CONFESSION
The face of the dying boy haunted the doctor's imagination. With his
eyes closed or open, at noon or alone at night the pity and the horror
of his lonely death gripped him. A boy of twenty, weak, hungry, ragged,
alone, had dared to lift his thin arm above his head and charge the
entrenched authority of the civilized world.
Was he, with other theorists, responsible for the mad act?
He began to think that Tolstoy is right in his assertion that human
progress is a march of ideas--and that the day of revolution by
bloodshed has passed. He began to fear that his struggle with Bivens in
his long-drawn and fiercely contested lawsuit was an act of the same
essential quality of blind physical violence. He began to see that the
real motive back of his struggle was hatred of the man--this little
counter jumper, who had destroyed his business. It was the irony of
such a fate that sunk its poisoned dagger into his heart. He faced the
fact at last without flinching.
He rose and paced the floor of his library for a half-hour with
measured tread. He stopped suddenly and clenched his big fists
instinctively.
"I do hate him--with undying, everlasting hatred, and I pray God to
give me greater strength to hate him more!"
Again the picture of the pale, torn, blood-stained face, with its mute
piteous appeal, rose before him. The anger slowly melted out of his
heart and the old thought came back:
"How rich is my life after all compared to his!"
And then he made a mental inventory of his assets, with sad results. He
had tried for a long time not to face those facts. But if he gave up
the suit he must face them. He had identified this action at last with
his faith in the very existence of justice. To realize that the element
of personal hatred was the motive power back of it was a shock to the
whole structure of his character.
He rose with sudden determination. He would not surrender. He would
fight it out with this little swarthy scoundrel, win or lose. His house
was mortgaged, the last dollar of his savings he had spent in helping
others and the money set aside to finish Harriet's course in music had
been lost in the panic. He would fight it out somehow and win. But the
one thing that must not fail was the perfection of his girl's voice.
The court of appeals would certainly render their decision before her
next term's work would begin. She could rest during the summer. It
would do her good. If he could be firm with his tenants and collect his
room-rents promptly from everyone, the income from his house was still
sufficient to pay the interest on the mortgage and give them a little
to eat. It would be enough. Food for the soul was more important. He
resolved to ask Stuart to collect his rents.
He looked up and Harriet stood smiling at him.
"What an actor you would have made, Papa!" she exclaimed.
"Why?"
"I've been watching you play a great scene, all the characters by
yourself."
"A foolish habit, dear!" the father laughed. "Always muttering and
talking to myself. I suppose I'll be arrested for a lunatic some day."
He stopped suddenly and looked at Harriet closely.
"Come here, Baby."
She came and stood beside his chair. He pressed her hand tenderly.
"What have you been crying about?" he asked anxiously.
"Oh, nothing much," was the low answer. "I really don't know--perhaps
the thing that makes the birds out there in the Square chirp while the
snow is still on the ground, the feeling that Spring is coming."
"You're keeping something from me, dearest," he whispered, slipping his
arm about her waist. "Tell me."
"You really believe in my voice, don't you?" she asked slowly.
"Believe in it? Do I believe in God?"
"Could I go abroad right away and finish my work there?"
She asked the question with such painful intensity, the father looked
up with a start.
"What's the matter, dear?"
The girl slipped her arm around his neck with a sob.
He bent and kissed the golden hair, stroking it fondly until she was
calmer.
"Why do you wish to go now, child?" he asked at last.
"I've a confession to make, Papa dear."
The little head sank low and the arm tightened its grip about his neck.
"What is it, darling? I'm sure it's nothing of which you're ashamed."
"No, something of which I'm proud. Something so sweet and wonderful in
itself, the very joy of it I feel sometimes will kill me. I'm in love,
desperately and hopelessly."
Again a sob caught her voice, and the father's arms drew her to his
heart and held her.
"But why hopelessly, my baby?" he asked. "Your hair is beaten gold,
your eyes are deep and true, your slender little form has all the
symmetry and beauty of a sylph. You are young, radiant, glorious, and
your voice the angels would envy."
"But the man I love doesn't realize all that yet, Papa dear. He is
bound by the memories of the past to a woman he once loved, a woman who
is evil at heart, and though she betrayed him for the lust of money, is
determined to hold him still her slave. But she shall not. I'll fight
for him! And you'll help me, Papa, won't you?"
The father drew her close.
"Won't I--just wait and see!--But you haven't told me his name? I've
been very blind, I fear."
"You've never guessed?"
She lifted her face to his in surprise.
"No."
"Jim."
"Our Jim Stuart?"
She nodded. Her voice wouldn't work.
"Oh, I see, I see!" the father mused. "The first love of a child's
heart grown slowly into the great passion of life."
Again the little head nodded.
"You understand now why I wish to get away, to finish my work abroad.
I'll be nearer to him with the ocean between us. He'll miss me then. I
feel it, know it. When I return he will be proud of my voice. I shall
go mad if I stay here and see him dangling at that woman's heels. I
watched her with him to-day, devouring him with her eyes, her millions
won by his betrayal, yet proud, miserable, envious, and determined to
wreck his life. But I shall return in time to make him know. He loves
music. I shall sing when he hears me as I never sang before, and I
shall say to him then all the unspoken things I dare not put in speech.
You understand, Papa dear, you'll send me away and help me to win?"
The father kissed the trembling lips and answered firmly.
"Yes, I'll raise the money for you right away."
And then for half an hour she lay in his arms while he whispered
beautiful thoughts of her future--things he had promised himself to say
often before and had not said, until at last she smiled with joy. When
he sent her to bed he had kissed the last tear away.
She looked at him wistfully at the door.
"I'm not going to make this fight for fame and money--it's all for the
heart of the man I love."
"I understand, dear!" he answered cheerily as he threw her a last kiss.
When she had gone and he heard her door close, he stood for a moment,
lost in thought, and then slowly exclaimed:
"And now I've got to surrender."