The morning brought him little relief. He drank his coffee in
comparative silence and crossed the street to his work with only a
slight bend of his head toward Kitty, who was helping Mike tag some
baggage. She noticed then how pale he was and the wan smile that swept
over his face as she waved her hand at him in answer, but she was too
busy over the trunks to give the subject further thought.
Masie was waiting for him in the back part of the shop, which, by the
same old process of moving things around, had been fitted up into a sort
of private office for Kling, two high-back settles serving for one wall,
three bureaus for another, while some Spanish chairs, a hair-cloth sofa
studded with brass nails, an inlaid table, and a Daghestan rug helped to
make it secluded and attractive. Kling liked the new arrangement because
he could keep one eye on his books and the other on the front door, thus
killing two birds with one stone. Masie loved it because when Felix
had so many customers that he could neither talk nor play with her, it
served her as a temporary refuge--as would a shelter until the rain was
over--and Felix delighted in it because it kept Kling out of the way,
the good-natured Dutchman having often spoiled a sale by what Felix
called “inopportune remarks at opportune moments.”
Although Masie's business on this particular morning was nothing more
important than merely saying good-by to her “Uncle Felix” before she
went to school, her wee stub of a nose had, until she saw him cross the
street, been flattened against the glass of her father's front door,
her two eager, anxious eyes fixed on Kitty's sidewalk. Felix was over an
hour late, something which had never happened before and something which
could not have happened now unless he had either overslept himself--an
unbelievable fact, or was ill--a calamity which could not be thought of
for a moment.
While a nod and a faint smile had done for Kitty, and a “No, I was not
very well last night,” had sufficed for Kling, whose eyebrows made the
inquiry--he never finding fault with O'Day for lapses of any kind--the
case was far different when it came to Masie. The little lady had to
be coaxed into one of the easy chairs in the improvised office and
comforted with an arm around her shoulder, to say nothing of having
her hair smoothed back from her face, followed by a kiss on her white
forehead, before her overwrought anxieties were allayed.
That he was not himself was apparent to every one. Masie was still sure
of it when she bade him good-by, and Kling became convinced of it long
before the day was over. As the afternoon wore on, however, he grew
calmer. His indomitable will began to reassert itself. His manner became
more alert, and his glance clearer.
When he found himself able to think, he determined that his first move
must be to find Carlin, and that very night. It had been some weeks
since he had visited the ship-chandler. He had tried the latch several
times, and would have repeated his visits had not a bystander told
him that Carlin was in the country fitting out a yacht for one of his
customers and would not be back for a month. The time was now up.
And yet, when he thought it all over, could he, in view of this
new phase of the case, seek Carlin's help and advice? What might be
better--and his heart gave a bound--would be to see Father Cruse. The
woman whom Kitty had picked up might be one of his waifs, who, overcome
by fatigue or illness after leaving the church, had fallen on the
door-step where the policeman had found her.
At six o'clock he left the shop with a formal good night to Kling, a
hasty, almost abrupt good-by to Masie, and, without a word of any kind
to Kitty, whose quiet scrutiny he dreaded, bent his steps to a small
eating-room in the basement of one of the old-time private houses in
Lexington Avenue, where he sometimes took his meals. At seven o'clock he
was threading his way through the crowds in Third Avenue, searching the
face of every one he met. At eight o'clock, his impatience growing, he
turned into 28th Street and mounted the short flight of steps in front
of St. Barnabas's. The tones of the organ, as well as the illumined
stained-glass windows and the groups of people around the swinging doors
of the vestibule, showed that a service was being held. These, however,
were the only evidences that a body of people had met to pray inside,
both pavements outside being filled with hurrying throngs, as were the
barrooms opposite, crowded with loud-talking men lining the bars, with
here and there a woman at a table.
Passing through the vestibule doors, he entered the church and found
a seat near the entrance. Father Cruse, in full vestments, was
officiating. He was before the altar at the moment, his back to the
congregation. Most of them were working people who had only their
evenings free, and for whom these services were held: girls from the
department stores, servants with an evening out, trainmen from the
Elevated, off duty for an hour or two, small storekeepers whose places
closed early, with their wives and children beside them, all under the
spell of the hushed interior. Some prayed without moving, their heads
bowed; others kept their eyes fixed on the priest. One or two had their
faces turned toward the choir-loft, completely absorbed in the full,
deep tones that rolled now and then through the responses.
Nothing of all this impressed Felix at first. He had always regarded
the Roman Catholic church as embodying a religion adapted only to the
ignorant and the superstitious. But, as he looked about on the rapt body
of worshippers, he suddenly wondered if there were not something in its
beliefs, forms, and ceremonies that he had hitherto missed.
The wonder grew upon him as he watched the worshippers, his eyes resting
now on a figure of a woman on her knees before the small altar at his
left, her half-naked baby flat on its back beside her; and again that of
an unkempt gray-haired man, his clothes old and ragged, his body bent,
his lips trembling in supplication. All at once, and for the first
time in his life, he began to realize the existence of a something
all-powerful, to which these people appealed, a something beneficent
which swept their faces free of care, as a light drives out darkness,
and sent them home with new hope and courage. Religion had played no
part in his life. From his boyhood he had made his fight without it. Had
they tried and failed and, disheartened in their failure, sought at last
for higher help, realizing that no one man was strong enough to make the
fight of life alone?
As he asked himself these questions, the personality of the priest began
to exert its influence over him. He followed his movements, the dignity
and solemnity with which he exercised his functions, the reverential
tones of his voice, the adoration shown in his every act and gesture.
And as he watched there arose another question--one he had often debated
within himself: Were these people about him calmed and rested by the
magnetic personality of the big-chested, strong-armed man; were they
aided by the seductions of music, incense, and color, including the very
vestments that hung from his broad shoulders; or did the calm and rest
and aid proceed from a source infinitely higher, more powerful, more
compelling, as had been shown in the case of the would-be murderer cowed
by the sight of a sacred emblem? And if there were two personalities,
two influences, two dominant powers, one of man and the other of God,
which one had he, Felix O'Day, come here to invoke?
At this mental question, the more practical side of his nature came to
the fore.
“Neither of them,” he said firmly to himself, “neither God nor priest.”
What he had come for had nothing to do with religion or with its forms.
A woman had been found lying on a door-step near this church, who might
have attended the same evening service. If so, Father Cruse might have
seen her--no doubt knew her, in fact, must have both seen and recognized
her. She was the kind of woman whom Murford said Father Cruse helped.
What he was here for was to ask the priest a simple, straightforward
question. This over, he would continue on his way.
Then a sudden check arose. How was he to describe this woman? He had not
dared probe Kitty for any further details than those she had given
him. To waste therefore, the valuable time of Father Cruse with no more
information than he at present possessed would be as inconsiderate as it
was foolish.
With this new view of the difficulty confronting him, he reached for
his hat, so as to be ready at the first break in the service to tiptoe
noiselessly out. He would then go back to Kitty and, without exciting
her suspicions, learn something more of the outward appearance of the
object of her tender sympathy.
As he was about to leave the pew, the tones of a tiny bell were heard
through the aisles. Instantly a deep, almost breathless, silence fell
upon the church. The penitents, who were on their knees beneath the
clusters of candles lighting the side chapels, remained motionless;
those in the seats bowed their heads, their foreheads resting on the
backs of the pews.
As he listened with lowered head, a dull, scuffling sound was heard near
the swinging doors of the vestibule, as if some one were being
roughly handled. Then an angry voice, “she shan't go in!” followed by
high-pitched, defiant tones: “Get out of my way. I shan't go in, shan't
I? I'd like to see you or anybody else keep me out! This place is free,
and so am I. Jim hasn't showed up, and I'm going to wait for him here.
I've got a date.”
She was abreast of Felix now, a girl of twenty, maudlin drunk, her hat
awry, her hair in a frowse, her dress open at the neck.
She steadied herself for a moment, and became conscious of Felix, who
had risen, horror-stricken, from his seat.
“Jim ain't showed up. He is all right, and don't you forget it. Them
guys wanted to give me the grand bounce, but I got a date, see?”
She reeled on up the aisle until she reached the steps of the altar.
There she stood, swaying before the lights, repeating her cry: “They
dassen't touch me. I got a date, I tell you!”
Father Cruse, without turning, continued his ministrations with the same
composure he would have maintained at a baptism had its solemnity been
disturbed by the cry of a child. By this time, several women, appalled
by the sacrilege, left their seats and moved toward her, begging, then
commanding, her to stop talking, all fearing to add to the noise yet
not daring to let it continue, until they gently but firmly pushed her
through the door at the end of the church and so on into the street.
Felix had followed every movement of the girl with an intensity that
almost paralyzed his senses. He had looked into her bloodshot eyes,
noted the hard lines drawn around the corners of her mouth, the coarse,
painted lips, dry hair, and sunken cheeks. He had heard her harsh laugh
and caught the glint of her drunken leer. A cold shiver swept through
him. It was as if he had stepped on a flat stone covering a grave which
had tilted beneath his feet, revealing a corpse but a few months buried.
Had he been anywhere else he would have sunk to the floor--not to pray,
but to rest his knees, which seemed giving out under him.
When service was over, he made his way down the aisle, waited until the
last of the worshippers had had their final word with their priest, and,
with a respectful bend of the head in recognition, followed Father Cruse
into the sacristy.
“You remember me?” he said in a hoarse, constrained voice when the
priest turned and faced him.
“Yes, you are Mr. O'Day--Kitty Cleary's friend, and I need not tell you
how glad I am to see you,” and he held out a cordial hand.
“I have come as I promised you I would. Can you give me half an hour?”
“With the greatest pleasure. My duties are over just as soon as I put
these vestments away. But I am sorry you came to-night, for you have
witnessed a most distressing sight.”
Felix looked at him steadily. “Do such things happen often?” he asked,
his voice breaking.
“Everything happens here, Mr. O'Day,” replied the priest gravely;
“incredible things. We once found a baby a month old in the gallery. We
baptized him and he is now one of our choir-boys. But, forgive me,” he
added with a smile, “such sights are best forgotten and may not interest
you.” He was studying his visitor as a doctor does a patient, trying to
discover the seat of the disease. That Felix was not the same man he
had met the night at Kitty's was apparent; then he had been merely a man
with a sorrow, now he seemed laboring under a weight too heavy to bear.
Felix drew back his shoulders as if to brace himself the better and
said: “Can we talk here?”
“Yes, and with absolute privacy and freedom. Take this chair; I will sit
beside you.” It was the voice of the father confessor now, encouraging
the unburdening of a soul.
Felix glanced first around the simple room, with its quiet and
seclusion, then stepped back and closed the sacristy door, saying, as he
took his seat: “There is no need, I suppose, of locking it?”
“Not the slightest.”
For a moment he sat with head bowed, one hand pressed to his forehead.
The priest waited, saying nothing.
“I have come to you, Father Cruse, because I need a man's help--not a
priest's--a MAN'S. If I have made no mistake, you are one.”
The fine white fingers of the priest were rising and falling ever so
slightly on the velvet arm of the chair on which his hand rested, a
compound gesture showing that both his brain and his hand were at his
listener's service.
“Go on,” he said gently and firmly. “As priest or man, Mr. O'Day, I am
ready.”
Felix paused; the priest bent his head in closer attention. He was
accustomed to halting confessions, and ready with a prompting word if
the sinner faltered.
“It is about my wife.”
The words seemed to choke him, as if the grip of a long-held silence had
not yet quite relaxed its hold.
“Not ill, I hope?”
“No, she is not ill.”
The priest leaned forward, a startled look on his face. “You surely
don't mean she is dead?”
O'Day did not answer.
Father Cruse settled back into the depths of his chair. “She has left
you, then,” he said in a conclusive tone.
“Yes--a year ago.”
He stopped, started to speak, and, with a baffled gesture, said: “No,
you might better have it all. It is the only way you will understand; I
will begin at the beginning.”
The priest laid his hand soothingly on O'Day's wrist. “Take your time. I
have nothing else to do except to listen and--help you if I can.”
The touch of the priest had steadied him. “Thank you, Father,” he said
simply, and went on.
“A year ago, as I have said, my wife left me and went off with a man
named Dalton. Later I learned she was here, and I came over to see what
I could do to help her.”
Father Cruse raised his eyebrows inquiringly.
“Yes, just that--to help her when she needed help, for I knew she would
need it sooner or later. She was not a bad woman when she left me,
and she is not now, unless he has made her so. She is only an easily
persuaded, pleasure-loving woman, and when my father was forced into
bankruptcy and we all suffered together, she blamed me for giving up
what money I had in trying to straighten out his affairs; and then our
infant daughter died, and that so upset her mind that when Dalton came
along she let everything go. That is one solution of it--the one which
her friends give out. I will tell you the truth. It is that I was twenty
years older than she, that she loved me as a young girl loves an older
man who had been brought up almost in her own family, for our properties
adjoined, and that when she woke up, it was to find out that I was not
the man she would have married had she been given a few more years' time
in which to make up her mind.
“When she ran away I lost my bearings. I used to sit in my room in the
club for hours at a time, staring at the morning paper, never seeing the
print; thinking only of my wife and our life together--all of it, from
the day we were married. I recalled her childish nature, her fits of
sudden temper always ending in tears, and her wilfulness. Then my own
responsibility loomed up. To let this child go to the devil would be
a crime. When this idea became firmly set in my mind, I determined to
follow her no matter what she had done or where she had gone.
“I had meant to go to Australia and look after sheep--I knew something
about them--but I changed my plans when I overheard a conversation at
my club and concluded that Dalton had brought her here--although the
conversation itself was only the repetition of a rumor. Since then I
have found out that they are both here, or were some six months ago.
“You can understand, now, why I am living at Mrs. Cleary's and working
in Mr. Kling's store. I had but a few pounds left after paying my
passage and there was no one from whom I could borrow, even if I had
been so disposed; so work of some kind was necessary. It may be just as
well for me to tell you, too, that nobody at home knows where I am,
and that but two persons in New York know me at all. One is a man named
Carlin, who served on one of my father-in-law's vessels, and the other
is his sister Martha, who was a nurse in my wife's family.
“Dalton, so I understood, had considerable money when he left, enough to
last him some months, and until yesterday I have hunted for them where
I thought he would be sure to spend it, in the richer cafes
and restaurants, outside the opera-houses and the fashionable
theatres--places where two strangers in the city would naturally spend
their evenings, and a woman loving light and color as she did would want
to go.
“All these theories were upset last night when Mrs. Cleary gave me some
details of a woman she had picked up near your church. She found her, it
seems, some months ago--last April, in fact--on the steps of a private
house near your church--here on 29th Street--took her home and made her
spend the night there. In the morning she disappeared without any one
seeing her. Yesterday, while moving the bureau in my room, Mrs. Cleary
found a sleeve-link on the carpet; she thought it was one I had dropped.
I have it in my trunk. It is one of a pair my wife gave me on my
birthday, the year we were married. I missed it from my jewel case after
she left, and thought somebody had stolen it. Now I know that my wife
must have taken it, and then dropped it at Mrs. Cleary's. So I came
here tonight hoping against hope--it was so many months ago--to get
some further information regarding her. Then I remembered that I had not
asked Mrs. Cleary what the woman looked like, and I was about to return
home, when that poor girl staggered in, and I got a look at her face. I
lost my hold on myself then and--”
He sprang to his feet and began striding across the room, his eyes
blazing, one clinched fist upraised: “By God! Father Cruse, I know
something of Dalton's earlier life and of what he is capable. And I tell
you right here, that if he has brought my wife to that, I shall kill him
the moment I set my eyes on him. To take a child of a woman, foolish and
vain as she was--stupid if you will--and--” he halted, covered his face
in his hands, and broke into sobs.
During the long recital Father Cruse had neither spoken nor moved. He
was accustomed to such outbursts, but it had been many years since he
had seen so strong a man weep as bitterly. Better let the storm pass--he
would master himself the sooner.
A full minute elapsed, and then, with a groan that seemed to come from
the depths of his being, O'Day lifted his head, brushed the hot tears
from his eyes, and continued:
“You must forgive me, for I am utterly broken up. But I can't go on any
longer this way! I have got to let go--I have got to talk to somebody.
That dear woman with whom I live is kindness itself and would do
anything she could for me, but somehow I cannot tell her about these
things. I may be wrong about it--but I was born that way. You know black
from white--you live here right in the midst of it--you see it every
day. Mr. Silas Murford told me the other night at Kelsey's that you knew
everybody in this neighborhood, and so I came to you. Help me find my
wife!”
Father Cruse drew his chair closer and laid his hand soothingly on
O'Day's knee.
“It is unnecessary for me to tell you I will help you,” he answered in
his low, smooth voice: “And now let us get to work systematically and
see what can be done. I will begin by asking you a few questions. What
sort of a looking woman is your wife?”
Felix straightened himself in his chair, felt in his inside pocket, and
took from it a colored photograph. “As you see, she is rather small,
with fair hair, blue eyes, and a slight figure--the usual English type.
She has very beautiful teeth--very white--teeth you would never forget
once you saw them; and she has quite small ears and, although the
picture does not show this, small hands and feet.”
“And how would she dress now? This evidently was taken some years ago.
I mean, what was her habit of dress? Would it be such as an Englishwoman
would wear?”
Felix pondered. “Well, when Lady Barbara left she had--”
An expression of surprise on the priest's face cut short the sentence.
O'Day looked at him in a startled way; then he recalled his words.
“Pardon me, but it is only fair that you should know that Lady Barbara
is the daughter of Lord Carnavon, and that since my father's death they
call me Sir Felix. I have never used the title here and may never use
it anywhere. I would have assumed some other name when I arrived
here, except that I could not bring myself to give up my own and my
father's--he never did anything to disgrace it. He was caught in a trap,
that is all, and I signed away everything I could to help him out. He
stood by me when I was in India, and when he had a shilling he gave me
half. I would rather have died, much as my wife blamed me, than not to
have done what I did.
“And I would do it all over again, although I did not realize how big
the load was until settling-day came. Dalton was at the bottom of it
all. He floated the company. There was a story going around the clubs
that he had got me into squaring it all up, knowing that I would be done
for, and he could get away with her easier, but I never believed it.
He has come into his own, if this wretched, suffering woman that Mrs.
Cleary picked up is my wife; and I will come into mine”--here his eyes
flashed--“if he has dragged her down and--”
Father Cruse again laid his quieting fingers this time on Felix's wrist.
“He has not dragged her down, Mr. O'Day. Of that you may be sure. A
woman of her class doesn't go to pieces in a year. When she reaches the
end of her means she will either seek work or she will go to one of the
institutions to wait until she can hear from her people at home. I have
known--”
Felix shook his head with an impatient movement. “You don't know her,”
he exclaimed excitedly, “nor do you know her family. Her father has shut
his door against her, and would step across her body if he found it
on the sidewalk rather than recognize her. Nor would she ask him for a
penny, nor let him or me or any one else know of her misery.”
Again the priest sat silent. He did not attempt to defend his
theory--some better way of calming his visitor must be found. He merely
said, as if entirely convinced by O'Day's denial: “Oh, well, we will let
that go, perhaps you know best”; and then added, his voice softening,
“and now one word more, before we go into the details of our search,
so that no complications may arise in the future. You, of course, are
hunting for Lady Barbara to reinstate her as your wife if--”
O'Day sprang from his chair and stood over the priest. The suggestion
had come as a blow.
“I will take her back!”
The priest looked up in astonishment. “Yes, is it not so?”
The answer came between closed teeth. “I did not expect that of
you, Father Cruse, I thought you were bigger--MUCH bigger. Can't you
understand how a man may want to stand by a woman for herself alone
without dragging in his own selfishness and--No, I forgot--you cannot
understand--you never held a woman in your arms--you do not realize her
many weaknesses, her childishness, her whims, her helplessness. But take
her back? NEVER! That chapter in my life is dosed. My hunt for her all
these months has been to save her from herself and from the scoundrel
who has ruined her. When that is done I shall pick up my life as best I
can, but not with her.”
For some seconds the priest did not speak. Then he said gently, again
avoiding any disagreement. “Let us hope that so happy an ending to
all your sufferings is not far off, my dear Mr. O'Day. And now another
question before we part for the night, one I perhaps ought to have asked
you before. Are you quite positive that Kitty's visitor was your wife?”
He had reserved this hopeful suggestion--one he himself believed in--for
the last. It would help lift the dead weight of bitter anxiety which was
sure to overwhelm his visitor in the wakeful hours of the night.
Felix moved impatiently, like one combating a physician's cheering
words. “It must have been she, who else could have dropped the
sleeve-link?”
“Several people. Excuse me if I talk along different lines, but I have
had a good deal of experience in tracing out just such things as this,
and I have always found it safest to be sure of my facts before deducing
theories. It is not all clear to me that Kitty's woman dropped the
links. And even if she did, the fact is no proof that the woman is your
wife.”
“But the links are mine. There is no question of it--my initials and
arms are cut into them.” The impatience was gone and a certain curiosity
was manifesting itself.
“Quite true, and yet you once thought the links were stolen. So let us
presume for the present that they were stolen and that this woman either
bought them, or was given them, or found them.”
Felix began pacing the floor, a gleam of hope illumining the dark
corners of his heart. The interview, too, had calmed him--as do all
confessions.
The priest settled back in his seat. He saw that the crisis had passed.
There might be another outburst in the future, but it would not have the
intensity of the one he had just witnessed. He waited until Felix was
opposite his chair and then asked, in a low voice: “Well, may I not be
right, Mr. O'Day?”
Felix paused in his walk and gazed down at the priest. “I don't know,”
he answered slowly. “My head is not clear enough to think it out. Mrs.
Cleary might help unravel it. She saw her and will remember. Shall I
sound her when I go home--not to excite her suspicions, of course, but
so as to find out whether her visitor were large or small--details like
that?”
“No, I will ask her, and in a way not to make her suspect. She will
think I am hunting for one of my own people. It is wiser that she should
not know yet what you have told me. I would rather wait for the time
when this poor creature, whoever she is, needs a sister's tenderness.
She will get it there, for no finer woman lives than Kitty Cleary.”
A sigh of intense relief escaped Felix. “And now tell me where you will
begin your hunt?” he asked, one of his old search-light glances flashing
from beneath his brows.
“Nowhere in particular. On the East Side, perhaps, where I have means
of knowing what strangers come and go. Then among my own people here. I
shall know within twenty-four hours whether she has been in the habit of
attending evening service--that is, within the last six months. A woman
of the poorer class would be difficult to locate, but there should not
be the slightest trouble in picking out one who, less than a year ago,
occupied your wife's social position--no matter how badly she were
dressed.”
Felix stood musing. He had reached the limit of the help he had come
for.
“And what can I do to assist?”
“Nothing. Go home, and when I need you I will send word. Good night.”