THE MEANS--AND THE END
I
Halsey turned toward Virginia. They did not again embrace, but stood
silent, almost apathetic now. Passion was far away from them, indeed
had never fully seized them. The despair in human love was theirs; and
love is half despair. She might have been some beautiful statue in
white marble, so cold was she; and as for the man who faced her, his
anger gone, he himself might have been the image of hopelessness.
Central figures of an irreparable ruin, and seeing no avenue to
happiness, for the time neither had word for the other.
At last Halsey raised his head, as some sound caught his ear. "What's
that?" he said.
"I heard it," said she. "I think it's some one coming up the walk."
"Yes," he answered. "Listen! Why, it sounds like a crowd. What can
that mean, now? Wait."
He left her and hastened out to the front door. He stood there,
outlined fully by the hall lights behind him. Those who approached
recognized him. He was greeted by a derisive shout, half-maudlin,
scarce human in its quality. The solitary servant rushed up, excited.
"What is it, Mr. Halsey?" he quavered. "Is there going to be any
trouble? Oh, I ought to have gone away with the others!"
"Get out of the way," replied Halsey calmly. "Get back behind the
door. I'll go out and meet them."
"Here, you men!" he called out in sudden anger to the visitors. "What
do you mean, coming here this way?" He was advancing toward them now,
down the steps, into the curving walk, almost to the rim of the circle
of light cast by the house lights.
"Don't you know any better than to come here at this time, you people?
There's trouble in this house. There's death in here. Go on away, at
once!"
II
The leader of the scattered group of ill-dressed men stepped forward.
"No, we'll not go on away at once. We know who you are, all right, Mr.
Halsey. Trouble! We're in trouble, too! We're lookin' for some more
trouble, now."
"Well, I'm not to blame for that. What do you mean? Who are you,
anyway?"
"You ought to know us! We've done up some of your damned sneaks. You
cut your workmen down to the last copper in wages, and you didn't pay
them that. Then when the pinch came, you shut the doors and slunk off,
like the coward you was! Then they came over to us, at last! Your
scabs is in the unions now."
"I haven't done anything of the kind!" retorted Halsey hotly. "I
haven't been to the factory for days. When I left there, every cent
was paid up. That wasn't any of my business anyhow--I was not cashier,
but factory superintendent."
"It's a lie, you know it's a lie! We've come to show you up. We've
come to take old man Rawn and you out of this place. We ought to ride
him on a rail, and you with him! That's what we ought to do! We want
that money." The leader advanced toward him menacingly.
"Why, men, I have not got your money--" expostulated Halsey. "If I
had, this isn't the way to get it from me! I've always used you
fellows square! You've got to act that way with me. I'm in trouble
now, I tell you. My wife's dead, and my baby--to-day--in here. You
are accusing the best friend you have got! Where's Jim Sullivan?
Where's Tim Carney? Where's any of you men that used to work with me
there in the factory? Any one of you ought to know better."
"They ain't here; but don't talk that to us! We know what you was
doing with them machines. We know what you was up to. You wanted to
take the bread out of our mouths! We seen it all in the papers, the
whole thing, plain enough. No wonder you kept it all blind as you
could--you wanted to put us off the earth."
"It's a lie!" cried Halsey sternly. "I broke them up. I threw up my
job. I quit because I didn't want to see the bread taken out of your
mouths. I stood between the company and just what you say. I wouldn't
allow them to make it harder for you than it was. I never lost you a
cent of wages--I stood for you all the time, I'm with you now. Why,
men, I've been at your meetings, I'm one of you! Don't you know?
Don't you remember? You've never asked a thing of me I haven't tried
to do, that was in reason. You know me! What difference about the
union if I'm your sort?"
"Yes, ve _do_ know you!" broke in a squat and pallid Jew, forcing
himself through the thick to the front, and usurping the place of the
wavering leader. "By Gott, ve do know you, Mister Halsey! You'fe lied
to us, that's vat you'fe done! You'fe been to our meetings, yess, but
you'fe betrayed us! I seen you there, yess!"
"That's not true!" answered Halsey hotly. "There isn't a word of truth
in it! I've lost everything in the world I've got just _because_ that
isn't true. My wife's lying dead in that house back there--just
because of that! My child's dead there too--just _because_ of
that--I've lost everything in the world I have got--just _because_ that
isn't true!"
III
The Jew shrieked aloud, half-insane. "To hell vith this country!" he
said. "To hell vith the rich that rob us. If your vife's dead, it iss
vat's right. My vife, she'll die too, she's starring. To hell vith
Rawn and all like him!"
"Look here, my men, that's about enough of that!" rejoined Halsey.
"You're drunk or crazy, and we're not going to stand for that here.
It's no place for this kind of talk. I tell you, I've done all I could
for you. I haven't sided with Rawn. If I had, I could be rich to-day."
"You are rich!" cried the Jew; "and ve are poor. You eat fat, you
sleep soft. You _are_ rich! But vat do ve get? I'm hungry! My
folks--they are starfing! Ve haf no money. Ve get no money for vork
ve did so long. It buys us nothing now. Meat is no more for us;
breat, hardly. This _iss_ no country for the people. This _iss_ no
land vere laws are just. This _iss_ no republic of man. Jehovah, send
Thy power! Smite and spare not, this so wrong a land!"
"You damned fanatic, shut up!" began Halsey savagely. "Get on out of
here. You don't know your own friends! Who's to blame for your
troubles? Haven't you got heads of your own? Haven't you got votes of
your own? Can't you right your _own_ wrongs, the first minute you get
ready to do it, I'd like to know? I'm _for_ you, do you understand;
but you make it hard for any one to help you. You've had sluggers
after our men all the time over there, and now you come and want us to
pay you for that. You're over here to make trouble to-night, maybe
slug me--perhaps that's what you are trying to do to me--and you want
us to pay you for _that_. You talk about monopolies and trusts--what
you're trying to do is to make the worst trust in the country--a
monopoly in ignorance and savagery. Go on home and let me alone! I
tell you, my wife is dead. I am going back to her!"
"He's lying to us!" cried out a voice in the crowd. "He's trying to
get us sorry for him!"
"That's it!" screamed the Jew, who had edged to the front and who now
stood crouched, menacing, not far from Halsey's erect and irate frame.
"That's vhat he iss. He'ss only trying to fool us. Kill him! Ve've
vaited long enough! Gif it to him!" He sprang to one side, crouching.
IV
Those back of them, at the gallery, in the rear of the entry, heard
some sort of scuffle, a snarling of voices, curses. There were sounds
of blows. Then came a flash, a shocking report; after that, a
half-instant of silence, and the sound of scattering and departing
footsteps.
There remained only one figure, lying outstretched on the gravel. To
render succor to this, to offer aid, there was now only one human being
left in all that place--she who now came hurrying forward.
Virginia Rawn half raised Halsey as he lay. "Charley!" she said
quietly. "Can you talk?"
He gasped and nodded. "Through here!" He touched his chest. "I guess
I'll not--be able--"
She called out, to any back of her, for aid. The frightened servant
came, and between them they got him somehow into the house, dragging
him to the gold-room library which they had but lately left. They
placed him there upon a couch. Virginia Rawn rose and waved the man
away. He hurried after help.
"Charley!" she said, turning to him; "can you talk?"
"A little. What is it, Jennie?"
"You're hurt bad--very bad."
"Through here," he said again, and touched his chest. His breath was
hard. His garments were soaked with blood. His face was bluish-gray.
V
She looked into his soul the query of her own. Perhaps there was
something not wholly unworthy in the bond between them, since now it
enabled them to talk, one soul with the other, almost without words....
The great, secret, all-powerful, world current, interstellar, not
international, the one great power--of love, as she once said--was
theirs.... Yes, it was theirs, if only for a little while.
"They've killed me," he began after a time--"I tried to do something
for them. He--Rawn--would have used it for himself. I didn't want
to....
"Jennie," he said, after a time; "I beg pardon, Mrs. Rawn--I
forgot--would you take the doll, the little rubber one on the table
there, up to the baby? Poor little thing! Oh, well! ..."
He sighed. She quietly laid him back upon the couch. She heard the
blood drip, drip, through and across the brocaded couch, falling at the
edge of the silken rug, on the polished floor, eddying there;
thickening there.