AN IDOL'S FALL
She turned. Blake had risen from his chair.
"What is it?" she asked.
He came up to her, the proofs still in his hands. He was unsteady upon
his feet, like a man dizzy from a heavy blow. The face which she had
been accustomed to see only as full of poise and strength and dignity
was now supremely haggard. When he spoke he spoke in uttermost
despair--huskily, chokingly, yet with an effort at control.
"Do you know what this is going to do to me?" he asked, holding out
the proof-sheets.
"Yes," she said.
"It is going to ruin me--reputation, fortune, future! Everything!"
She did not answer him.
"Yes, that is going to be the result," he continued in his slow, husky
voice. "Only one thing can save me."
"And that?"
He stared at her for a moment with wildly burning eyes. Then he wet
his dry lips.
"That is for you to countermand this extra."
"You ask me to do that?"
"It is my only chance. I do."
"I believe you are out of your mind!" she cried.
"I believe I am!" he said hoarsely.
"Think just a moment, and you will see that what you ask is quite
impossible. Just think a moment."
He was silent for a time. A tremor ran through him, his body
stiffened.
"No, I do not ask it," he said. "I am not trying to excuse myself now,
but when a thing falls so unexpectedly, so suddenly----" A choking at
the throat stopped him. "If I have seemed to whimper, I take it back.
You have beaten me, Katherine. But I hope I can take defeat like a
man."
She did not answer.
They continued gazing at one another. In the silence of the great
house they could hear each other's agitated breathing. Into his dark
face, now turned so gray, there crept a strange, drawn look--a look
that sent a tingling through all her body.
"What is it?" she asked.
"To think," he exclaimed in a low, far-away voice, almost to himself,
"that I have lost everything through you! Through you, through whom I
might have gained everything!"
"Gained everything? Through me?" she repeated. "How?"
"I am sure I would have kept out of such things--as this--if, five
years ago, you had said 'yes' instead of 'no'."
"Said yes?" she breathed.
"I think you would have kept me in the straight road. For I would not
have dared to fall below your standards. For I"--he drew a deep,
convulsive breath--"for I loved you, Katherine, better than anything
in all the world!"
She trembled at the intensity of his voice.
"You loved me--like that?"
"Yes. And since I have lost you, and lost everything, there is perhaps
no harm in my telling you something else. Only on that one night did I
open my lips about love to you--but I have loved you through all the
years since then. And ... and I still love you."
"You still love me?" she whispered.
"I still love you."
She stared at him.
"And yet all these months you have fought against me!"
"I have not fought against _you_," he said. "Somehow, I got started
in this way, and I have fought to win--have fought against exposure,
against defeat."
"And you still love me?" she murmured, still amazed.
As she gazed at him there shot into her a poignant pang of pity for
this splendid figure, tottering on the edge of the abyss. For an
instant she thought only of him.
"You asked me a moment ago to suppress the paper," she cried
impulsively. "Shall I do it?"
"I now ask nothing," said he.
"No--no--I can't suppress the paper!" she said in anguish. "That would
be to leave father disgraced, and Mr. Bruce disgraced, and the
city----But what are you going to do?"
"I do not know. This has come so suddenly. I have had no time to
think."
"You must at least have time to think! If you had an hour--two hours?"
There was a momentary flash of hope in his eyes.
"If I had an hour----"
"Then we'll delay the paper!" she cried.
She sprang excitedly to the telephone upon Blake's desk. The next
instant she had Billy Harper on the wire, Blake watching her,
motionless in his tracks.
"Mr. Harper," she said, "it is now half-past ten. I want you to hold
the paper back till eleven-thirty.... What's that?"
She listened for a moment, then slowly hung up the receiver. She did
not at once turn round, but when she did her face was very white.
"Well?" Blake asked.
"I'm sorry," she said, barely above a whisper. "The paper has been
upon the street for ten minutes."
They gazed at one another for several moments, both motionless, both
without a word. Then thin, sharp cries penetrated the room. Blake's
lips parted.
"What is that?" he asked mechanically.
Katherine crossed and raised a window. Through it came shrill, boyish
voices:
"Extry! Extry! All about the great Blake conspiracy!"
These avant couriers of Blake's disgrace sped onward down the avenue.
Katherine turned slowly back to Blake. He still stood in the same
posture, leaning heavily upon an arm that rested on his mahogany desk.
He did not speak. Nor was there anything that Katherine could say.
It was for but a moment or two that they stood in this strained
silence. Then a dim outcry sounded from the centre of the town. In
but a second, it seemed, this outcry had mounted to a roar.
"It is the crowd--at the Square," said Blake, in a dry whisper.
"Yes."
"The extra--they have seen it."
The roar rose louder--louder. It was like the thunder of an on-rushing
flood that has burst its dam. It began to separate into distinct
cries, and the shuffle of running feet.
"They are coming this way," said Blake in his same dry, mechanical
tone.
There was no need for Katherine to reply. The fact was too apparent.
She moved to the open window, and stood there waiting. The roar grew
nearer--nearer. In but a moment, it seemed to her, the front of this
human flood appeared just beyond her own house. The next moment the
crowd began to pour into Blake's wide lawn--by the hundreds--by the
thousands. Many of them still carried in clenched hands crumpled
copies of the _Express_. Here and there, luridly illuminating the wild
scene, blazed a smoking torch of a member of the Blake Marching Club.
And out of the mouths of this great mob, which less than a short hour
before had lauded him to the stars--out of the mouths of these his
erewhile idolaters, came the most fearful imprecations, the most
fearful cries for vengeance.
Katherine became aware that Blake was standing behind her gazing down
upon this human storm. She turned, and in his pallid face she plainly
read the passionate regret that was surging through his being. His had
been the chance to serve these people, and serve them with honour to
himself--honour that hardly had a limit. And now he had lost them,
lost them utterly and forever, and with them had lost everything!
Some one below saw his face at the window and swore shriekingly to
have his life. Blake drew quickly back and stood again beside his
desk. He was white--living flesh could not be more white--but he still
maintained that calm control which had succeeded his first desperate
consternation.
"What are you going to do?" Katherine asked.
He very quietly drew out a drawer of his desk and picked up a pistol.
"What!" she cried. "You are not going to fight them off!"
"No. I have injured enough of them already," he replied in his
measured tone. "Keep all this from my mother as long as you can--at
least till she is stronger."
As she saw his intention Katherine sprang forward and caught the
weapon he was turning upon himself.
"No! No! You must not do that!"
"But I must," he returned quietly. "Listen!"
The cries without had grown more violent. The heavy front door was
resounding with blows.
"Don't you see that this is the only thing that's left?" he asked.
"And don't you see," she said rapidly, "its effect upon your mother?
In her weakened condition, your death will be her death. You just said
you had injured enough already. Do you want to kill one more? And
besides, and in spite of all," she added with a sudden fire, "there's
a big man in you! Face it like that man!"
He hesitated. Then he relaxed his hold upon the pistol, still without
speaking. Katherine returned it to its place and closed the drawer.
At this instant Old Hosie, who had been awaiting Katherine below,
rushed excitedly into the library.
"Don't you know hell's broke loose?" he cried to Katherine. "They'll
have that front door down in a minute! Come on!"
But Katherine could not take her gaze from Blake's pale, set face.
"What are you going to do?" she asked again.
"What is he going to do?" exclaimed Old Hosie. "Better ask what that
mob is going to do. Listen to them!"
A raging cry for Blake's life ascended, almost deafening their ears.
"No, no--they must not do that!" exclaimed Katherine, and breathlessly
she darted from the room.
Old Hosie looked grimly at Blake.
"You deserve it, Blake. But I'm against mob law. Quick, slip out the
back way. You can just catch the eleven o'clock express and get out of
the State."
Without waiting to see the effect of his advice Old Hosie hurried
after Katherine. She had reached the bottom of the stairway just as
cooperated shoulders crashed against the door and made it shiver on
its hinges. Her intention was to go out and speak to the crowd, but to
open the front door was to admit and be overwhelmed by the maddened
mob. She knew the house almost as well as she knew her own, and she
recalled that the dining-room had a French window which opened upon
the piazza on the side away from the crowd. She ran back through the
darkened rooms, swung open this window and ran about the piazza to the
front door. As she reached it, the human battering-ram drew back for
another infuriated lunge.
She sprang between the men and the door.
"Stop! Stop!" she cried.
"What the hell's this!" ejaculated the leader of the assault.
"Say, if it ain't a woman!" cried a member of the battering-ram.
"Out of the way with you!" roared the leader in a fury.
But she placed her back against the door.
"Stop--men! Give me just one word!"
"Better stop this, boys!" gasped a man at the foot of the steps,
struggling in half a dozen pairs of arms. "I warn you! It's against
the law!"
"Shut up, Jim Nichols; this is our business!" cried the leader to the
helpless sheriff. "And now, you"--turning again to Katherine--"out of
the way!"
The seething, torch-lit mob on the lawn below repeated his cry. The
leader, his wrath increasing, seized Katherine roughly by the arm and
jerked her aside:
"Now, all together, boys!" he shouted.
But at that instant upon the front of the mob there fell a tall, lean
fury with a raging voice and a furiously swinging cane. It was Old
Hosie. Before this fierce chastisement, falling so suddenly upon their
heads, the battering-ram for a moment pressed backward.
"You fools! You idiots!" the old man cried, and his high, sharp voice
cut through all the noises of the mob. "Is that the way you treat the
woman that saved you!"
"Saved us?" some one shouted incredulously. "Her save us?"
"Yes, saved you!" Old Hosie cried in a rising voice down upon the
heads of the crowd. His cane had ceased its flailing; the crowd had
partially ceased its uproar. "Do you know who that woman is? She's
Katherine West!"
"Oh, the lady lawyer!" rose several jeering voices.
For the moment Old Hosie's tall figure, with his cane outstretched,
had the wrathful majesty of a prophet of old, denouncing his foolish
and reprobate people.
"Go on, all of you, laugh at her to-night!" he shouted. "But after
to-night you'll all slink around Westville, ashamed to look anything
in the face higher than a dog! For half a year you've been sneering at
Katherine West. And see how she's paid you back! It was she that found
out your enemy. It was she that dug up all the facts and evidence
you've read in those papers there. It was she that's saved you from
being robbed. And now----"
"She done all that?" exclaimed a voice from the now stilled mob.
"Yes, she done all that!" shouted Old Hosie. "And what's more, she got
out that paper in your hands. While you've been sneering at her, she's
been working for you. And now, after all this, you're not even willing
to listen to a word from her!" His voice rose in its contemptuous
wrath still one note higher. "And now listen to me! I'm going to tell
you exactly what you are! You are all----"
But Westville never learned exactly what it was. Just then Old Hosie
was firmly pulled back by the tails of his Prince Albert coat and
found himself in the possession of the panting, dishevelled sheriff of
Galloway County.
"You've made your point, Hosie," said Jim Nichols. "They'll listen to
her now."
Katherine stepped forward into the space Old Hosie had involuntarily
vacated. With the torchlights flaring up into her face she stood there
breathing deeply, awed into momentary silence by the great crowd and
by the responsibility that weighed upon her.
"If, as Mr. Hollingsworth has said," she began in a tremulous but
clear voice that carried to the farthest confines of the lawn, "you
owe me anything, all I ask in return is that you refrain from mob
violence;" and she went on to urge upon them the lawful course. The
crowd, taken aback by the accusations and revelations Old Hosie had
flung so hotly into their faces, strangely held by her impassioned
woman's figure pedestalled above them on the porch, listened to her
with an attention and respect which they as yet were far from
understanding.
She felt that she had won her audience, that she had turned them
back to lawful measures, when suddenly there was a roar of "Blake!
Blake!"--the stilled crowd became again a mob--and she saw that the
focus of their gaze had shifted from her to a point behind her.
Looking about, she saw that the door had opened, and that Blake,
pale and erect, was standing in the doorway. The crowd tried to
surge forward, but the front ranks, out of their new and but
half-comprehended respect for Katherine, stood like a wall against the
charge that would have overwhelmed her.
Blake moved forward to her side.
"I should like to speak to them, if I can," he said quietly.
Katherine held up her hand for silence. The mob hissed and cursed him,
and tried to break through the human fortification of the front ranks.
Through it all Blake stood silent, pale, without motion. Katherine,
her hand still upraised, continued to cry out for silence; and after a
time the uproar began in a measure to diminish.
Katherine took quick advantage of the lull.
"Gentlemen," she called out, "won't you please give Mr. Blake just a
word!"
Cries that they should give him a chance to speak ran through
the crowd, and thus abjured by its own members the mob quieted
yet further. While they were subsiding into order Blake looked
steadily out upon this sea of hostile faces. Katherine watched him
breathlessly, wondering what he was about to say. It swept in upon
her, with a sudden catching of the throat, that he made a fine figure
standing there so straight, so white, with so little sign of fear; and
despite what the man had done, again some of her old admiration for
him thrilled through her, and with it an infinite pang of regret for
what he might have been.
At length there was moderate order, and Blake began to speak.
"Gentlemen, I do not wish to plead for myself," he said quietly, yet
in his far-carrying voice. "What I have done is beyond your
forgiveness. I merely desire to say that I am guilty; to say that I am
here to give myself into your hands. Do with me as you think best. If
you prefer immediate action, I shall go with you without resistance.
If you wish to let the law take its course, then"--here he made a
slight gesture toward Jim Nichols, who stood beside him--"then I shall
give myself into the hands of the sheriff. I await your choice."
With that he paused. A perfect hush had fallen on the crowd. This man
who had dominated them in the days of his glory, dominated them for at
least a flickering moment in this the hour of his fall. For that brief
moment all were under the spell of their habit to honour him, the
spell of his natural dignity, the spell of his direct words.
Then the spell was over. The storm broke loose again. There were cries
for immediate action, and counter cries in favour of the law. The two
cries battled with each other. For a space there was doubt as to which
was the stronger. Then that for the law rose louder and louder and
drowned the other out.
Sheriff Nichols slipped his arm through Blake's.
"I guess you're going to come with me," he said.
"I am ready," was Blake's response.
He turned about to Katherine.
"You deserved to win," he said quietly. "Thank you. Good-by."
"Good-by," said she.
The sheriff drew him away. Katherine, panting, leaning heavily against
a pillar of the porch, watched the pair go down the steps--watched the
great crowd part before them--watched them march through this human
alley-way, lighted by smoking campaign torches--watched them till they
had passed into the darkness in the direction of the jail. Then she
dizzily reached out and caught Old Hosie's arm.
"Help me home," she said weakly. "I--I feel sick."