Orde did not return to the office; he felt unwilling to face Newmark
until he had a little more thoroughly digested the situation. He spent
the rest of the afternoon about the place, picking up the tool house,
playing with Bobby, training Duke, the black and white setter dog. Three
or four times he called up Carroll by telephone; and three or four times
he passed Dr. McMullen's house to shout his half of a long-distance and
fragmentary conversation with her. He ate solemnly with Bobby at six
o'clock, the two quite subdued over the vacant chair at the other end
of the table. After dinner they sat on the porch until Bobby's bed-time.
Orde put his small son to bed, and sat talking with the youngster as
long as his conscience would permit. Then he retired to the library,
where, for a long time, he sat in twilight and loneliness. Finally, when
he could no longer distinguish objects across the room, he arose with a
sigh, lit the lamp, and settled himself to read.
The last of the twilight drained from the world, and the window panes
turned a burnished black. Through the half-open sashes sucked a warm
little breeze, swaying the long lace curtains back and forth. The hum
of lawn-sprinklers and the chirping of crickets and tree-frogs came with
it.
One by one the lawn-sprinklers fell silent. Gradually there descended
upon the world the deep slumbrous stillness of late night; a stillness
compounded of a thousand and one mysterious little noises repeated
monotonously over and over until their identity was lost in
accustomedness. Occasionally the creak of timbers or the sharp scurrying
of a mouse in the wall served more to accentuate than to break this
night silence.
Orde sat lost in reverie, his book in his lap. At stated intervals the
student lamp at his elbow flared slightly, then burned clear again after
a swallow of satisfaction in its reservoir. These regular replenishments
of the oil supply alone marked the flight of time.
Suddenly Orde leaned forward, his senses at the keenest attention. After
a moment he arose and quietly walked toward the open window. Just as he
reached the casement and looked out, a man looked in. The two stared at
each other not two feet apart.
“Good Lord! Heinzman!” cried Orde in a guarded voice. He stepped
decisively through the window, seized the German by the arm, and drew
him one side.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
Heinzman was trembling violently as though from a chill.
“Dake me somewheres,” he whispered hoarsely. “Somewheres quick. I haf
broke quarantine, and dey vill be after me.”
“The place for you is at your own house,” said Orde, his anger rising.
“What do you mean by coming here and exposing my house to infection?”
Heinzman began to blubber; choked, shivered all over, and cried aloud
with an expression of the greatest agony:
“You must dake me somewheres. I must talk with you and your goot wife. I
haf somedings to say to you.” He in his turn grasped Orde by the arm. “I
haf broke quarantine to gome and tell you. Dey are dere mit shotguns to
kill me if I broke quarantine. And I haf left my daughter, my daughter
Mina, all alone mit dose people to come and tell you. And now you don't
listen.”
He wrung his hands dramatically, his soft pudgy body shaking.
“Come with me,” said Orde briefly.
He led the way around the house to the tool shed. Here he lit a lantern,
thrust forward one nail keg, and sat down on another.
Heinzman sat down on the nail keg, almost immediately arose, walked up
and down two or three times, and resumed his seat.
Orde looked at him curiously. He was half dressed, without a collar,
his thin hair unkempt. The usual bright colour of his cheeks had become
livid, and the flesh, ordinarily firm and elastic, had fallen in folds
and wrinkles. His eyes burned bright as though from some internal fire.
A great restlessness possessed him. Impulsively Orde leaned forward to
touch his hand. It was dry and hot.
“What is it, Heinzman?” he asked quietly, fully prepared for the
vagaries of a half delirium.
“Ach, Orde!” cried the German, “I am tortured mit HOLLENQUALLE--what you
call?--hell's fire. You, whose wife comes in and saves my Mina when the
others runs away. You, my best friends! It is SCHRECKLICH! She vas the
noblest, the best, the most kindest--”
“If you mean Mrs. Orde's staying with Mina,” broke in Orde, “it was only
what any one should have done, in humanity; and I, for one, am only too
glad she had the chance. You mustn't exaggerate. And now you'd better
get home where you can be taken care of. You're sick.”
“No, no, my friend,” said Heinzman, vigourously shaking his head. “She
might take the disease. She might die. It vas noble.” He shuddered. “My
Mina left to die all alone!”
Orde rose to his feet with decision.
“That is all right,” said he. “Carroll was glad of the chance. Now let
me get you home.”
But Heinzman's excitement had suddenly died.
“No,” said he, extending his trembling hand; “sit down. I want to talk
business.”
“You are in no condition to talk business,” said Orde.
“No!” cried Heinzman with unexpected vigour. “Sit down! Listen to me!
Dot's better. I haf your note for sefenty-five t'ousand dollars. No?”
Orde nodded.
“Dot money I never lent you. NO! I'm not crazy. Sit still! I know my
name is on dot note. But the money came from somewheres else. It came
from your partner, Joseph Newmark.”
Orde half rose from his keg.
“Why? What?” he asked in bewilderment.
“Den ven you could not pay the note, I vas to foreclose and hand over
dot Northern Peninsula land to Joseph Newmark, your partner.”
“Impossible!” cried Orde.
“I vas to get a share. It vas a trick.”
“Go on,” said Orde grimly.
“Dere is no go on. Dot is all.”
“Why do you come to tell me now?”
“Because for more than one year now I say to mineself, 'Carl Heinzman,
you vas one dirty scoundrel. You vas dishonest; a sneak; a thief';
I don't like to call myself names like dose. It iss all righdt to be
smart; but to be a thief!”
“Why didn't you pull out?” asked Orde.
“I couldn't!” cried Heinzman piteously. “How could I? He haf me cold.
I paid Stanford five hundred dollars for his vote on the charter; and
Joseph Newmark, he know dot; he can PROVE it. He tell me if I don't do
what he say, he put me in jail. Think of dot! All my friends go back on
me; all my money gone; maybe my daughter Mina go back on me, too. How
could I?”
“Well, he can still put you in prison,” said Orde.
“Vot I care?” cried Heinzman, throwing up both his arms. “You and your
wife are my friends. She save my Mina. DU LIEBER GOTT! If my daughter
had died, vot good iss friends and money? Vot good iss anything? I don't
vant to live! And ven I sit dere by her always something ask me: 'Vy you
do dot to the peoples dot safe your Mina?' And ven she look at me, her
eyes say it; and in the night everything cry out at me; and I get sick,
and I can't stand it no longer, and I don't care if he send me to prison
or to hell, no more.”
His excitement died. He sat listless, his eyes vacant, his hands between
his knees.
“Vell, I go,” he said at last.
“Have you that note?” asked Orde.
“Joseph Newmark, he keeps it most times,” replied Heinzman, “but now it
is at my office for the foreclosure. I vill not foreclose; he can send
me to the penitentiary.”
“Telephone Lambert in the morning to give it to me. No; here. Write an
order in this notebook.”
Heinzman wrote the required order.
“I go,” said he, suddenly weary.
Orde accompanied him down the street. The German was again light-headed
with the fever, mumbling about his daughter, the notes, Carroll, the
voices that had driven him to righteousness. By some manoeuvring Orde
succeeded in slipping him through the improvised quarantine without
discovery. Then the riverman with slow and thoughtful steps returned
to where the lamp in the study still marked off with the spaced
replenishments from its oil reservoir the early morning hours.