less than ten days, as good as ever. It's a very simple affair."
Jane glanced round. "Is there a telephone? I wish to send for Dr.
Alban."
"I'd be glad to see him," said Dr. Charlton. "But I assure you it's
unnecessary."
"We don't want Dr. Alban," said Selma curtly. "Go home, Jane, and let
us alone."
"I shall go bring Dr. Alban," said Jane.
Selma took her by the arm and compelled her into the hall, and closed
the door into the room where Victor lay. "You must go home, Jane," she
said quietly. "We know what to do with our leader. And we could not
allow Dr. Alban here."
"Victor must have the best," said Jane.
She and Selma looked at each other, and Selma understood.
"He HAS the best," said she, gentle with an effort.
"Dr. Alban is the best," said Jane.
"The most fashionable," said Selma. "Not the best." With restraint,
"Go home. Let us alone. This is no place for you--for Martin
Hastings' daughter."
Jane, looking and acting like one in a trance, tried to push past her
and reenter the room. Selma stood firm. She said: "If you do not go I
shall have these men take you to your carriage. You do not know what
you are doing."
Jane looked at her. "I love him," she said.
"So do we," said Selma. "And he belongs to US. You must go. Come!"
She seized her by the arm, and beckoning one of the waiting Leaguers to
her assistance she pushed her quietly but relentlessly along the hall,
out of the house, out of the yard and into the carriage. Then she
closed the door, while Jane sank back against the cushions.
"Yes, he belongs to you," said Jane; "but I love him. Oh, Selma!"
Selma suddenly burst into tears. "Go, Jane, dear. You MUST go," she
cried.
"At least I'll wait here until--until they are sure," said Jane. "You
can't refuse me that, Selma."
"But they are sure," said Selma. "You must go with your friends. Here
they come."
When Ellen Clearwater and Joe Wetherbe--the second son of the chief
owner of the First National--reached the curb, Selma said to Wetherbe:
"Please stand aside. I've something to say to this lady."
When Wetherbe had withdrawn, she said: "Miss Hastings is--not quite
herself. You had better take her home alone."
Jane leaned from the open carriage window. "Ellen," said she, "I am
going to stay here until Victor recovers consciousness, and I am SURE."
"He has just come around," said Ellen. "He is certain to get well.
His mind is clear."
"I must see for myself," cried Jane.
Selma was preventing her leaving the carriage when Ellen quietly
interfered with a significant look for Selma. "Jane," she said, "you
can't go in. The doctor has just put every one out but his assistant
and a nurse that has come."
Jane hesitated, drew back into the corner of the carriage. "Tell Mr.
Wetherbe to go his own way," said Ellen aside to Selma, and she got in
beside Jane.
"To Mr. Hastings'," said Selma to the driver. The carriage drove away.
She gave Ellen's message to Wetherbe and returned to the house. Victor
was still unconscious; he did not come to himself until toward
daylight. And then it was clear to them all that Dr. Charlton's
encouraging diagnosis was correct.
Public opinion in Remsen City was publicly articulate by means of three
daily newspapers--the Pioneer, the Star, and the Free Press. The Star
and the Free Press were owned by the same group of capitalists who
controlled the gas company and the water works. The Pioneer was owned
by the traction interests. Both groups of capitalists were jointly
interested in the railways, the banks and in the principal factories.
The Pioneer was Republican, was regarded as the organ of Dick Kelly.
The Star was Democratic, spoke less cordially of Kelly and always
called for House, Mr. House, or Joseph House, Esquire. The Free Press
posed as independent with Democratic leanings. It indulged in
admirable essays against corruption, gang rule and bossism. But it was
never specific and during campaigns was meek and mild. For nearly a
dozen years there had not been a word of truth upon any subject
important to the people of Remsen City in the columns of any of the
three. During wars between rival groups of capitalists a half-truth
was now and then timidly uttered, but never a word of "loose talk," of
"anarchy," of anything but the entirely "safe, sane and conservative."
Thus, any one who might have witnessed the scenes in Market Square on
Thursday evening would have been not a little astonished to read the
accounts presented the next day by the three newspapers. According to
all three the Workingmen's League, long a menace to the public peace,
had at last brought upon Remsen City the shame of a riot in which two
men, a woman and four children had lost their lives and more than a
hundred, "including the notorious Victor Dorn," had been injured. And
after the riot the part of the mob that was hostile to "the Dorn gang"
had swept down upon the office of the New Day, had wrecked it, and had
set fire to the building, with the result that five houses were burned
before the flames could be put out. The Free Press published, as a
mere rumor, that the immediate cause of the outbreak had been an
impending "scurrilous attack" in the New Day upon one of the political
gangs of the slums and its leader. The Associated Press, sending forth
an account of the riot to the entire country, represented it as a fight
between rival gangs of workmen precipitated by the insults and menaces
of a "socialistic party led by a young operator named Dorn." Dorn's
faction had aroused in the mass of the workingmen a fear that this
spread of "socialistic and anarchistic ideas" would cause a general
shut down of factories and a flight of the capital that was "giving
employment to labor."
A version of the causes and the events, somewhat nearer the truth, was
talked about Remsen City. But all the respectable classes were well
content with what their newspapers printed. And, while some
broad-minded respectabilities spoke of the affair as an outrage, none
of them was disposed to think that any real wrong had been done.
Victor Dorn and his crowd of revolutionists had got, after all, only
their deserts.
After forty-eight hours of careful study of public opinion, Dick Kelly
decided that Remsen City was taking the dose as he had anticipated. He
felt emboldened to proceed to his final move in the campaign against
"anarchy" in his beloved city. On the second morning after the riot,
all three newspapers published double-headed editorials calling upon
the authorities to safeguard the community against another such
degrading and dangerous upheaval. "It is time that the distinction
between liberty and license be sharply drawn." After editorials in
this vein had been repeated for several days, after sundry bodies of
eminently respectable citizens--the Merchants' Association, the
Taxpayers' League, the Chamber of Commerce--had passed indignant and
appealing resolutions, after two priests, a clergyman and four
preachers had sermonized against "the leniency of constituted authority
with criminal anarchy," Mr. Kelly had the City Attorney go before Judge
Lansing and ask for an injunction.
Judge Lansing promptly granted the injunction. The New Day was
enjoined from appearing. The Workingmen's League was enjoined from
holding meetings.
Then the County Prosecutor, also a henchman of Kelly's, secured from
the Grand Jury--composed of farmers, merchants and owners of
factories--indictments against Thomas Colman and Victor Dorn for
inciting a riot.
Meanwhile Victor Dorn was rapidly recovering. With rare restraint
young Dr. Charlton did not fuss and fret and meddle, did not hamper
nature with his blundering efforts to assist, did not stuff
"nourishment" into his patient to decay and to produce poisonous blood.
He let the young man's superb vitality work the inevitable and speedy
cure. Thus, wounds and shocks, that have often been mistreated by
doctors into mortal, passed so quickly that only Selma Gordon and the
doctor himself realized how grave Victor's case had been. The day he
was indicted--just a week from the riot--he was sitting up and was
talking freely.
"Won't it set him back if I tell him all that has occurred?" said Selma.
"Talk to him as you would to me," replied Charlton. "He is a sensible
man. I've already told him pretty much everything. It has kept him
from fretting, to be able to lie there quietly and make his plans."
Had you looked in upon Victor and Selma, in Colman's little transformed
parlor, you would rather have thought Selma the invalid. The man in
the bed was pale and thin of face, but his eyes had the expression of
health and of hope. Selma had great circles under her eyes and her
expression was despair struggling to conceal itself. Those
indictments, those injunctions--how powerful the enemy were! How could
such an enemy, aroused new and inflexibly resolved, be
combatted?--especially when one had no money, no way of reaching the
people, no chance to organize.
"Dr. Charlton has told you?" said Selma.
"Day before yesterday," replied Victor. "Why do you look so
down-in-the-mouth, Selma?"
"It isn't easy to be cheerful, with you ill and the paper destroyed,"
replied she.
"But I'm not ill, and the paper isn't destroyed," said Victor. "Never
were either I or it doing such good work as now." His eyes were
dancing. "What more could one ask than to have such stupid enemies as
we've got?"
Selma did not lift her eyes. To her those enemies seemed anything but
stupid. Had they not ruined the League?
"I see you don't understand," pursued Victor. "No matter. You'll wear
a very different face two weeks from now."
"But," said Selma, "exactly what you said you were afraid of has
occurred. And now you say you're glad of it."
"I told you I was afraid Dick Kelly would make the one move that could
destroy us."
"But he has!" cried Selma.
Victor smiled. "No, indeed!" replied he.
"What worse could he have done?"
"I'll not tell you," said Victor. "I'd not venture to say aloud such a
dangerous thing as what I'd have done if I had been in his place.
Instead of doing that, he made us. We shall win this fall's election."
Selma lifted her head with a sudden gesture of hope. She had unbounded
confidence in Victor Dorn, and his tone was the tone of absolute
confidence.
"I had calculated on winning in five years. I had left the brutal
stupidity of our friend Kelly out of account."
"Then you see how you can hold meetings and start up the paper?"
"I don't want to do either," said Victor. "I want those injunctions to
stand. Those fools have done at a stroke what we couldn't have done in
years. They have united the working class. They--the few--have
forbidden us, the many, to unite or to speak. If those injunctions hold
for a month, nothing could stop our winning this fall.... I can't
understand how Dick Kelly could be so stupid. Five years ago these
moves of his would have been bad for us--yes, even three years ago.
But we've got too strong--and he doesn't realize! Selma, when you want
to win, always pray that your opponent will underestimate you."
"I still don't understand," said Selma. "None of us does. You must
explain to me, so that I'll know what to do."
"Do nothing," said Victor. "I shall be out a week from to-day. I
shall not go into the streets until I not only am well but look well."
"They arrested Tom Colman to-day," said Selma. "But they put the case
over until you'd be able to plead at the same time."
"That's right," said Victor. "They are playing into our hands!" And
he laughed as heartily as his bandages would permit.
"Oh, I don't understand--I don't understand at all!" cried Selma.
"Maybe you are all wrong about it."
"I was never more certain in my life," replied Victor. "Stop worrying
about it, my dear." And he patted her hands gently as they lay folded
in her lap. "I want you--all our people--to go round looking sad these
next few days. I want Dick Kelly to feel that he is on the right
track."
There came a knock at the door, and Mrs. Colman entered. She had been
a school teacher, and of all the occupations there is no other that
leaves such plain, such indelible traces upon manner, mind and soul.
Said she:
"Miss Jane Hastings is outside in her carriage--and wants to know if
she can see you."
Selma frowned. Victor said with alacrity: "Certainly. Bring her in,
Mrs. Colman."
Selma rose. "Wait until I can get out of the way," she cried.
"Sit down, and sit still," commanded Victor.
Selma continued to move toward the door. "No--I don't wish to see
her," she said.
Victor chagrined her by acquiescing without another word. "You'll look
in after supper?" he asked.
"If you want me," said the girl.
"Come back here," said Victor. "Wait, Mrs. Colman." When Selma was
standing by the bed he took her hand. "Selma," he said, "don't let
these things upset you. Believe me, I'm right. Can't you trust me?"
Selma had the look of a wild creature detained against its will. "I'm
not worried about the party--and the paper," she burst out. "I'm
worried about you."
"But I'm all right. Can't you see I'm almost well?"
Selma drew her hand away. "I'll be back about half-past seven," she
said, and bolted from the room.
Victor's good-natured, merry smile followed her to the door. When the
sound of her retreat by way of the rear of the house was dying away he
said to Mrs. Colman:
"Now--bring in the young lady. And please warn her that she must stay
at most only half an hour by that clock over there on the mantel."
Every day Jane had been coming to inquire, had been bringing or sending
flowers and fruit--which, by Dr. Charlton's orders, were not supposed
to enter the invalid's presence. Latterly she had been asking to see
Victor; she was surprised when Mrs. Colman returned with leave for her
to enter. Said Mrs. Colman:
"He's alone. Miss Gordon has just gone. You will see a clock on the
mantel in his room. You must not stay longer than half an hour."
"I shall be very careful what I say," said Jane.
"Oh, you needn't bother," said the ex-school teacher. "Dr. Charlton
doesn't believe in sick-room atmosphere. You must treat Mr. Dorn
exactly as you would a well person. If you're going to take on, or put
on, you'd better not go in at all."
"I'll do my best," said Jane, rather haughtily, for she did not like
Mrs. Colman's simple and direct manner. She was used to being treated
with deference, especially by the women of Mrs. Colman's class; and
while she disapproved of deference in theory, in practice she craved
it, and expected it, and was irritated if she did not get it. But, as
she realized how unattractive this weakness was, she usually took
perhaps more pains than does the average person to conceal it. That
day her nerves were too tense for petty precautions. However, Mrs.
Colman was too busy inspecting the details of Miss Hastings' toilet to
note Miss Hastings' manners.
Jane's nervousness vanished the instant she was in the doorway of the
parlor with Victor Dorn looking at her in that splendidly simple and
natural way of his. "So glad to see you," he said. "What a delightful
perfume you bring with you. I've noticed it before. I know it isn't
flowers, but it smells like flowers. With most perfumes you can smell
through the perfume to something that's the very reverse of sweet."
They were shaking hands. She said: "That nice woman who let me in
cautioned me not to put on a sick-room manner or indulge in sick-room
talk. It was quite unnecessary. You're looking fine."
"Ain't I, though?" exclaimed Victor. "I've never been so comfortable.
Just weak enough to like being waited on. You were very good to me the
night that stone knocked me over. I want to thank you, but I don't
know how. And the flowers, and the fruit--You have been so kind."
"I could do very little," said Jane, blushing and faltering. "And I
wanted to do--everything." Suddenly all energy, "Oh, Mr. Dorn, I heard
and saw it all. It was--INFAMOUS! And the lying newspapers--and all
the people I meet socially. They keep me in a constant rage."
Victor was smiling gayly. "The fortunes of war," said he. "I expect
nothing else. If they fought fair they couldn't fight at all. We, on
this side of the struggle, can afford to be generous and tolerant.
They are fighting the losing battle; they're trying to hold on to the
past, and of course it's slipping from them inch by inch. But we--we
are in step with the march of events."
When she was with him Jane felt that his cause was hers, also--was the
only cause. "When do you begin publishing your paper again?" she
asked. "As soon as you are sitting up?"
"Not for a month or so," replied he. "Not until after the election."
"Oh, I forgot about that injunction. You think that as soon as Davy
Hull's crowd is in they will let you begin again?"
He hesitated. "Not exactly that," he said. "But after the election
there will be a change."
Her eyes flashed. "And they have indicted you! I heard the newsboys
crying it and stopped and bought a paper. But I shall do something
about that. I am going straight from here to father. Ellen Clearwater
and I and Joe Wetherbe SAW. And Ellen and I will testify if it's
necessary--and will make Joe tell the truth. Do you know, he actually
had the impudence to try to persuade Ellen and me the next day that we
saw what the papers reported?"
"I believe it," said Victor. "So I believe that Joe convinced himself."
"You are too charitable," replied Jane. "He's afraid of his father."
"Miss Hastings," said Victor, "you suggested a moment ago that you
would influence your father to interfere in this matter of the
indictment."
"I'll promise you now that he will have it stopped," said Jane.
"You want to help the cause, don't you?"
Jane's eyes shifted, a little color came into her cheeks. "The
cause--and you," she said.
"Very well," said Victor. "Then you will not interfere. And if your
father talks of helping me you will discourage him all you can."
"You are saying that out of consideration for me. You're afraid I will
quarrel with my father."
"I hadn't thought of that," said Victor. "I can't tell you what I have
in mind. But I'll have to say this much--that if you did anything to
hinder those fellows from carrying out their plans against me and
against the League to the uttermost you'd be doing harm instead of
good."
"But they may send you to jail.... No, I forgot. You can give bail."
Victor's eyes had a quizzical expression. "Yes, I could give bail.
But even if I don't give bail, Miss Hastings--even if I am sent to
jail--Colman and I--still you must not interfere. You promise me?"
Jane hesitated. "I can't promise," she finally said.
"You must," said Victor. "You'll make a mess of my plans, if you
don't."
"You mean that?"
"I mean that. Your intentions are good. But you would only do
mischief--serious mischief."