THE TRIAL (continued)
It had indeed been a curious study to the many watchers, the demeanor
of Longtinsky under the ordeal of the day, and the astounding
revelations thus taken from the mouth of a child. Many smiled at his
complete blindness, some doubted it, others simply watched the man’s
changing expression. There were times when Longtinsky gazed at the
boy—who for his part seldom looked at him—with an absolute stupor
of amazement; then he became scornful, and attempted cheap tricks
of inattention and weariness, and less frequently he leaned forward
fixing his blue eyes on the child, his face red with a tempest of
rage, as if to disconcert and intimidate the inflexible inexorable
little witness. Comments were numerous, and the gossiping groups of
men, the lowering glances of many in the streets as they heard of
Longtinsky’s arrest, the prodigious headlines of the evening papers,
the covert allusions to it in the plays at the theatres and the
manifest disturbance on the East Side where the police reported many
brawls and muttered threats, betokened the excited and ominous train
of interest.
It had been a matter of surprise to Helen Lorimer that her uncle
seemed to avoid the trial, and made few references to it at their
meetings. But on the day after Angelo Shimura had begun his testimony
his interest was aroused, and something, peculiarly, almost anxious
in his manner, amused Miss Lorimer and Amato as well. He wished to
know how the evidence went and while he interrupted his informants
with impatient comments upon the entire uselessness of the trial,
he took some pains to find out exactly the drift of Mr. Moser’s
examination of Angelo and what other witnesses might be called on
the side of the defense.
The day succeeding the first day of Angelo’s testimony promised
important developments. The boy had made an extraordinary witness,
the tenacity of his memory astonished the oldest court attendants,
and his impassive way, lightened up now and then with some burst
of excitement, kept his hearers in a pleasant state of expectation
that conduced to his popularity. His picture appeared in the papers
and he was the talk of the moment. Already it was half discerned
that Longtinsky and Polinck had endeavored to cover their tracks
by complete secrecy and that the men apparently involved with them
were ignorant accomplices. The doors of the court room were early
besieged, and as different actors in the trial passed in, a rush
forward of the multitude occurred, animated by a wild curiosity to
see the boy Angelo, for his name passed from mouth to mouth, and,
as crowds will, every arrival was hailed as the object of their
interest. At last he did come with Mr. Moser, and his ineffective
childish appearance, his slight malformation, and his oblique eyes
proved disappointing.
“Looks like a simpleton,” was the remark of a big man who almost
seized the boy, as Mr. Moser pushed him aside and shoved Angelo ahead
of him.
“Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings God has ordained wisdom”
was the quick and loud retort of Mr. Moser, whose sally was cheered.
Within the court room every one seemed in nervous suspense. Animation
prevailed among the attendants, and the streaming and crushing
crowds were nervously excited. This tension became contagious. It
was felt as an atmospheric disorder, and Helen Lorimer and Amato
no less than the most sensational news monger acknowledged its
disconcerting influence. The judge was early on the bench, the jurors
were unusually prompt, the lawyers in their place, and the prisoners
as they marched in, stolidly looking neither to the right nor to the
left, when seated, bore an expression of expectation, indeed among
most of them it revealed itself in smiles of confidence. They had
not failed to note the overwhelming importance of the boy, Angelo’s
testimony, and with them too the increasing fear was the boy’s
power to withstand the cross-examination, and to vindicate his own
credibility.
Slowly the great doors were shoved together and the clamorous and
pressing throng without were shut off. The clerk stood up and
repeated his formula, the judge rapped impatiently and summoned Mr.
Moser to renew his case. One figure was not there; Longtinsky was in
prison, and Poniatowsky, again among the crowd felt that the moment
of action was upon him, and his conspirators.
“Angelo Shimura take the stand,” called out the clerk, who again
swore the strange waif, thus suddenly thrown upward to confound the
state and the law.
The examination had reached the stage where the witness was expected
to detail the incidents of the night when the fire and explosions
occurred. Everything had been carefully leading up to that; the
repeated conferences between Longtinsky and the bomb maker and
Polinck, and the final assignment of a date for the destruction of
the Settlement House, and the breaking out of the Revolution.
Pitilessly Mr. Moser gathered the evidence together from the lips
of the extraordinary boy as to the treasonable plots of Longtinsky,
and still in it all the persons of the prisoners, excepting Polinck,
never appeared. There were other men at the conferences and many
others unrevealed somewhere on the outskirts of the grand project,
but those men who had actually received their _condemnation to death_
for murder and arson were never named. It stupified the hearers; the
amazement grew. And Mr. Moser skillfully accented and accentuated
it dwelling again, in his examination, upon the possibility of the
boy’s mistake, calling his attention to the prisoners, pointing them
out, calling them by name and each time gaining from the alert child
a fresh denial of their complicity. Mr. Meldexter and his assistant
were visibly non-plussed. Their case seemed to vanish under the
breath of this boy into a veriest skein of smoke; their fabric of
proof tumbled to pieces before their eyes.
And Mr. Moser standing close to Angelo asked him to tell all he knew
about the night of the disaster. There was a breathless silence.
Almost a thousand eyes were fixed upon the immobile child who for a
moment closed his own as if to recall the vivid scene. Perhaps he
purposed too to make his story more telling. He began slowly opening
his eyes and staring at Mr. Moser.
“It was a eveening, veery—that Mr. Polinck and Mr. Longtinsky came
with the man—who put up the bombs. They came in the long room behind
the press. It was dark and they sat at a table with—one light. They
spoke low—Oh so low! but I back of a board on the side—and I could
hear Mr. Longtinsky say—‘To-night—To-night. Get Alonzo Fabrizio, and
Charles Bingo—They will carry these—to the Settlement House. Wrap
them up like a long roll—and tell them they are ROLLS of PAPER.’”
People stretched forward their heads to hear the words; one of the
lawyers for the state rose from his chair, and watched the boy;
the judge turned towards him more directly, and the jurymen leaned
forward with pale grave faces.
“Go on,” urged Mr. Moser as Angelo looked at him as if for
encouragement, “What next.”
“So Mr. Polinck—he go away and come back with Alonzo Fabrizio and
Charles Bingo. Mr. Longtinsky—he say—they take the ROLLS of PAPER to
the Settlement House for Mees Lorimer, and they go out with them.
Then they come a-back and say—How to get in the House?—and Mr.
Longtinsky say it was open—all open—all unlocked and they go out
again.
“Then Mr. Polinck veery much astonished; he ask how the House could
be open and Mr. Longtinsky speak so veery low and soft that I put
my head out of the board and hear heem say—the Janitor leave it
open—and then I could not hear what Mr. Longtinsky say—but Mr.
Polinck—he laugh, and Mr. Longtinsky laugh, and by an by—they go out,
and then I go out, and come behind running along on the other side of
the street.” Again a pause. “Well what next? Is that all?” and Mr.
Moser addressing the child looked about him, and back of him at the
sea of eager faces.
“Then come everything Sir. Mr. Polinck and Mr. Longtinsky—they come
to the men—out of the House—”
“What men?” interrupted the lawyer.
“Why Sir, Alonzo Fabrizio and Charles Bingo.”
“The men who had carried the rolls there as you said?” questioned the
lawyer, his face turned away from the boy and fixed upon the District
Attorney, who sprang to his feet and objected, but was overruled.
“Yes Sir, those men,” answered Angelo.
“Go on.”
“Mr. Longtinsky say to the men—the men who put the ROLLS in the House
to go away, and come back with other men and he give them some names,
that I could not hear—and then Sir, Mr. Longtinsky and Mr. Polinck go
in the HOUSE TOGETHER.”
“Now Angelo where were you?”
“I was behind a pillar at the door of the House and when they go in,
I go in too.”
“Then what?”
“Mr. Longtinsky and Mr. Polinck take the ROLLS, and carry them
into the cellar, and then Mr. Longtinsky fix-a-a-a-long a-a
cord—strin-like—to the ROLLS, and Mr. Polinck, he make a piles of
paper and things, and then Mr. Longtinsky say he go away for bizness.”
“Did you stay in the cellar or go away with Mr. Longtinsky?”
“I follow Mr. Longtinsky—always follow heem.”
“Did Mr. Longtinsky or Mr. Polinck see you there?”
“No Sir! it was always dark, and I mek no noise, and keep-a-out of
sight. I Sir like a leetle mouse.”
A titter swept over the crowd, as a breeze might ripple the dark face
of an engulfing wave—it was the wave of a darkening rage, the fierce
threat of revenge and contempt. Poniatowsky—still there—felt it—there
would be short shrift for Longtinsky, he knew, unless he and his men
struck surely, quickly, relentlessly. Could they do it? The titter
vanished with the sound of the judge’s gavel.
“Well what then?” murmured Mr. Moser gazing at the boy with a curious
earnestness.
“We stand—Mr. Longtinsky and mee—mee out of sight—some time outside,
and then the men come-a-back with other men—”
“What men?” broke in Mr. Moser.
“Why Sir, the men who carry the ROLLS.”
“You mean Alonzo Fabrizio and Charles Bingo?”
“Objected to,” shouted Mr. Meldexter.
“Sustained,” ponderously sighed the judge.
“Angelo,” again said Mr. Moser, “Tell us what men came when you and
Mr. Longtinsky stood at the doors of the Settlement House, and had
left Mr. Polinck inside.”
“Why Sir, Fabrizio and Bingo came with other men, and they saw Mr.
Longtinsky there and he say—to them, to go inside the House and to
stay there—that Mr. Polinck wanted them, and to come out when Mr.
Polinck say-a so—”
“Among those men were there—”
Mr. Meldexter was on his feet in a second. Mr. Moser recognized the
danger. Turning to the little Japanese, he spoke again; “What men
did you see among those other men who came with Alonzo Fabrizio and
Charles Bingo?” and his side glance at his opponent, after the usual
manner of a lawyer’s smiling effrontery, seemed to say “does that
suit you?”
“There was a-a-many men and there was,” the boy looked at the
prisoners which gesture made the district attorney and his men laugh
a little, just a little, enough to show their disgust; “there was a
John Dalzell, Pedro Vinta, and Fred Rinker. I see them—all Sir.”
“Now Angelo Shimura, tell all that followed that night.” And Mr.
Moser closed his eyes, folded his arms in front of him, and swayed
gently as if he expected to enjoy the recitation.
“Mr. Longtinsky hurry home—he almost run—and I follow heem. He get
in the door and slam it behind heem and lock it-and-a-a-I could not
geet in too. I seet outside and I there a leetle while, and I hear
big noise, I run out and many—many men and women run out too, and
then another big noise, and we run to the noise, and it came from the
Settlement House, and then we run faster and big crowds—all aroun—I
push thro, and see flames bursting up—shooting away up Sir, many men
scrambling out of the—holes—at the windows below—”
“Stop,” Mr. Moser opened his eyes, and appearing much confused said,
“Holes!—Holes! Do you mean the area ways in the basement?”
“Yes Sir—I mean that” no response, and the boy hurried on. “And then
came the police and they slam away and push back the crowd, and then
another bigger noise—Oh! so big! and it blow out the side of the
house, and the people get off—quick—and then come the engines—and
then more noise and the fire geet in another house, and then more
police and—I run back to Mr. Longtinsky—”
“Did you find Mr. Longtinsky?”
“No Sir—he shet up house—I no get in and so stay all night in the
streets, and the next day I see you at the House and you tek me away
and I tol you all.”
There were a few more questions, but only one that particularly
attracted the attention of the audience, and of the court; it was the
last Mr. Moser asked;
“Angelo Shimura, you are a Japanese boy?”
“Yes sir.”
“How did you understand these men—Longtinsky, Polinck and the others;
did they speak in English?”
“No Sir, they speak a most in Yeeddish.”
“Do you speak Yiddish?”
“No Sir,” the attorney and his men were on their feet, “but I
understan’ it.”
“Let us see,” said Mr. Moser reflectively, “Is the court interpreter
here?”
A dull looking short man appeared and said he was the court
interpreter and was so identified by the clerk. He was requested to
say something in Yiddish in the boy’s hearing and Angelo was told to
translate it. The experiment was made and the little Japanese quickly
gave the right meaning. After some more illustrations the judge said
he thought the fact of the boy’s understanding Yiddish was fully
proven. Then Angelo was excused by Mr. Moser, and handed over to the
district attorney. There was a stir through the great assemblage and
many feared for the little fellow. The apprehension was unnecessary.
The boy’s tenacity was like that of a vise. He forgot nothing.
He did not fence with the smart lawyer but he confounded him by his
sincerity, and the ordeal served the remarkable purpose of proving
the boy’s precocity and self-assurance, so that he could not be
regarded as a dressed and drilled instrument of the defence. It was
not long before Mr. Meldexter excused him; he was making things worse
for the state. There was a certainty in Shimura’s remembrance like
the inevitable action of a machine. It was observed by the district
attorney, who intended to impeach the boy’s evidence on the ground
that he had learned his lesson too well. The plea would hardly do.
There could be no gainsaying that the boy made an almost
unimpeachable impression. Many were the glances of satisfaction
exchanged between Helen Lorimer and Amato as Angelo showed his nerve
and steady frankness.
As Shimura stepped from the bench Mr. Meldexter suddenly, as his
face brightened with some unexpected suggestion, asked him to resume
the chair for a minute. The boy wonderingly returned, and as if
expecting some difficult ordeal prepared for him by the lawyer. Mr.
Meldexter was smiling, and this hypocrisy roused the boy’s friends to
a greater fear of danger.
“You say Angelo Shimura that the Settlement House was open that
night, that the rolls of paper were carried there by Bingo and
Fabrizio, and in your direct examination by Mr. Moser you said that
Mr. Longtinsky told Mr. Polinck that the House would be open. Did you
see the House open when the men carried away the Rolls there?”
“No Sir I deed not. I was at Mr. Longtinsky bit when I come
there-a-a-wit Mr. Longtinsky the door was open, and the Mr. Bingo and
Mr. Fabrizio come-a-a out.”
“You did not know that the door was not broken open?”
“The door was not broken Sir but—open like-a-a—” the boy raised
his eyes and looked around the huge chamber, searching for an
illustration, “—like a that door open now Sir,” and he pointed
down the corridor before him to the court room doors, one of which
then swung inward and admitted—_Theodore Lorimer_! His gesture was
followed both by Mr. Meldexter and Mr. Moser. Their glance caught Mr.
Lorimer’s attention, and those near at hand afterwards said Theodore
Lorimer’s face paled. Both of the lawyers turned again to the witness.
“You said something about hearing Mr. Longtinsky say to Mr. Polinck
that the janitor would leave the House open. Did you not?”
“Yes Sir—he say-a-so—he—Mr. Longtinsky.”
“Do you know the janitor of the Settlement House or the man who was
the janitor?”
“Yes Sir—veery well. He-a-sit-a-ther now” and the boy standing
pointed to a man concealed behind Mr. Meldexter. Mr. Meldexter
shuffled impatiently, and then after a moment’s silence told Angelo
to leave the bench. The boy took refuge at the side of Mr. Moser who
received him with great approval.
“John Bunn to the chair,” called out the clerk after prompting by Mr.
Meldexter. The man whom Angelo had pointed out as the janitor of the
ill fated Settlement House, rose and took the seat of the witness,
and also the oath. He was an ordinary type of serving man, perhaps
a German, stolid, unmoved by his surroundings and uncompromisingly
serene.
“John Bunn you are, or were, the janitor of the lately destroyed
Settlement House were you not?”
“Yees Sir I vas.”
“How was it that the house over which you had charge was left open on
the night of its destruction—or Sir—please be careful in answering—”
Mr. Moser had risen partly to object, “or was it open that night at
all?”
The man folded his arms, leaned back, and stared at the lawyer, as
if to assure him that he was ready and able to answer the question,
and in no way disturbed at the consequences—and, as he began his
answer, the figure of Theodore Lorimer stepped forward in the aisle,
and something straining and anxious came into his eyes. Few failed to
recognize that the question might prove critical, and Mr. Moser stood
at his chair as if to intercept some unexpected blow.
“It vas offen.”
“Were you there on the night of the burning?”
“I vas not.”
“How Sir, if the Settlement House was in your custody was it left
open and you not there?”
John Bunn was silent for a moment. He too had caught sight of Mr.
Lorimer standing now much farther down the aisle, so far indeed that
persons afterwards averred he raised his hand slightly, and as if to
catch the attention of the witness, and opened and closed it slowly.
The witness hesitated; he began to speak, and looking from the
lawyers to Mr. Lorimer and back again at the lawyers seemed in deep
perplexity. At that instant a court attendant touched Mr. Lorimer on
the shoulder motioning him to a seat. But that gentleman passed again
to the rear of the court room, and, with his withdrawal John Bunn
recovered his voice.
“Eet vas dees vay. I leef de House offen because I vas a—_told to
leef it offen_.”
“Who told you to leave it open?” came the remorseless question.
Amato and Miss Lorimer leaned forward; here was the suspected play
of the element in her own ranks that had helped—or wished to help,
for its own purposes—the revolutionary agitators. It had never been
understood why the House was unprotected the night of its assault.
The janitor—this same John Bunn—had refused to explain his absence,
and he had been summarily discharged—in fact he had soon absented
himself from the city; he could not be found, and his appearance here
was a surprise to Miss Lorimer, to Mr. Moser. To the question of Mr.
Meldexter the man returned a fixed stare almost as if he did not
understand him. Mr. Meldexter repeated the question, and added “Miss
Lorimer gave you no such order?” Again no answer, only the stare
and a stubborn shrugging of the shoulders. The District Attorney
approached the witness, and raised his finger threateningly; “Do you
refuse to answer this question?”
The man turned to the judge who had wheeled round in his chair to
notice him, and said “Must I answer?” The judge nodded. The man
recovered his equanimity; he had made up his mind. “No Mees Lorimer
gif me no such ordee. Mr. Theodore—he gif it to me—”
Amato turned to look at his companion. She was pale, so very pale
that the young man thought he should ask her to leave the room. But
she refused to go; her clenched hands were pressed to her bosom, her
wan look told her distress, and her lips compressed, as if almost to
stifle a cry of misery, were also pale. Quickly she released one hand
and laid it upon Amato’s, and half moaned; “Wait.”
The answer of John Bunn was a bomb that shattered some theories and
raised many questions. The answer incidentally was accompanied by the
scarcely apparent opening and closure of the court room door and the
disappearance of Mr. Lorimer himself. Perhaps but one pair of eyes
noticed his inaudible exit, those eyes were in the head of John Bunn.
Mr. Moser had his turn of astonishment, and Mr. Meldexter observed
his confusion with satisfaction. It half looked if this evidence was
to be trusted that Mr. Theodore Lorimer—a leader in the rich and
aristocratic circles of the city, a notable in _Carrara_—was himself
an accomplice, and the thought imparted to Mr. Moser a momentary
shock. What revelations might be expected from Longtinsky, where was
the trail leading?
“Mr. Bunn” it was the sharp voice of the district attorney, “did you
receive an order from Mr. Lorimer by word of mouth or in writing?”
“Mister Lorimer come to mee and say so.”
“Did Mr. Lorimer offer you any inducements for this betrayal of your
trust?”
“Vat you meen? Money?”
Mr. Moser had recovered his senses, he was on his feet shouting
“Objected to, immaterial, incompetent, and irrelevant.”
“Sustained,” hesitated the judge, adding, “at least at present.”
Again Mr. Meldexter; “Did you see the prisoners at the bar enter the
Settlement House on the night when it was burned down?”
“No Sir I deed not. I vas not there,” almost shouted the witness.
“Did you know why the House was to be left open; did Mr. Lorimer say
why you should leave it unprotected?”
An objection was made and sustained; Mr. Lorimer at present was not
on trial. Mr. Meldexter handed the witness over to Mr. Moser who,
after a moment’s inspection of the man, declined to cross-examine.
The evidence had no bearing on the guilt or innocence of the men
at the bar. But to Mr. Meldexter it served the vital purpose of
_revenge_; if Miss Lorimer, through her attorney secured the release
of the men previously condemned, he—Mr. Meldexter—had fastened a
dangerous suspicion upon her family, as collusive in the desperate
act for which they were tried. Would Miss Lorimer care to see the
matter through to its bitterest results? Already a court summons had
been made out for the appearance of Mr. Theodore Lorimer as witness;
_Mr. Meldexter wanted him_.
More policemen were called and a renewed effort made to show that
the prisoners were caught red-handed—as it were—coming out of the
burning House, but this evidence was somewhat shaken by Mr. Moser’s
cross-examination, whereby he showed a great difference in the
opinions of the witnesses as to where exactly they had seen the men.
It gave the impression of great confusion at the time, and made
it clear that of the many men who had been seen running from the
House many might have been in the place for purposes of rescue and
assistance. The boy Shimura had made it pretty plain that Longtinsky
and Polinck were the perpetrators of the deed and the others the
merest stool pigeons.
Finally came the time for the summing up, and the day closed with the
promise of both sides that they would complete their pleas the next
day in time for the judge to make his charge and for the surrender of
the case to the jury. Slowly with much whispering and open comment,
the great throng dispersed. Five left the court room with strange
conflicting thoughts. They were Helen Lorimer, Mr. Moser, Mr. Briggs,
Tom Ratler, and Poniatowsky. Helen Lorimer thought she saw the
treacherous hand of her uncle in another matter perhaps dearer to her
than the safety of the Settlement House; Mr. Briggs was dumbfounded
with a new sensation of danger to the commonwealth; Tom was thinking
of making away with Jessie now that her father was so desperately
involved in the thickening perils; and Poniatowsky saw the moment
near at hand when his ripened plans must be put in motion. Mr. Moser
felt the pressure of an ominous dread.
Surely of these five Miss Lorimer was to be pitied. The stunning
disclosure—although she could scarcely believe it—had wounded her
beyond all estimate. The revolting meanness of it, the shameless
perfidy, the cruel forgetfulness and wickedness of it, the harsh
sense of betrayal and desertion—Oh! how it made her value the
earnest love of her friend; she turned to him now as a protector, as
something golden and true, loyal and unswerving—these things stung
and wearied her.
She was silent almost all through their return to Carrara, and when
her home was reached she asked if her uncle was there. The servant
told her Mr. Lorimer had left in the morning and had returned an hour
before. Amato waited at her side and she turned and said, “You will
take dinner with us?” and then, as if in an impulse of affection,
“Please do.” Amato felt her grief. His own heart bled for her, and
his indignation rose steadily as he contemplated the heartlessness
that had wounded her—and yet it seemed all so incredible—perhaps
a mistake. He told her so. She thanked him and together they went
up the marble stairway, leading to the stately dining-room, and
there—coming towards them with a hand valise in his hand, a summer
overcoat thrown over his arm was—_Theodore Lorimer_.
For one instant Helen Lorimer surveyed him, not with entreaty on her
lips, not with expostulation, not with protesting confidence. She
KNEW, that moment when their eyes encountered, and he shrank like a
cowering animal from her searching inquiry, that he was GUILTY, that
he knew moreover that he had been revealed, that his name had been
published before the world as a culprit and a traitor—the Brother of
her Father. SHE KNEW IT. Nay; she knew more; he contemplated flight;
he was about to become a fugitive. It was best so. That house, that
city, would be too small now for him and her. Let him be forgotten.
Oh!—but her divination ran further, deeper—it was he that separated
from her the man she had loved; his pride, his arrogance, his love
of caste, and now how abject he seemed! It was amazing how much
she understood that moment, as if the fire of some supernatural
revelation had flashed upon him, and laid him bare to her. There are
such psychologic moments. Every one has experienced them.
Amato watched her. It was wonderful to see the muteness of her pain.
No word, only that fixed gaze, with a rising color in her cheeks.
And Mr. Lorimer said nothing. He fled before that stern silent
indignation. He was eager to get away, eager to escape a public
ordeal, that would have strangely humiliated him before his own
niece, before the man whom he had expelled from that house, because
he felt his own blood was—_a better sort!_
And yet there might have been explanations. Theodore Lorimer had
acted according to a principle. He was not a bad man in the moral
sense. His business instincts and his career in business had been
unimpeachable. His kindness to his sister and niece had been perfect.
He was the victim of a conservative and class pride. He had thought
to destroy the vicious activity of the radicals, to save his family
from any further pernicious—as he deemed it—sympathy with the Abyss,
to kill for once and all his niece’s infatuation to regenerate the
slums. It was a foolish deed; but not incomprehensible. He had played
a dangerous game and lost.
The destruction of the Settlement House had not disturbed Helen
Lorimer’s determination to keep on at her work, and the men—to be
dealt with summarily, innocent or guilty, as Lorimer thought, for an
example—_were to escape_. The whole fabric of his weak, unstable, and
cruel plan had failed. He had not been alone; he had confederates,
abettors, men of the same stamp of feeling; men with the same
egoistic idea. One shred of honor remained to him. He would not
expose them. He would take the burden of his dishonor and bare the
execrable shame of it, _alone_.
The man hurried down the broad stairway followed by Helen who stepped
rapidly forward to the top of the broad descent. At the bottom he
turned and looked back at her—and yet no word between them. His
face was convulsed with misery. For one moment a tide of compassion
swept over the woman gazing there at him, and seeing through him the
ulterior ruin of a life. Amato crept forward too, catching the epic
intensity of this wordless interview.
The next instant he was gone; an automobile already waited at the
foot of the terraces of steps, and in another minute the hoarse
creak of the chauffeur’s horn sounded drearily and—as it seemed to
Helen—like a human cry distorted into an unintelligible and animal
wail. The next she stood at Amato’s side and he lifted her face and
saw that it had blanched to the pallor of death. She leaned heavily
upon him; she would have fallen; he caught her and led her to a
sofa. She smiled at his solicitude, but her great eyes looked at
him despairingly—their bitterness of woe made his heart bleed. He
felt so helpless! But the strong heart conquered, the buoyant spirit
rose from its humiliation, the challenging splendor of her beauty
returned, and slowly—slowly—the intrepid resolve to bear all things
well, to suffer without murmur, and still to pursue her own noble
purposes unchanged, _also_ returned.
She rose and held Amato’s hands a moment in her own; he felt their
pressure. A few escaped tresses of hair hung upon her forehead, and
the breath from her parted lips came quickly. Her voice was low, and
as she spoke she looked upward, so that the white column of the neck
revealed its softly blue venations, and the eyelids drooped over
beseeching eyes;
“Amato it was Christ’s words ‘_In your patience possess ye your
Souls_.’” She wavered an instant, then she dropped his hands, and
now with bowed head, the spread white fingers of her hands pressed
upon her breast she left him stunned and sorrowing. He followed her a
few steps, but she swept from him noiselessly and quickly. He stood
irresolute a few moments, turned, descended the stairway, and left
the house.
Later he returned. Helen came to the dinner, and though she was more
silent she evinced her usual graciousness; her paleness faintly
touched with color added to her strange beauty. She talked with less
animation: she seemed to invite his confidences, and tempted him to
tell them of his sojourn in Europe.
Julieta remarking the absence of her uncle asked; “Where is Theodore?”
The deep eyes gazed a little wearily, Amato thought, at his vacant
place and the answer, uttered without a tremor, came from her lips;
“Mother, Uncle has left the City.”