could only fumble at the keys. By effort of will persons of strong
character can compose themselves after disaster has been confirmed;
but impending disaster that is hinted at--guessed at--is a menace which
paralyzes. She was endeavoring to write down what Richard Dodd had
revealed of the plans of Walker Farr. She understood that the mighty
power of the state machine was now doubling its fist over the head of
the stranger who had come into her life in such peculiar fashion. At the
same moment she was cowering under the threat of something she did not
fully understand.
And from the Dodds--uncle and nephew--came the menace which loomed over
both of them.
Then to her came Peter Briggs, who had been summoned to a conference in
the inner office; by direction of his chief he had been reading to Judge
Warren certain entries penciled in the note-book which he guarded with
the elastic band.
“The governor wants you to add these items to the record, so that the
judge can have a copy,” said Mr. Briggs to the confidential secretary.
“The subject isn't a very genteel one, Miss Kilgour, but orders are
orders, and you'll have to excuse me.”
And Mr. Briggs kept snapping the elastic band nervously while he
dictated, carefully looking away from the young woman.
In such manner Kate Kilgour learned of the existence of Zelie Dionne and
of the child whom Walker Farr had protected; Mr. Briggs's zeal in the
interest of his employer had made him a partisan in that affair, with
easy conscience regarding the matter of the details. The bald record
showed that Farr and the girl had cared for the child between them, had
nursed it with grief and solicitude, had borne it to the plot of land
where the little graves were crowded so closely. Mr. Briggs complacently
avoided dates and age and the minuter details. He even pleaded the case,
having caught a cue from Colonel Dodd; his record left the impression
that Walker Farr, who had come from nowhere--nobody knew when--had lived
in Marion unknown and unnoticed at the time when he had compassed the
ruin of a confiding girl.
“A scalawag, and a bad one!” commented Mr. Briggs, closing his
note-book. “And of course there's worse to come! Posing as a
reformer--that's the way such renegades work the thing. A new game for
every new place!”
And Kate Kilgour, remembering the vagrant on the broad highway, wrote
down the arraignment of this person, trying to understand her emotions.
Her own eyes had seen him garbed as a tramp, plainly a homeless nomad.
Her ears had just listened to the story of his shame.
But after a time, in spite of what she had seen and heard, that strange
instinct which dominates the feminine mind in spite of what the mere
senses affirm took possession of her.
She had known from the first that Richard Dodd's garments, his attitude,
his professions, his position did not make him what her woman's heart
desired.
But, somehow, this other man, no matter what he seemed to be from
outward appearance, stood forth for her from all the world. At times, in
her ponderings, she had disgustedly termed her mood regarding him pure
lunacy. Then she gave rein to the domination of her intuition; the man
was not what he seemed to be!
She determined to put him out of her thoughts for ever.
Just then, however, writing out the story of his turpitude, she must
needs have him in her mind.
She wondered whether he were honest in his attempts to help the poor
people.
She had believed that he was when he had faced Colonel Dodd.
She determined that she would make some investigation of her own in
regard to the mysterious person who had taken such possession of her
thoughts since she had met him in the highway--whose personality had
so pricked her curiosity. She comforted herself by calling her interest
mere curiosity. That was it! If this man were what they claimed he was
she might help in revealing him as an enemy of the poor folks.
And then to her came another thought.
She looked around the offices where she worked and bitter lines were
etched in her forehead and about her mouth.
The place had become hateful. She was conscious of a passionate desire
to be free from the atmosphere of that central web of the Great Spider.
She bent over her work and hurried.
What was the shadow over her home?
She realized that she was not thinking clearly in the matter. She
knew that impulse was driving her. But it was impulse which was
uncontrollable. For a long time she had understood the sinister
influence which had radiated from that office in the First National
block. But it had been rather the impersonal influence of partisan
politics and she had had little knowledge of the persons concerned. But,
now that the situation had been so sharply pointed by recent happenings,
she understood better what had gone on in the past.
This stranger, whoever he was, seemed to be fighting for the good of the
people. She had heard him declare his principles boldly; she knew the
selfishness of the men who opposed him. She resolved to know more.
It was close upon six o'clock when she finished the transcription.
She had given much thought to her own affairs while she had been
working. And now she allowed impulse to dominate. She resolved to leave
that employment which brought her into contact with Richard Dodd and
where her duties required her to prepare material for the ruin of a man
who seemed to be doing an unselfish duty, no matter what they said. She
did not try to analyze that quixotic impulse; she merely obeyed.
She tied up the packet of manuscript, addressed it to Colonel Dodd, and
slipped under the string a sealed note. In that note she resigned her
position, stating that a matter of personal honor demanded that she
leave instantly. She did not qualify that statement by any explanation.
But she knew in her own heart just what it meant. For when she left the
office she did not hasten straight home as her anxious fears prompted
her; she made a detour around by Gamonic Mill in search of one
Provancher, who, she had learned, tended the rack of the canal.
The thought that dominated all other thoughts and comforted her was the
reflection that she was no longer the confidential secretary of Colonel
Symonds Dodd, and that now she might obey certain promptings of both
curiosity and conscience.
The rumble of the big turbines was stilled when she came to the fence
which surrounded the rack, and old Etienne was starting away with rake
and pike-pole. But when she called he came to her--wondering, much
abashed, for she was by far the prettiest lady he had ever seen.
“Are you the friend of Mr. Walker Farr?” she asked, and she was even
more embarrassed than he.
“I am too poor mans to be call a friend, ma'm'selle. I can just say that
he is grand mans that I love.”
“Then you are the one to give him this message. Tell him that men who
are fighting him in politics intend to do him great harm and that he
must be very careful. Tell him that he will understand who these men
are.”
“_Oui_, ma'm'selle. But will he understand who tell me that thing?”
Her cheeks were crimson. “No, no! He mustn't know that.”
“Then he will tell me, 'Poh, old Etienne, you know nottings what you
talk about.' He is very bold mans, and he not scare very easy.”
“But he must be cautious, for these men have power. He need not be
afraid of them, but he must watch carefully. You tell him that they
want to make out bad things about him so that they can print them in the
papers and hurt the cause he is working for. Can you remember?”
“_Oui_, ma'm'selle! I never forget anything what may be for his good. I
will tell him.”
She hesitated for a long time and stared wistfully at the old man. She
started to go away and then returned to the fence, plainly mustering her
courage.
“Do you know whether there is anything--about him--which wicked men can
use to hurt him?” she stammered.
“I only know about him what I know, ma'm'selle,” he replied, with a
gentle smile nestling in the wrinkles of his withered face.
“Could you tell me some of the things you know?” she asked, after much
effort, striving to make her voice calmly inquiring.
Old Etienne set the rake and the pike-pole against the fence. “I will be
quick in what I tell you, ma'm'selle, for I have no place to ask you
to take the seat. But I'm sure you will listen very well to this what I
say.”
And he told her the story of Rosemarie.
But he did not go back as far as the pitiful figure on the canal
bank, he made no mention of the water-soaked wad of paper which bore a
mother's appeal to the world, he did not mention the key to Block Ten.
He told the story of Walker Farr's devotion to a child. He did not
dare to reveal to this stranger the identity of that child, because the
telltale letter had been hidden from the coroner, and old Etienne stood
in awe of the curt and domineering men who enforced the laws. But with
simple earnestness and in halting speech he revealed the tenderness of
Farr's nature and gave further testimony to her woman's understanding
that this man who had come into her life possessed depths which she
longed to probe.
“But the child!” she ventured, after Etienne had finished the story of
how the two of them, voices in the wilderness of careless greed, had
faced the masters of the city in the _hotel de ville_; “it seems strange
that a man--that anybody should take a child and--” She hesitated.
“_Oui_, ma'm'selle, it seemed strange,” agreed the old man, studying her
with sharp glance of suspicion--a gaze so strange that she shifted her
eyes uneasily.
Ah, Etienne told himself, the law sometimes sent queer emissaries to
probe for it--and he feared the law very much.
He must be very careful how he told any of the secrets which might
trouble his good friend, who was now such a friend of the mighty
folks; as for himself--well, he would willingly be a martyr if the law
demanded--but he did fear that law!
“But he loved the child very much,” she hinted.
“So much that he will fight them because they have poisoned her--he will
fight them and not be scare.”
“It is strange!” she repeated.
“_Oui_, ma'm'selle,” he said, regarding her with still more suspicion.
“But before that morning--when you found them here under the tree! He
told you--”
“He walk the street with her in his arm. I don't tell you some more
about dat t'ing what I do not know!”
But she knew that he was withholding something from her. She mustered
her courage.
“Mr. Provancher, the bad men are making threats that they will print
stories about the child--and its mamma--to hurt your friend. And the
stories will make the mamma very sad.”
“No stories can make her sad,” said old Etienne, solemnly. But he did
not say that he had raked the mother from the canal. The law must not
know!
“But I have heard about her,” she insisted.
The old man's mouth trembled; he was frightened. “What you hear?” he
faltered.
“Only good things. That she was very tender and went with you to the
grave.”
“_Oui_,” admitted Etienne, visibly relieved and grasping at this
opportunity. “She's sweet and good. She's play-mamma.”
“And her name is Zelie Dionne?” she asked, her face growing white in the
dusk.
“_Oui_, ma'm'selle--she live across in the little house where there are
plant in the window--she live with the good Mother Maillet what I told
you about.” He pointed to the cottage. “You go some time and talk with
her--but not now,” he added, his fears flaming. He was anxious to be
the first to talk to Zelie Dionne, in order that she might help him to
protect their friend. “You shall talk with her--soon--p'raps. I will
tell her so that she will not be afraid. Yes, you shall hear the
play-mamma say good things of poor Rosemarie.”
She bowed and hurried away.
And before her tear-wet eyes the words “play-mamma” danced in letters of
fire. It seemed to be only another sordid story.
But she remembered the face of Walker Farr, and in her heart she
wondered why she still refused to condemn him.
XXVI
THE DRIVEN BARGAIN
The Honorable Daniel Breed, “sipping” his thin lips and propping his
coat-tails on his gaunt fingers, patrolled the lobby of the National
Hotel and his complacency was not a whit disturbed when Richard Dodd
passed in front of him and sneered in his face.
“Keep on practising making up faces,” advised the old man, amiably.
“Perhaps in the course of time your uncle will give you a job making up
faces as his understudy, seeing that his physog is getting so tough he
can't manage it very well these days.”
Young Dodd whirled on his heel and returned. “We've got a line on you
and your amateur angels, Breed.”
“Don't consider me an amateur, do you?” asked the old politician,
smacking his lips complacently.
“You're a has-been.”
“Sure thing!” agreed Mr. Breed. “The state committee told me so, and the
state committee never made a mistake.”
“We've got so much of a line on your crowd that my uncle has called off
the organizers. There's no need of our wasting money in this campaign.
You're that!” He clacked a finger smartly into his palm.
“Oh yes! You're right! Some snap to us.”
“I mean you're nothing.”
“Run in and take another drink, sonny,” advised Breed, giving slow cant
of his head to denote the baize door through which Dodd had emerged.
“What you have had up to date seems to be making you optimistic--and
there's nothing like being optimistic in politics. I'm always
optimistic--but naturally so. Don't need torching!”
“Look here, Breed, we've got enough dope on that ex-hobo who is doing
your errand-boy work--we know enough about him to kill your whole
sorehead proposition. But I don't believe my uncle will even use it. No
need of it.”
“Probably not,” said Mr. Breed, without resentment. “And I wouldn't if I
were he.”
“We won't descend to it. Now that we have got rid of a lot of old
battle-axes of politicians--and I'm calling no names--we can conduct a
campaign with dignity.”
“So do! So do! And it will save a lot of trouble, son; that's why the
newspapers wouldn't print that stuff about Mr. Farr after your uncle got
it ready. Libel cases make a lot of trouble.”
Dodd grew red and scowled. “Look here, Breed, you're licked before the
start, and as a good politician you know you are. My uncle wants you
to drop in and see him. He told me to tell you so. This is no official
order, you understand. Just drop in informally, and he'll probably have
something interesting to say to you.”
“I'm terribly rushed up--shall be till after convention,” averred Mr.
Breed, piercing the end of a cigar with a peg he had whittled from a
match.
“What's the good of your being a fool any longer?”
“Always have been, so I've found out from that state committee who never
told a lie--and it's comfortable to keep on being one,” he said, with
great serenity.
“You don't think for a minute that you are going to get control of the
next legislature, do you?”
“How much money have you got--your own money, I mean?” inquired Mr.
Breed, guilelessly, his eyes centered carefully on the lighted tip of
his cigar.
“Say--you--you--What do you mean by that?” rasped Dodd, putting the
cracker of a good round oath on the question.
“I meant that I wanted to bet something--and I wouldn't want you to go
out and borrow money--or--or--anything else.” From the cavernous depths
where his eyes were set Mr. Breed turned a slow and solemn stare on the
enraged chief clerk of the state treasury.
“What do you want to bet?”
“Any amount in reason that after the first of next January there'll be
a fresh deal in the way of state officers in every department in the
Capitol. Arguing futures don't get you anywhere, son. If you've got
money to back that opinion you just gave me it will express your notions
without any more talk. But don't go borrow--or--or anything else.”
Dodd stared at the shrewd old political manipulator for a long time.
“You have money to bet, have you?” he asked.
Mr. Breed languidly drew forth a wallet which would make a valise for
some men and carelessly displayed a thick packet of bills.
“There it is,” he said, “and I earned it myself and so I ain't poking it
down any rat-hole without being condemned sure that I'll be able to pull
it all back again with just as much more sticking to it. That wouldn't
be sooavable--and from what you know of me I'm always sooavable.”
Dodd looked at the bills, carefully straightened in their packet, and
giving every evidence of having been hoarded with an old man's caution.
There was something about that money which impressed him with the
sincerity of Mr. Breed's belief in his own cause. The young man grew
visibly white around the mouth.
“I'll see you later, Breed,” he gulped. “I don't believe you know what
you are talking about--but I'm not national bank on legs. I'll be around
and cover your cash.”
He went back into the bar, swallowed a glass of whisky, and went out
and hailed a cab. He directed the driver to carry him to the Trelawny
Apartment.
Mrs. Kilgour admitted him to the vestibule of the suite.
“Is Kate at home?” he demanded.
“Yes, Richard!” She shrank away from him, for his aspect was not
reassuring. “You know--she has given up her work--she is--”
“I know all about it, Mrs. Kilgour. But I want to ask you whether she
has given up her work in order to marry me at once?”
“Why, I--She said--I think it will come about all right, Dicky.” She was
pitifully unnerved.
“Have you told her why she must marry me?”
“It is not time to tell her--it is not right--I can't--”
He seized her arm and pulled her into the sitting-room. The daughter
rose and faced them, reproof and astonishment mingling in her
expression.
“This thing is going to be settled here and now,” said the lover,
roughly. “There is going to be no more fooling. Has your mother put this
matter up to you so that you understand it, Kate?”
“She has told me that she owes you five thousand dollars,” returned
the girl. Her eyes flashed her contempt. “You told me that yourself. I
repeated the statement to her and she admits it.”
“But did she tell you how it happens that she owes me that money?”
“For God's sake, Richard, have some pity! This is my own daughter.
I will sell everything. I will slave. I will pay you. Kate, for my
sake--for your own sake, tell him that you will marry him.”
“I will not marry this man,” declared the girl. “It has been a mistake
from the beginning. As to your business with him, mother, that is not my
affair. You must settle it.”
“You belong in the settlement,” declared Dodd. “Hold on! Don't leave
this room, Kate.”
He reached out his hands to intercept her, and Mrs. Kilgour, released,
fell upon the floor and began to grovel and cry entreaties.
But his raucous tones overrode her appeals.
“We're all together in this. I am five thousand dollars shy in the state
treasury, Kate. I took that money and loaned it to your mother when she
begged me to save her stocks. But she didn't have any stocks.”
Mrs. Kilgour grasped his knees and shook him. But he kept on.
“She had embezzled from Dalton & Company. What I did saved her from
prison and you from disgrace, Kate. And now I am in the hole! Listen
here! There's hell to pay in this state just now! The soreheads are
banding together. A man has just offered to bet me big money that
there's going to be an overturn in the State House departments. I don't
know whether it will happen--but you can understand what kind of torment
I'm in. Kate, are you going to let me stand this thing all alone?”
The girl stood silent and motionless in the middle of the room.
She did not weep or faint. Her face displayed no emotion. It was as
white as marble.
“Do you want to drag my daughter down with you?” cried Mrs. Kilgour.
“You'd better not talk about dragging down,” he shouted, passionately.
“I didn't steal for myself. Give me your love, Kate! Give me yourself
to encourage me, and I'll get out of the scrape somehow. I'll find ways.
But if you don't come with me I won't have the courage or the desire to
fight my way through. I'll not disgrace you if you marry me--I swear I
will not! With you to protect from everything I'll make good. Symonds
Dodd is my uncle. He won't see the family name pulled in. But you must
marry me!”
“And if I do not?” she asked.
“We'll all go to damnation together. I don't care! I'll blow it all. I
won't be disgraced alone because of something I did for your mother. I
may sound like a cur. I don't care, I say! I'm going to have you, and I
don't care how I get you!”
“We need not be so dramatic,” said the girl. Some wonderful influence
seemed to be controlling her. “Mother, stop your noise and go and sit
in that chair. You demand, do you, Mr. Dodd, that to save my mother from
exposure as a woman who has stolen, I must be your wife?”
“I do.”
“Do you really want a wife who has been won in that fashion?”
“I want you.”
“You realize, fully, don't you, the spirit in which I shall marry you?”
“We'll take care of that matter after we are married, Kate. You have
liked me. You will care for me more when you come to your senses in this
thing.”
“You remember what my father did in the way of sacrifice, I suppose? It
was no secret in this state.”
“Yes,” he muttered, abashed under her steady gaze.
“I am like my father in many ways--in many of my thoughts. Perhaps if
he had not set me such an example in the way of sacrifice I should say
something else to you, Mr. Dodd. But as the matter stands between us,
considering the demand you make on me, I will marry you.”
The concession was flung at him so suddenly--he had expected so much
more of rebellion--that he staggered where he stood. He advanced toward
her. But she waved him back.
“Sit down!” she commanded. “This matter has gone far outside romance.
It has become one of business. It is a matter of barter. I have had
some experience in business. You say that mother owes you five thousand
dollars which you took from the state treasury?”
“Yes, Kate.”
“And your books will be examined very carefully, of course, if there is
an overturn in your office?”
“Yes. It won't be any mere legislative auditing.”
“I know something about politics as well as about business, Mr. Dodd.
I cannot very well help knowing, after my experience in your uncle's
office. I suppose the next state convention will determine pretty
effectually whether there will be an overturn or not?”
“If we renominate Harwood it ought to give us a good line on the control
of the next legislature,” he told her. “A hobo and a goody-goody,” he
added, with scorn, “think they have stirred up a revolution, but
they have another think coming.” He had been calmed by her outwardly
matter-of-fact acceptance of the situation. But he did not perceive the
fires of her soul gleaming deep in her eyes.
“If Governor Harwood is renominated and the next legislature is in
the hands of your uncle, as usual, you will be sure to remain in your
position?”
“Of course!”
“And you can hide the discrepancy on your books from the auditing
committee?”
“I am pretty sure I can.”
“You appreciate fully, don't you, Mr. Dodd, why, after all my troubles
in this life up till now, I should hesitate to marry a man with state
prison hanging over him?”
“Yes.”
“If Governor Harwood is not renominated I shall expect you to defer
our marriage until you can work out of your difficulties. There will be
danger and it is not in the bargain of my sacrifice that I shall pass
through such disgrace with you; at any rate, I do not consider that
added suffering is in the trade and will not agree to it. I prefer to
remain as I am and share the disgrace of my mother. Do you agree to
that?”
“I don't like it, but I suppose I've got to be decent in the matter.”
“But if Governor Harwood is renominated at the convention I will concede
a point on my part and will marry you at once, taking it for granted
that you will be able to clear yourself. In that way both of us are
making concessions--and such things should be considered in a bargain.”
She was coldly polite.
He bowed, not knowing exactly what reply to make to her.
“You have accused me of trifling in the past,” she continued. “I will
now try to show you that I can conduct straight business as it should be
handled. Shall I make a memo of our agreement and hand it to you?”
“There is no need of it,” he stammered.
“Thank you, Mr. Dodd. And now that the matter has been settled to our
mutual satisfaction, I will ask you to go. I think my mother needs my
attention. And I am reminded that our bargain does not dispose of the
fact that my mother owes you five thousand dollars. I will reflect
on how that debt may be paid--by insurance”--her face grew whiter
still--“or by some arrangement.”
“I wish you wouldn't say such--” But she interrupted him.