they make trouble enough through the day, without prowling around before
decent people are up? I wonder, now, if they're after me.” He dropped
on his knees when he reached the room where the baby lay, and peered
cautiously out of the window at the detectives, who had been joined by
two other men, with whom they were talking earnestly. Raegen knew
the new-comers for two of McGonegal's friends, and concluded, with a
momentary flush of pride and self-importance, that the detectives were
forced to be up at this early hour solely on his account. But this was
followed by the afterthought that he must have hurt McGonegal seriously,
and that he was wanted in consequence very much. This disturbed him
most, he was surprised to find, because it precluded his going forth in
search of food. “I guess I can't get you that milk I was looking for,”
he said, jocularly, to the baby, for the excitement elated him. “The sun
outside isn't good for me health.” The baby settled herself in his arms
and slept again, which sobered Rags, for he argued it was a bad sign,
and his own ravenous appetite warned him how the child suffered. When
he again offered her the mixture he had prepared for her, she took it
eagerly, and Rags breathed a sigh of satisfaction. Then he ate some of
the bread and ham himself and swallowed half the whiskey, and stretched
out beside the child and fanned her while she slept. It was something
strangely incomprehensible to Rags that he should feel so keen
a satisfaction in doing even this little for her, but he gave up
wondering, and forgot everything else in watching the strange beauty
of the sleeping baby and in the odd feeling of responsibility and
self-respect she had brought to him.
He did not feel it coming on, or he would have fought against it, but
the heat of the day and the sleeplessness of the night before, and the
fumes of the whiskey on his empty stomach, drew him unconsciously into
a dull stupor, so that the paper fan slipped from his hand, and he sank
back on the bedding into a heavy sleep. When he awoke it was nearly dusk
and past six o'clock, as he knew by the newsboys calling the sporting
extras on the street below. He sprang up, cursing himself, and filled
with bitter remorse.
“I'm a drunken fool, that's what I am,” said Rags, savagely. “I've let
her lie here all day in the heat with no one to watch her.” Margaret was
breathing so softly that he could hardly discern any life at all, and
his heart almost stopped with fear. He picked her up and fanned and
patted her into wakefulness again and then turned desperately to the
window and looked down. There was no one he knew or who knew him as far
as he could tell on the street, and he determined recklessly to risk
another sortie for food.
“Why, it's been near two days that child's gone without eating,” he
said, with keen self-reproach, “and here you've let her suffer to save
yourself a trip to the Island. You're a hulking big loafer, you are,” he
ran on, muttering, “and after her coming to you and taking notice of you
and putting her face to yours like an angel.” He slipped off his shoes
and picked his way cautiously down the stairs.
As he reached the top of the first flight a newsboy passed, calling the
evening papers, and shouted something which Rags could not distinguish.
He wished he could get a copy of the paper. It might tell him, he
thought, something about himself. The boy was coming nearer, and Rags
stopped and leaned forward to listen.
“Extry! Extry!” shouted the newsboy, running. “Sun, World, and Mail.
Full account of the murder of Pike McGonegal by Ragsey Raegen.”
The lights in the street seemed to flash up suddenly and grow dim again,
leaving Rags blind and dizzy.
“Stop,” he yelled, “stop. Murdered, no, by God, no,” he cried,
staggering half-way down the stairs; “stop, stop!” But no one heard
Rags, and the sound of his own voice halted him. He sank back weak and
sick upon the top step of the stairs and beat his hands together upon
his head.
“It's a lie, it's a lie,” he whispered, thickly. “I struck him in
self-defence, s'help me. I struck him in self-defence. He drove me to
it. He pulled his gun on me. I done it in self-defence.”
And then the whole appearance of the young tough changed, and the terror
and horror that had showed on his face turned to one of low sharpness
and evil cunning. His lips drew together tightly and he breathed quickly
through his nostrils, while his fingers locked and unlocked around his
knees. All that he had learned on the streets and wharves and roof-tops,
all that pitiable experience and dangerous knowledge that had made him
a leader and a hero among the thieves and bullies of the river-front he
called to his assistance now. He faced the fact flatly and with the cool
consideration of an uninterested counsellor. He knew that the history of
his life was written on Police Court blotters from the day that he was
ten years old, and with pitiless detail; that what friends he had he
held more by fear than by affection, and that his enemies, who were
many, only wanted just such a chance as this to revenge injuries long
suffered and bitterly cherished, and that his only safety lay in secret
and instant flight. The ferries were watched, of course; he knew that
the depots, too, were covered by the men whose only duty was to watch
the coming and to halt the departing criminal. But he knew of one old
man who was too wise to ask questions and who would row him over the
East River to Astoria, and of another on the west side whose boat was
always at the disposal of silent white-faced young men who might come at
any hour of the night or morning, and whom he would pilot across to the
Jersey shore and keep well away from the lights of the passing ferries
and the green lamp of the police boat. And once across, he had only to
change his name and write for money to be forwarded to that name, and
turn to work until the thing was covered up and forgotten. He rose to
his feet in his full strength again, and intensely and agreeably excited
with the danger, and possibly fatal termination, of his adventure, and
then there fell upon him, with the suddenness of a blow, the remembrance
of the little child lying on the dirty bedding in the room above.
“I can't do it,” he muttered fiercely; “I can't do it,” he cried, as if
he argued with some other presence. “There's a rope around me neck,
and the chances are all against me; it's every man for himself and no
favor.” He threw his arms out before him as if to push the thought away
from him and ran his fingers through his hair and over his face. All of
his old self rose in him and mocked him for a weak fool, and showed
him just how great his personal danger was, and so he turned and dashed
forward on a run, not only to the street, but as if to escape from the
other self that held him back. He was still without his shoes, and in
his bare feet, and he stopped as he noticed this and turned to go up
stairs for them, and then he pictured to himself the baby lying as he
had left her, weakly unconscious and with dark rims around her eyes,
and he asked himself excitedly what he would do, if, on his return, she
should wake and smile and reach out her hands to him.
“I don't dare go back,” he said, breathlessly. “I don't dare do it;
killing's too good for the likes of Pike McGonegal, but I'm not fighting
babies. An' maybe, if I went back, maybe I wouldn't have the nerve to
leave her; I can't do it,” he muttered, “I don't dare go back.” But
still he did not stir, but stood motionless, with one hand trembling on
the stair-rail and the other clenched beside him, and so fought it on
alone in the silence of the empty building.
The lights in the stores below came out one by one, and the minutes
passed into half-hours, and still he stood there with the noise of the
streets coming up to him below speaking of escape and of a long life of
ill-regulated pleasures, and up above him the baby lay in the darkness
and reached out her hands to him in her sleep.
The surly old sergeant of the Twenty-first Precinct station-house had
read the evening papers through for the third time and was dozing in the
fierce lights of the gas-jet over the high desk when a young man with a
white, haggard face came in from the street with a baby in his arms.
“I want to see the woman thet look after the station-house--quick,” he
said.
The surly old sergeant did not like the peremptory tone of the young man
nor his general appearance, for he had no hat, nor coat, and his feet
were bare; so he said, with deliberate dignity, that the char-woman was
up-stairs lying down, and what did the young man want with her? “This
child,” said the visitor, in a queer thick voice, “she's sick. The
heat's come over her, and she ain't had anything to eat for two days,
an' she's starving. Ring the bell for the matron, will yer, and send one
of your men around for the house surgeon.” The sergeant leaned forward
comfortably on his elbows, with his hands under his chin so that the
gold lace on his cuffs shone effectively in the gaslight. He believed he
had a sense of humor and he chose this unfortunate moment to exhibit it.
“Did you take this for a dispensary, young man?” he asked; “or,” he
continued, with added facetiousness, “a foundling hospital?”
The young man made a savage spring at the barrier in front of the high
desk. “Damn you,” he panted, “ring that bell, do you hear me, or I'll
pull you off that seat and twist your heart out.”
The baby cried at this sudden outburst, and Rags fell back, patting
it with his hand and muttering between his closed teeth. The sergeant
called to the men of the reserve squad in the reading-room beyond, and
to humor this desperate visitor, sounded the gong for the janitress. The
reserve squad trooped in leisurely with the playing-cards in their hands
and with their pipes in their mouths.
“This man,” growled the sergeant, pointing with the end of his cigar to
Rags, “is either drunk, or crazy, or a bit of both.”
The char-woman came down stairs majestically, in a long, loose wrapper,
fanning herself with a palm-leaf fan, but when she saw the child, her
majesty dropped from her like a cloak, and she ran toward her and caught
the baby up in her arms. “You poor little thing,” she murmured, “and,
oh, how beautiful!” Then she whirled about on the men of the reserve
squad: “You, Conners,” she said, “run up to my room and get the milk out
of my ice-chest; and Moore, put on your coat and go around and tell the
surgeon I want to see him. And one of you crack some ice up fine in a
towel. Take it out of the cooler. Quick, now.”
Raegen came up to her fearfully. “Is she very sick?” he begged; “she
ain't going to die, is she?”
“Of course not,” said the woman, promptly, “but she's down with
the heat, and she hasn't been properly cared for; the child looks
half-starved. Are you her father?” she asked, sharply. But Rags did not
speak, for at the moment she had answered his question and had said the
baby would not die, he had reached out swiftly, and taken the child out
of her arms and held it hard against his breast, as though he had lost
her and some one had been just giving her back to him.
His head was bending over hers, and so he did not see Wade and Heffner,
the two ward detectives, as they came in from the street, looking hot,
and tired, and anxious. They gave a careless glance at the group, and
then stopped with a start, and one of them gave a long, low whistle.
“Well,” exclaimed Wade, with a gasp of surprise and relief. “So Raegen,
you're here, after all, are you? Well, you did give us a chase, you did.
Who took you?”
The men of the reserve squad, when they heard the name of the man for
whom the whole force had been looking for the past two days, shifted
their positions slightly, and looked curiously at Rags, and the woman
stopped pouring out the milk from the bottle in her hand, and stared at
him in frank astonishment. Raegen threw back his head and shoulders, and
ran his eyes coldly over the faces of the semicircle of men around him.
“Who took me?” he began defiantly, with a swagger of braggadocio, and
then, as though it were hardly worth while, and as though the presence
of the baby lifted him above everything else, he stopped, and raised
her until her cheek touched his own. It rested there a moment, while Rag
stood silent.
“Who took me?” he repeated, quietly, and without lifting his eyes from
the baby's face. “Nobody took me,” he said. “I gave myself up.”
One morning, three months later, when Raegen had stopped his ice-cart in
front of my door, I asked him whether at any time he had ever regretted
what he had done.
“Well, sir,” he said, with easy superiority, “seeing that I've shook the
gang, and that the Society's decided her folks ain't fit to take care of
her, we can't help thinking we are better off, see?
{Illustration with caption: She'd reach out her hands and kiss me.}
“But, as for my ever regretting it, why, even when things was at the
worst, when the case was going dead against me, and before that cop, you
remember, swore to McGonegal's drawing the pistol, and when I used to
sit in the Tombs expecting I'd have to hang for it, well, even then,
they used to bring her to see me every day, and when they'd lift her up,
and she'd reach out her hands and kiss me through the bars, why--they
could have took me out and hung me, and been damned to 'em, for all I'd
have cared.”
THE OTHER WOMAN
Young Latimer stood on one of the lower steps of the hall stairs,
leaning with one hand on the broad railing and smiling down at her. She
had followed him from the drawing-room and had stopped at the entrance,
drawing the curtains behind her, and making, unconsciously, a dark
background for her head and figure. He thought he had never seen her
look more beautiful, nor that cold, fine air of thorough breeding about
her which was her greatest beauty to him, more strongly in evidence.
“Well, sir,” she said, “why don't you go?”
He shifted his position slightly and leaned more comfortably upon the
railing, as though he intended to discuss it with her at some length.
“How can I go,” he said, argumentatively, “with you standing
there--looking like that?”
“I really believe,” the girl said, slowly, “that he is afraid; yes, he
is afraid. And you always said,” she added, turning to him, “you were so
brave.”
“Oh, I am sure I never said that,” exclaimed the young man, calmly. “I
may be brave, in fact, I am quite brave, but I never said I was. Some
one must have told you.”
“Yes, he is afraid,” she said, nodding her head to the tall clock across
the hall, “he is temporizing and trying to save time. And afraid of a
man, too, and such a good man who would not hurt any one.”
“You know a bishop is always a very difficult sort of a person,” he
said, “and when he happens to be your father, the combination is just
a bit awful. Isn't it now? And especially when one means to ask him for
his daughter. You know it isn't like asking him to let one smoke in his
study.”
“If I loved a girl,” she said, shaking her head and smiling up at him,
“I wouldn't be afraid of the whole world; that's what they say in books,
isn't it? I would be so bold and happy.”
“Oh, well, I'm bold enough,” said the young man, easily; “if I had
not been, I never would have asked you to marry me; and I'm happy
enough--that's because I did ask you. But what if he says no,” continued
the youth; “what if he says he has greater ambitions for you, just as
they say in books, too. What will you do? Will you run away with me? I
can borrow a coach just as they used to do, and we can drive off through
the Park and be married, and come back and ask his blessing on our
knees--unless he should overtake us on the elevated.”
“That,” said the girl, decidedly, “is flippant, and I'm going to leave
you. I never thought to marry a man who would be frightened at the very
first. I am greatly disappointed.”
She stepped back into the drawing-room and pulled the curtains to behind
her, and then opened them again and whispered, “Please don't be long,”
and disappeared. He waited, smiling, to see if she would make another
appearance, but she did not, and he heard her touch the keys of the
piano at the other end of the drawing-room. And so, still smiling and
with her last words sounding in his ears, he walked slowly up the stairs
and knocked at the door of the bishop's study. The bishop's room was not
ecclesiastic in its character. It looked much like the room of any man
of any calling who cared for his books and to have pictures about him,
and copies of the beautiful things he had seen on his travels. There
were pictures of the Virgin and the Child, but they were those that are
seen in almost any house, and there were etchings and plaster casts, and
there were hundreds of books, and dark red curtains, and an open fire
that lit up the pots of brass with ferns in them, and the blue and
white plaques on the top of the bookcase. The bishop sat before his
writing-table, with one hand shading his eyes from the light of a
red-covered lamp, and looked up and smiled pleasantly and nodded as the
young man entered. He had a very strong face, with white hair hanging
at the side, but was still a young man for one in such a high office.
He was a man interested in many things, who could talk to men of any
profession or to the mere man of pleasure, and could interest them in
what he said, and force their respect and liking. And he was very good,
and had, they said, seen much trouble.
“I am afraid I interrupted you,” said the young man, tentatively.
“No, I have interrupted myself,” replied the bishop. “I don't seem to
make this clear to myself,” he said, touching the paper in front of
him, “and so I very much doubt if I am going to make it clear to any one
else. However,” he added, smiling, as he pushed the manuscript to one
side, “we are not going to talk about that now. What have you to tell me
that is new?”
The younger man glanced up quickly at this, but the bishop's face
showed that his words had had no ulterior meaning, and that he suspected
nothing more serious to come than the gossip of the clubs or a report of
the local political fight in which he was keenly interested, or on their
mission on the East Side. But it seemed an opportunity to Latimer.
“I _have_ something new to tell you,” he said, gravely, and with
his eyes turned toward the open fire, “and I don't know how to do it
exactly. I mean I don't just know how it is generally done or how to
tell it best.” He hesitated and leaned forward, with his hands locked
in front of him, and his elbows resting on his knees. He was not in the
least frightened. The bishop had listened to many strange stories, to
many confessions, in this same study, and had learned to take them as a
matter of course; but to-night something in the manner of the young man
before him made him stir uneasily, and he waited for him to disclose the
object of his visit with some impatience.
“I will suppose, sir,” said young Latimer, finally, “that you know me
rather well--I mean you know who my people are, and what I am doing here
in New York, and who my friends are, and what my work amounts to. You
have let me see a great deal of you, and I have appreciated your
doing so very much; to so young a man as myself it has been a great
compliment, and it has been of great benefit to me. I know that better
than any one else. I say this because unless you had shown me this
confidence it would have been almost impossible for me to say to
you what I am going to say now. But you have allowed me to come here
frequently, and to see you and talk with you here in your study, and to
see even more of your daughter. Of course, sir, you did not suppose that
I came here only to see you. I came here because I found that if I did
not see Miss Ellen for a day, that that day was wasted, and that I spent
it uneasily and discontentedly, and the necessity of seeing her even
more frequently has grown so great that I cannot come here as often as
I seem to want to come unless I am engaged to her, unless I come as her
husband that is to be.” The young man had been speaking very slowly and
picking his words, but now he raised his head and ran on quickly.
“I have spoken to her and told her how I love her, and she has told me
that she loves me, and that if you will not oppose us, will marry me.
That is the news I have to tell you, sir. I don't know but that I might
have told it differently, but that is it. I need not urge on you my
position and all that, because I do not think that weighs with you; but
I do tell you that I love Ellen so dearly that, though I am not worthy
of her, of course, I have no other pleasure than to give her pleasure
and to try to make her happy. I have the power to do it; but what is
much more, I have the wish to do it; it is all I think of now, and all
that I can ever think of. What she thinks of me you must ask her; but
what she is to me neither she can tell you nor do I believe that I
myself could make you understand.” The young man's face was flushed and
eager, and as he finished speaking he raised his head and watched the
bishop's countenance anxiously. But the older man's face was hidden by
his hand as he leaned with his elbow on his writing-table. His other
hand was playing with a pen, and when he began to speak, which he did
after a long pause, he still turned it between his fingers and looked
down at it.
“I suppose,” he said, as softly as though he were speaking to himself,
“that I should have known this; I suppose that I should have been better
prepared to hear it. But it is one of those things which men put off--I
mean those men who have children, put off--as they do making their
wills, as something that is in the future and that may be shirked until
it comes. We seem to think that our daughters will live with us always,
just as we expect to live on ourselves until death comes one day and
startles us and finds us unprepared.” He took down his hand and smiled
gravely at the younger man with an evident effort, and said, “I did
not mean to speak so gloomily, but you see my point of view must be
different from yours. And she says she loves you, does she?” he added,
gently.
Young Latimer bowed his head and murmured something inarticulately in
reply, and then held his head erect again and waited, still watching the
bishop's face.
“I think she might have told me,” said the older man; “but then I
suppose this is the better way. I am young enough to understand that
the old order changes, that the customs of my father's time differ
from those of to-day. And there is no alternative, I suppose,” he said,
shaking his head. “I am stopped and told to deliver, and have no choice.
I will get used to it in time,” he went on, “but it seems very hard now.
Fathers are selfish, I imagine, but she is all I have.”
Young Latimer looked gravely into the fire and wondered how long it
would last. He could just hear the piano from below, and he was anxious
to return to her. And at the same time he was drawn toward the older
man before him, and felt rather guilty, as though he really were robbing
him. But at the bishop's next words he gave up any thought of a speedy
release, and settled himself in his chair.
“We are still to have a long talk,” said the bishop. “There are many
things I must know, and of which I am sure you will inform me freely.
I believe there are some who consider me hard, and even narrow on
different points, but I do not think you will find me so, at least let
us hope not. I must confess that for a moment I almost hoped that you
might not be able to answer the questions I must ask you, but it was
only for a moment. I am only too sure you will not be found wanting,
and that the conclusion of our talk will satisfy us both. Yes, I am
confident of that.”
His manner changed, nevertheless, and Latimer saw that he was now facing
a judge and not a plaintiff who had been robbed, and that he was in turn
the defendant. And still he was in no way frightened.
“I like you,” the bishop said, “I like you very much. As you say
yourself, I have seen a great deal of you, because I have enjoyed your
society, and your views and talk were good and young and fresh, and did
me good. You have served to keep me in touch with the outside world,
a world of which I used to know at one time a great deal. I know your
people and I know you, I think, and many people have spoken to me of
you. I see why now. They, no doubt, understood what was coming better
than myself, and were meaning to reassure me concerning you. And they
said nothing but what was good of you. But there are certain things
of which no one can know but yourself, and concerning which no other
person, save myself, has a right to question you. You have promised very
fairly for my daughter's future; you have suggested more than you have
said, but I understood. You can give her many pleasures which I have not
been able to afford; she can get from you the means of seeing more of
this world in which she lives, of meeting more people, and of indulging
in her charities, or in her extravagances, for that matter, as she
wishes. I have no fear of her bodily comfort; her life, as far as that
is concerned, will be easier and broader, and with more power for good.
Her future, as I say, as you say also, is assured; but I want to ask you
this,” the bishop leaned forward and watched the young man anxiously,
“you can protect her in the future, but can you assure me that you can
protect her from the past?”
Young Latimer raised his eyes calmly and said, “I don't think I quite
understand.”
“I have perfect confidence, I say,” returned the bishop, “in you as far
as your treatment of Ellen is concerned in the future. You love her and
you would do everything to make the life of the woman you love a happy
one; but this is it, Can you assure me that there is nothing in the past
that may reach forward later and touch my daughter through you--no ugly
story, no oats that have been sowed, and no boomerang that you have
thrown wantonly and that has not returned--but which may return?”