A MEMORABLE MEETING
Mrs. Arnot had looked upon Haldane's degradation with feelings akin to
disgust and anger, but as long, sleepless hours passed, her thoughts
grew more gentle and compassionate. She was by nature an advocate rather
than a judge. Not the spirit of the disciples, that would call down fire
from heaven, but the spirit of the Master, who sought to lay his
healing, rescuing hand on every lost creature, always controlled her
eventually. Human desert did not count as much with her as human need,
and her own sorrows had made her heart tender toward the sufferings of
others, even though well merited.
The prospect that the handsome youth, the son of her old friend, would
cast himself down to perish in the slough of dissipation, was a tragedy
that wrung her heart with grief; and when at last she fell asleep it was
with tears upon her face.
Forebodings had followed Laura also, even into her dreams, and at last,
in a frightful vision, she saw her uncle placing a giant on guard over
the house. Her uncle had scarcely disappeared before Haldane tried to
escape, but the giant raised his mighty club, as large and heavy as the
mast of a ship, and was about to strike when she awoke with a violent
start.
In strange unison with her dream she still heard her uncle's voice in
the garden below. She sprang to the window, half expecting to see the
giant also, nor was she greatly reassured on observing an unknown man
posted in the summer-house and left there. Mr. Arnot's mysterious
action, and the fact that he was out at that early hour, added to the
disquiet of mind which the events of the preceding night had created.
Her simple home-life had hitherto flowed like a placid stream in sunny
meadows, but now it seemed as if the stream were entering a forest where
dark and ominous shadows were thrown across its surface. She was too
womanly to be indifferent to the fate of any human being. At the same
time she was still so much of a child, and so ignorant of the world,
that Haldane's action, even as she understood it, loomed up before her
imagination as something awful and portentous of unknown evils. She was
oppressed with a feeling that a crushing blow impended over him. Now,
almost as vividly as in her dream, she still saw the giant's club raised
high to strike. If it were only in a fairy tale, her sensitive spirit
would tremble at such a stroke, but inasmuch as it was falling on one
who had avowed passionate love for her, she felt almost as if she must
share in its weight. The idea of reciprocating any feeling that
resembled his passion had at first been absurd, and now, in view of what
he had shown himself capable, seemed impossible; and yet his strongly
expressed regard for her created a sort of bond between them in spite of
herself. She had realized the night before that he would be immediately
dismissed and sent home in disgrace; but her dream, and the glimpse she
had caught of her uncle and the observant stranger, who, as she saw,
still maintained his position, suggested worse consequences, whose very
vagueness made them all the more dreadful.
As it was still a long time before the breakfast hour, she again sought
her couch, and after a while fell into a troubled sleep, from which she
was awakened by her aunt. Hastily dressing, she joined Mrs. Arnot at a
late breakfast, and soon discovered that she was worried and anxious as
well as herself.
"Has Mr. Haldane gone out?" she asked.
"Yes; and what perplexes me is that two strangers followed him to the
street so rapidly that they almost seemed in pursuit."
Then Laura related what she had seen, and her aunt's face grew pale and
somewhat rigid as she recognized the fact that her husband was carrying
out some plan, unknown to her, which might involve a cruel blow to her
friend, Mrs. Haldane, and an overwhelming disgrace to Egbert Haldane. At
the same time the thought flashed upon her that the young man's offence
might be graver than she had supposed. But she only remarked quietly:
"I will go down to the office and see your uncle after breakfast."
"Oh, auntie, please let me go with you," said Laura nervously.
"I may wish to see my husband alone," replied Mrs. Arnot doubtfully,
foreseeing a possible interview which she would prefer her niece should
not witness.
"I will wait for you in the outer office, auntie, if you will only let
me go. I am so unstrung that I cannot bear to be left in the house
alone."
"Very well, then; we'll go together, and a walk in the open air will do
us both good."
As Mrs. Arnot was finishing her breakfast she listlessly took up the
morning "Courier," and with a sudden start read the heavy head-lines and
paragraph which Pat's unlucky venture as a reporter had occasioned.
"Come, Laura, let us go at once," said she, rising hastily; and as soon
as they could prepare themselves for the street they started toward the
central part of the city, each too busy with her own thoughts to speak
often, and yet each having a grateful consciousness of unspoken sympathy
and companionship.
As they passed down the main street they saw a noisy crowd coming up the
sidewalk toward them, and they crossed over to avoid it. But the
approaching throng grew so large and boisterous that they deemed it
prudent to enter the open door of a shop until it passed. Their somewhat
elevated position gave them a commanding view, and a policeman's uniform
at once indicated that it was an arrest that had drawn together the
loose human atoms that are always drifting about the streets. The
prisoner was followed by a retinue that might have bowed the head of an
old and hardened offender with shame--rude, idle, half-grown boys, with
their morbid interest in every thing tending to excitement and crime,
seedy loungers drawn away from saloon doors where they are as surely to
be found as certain coarse weeds in foul, neglected corners--a ragged,
unkempt, repulsive jumble of humanity, that filled the street with
gibes, slang, and profanity. Laura was about to retreat into the shop in
utter disgust, when her aunt exclaimed in a tone of sharp distress:
"Merciful Heaven! there is Egbert Haldane!"
With something like a shock of terror she recognized her quondam lover,
the youth who had stood at her side and turned her music. But as she saw
him now there appeared an immeasurable gulf between them; while her pity
for him was profound, it seemed as helpless and hopeless in his behalf
as if he were a guilty spirit that was being dragged away to final doom.
Her aunt's startled exclamation caught the young man's attention, for it
was a voice that he would detect among a thousand, and he turned his
livid face, with its agonized, hunted look, directly toward them.
As their eyes met--as he saw the one of all the world that he then most
dreaded to meet, Laura Romeyn, regarding him with a pale, frightened
face, as if he were a monster, a wild beast, nay, worse, a common thief
on his way to jail--he stopped abruptly, and for a second seemed to
meditate some desperate act. But when he saw the rabble closing on him,
and heard the officers growl in surly tones, "Move on," a sense of
helplessness as well as of shame overwhelmed him. He shivered visibly,
dashed his hat down over his eyes, and strode on, feeling at last that
the obscurity of a prison cell would prove a welcome refuge.
But Mrs. Arnot had recognized the intolerable suffering and humiliation
stamped on the young man's features; she had seen the fearful, shrinking
gaze at herself and Laura, the lurid gleam of desperation, and read
correctly the despairing gesture by which he sought to hide from them,
the rabble, and all the world, a countenance from which he already felt
that shame had blotted all trace of manhood.
Her face again wore a gray, rigid aspect, as if she had received a wound
that touched her heart; and, scarcely waiting for the miscellaneous
horde to pass, she took Laura's arm, and said briefly and almost
sternly:
"Come."
Mr. Arnot's equanimity was again destined to be disturbed. Until he had
commenced to carry out his scheme of striking fear into the hearts of
his employes, he had derived much grim satisfaction from its
contemplation. But never had a severe and unrelenting policy failed more
signally, and a partial consciousness of the fact annoyed him like a
constant stinging of nettles which he could not brush aside. When,
therefore, his wife entered, he greeted her with his heaviest frown, and
a certain twitching of his hands as he fumbled among his papers, which
showed that the man who at times seemed composed of equal parts of iron
and lead had at last reached a condition of nervous irritability which
might result in an explosion of wrath; and yet he made a desperate
effort at self-control, for he saw that his wife was in one of those
moods which he had learned to regard with a wholesome respect.
"You have sent Haldane to prison," she said calmly. Though her tone was
so quiet, there was in it a certain depth and tremble which her husband
well understood, but he only answered briefly:
"Yes; he must go there if he finds no bail."
"May I ask why?"
"He robbed me of a thousand dollars."
"Were there no extenuating circumstances?" Mrs. Arnot asked, after a
slight start.
"No, but many aggravating ones."
"Did he not come here of his own accord?"
"He could not have done otherwise. I had detectives watching him."
"He could have tried to do otherwise. Did he not offer some
explanation?"
"What he said amounted to a confession of the crime."
"What did he say?"
"I have not charged my mind with all the rash, foolish words of the
young scapegrace. It is sufficient for me that he and all in my employ
received a lesson which they will not soon forget. I wish you would
excuse me from further consideration of the subject at present. It has
cost me too much time already."
"You are correct," said Mrs. Arnot very quietly. "It is likely to prove
a very costly affair. I tremble to think what your lesson may cost this
young man, whom you have rendered reckless and desperate by this public
disgrace; I tremble to think what this event may cost my friend, his
mother. Of the pain it has cost me I will not speak--"
"Madam," interrupted Mr. Arnot harshly, "permit me to say that this is
an affair concerning which a sentimental woman can have no correct
understanding. I propose to carry on my business in the way which
experience has taught me is wise, and, with all respect to yourself, I
would suggest that in these matters of business I am in my own
province."
The ashen hue deepened upon Mrs. Arnot's face, but she answered quietly:
"I do not wish to overstep the bounds which should justly limit my
action and my interest in this matter. You will also do me the justice
to remember that I have never interfered in your business, and have
rarely asked you about it, though in the world's estimation I would have
some right to do so. But if such harshness, if such disastrous cruelty,
is necessary to your business, I must withdraw my means from it, for I
could not receive money stained, as it were, with blood. But of this
hereafter. I will now telegraph Mrs. Haldane to come directly to our
house--"
"To our house!" cried Mr. Arnot, perfectly aghast.
"Certainly. Can you suppose that, burdened with this intolerable
disgrace, she could endure the publicity of a hotel? I shall next visit
Haldane, for as I saw him in the street, with the rabble following, he
looked desperate enough to destroy himself."
"Now, I protest against all this weak sentimentality," said Mr. Arnot,
rising. "You take sides with a robber against your husband."
"I do not make light of Haldane's offence to you, and certainly shall
not to him. But it is his first offence, as far as we know, and, though
you have not seen fit to inform me of the circumstances, I cannot
believe that he committed a cool, deliberate theft. He could have been
made to feel his guilt without being crushed. The very gravity of his
wrong action might have awakened him to his danger, and have been the
turning-point of his life. He should have had at least one chance--God
gives us many."
"Well, well," said Mr. Arnot impatiently, "let his mother return the
money, and I will not prosecute. But why need Mrs. Haldane come to
Hillaton? All can be arranged by her lawyer."
"You know little of a mother's feelings if you can suppose she will not
come instantly."
"Well, then, when the money is paid she can take him home, that is,
after the forms of law are complied with."
"But he must remain in prison till the money is paid?"
"Certainly."
"You intimated that if any one went bail for him he need not go to
prison. I will become his security."
"O nonsense! I might as well give bail myself."
"Has he reached the prison yet?"
"I suppose he has," replied Mr. Arnot, taking care to give no hint of
the preliminary examination, for it would have annoyed him excessively
to have his wife appear at a police court almost in the light of an
antagonist to himself. And yet his stubborn pride would not permit him
to yield, and carry out with considerate delicacy the merciful policy
upon which he saw she was bent.
"Good-morning," said his wife very quietly, and she at once left her
husband's private room. Laura rose from her chair in the outer office
and welcomed her gladly, for, in her nervous trepidation, the minutes
had seemed like hours. Mrs. Arnot went to a telegraph office, and sent
the following despatch to Mrs. Haldane:
"Come to my house at once. Your son is well, but has met with
misfortune."
She then, with Laura, returned immediately home and ordered her carriage
for a visit to the prison. She also remembered with provident care that
the young man could not have tasted food that morning.