CHAPTER XIII

THE END OF THE DEAL

The next morning when David glanced at the envelopes the postman had

handed him he saw that one letter was from Mr. Jordon. He was ripping it

open eagerly when he noticed the envelope beneath it bore the

handwriting of Helen Chambers. He dropped Jordon's letter and excitedly

opened the other. Its cordiality set him afire. She was just back in

town for the winter, she wrote, and the following afternoon she would be

at St. Christopher's. Would he care to come to meet her at about four

for an hour's walk?

Would he! He had not seen her since the early summer--and how he had

hungered to see her, speak with her, feel her near presence! He walked

across the office, in which he was alone, half a dozen times before he

took up the letter of Mr. Jordon. Mr. Jordon asked that Mr. Rogers and

his associates be at the office of Mr. Chambers at three o'clock that

afternoon. He hoped that they would be able to reach an agreement on

terms and close the matter up.

David, the letter in his hand, was rushing into the living room to read

the news to Rogers, when he saw, through the open hall-door, the ample

form of the Mayor passing out. He captured the Mayor and led him in to

the side of the couch on which Rogers was lying.

"Listen to this, will you!" David cried, and excitedly read the letter.

"Did you take in that sentence at the last?--'I hope that we will at

length be able to agree on terms.' Now what do you think that means?"

"It means," said the Mayor, explosively, "that they've woke up and see

that you ain't never goin' to come down to them, they've got to come up

to you! It means that you've won!"

Rogers's sunken eyes flamed, and he stood up. "It seems so!" he

breathed.

They all seized hands. "This don't mean much to me personally, for I've

only got a little in it," said the Mayor, "but I certainly have the glad

feeling on your account, Rogers. You can clear right out to a land where

the air was made for breathin' purposes. Here in New York the air ain't

good for much except fillin' in lots. Yes sir, Rogers, I'm certainly

glad!"

They talked on excitedly, as men do who are but a step from success.

David was glad, too, on Rogers's account, for he saw afresh how thinly

disease had sculptured his cheeks and nose, and how deeply it had

chiselled about the eyeballs, and to what a slender shaft it had carved

the neck. Also he was ablaze with gladness on his own account. Success,

but a few hours off, meant the partial clearing of his name. His mind

exulted over the details of the scene to-morrow afternoon when he would

tell Helen Chambers he had the means to pay his debt to St.

Christopher's.

In the course of the morning Mr. Harris dropped in. He asked for

Rogers, but David said that Rogers was out. For half an hour the

detective talked about the houses in which he was interested, now and

then slipping in a guileless question about Rogers. But David was on his

guard; he matched his wits against Mr. Harris's, and when at length the

detective went away David was certain he was no wiser than when he came.

At half past two the Mayor thrust his head into the office and, seeing

Kate was there, beckoned David into the hall. The Mayor had never before

been at elbows with a real money king, so for him the meeting was a new

experience; and despite his ire toward Mr. Chambers he was prompted to

make his appearance before royalty in fitting court costume.

"D'you think I look all right?" he asked, anxiously.

David surveyed the Mayor's bulky figure. There was a silk hat with not a

single hair in disarray, a long light overcoat, a pair of fresh gloves

that were staringly tan, and the most gorgeous vest in the Mayor's

closet. David could have wished that the whole scheme of dress had been

pitched in a lower key, but he criticised nothing but the vest.

"If that's all you kick about, then I'm O. K.," the Mayor said

complacently, smoothing a yellow glove over the silken pinks. "You've

give me some good points, but when it comes to vests, friend--well, you

ain't got no real taste for vests."

He walked to the door and looked out. "There comes our carriage," he

called. "Get Rogers and we'll be movin'."

"Carriage!" cried David.

"Sure. D'you think we're goin' to let Chambers and his bunch think we're

a lot o' cheapskates? Not much. We're goin' to do this thing proper."

"But Mr. Chambers himself uses the street cars."

"Well, he can afford to," the Mayor returned with equanimity. "We

can't."

When David walked with Rogers to the carriage he would not have been

surprised had the Mayor handed them for their lapels a bunch of roses

knotted with ribbon. They settled back against the cushions and suspense

silenced them--and with hardly a word they rumbled over to Broadway,

down into Wall Street and up before Mr. Chambers's office.

As they stepped from the carriage, Rogers's thin fingers gripped David's

hand like taut cords. Clasp, face, and the feverish fire in his eyes

told David how great was the strain Rogers bore. This was the climax of

his life.

David returned the pressure of his hand. "It'll be all right," he

whispered reassuringly.

They went up the broad steps into a tiled hallway, and turned to their

right to the entrance of the private banking house of Alexander Chambers

& Co. An erect, liveried negro, whose stiffly formal manners suggested a

spring within him, admitted them into a great light room, in which,

behind a partition of glass and bronze grating that half reached the

ceiling, sat scores of men working swiftly without appearance of speed.

A word and a lifted finger from the black automaton directed them to the

far end of the room. Here a man with the bearing of a statesman, Mr.

Chambers's doorkeeper, bowed them into three leather-seated chairs, and

carried their names into Mr. Chambers's private secretary.

They did not speak; the nearness of the climax awed even the Mayor. And

to add to the suspense throbbing within him, David began to wonder how

he would be greeted by Mr. Chambers, whom he had not seen since his

ante-prison days.

Almost at once the doorkeeper reappeared, and with the subdued air that

characterised the place, led them into a large office. The keen-faced

secretary rose from a desk, ushered them through a door and into another

office. At the great desk in the center of the room were Mr. Chambers

and Mr. Jordon.

The two men rose, and David's wonder as to how Mr. Chambers would

receive him was at once relieved. An inclination of the head and a

quiet, "Glad to see you, Mr. Aldrich"--that was all; nothing in his

impassive face and manner to suggest that he remembered the prison-gap

in David's life.

The Mayor had announced during the carriage drive that if "Chambers

holds out his hand to me to be shook, I won't see nothin' but the

ceilin'." But there was no opportunity thus to humiliate Mr. Chambers,

for his response to the introduction was but a brief nod. So the Mayor

could only declare his independence by opening the front of his

overcoat, like a pair of doors, upon his brilliant waistcoat, and by

gazing into Mr. Chambers's face with aggressive hauteur.

Mr. Jordon shook hands all around. "Well, I hope we'll settle things up

to-day," he said. As to how things were going to be settled, he had not

the slightest doubt. He was certain the afternoon would force Mr.

Chambers to his way of thinking. A few minutes before Mr. Chambers had

asked his opinion as to the result of the conference, and he had said,

"They'll not give in; we've got to pay what they ask." Mr. Chambers had

said nothing--which had not surprised him, for he knew it was

instinctive with Mr. Chambers, even in such small matters as this, to

let the completed act announce his purpose.

They all sat down, David, Rogers, and the Mayor in three

leather-bottomed chairs which stood in front and to the right of Mr.

Chambers's desk. To the left, in a row, were half a dozen other chairs.

Mr. Chambers leaned slightly forward and folded his hands on his desk's

plate-glass top.

"Let us go straight to the point of this matter," he began, addressing

Rogers, who sat between David and the Mayor. "Mr. Jordon tells me you

refuse to consider any sum less than one hundred and fifty thousand

dollars for the land you control. Is that correct?"

"It is."

David's shoulder against Rogers told him that Rogers's lean frame was as

rigid as the chair that held it.

"This then is your ultimatum?"

"It is."

"Just as I told you," nodded Mr. Jordon, who was at Mr. Chambers's

elbow.

Mr. Chambers pressed a button beneath the desk and the door opened

before his secretary.

"Please show in the others," he requested quietly.

The secretary bowed and the door closed.

"The others?" breathed Rogers; and he and David and the Mayor looked at

each other.

"The others!" exclaimed Mr. Jordon. "What others?"

Mr. Chambers sat silent, with unchanged face. The next instant the door,

opening, answered the question. Into the room hesitantly filed the five

owners of the land Rogers controlled. Rogers, David, and the Mayor, and

also Mr. Jordon, rose in astonishment. The five stopped and stared at

Rogers's party; plainly the surprise was mutual.

Mr. Chambers, remaining in his seat, motioned the new-comers to the

chairs at the left of his desk. "Be seated, gentlemen."

"What's this mean?" David asked, catching Rogers's arm.

Rogers turned toward him, and for an instant David felt he was gazing

into the abyss of fear. Then the arm he held tightened and Rogers looked

toward his five clients and nodded.

"Good afternoon. I'm glad to see you," he said in an even tone.

They sat down again, and Rogers's eyes fastened on the finely wrinkled

face of Mr. Chambers--as did every other pair of eyes in the room. They

vainly strove to read the purpose behind that inscrutable countenance.

The purpose was simple enough. By bringing together the two elements of

Rogers's crowd, each ignorant that the other was to be present,

unprepared with common replies, he had thought he might possibly play

them against each other in a way to bring them to his price; and if not,

he would at least have them all together, and so be able to make an

immediate settlement upon their terms. He had had a faint hope that Mr.

Hawkins might discover something significant, but a note from the

detective during the morning had contained no single new fact.

Mr. Chambers did not give the surprised group time to readjust itself.

"I have called together all parties interested in this transaction in

order that we may more effectively reach an agreement, and in the hope

that we may obviate the necessity for future meetings."

He fastened his gray eyes upon the five owners, who were looking very

much at a loss, and spoke coldly, calmly, as though his decision were

unchangeable and his words immutable facts. "First I desire to say that

you gentlemen and your agent have a very inflated idea of the value of

your property. The price is one we cannot, and will not, pay. If you

want to take what we offer, very well. If not, I assure you that we

shall run no streets, water-mains, sewers or gas pipes near your tract.

We shall leave the neighbourhood of your property entirely unimproved.

You will recall that our land lies between yours and the car line; we

shall forbid anybody living on your land crossing our land. Nobody else

is going to buy your land under these conditions. You can sell it only

to us."

The owners, struck while off guard, were dazed; and David, Rogers, and

the Mayor, who had expected the exact opposite of this talk, were

completely taken back.

The cold, dominant voice went on. "Such being the situation, does it not

seem better to accept our price, which is a fair price, than to have

your land made unsaleable, to have your investment tied up for years to

come?"

He centered his personality upon the weakest of the five. "I'm sure you

think so, do you not?"

The man blinked--then nodded his head.

"But--" began Rogers.

"And you, I'm sure you think so," Mr. Chambers demanded of another

owner.

"Ye-e-s," said the man.

This was child's play to Mr. Chambers, who had browbeaten and

overpowered even the directors of great corporations. He tried to rush

his plan through, before the men could recover.

"It is plain you are all agreed. You see how your clients stand, Mr.

Rogers. It certainly seems the only course to settle this matter at once

upon the basis of our offer, which seems to them fair and just."

Rogers saw that awe of the great financier and his intimidating

statments had fairly stampeded his clients. Fighting down the momentary

sense of defeat, and not heeding Mr. Chambers's words to him, he fixed

his great burning eyes on the five men.

"Gentlemen!" he said desperately. They shifted their gaze from Mr.

Chambers to him. "Gentlemen, I want to assure you that if we hold out we

will get our own price. I happen to know they've just bought a piece of

ground beyond ours; without ours it will be worthless to them. They've

got to have our land! You understand? Simply got to have it!"

The Mayor lifted an emphatic yellow hand toward the owners. "Of course

they have! And don't you listen to no bluffin'."

Rogers continued to talk for several minutes; and gradually confidence

and determination came into the manner of the five. At the end Rogers

turned to Mr. Chambers.

"We shall stand out for our price," he said firmly.

Mr. Chambers had wrecked railroads in order to buy them in at a lower

rate, but the similar procedure which he had threatened did not seem

worth while here. He had tried his plan, which he had known had only a

chance of success, and it had failed. There was but only one thing to

do--to yield.

He was thoughtful for several moments. "If we should refuse your terms,

we of course in the end would buy your land at our own price. But it

occurs to me that the bother and extra cost of improving the land and

opening it up at a later date, might be as much as the difference

between your price and ours. What do you think, Mr. Jordon?"

"There's much in what you say," returned the general manager, guardedly.

Rogers, David, and the Mayor exchanged quick, triumphant glances. They

had won.

Mr. Chambers again relapsed into his appearance of thoughtfulness, and

they all sat waiting for him to speak. David laid his hand on Rogers's

and pressed it exultantly.

While Mr. Chambers still sat thus, the office door opened and his

secretary apologetically tiptoed across the room with a letter in his

hand.

"I told Mr. Hawkins you were engaged, but he insisted that this was

important," the secretary said to Mr. Chambers, and withdrew.

Mr. Chambers read the note, thought a moment, slowly folded the sheet,

then raised his eyes.

"Before going further, there is one point--of no importance, I dare say

it will prove to be--that it might be well for us to touch upon." He

centered his calm gaze upon the five owners. "Since you have intrusted

Mr. Rogers with the management of your property I take it that he has

your fullest confidence?"

"Ye-es," said one hesitatingly, and the others followed with the same

word.

"Your confidence, of course, is founded on thorough acquaintance?"

David glanced from the impassive Mr. Chambers to Rogers. The mask of

control had fallen from his face. He was leaning forward, his whole

being at pause, his face a climax of fear and suspense.

A succession of slow "Yes-es" came from the owners.

"Then of course," Mr. Chambers went on in his composed voice, "you are

perfectly aware that Mr. Rogers is a man with a long criminal career."

A shiver ran through Rogers; he stiffened, grew yet whiter. There was a

moment of blankest silence. Then the Mayor sprang up, his face

purpling.

"It's an infernal lie!" he shouted.

Consternation struggled on the faces of the five; they looked from the

rigid, white figure of Rogers to the calm face of Mr. Chambers.

"It isn't so," declared one tremulously.

"We will leave the question to Mr. Rogers," said Mr. Chambers's

unexcitable voice, and he pivoted in his chair so that his steady eyes

pointed upon Rogers. "If Mr. Rogers is not 'Red Thorpe,' the one time

notorious safe-blower, with scores of burglaries and three terms in the

penitentiary against him, let him say so. However, before he denies it,

I shall tell him that I have all the police data necessary for his

identification. Now, Mr. Rogers."

Their gaze on Rogers's face, all waited for him to speak--Jordon,

astounded, the five pale with the fear of loss, the Mayor glowering,

David with a sense that supreme ruin was crushing upon them.

At length Rogers's lips moved. "It is true," he whispered.

"What if it is?" roared the Mayor at Mr. Chambers. "There's nothin' agin

him now!"

"I'm making no charges against him," returned Mr. Chambers. "This is

merely some information it seemed his clients might be interested in

having."

All eyes again turned upon Rogers. He came slowly to his feet, walked to

Mr. Chambers's desk, leaned his hands upon it and directed his large

burning eyes down into Mr. Chambers's face.

"I have done many bad things, yes," he said in a voice, low, flame-hot,

"but nothing as bad as you have just done. You have stolen more this

minute than I have stolen in my lifetime."

He held his eyes, blazing with accusation, upon Mr. Chambers's

imperturbable face for several moments, then looked about on the five

owners. There was a chance, a bare chance, they might not turn against

him.

"Yes, I am Red Thorpe," he said in a vibrant voice that became more and

more appealing with every word. "I knew it would be found out--some day.

There are some things I always told myself I'd say to the world when

this day came. But to you I want to say only this: For ten years I've

been honesty itself. I've been honest with you--you know it. If you

stand by me, I'll do everything I've promised."

He stood rigid, awaiting their verdict. There was a strained silence.

The five looked dazedly at Rogers, at one another, completely at a loss.

"If the gentlemen desire to entrust their affairs to a most dangerous

criminal, one who might defraud them of everything, that is their

privilege," put in Mr. Chambers quietly.

Their bewilderment was gone; Mr. Chambers's words had roused their

property instinct. A murmuring rose among them.

David and the Mayor sprang up, but Rogers raised a hand and they

remained beside their chairs. A flame began to burn in his white cheeks,

in his deep eyes.

"I knew this day was coming," he said in a low voice, that had a wild

bitter ring of challenge. "Instead of you, you weaklings"--he looked at

the five--"and you, you mere soulless Acquisition"--his eyes blazed at

Mr. Chambers--"I wish I had the world before me. I'd like to tell it

what a vast fool it is in its treatment of such as me--how eyeless and

brainless and soulless! Oh, what a fool!... But the world's not here."

He was silent for a moment. "And why am I at an end?--why?" His answer

rang through the room with a passionate resentment, with an agony of

loss. "Because the world did not care to step in and point the right way

to me. To have saved me would have been so easy! I was worth saving! I

had brains--there was a man in me. Whose fault is it that I am now at

the end?--a miserable remnant of a man! The world's. I was robbed of my

chance in life--robbed, yes sir, robbed!--and I could have made it a

splendid life! Ah, how I've wanted to make it a splendid life. And the

world--the world that robbed me!--that world calls me criminal. And I

must pay the penalty, and the penalty is--what you see! Oh, my God!"

For ten years Rogers had cherished the purpose of accusing the world on

the day of his exposure--but now his loss was so overwhelming, speech to

these people was so utterly useless, strength was so little, that he

could say no more--could only, leaning against the desk, gaze in hatred

and despair at Mr. Chambers and the owners. The faces of the five were

pale and blank. There was a trace of sympathy in Mr. Jordon's face, and

a momentary change in Mr. Chambers's that indicated--who knows what?

David sprang to Mr. Chambers's desk, his soul on fire.

"This, sir, is a damned inhuman outrage!" he flung down into the older

man's face.

"It might also have been of interest to Mr. Rogers's clients," Mr.

Chambers returned calmly, "to have known the record of Mr. Rogers's

associate."

David's wrath had no time to fashion a retort, for the Mayor, at his

side, hammered the desk with a great yellow-gloved fist. "That's what it

is!" he shouted. "It's a low, dirty, murdering trick!"

"I merely acquainted his clients with his record--which they have a

right to know."

A huge sarcastic laugh burst from the Mayor, and he pushed his face down

into Mr. Chambers's.

"_You_," he roared, "you, when you're in a deal, you always show your

clients _your record_, don't you!"

Rogers, out of whose cheeks the fire had gone, leaving them an ashen

gray, tugged at their sleeves.

"It's no use!--let's go!" he begged, chokingly. "Quick!"

David's eyes blazed down upon Mr. Chambers. "Yes, let's leave the

infernal thief!"

He took one of Rogers's arms, the Mayor, shaking a huge fist in Mr.

Chambers's face, took the other, and they made for the door.

Mr. Chambers, still seated, watched Rogers's thin figure, head pitched

forward and sunken between his shoulders, pass out of the office.

Brushing people out of his way had become the order of his life, and he

did it impersonally, without malice, as a machine might have done it.

And Rogers was one of the most insignificant he had ever brushed aside.

"Mr. Rogers, as of course you are aware, has not the rights of a

citizen," Mr. Chambers said to the five. "Consequently his agreement

with you is invalid; he can not hold you to it. If you will kindly wait

in the next room a moment, Mr. Jordon will speak with you."

After they had filed out he remarked to Jordon: "They are stampeded.

They will come to your terms. I leave them in your hands."

He touched the button on his desk and his secretary appeared. "If

Senator Speed has come," he said, "ask him to step in."

* * * * *

When David and Rogers were home again, and the Mayor and his profanity

had gone, there was a long silence during which both sat motionless.

David searched his mind for some word of hope for Rogers, who was a

collapsed bundle in a Morris chair, gazing through the window into the

dusky air-shaft.

At length he bent before Rogers and took his hand. "We'll go to some new

place together, and start all over again," he said.

Rogers turned his face--the only part of him that the deepening twilight

had not blotted out. It seemed a bodyless face--the mask of

hopelessness.

"It's no use--I'm all in," he whispered. "Even if I had the courage to

make another fight, there's no strength."

He was silent for several moments. Then a low moan broke from him. "Ten

years!" he whispered. "And this is the end!"

BOOK IV

THE SOUL OF WOMAN

CHAPTER I

HELEN CHAMBERS GETS A NEW VIEW OF HER FATHER

The morning light that sunk down the deep air-shaft and directed its

dimmed gaze through the window, saw Rogers lying dressed on the couch

and David sitting with sunken head at the window, a sleepless night on

both their faces. There had been little talk during the crawling hours,

save when the Mayor had dropped in near midnight and set walls and

furniture trembling with his deep chest-notes of profanity. Even Tom,

awed by the overwhelming disaster, moved noiselessly about and spoke

only a few whispered monosyllables. The blow was too heavy to be talked

of--too heavy for them to think of what should next be done.

Once, however, David, whose personal loss was almost forgotten in his

sympathy for Rogers, had spoken of the future. "There is no future,"

Rogers had said. "In a few days the owners of my buildings will hear

about me. They will take the agency from me. I have a few hundred

dollars. That will soon go. And then--?"

The dinginess in the light began to settle like the sediment of a

clearing liquid, and the sense that the sun must be breakfast-high

worked slowly to the seat of David's will. He rose, quietly set a few

things in order, Rogers's eyes following him about, then put on his hat

with the purpose of going to the Pan-American for his breakfast and to

bring Rogers's.

As he started for the door Rogers reached forth his hand. "I'm glad you

found out about me, Aldrich," he said. "I can never tell you how much

you've meant to me during the last eight months, and how much you mean

to me now."

David grasped the hand and looked down into the despairing eyes. "I'm

glad," he said, simply.

After a moment Rogers's weak grip relaxed and he turned away his face

with a sigh. David went softly out.

While David was at breakfast--his appetite shrunk from it--the Mayor sat

down at his table, which had the privacy of an empty corner. "By the

way," the Mayor whispered, "d'you have any idea yet how Chambers found

out?"

"No more than yesterday. We told you of the call of that detective. He

must have been from Chambers, and he must have made the discovery. But

how, we don't know."

"Poor Rogers!" The Mayor shook his head sadly, thoughtfully. His face

began slowly to redden and his eyes to flash. He thrust out a big fist.

"Friend, I don't believe in fightin'--but say, I'd give five years to

flatten the face that belongs to Mr. Chambers!"

David had to smile at the idea of the Mayor and Mr. Chambers engaged in

fisticuffs. "It's sad, but men like Mr. Chambers are beyond the reach of

justice."

The Mayor dropped his belligerent attitude. "Oh, I don't know. Mebbe

they can't be reached with fists, or law--but there's other ways. And

I'd like to jab him any old way. I've been thinkin' about that daughter

o' his. Wouldn't I like to tell her a few things about her dad!"

The Mayor swayed away in response to a summons from the kitchen, and a

few minutes later David entered his room bearing in a basket Rogers's

prescribed milk and soft-boiled eggs. Rogers drank down the eggs, which

David had stirred to a yellow liquid, and after them the milk, and then

with a gasp of relief sank back upon the couch. As David was clearing up

after the breakfast he heard some one--Kate he guessed--enter the

office, and presently there was a rap on the door between the two rooms.

David opened the door and found, as he had expected, Kate Morgan. She

wore her coat and hat, just as she had come from the street. On her face

was a strange, compressed look, and her eyes were red-lidded.

"Can I come in?" she asked with tremulous abruptness.

"Please do," said David.

She entered and moved to the foot of the couch where she could look down

on Rogers. "I've come to say something--and to say good-bye," she

announced.

"Say good-bye?" Rogers sat up. "Good-bye? Why? Oh, you have a new

position?"

"No. I've no right to be here. You won't want me when you know. So I'm

going."

Her face tightened with the effort of holding down sobs. The two men

looked at her in wonderment, waiting.

"You know how broke up I was when you told me about yesterday

afternoon," she went on, "and how mad I was at Mr. Chambers. And then to

find out what I have!... Here's what I've come to tell you. Yesterday

afternoon and last night my father was drinking a great deal. I wondered

where he got the money. This morning I went through his clothes while he

was asleep; there were several dollars. I asked him about it. He lied to

me, of course. But I got the truth out of him in the end.

"You remember that detective you told me about last night. When he left

here yesterday about noon he happened to see my father sweeping off the

sidewalk. He began to talk to my father, got my father to drinking, gave

him some money. And after a while my father--he'd learned it somehow--he

told the detective--he told him you were Red Thorpe."

The two men were silent a moment, looking at the strained face down

which tears were now running.

"So that's how it happened!" Rogers breathed.

"Yes--my father told!" The tremor in her voice had grown to sharp

sobs--of shame, agony, and wrath. "My father brought all this on you.

And it's all because of me. If you both hadn't tried to be good to me,

my father would not have been here and everything would have turned out

right. It's all because of me!--all my fault!--don't you see? I know

you'll both hate me now. I know you'll want me to go away. Well--I'm

going. But I want to tell you how sorry I am--how sorry!... Good-bye."

David wanted to speak to her, but this was Rogers's affair rather than

his.

She swept them both with her brimming eyes. "Good-bye," she said again,

and turned to the door.

"Miss Morgan!" called Rogers.

She paused and looked at him.

"Don't go yet."

He rose and came to her with outstretched hand. "It wasn't your fault."

She stared dazedly at him. "You're ruined--you told me so last night,

and I did it. Yes, I did it."

"No. You couldn't help it. You mustn't go at all."

She took his hand slowly, in astonishment. "Oughtn't I to go?" she

quavered.

"You must stay and help bear it," he said.

She looked steadfastly into his eyes. "You're mighty good to me," she

breathed in a dry whisper. And then a sob broke from her, and turning

abruptly she went into the office.

* * * * *

In the afternoon David walked over to St. Christopher's to meet Helen

Chambers. Besides his bitterness, and his suspense over seeing her,

David felt as he entered the door of the Mission (what he had felt on

his three or four previous visits) a fear of meeting some wrathful,

upbraiding body who would recognise him. But he met no one except a

group of children coming with books from the library, and unescorted he

followed the familiar way to the reception room, where Helen had written

she would meet him. This, like the rest of the Mission's interior he had

seen, was practically unchanged; and in this maintenance of old

arrangements he read reverence for Morton. He wandered about the room,

looking at the friendly, brown-framed prints that summoned back the far,

ante-prison days. The past, flooding into him, and his sense of the

nearness of Helen, crowded out for the time all his bitterness over

Rogers's destruction.

When Helen appeared at the door, he was for an instant powerless to

move, so thrilled was he with his love for her. She came across the room

with a happy smile, her hand held out. He strode toward her, and as he

caught her hand his blood swept through him in a warm wave.

"I'm so glad to see you again!" she cried, and a little laugh told him

how sincere her joy was.

A sudden desire struggled to tell her, truly, how great was his

gladness, and its kind, at seeing her again; and fighting the desire

back made him dizzy. "And I to see you!" he said.

"It's been--let's see--five months since I've seen you, and--"

"Five months and four days," the desire within David corrected.

"And four days," she accepted, with a laugh. "And there've been so many

things during that time I've wanted to talk with you about. But how are

you?"

She moved near a window. She was full of spirits this day. The out-door

life from which she had just come, the wind, the sun, the water, were

blowing and shining and rippling within her. David, in analysing his

love for her, had told himself he loved her because of her able mind,

her nobility of soul, her feeling of responsibility toward life. Had he

analysed further he would have found that her lighter qualities were

equally responsible for his love--her sense of humour, the freshness of

her spirits, her joy in the pleasures of life. She had never shown him

this lighter side with more freedom than now--not even during the summer

seven years before when for two weeks they had been comrades;--and

David, yesterday forgotten, yielded to her mood.

He frankly looked her over. She wore a tailor-made suit of a rich brown,

that had captured some of the warm glow of sun-lit autumn, and a little

brown hat to match on which bloomed a single red rose. Her face had the

clear fresh brown of six months' sun, and the sun's sparkle, stored in

her deep eyes, beamed joyously from them. She was a long vacation

epitomised, idealised.

"May I say," he remarked at length, with the daring of her own free

spirit, "that you are looking very well?"

For her part, she had been making a like survey of him. His tall figure,

which had regained its old erectness, was enveloped in clothes that fit

and set it off; and his clean-lined face, whose wanness had been driven

away by the life in hers, looked distinguished against the background of

the dark-green window hangings.

"You may," she returned, "if you will permit me to say the same of you."

"Of me? Oh, no. I'm an old man," he said exultantly. "Do you know how

old I am?" He touched his head. "See! The gray hairs!"

"Yes--at least a dozen," she said gravely. "Such an old man!"

"Thirty-one! Isn't it awful?"

"Twenty-eight--that's worse for a woman!"

They looked at each other solemnly for a moment. Then she broke into a

laugh that had the music of summer, and he joined her.

Her face became more serious, but all the sparkle remained in it. "There

are so many things I want to talk over with you. One is a check my

father has just given me. Every autumn he gives me a sum to spend on

philanthropic purposes just as I see fit--he never asks me about it. The

check's for twenty thousand dollars. I thought you might have some

suggestions as to what to do with it--something in line with what we

have often talked about. But we'll speak of that and some other things

later. First of all, have you heard anything from your book?"

"Not a word."

"You will--and favourably, I am sure. I want to say again what I've

written--I think it's splendid as a piece of literary work and splendid

as a work of serious significance. And Uncle Henry is just as

enthusiastic as I am."

David reddened with pleasure, and his enthusiasm, dead for over a month

now, began to warm with new life. Her eyes were looking straight into

his own, and the love that had several times urged him beyond the limits

of discretion, now pressed him again--and again all his strength was

required to hold it silent.

"But come!--we were to walk, you know," she said, smiling lightly. "I'll

prove that I'm the better walker."

During their silent passage through the halls to the Mission door, it

returned to him that she was the daughter of the man who, by an

even-toned word, had destroyed one of his hopes and utterly destroyed

all of Rogers's. His high spirit, which had been but a weaker reflection

of her own, faded from his face, leaving it tired and drawn; and she,

looking up at him, saw the striking change.

"Why, have you been ill?" she exclaimed.

A grim little smile raised the corners of his mouth. "No."

"Then you've been working too hard. What have you been doing since you

finished your book?"

He briefly told of his discharge and his acceptance of a position with

Rogers--and while he spoke his refluent bitterness tempted him to go on

and tell her father's act of yesterday.

"But this was over a month ago," she said when he had ended. "Have the

expected developments in Mr. Rogers's business taken place?"

"Tell her all," Temptation ordered. He resisted this command, and then

Temptation approached him more guilefully. "Tell her all, only give no

names but yours and Rogers, and no clues that would enable her to

identify her father." This appealed to David's bitterness, and instantly

he began.

He told her Rogers's true story, which of course he had as yet not

done--of Rogers's fight, so like his own--of Rogers's deception of the

world for ten years that he might live honestly--of his loneliness

during that time, his fears, his secret kindnesses--of the first stages

of the real estate deal--of the vast meaning of success to Rogers, and

of its meaning to himself--and finally of the happenings of the day

before. "So you see," he ended, "this Mr. A. has utterly destroyed Mr.

Rogers, in cold blood, merely that he might increase the profits of his

company."

She had followed him with tensest interest, and indignation's flame in

cheek and eye had grown higher and higher.

"Do you mean to say," she demanded, slowly, "that any man would do such

a thing as that?"

"Yes--and a most respected citizen."

"It was heartless!" she burst out hotly. "That man would do anything!"

It filled David with grim joy to hear her pass such judgment upon her

own father. At that moment he was untroubled by a single thought as to

whether he had acted honourably to betray her into pronouncing judgment.

"That man should be exposed!" she went on. "Honourable business men

should ostracise him. Won't you tell me his name? Perhaps my father can

do something."

An ironic laugh leaped into David's throat. He checked it. "No, I cannot

tell his name."

Her indignation against the destroyer gave way to sympathy for the

destroyed. She saw Rogers defeated, despairing, utterly without chance.

They came to David's street and her sympathy drew her into it.

"I'm so sorry for him!" she burst out. "So sorry! I wish I could do

something. I'd like to go in and tell him what I feel--if you think he

wouldn't mind that from a stranger."

"I'm afraid he would," said David, grimly.

They fell silent. As they drew to within a block of the house, David saw

the Mayor of Avenue A, whom he had left with Rogers, come down the steps

and start toward them, which was also toward the café. The Mayor

recognised them instantly, and a smile began to shine on his pink face.

He had long been wanting to meet Helen, and now the chance was his. He

came up, his overcoat spread wide at the demand of his vest, and,

pausing, took off his hat with his best ball-room flourish.

"I've heard a great deal about you through Mr. Aldrich," Helen said,

when David had introduced them. "I'm very happy to meet you."

"And I'm happy to meet you, miss," he returned, bowing, making a

graceful sweep with his hat, and vigorously shaking the hand she had

given him. "And me, I've heard about you a lot--and that long before I

saw Mr. Aldrich.

"From St. Christopher's, I suppose."

"Yes, there--and elsewhere," said the Mayor, smiling gallantly. "On the

society pages. I've seen lots o' pieces about you, and seen your picture

there among the beauties of society."

The Mayor expected to see her blush with gratification and ask for

more--as women always did. But she quickly shifted to another subject.

"Mr. Aldrich has just been telling me of a business affair you, he and

Mr. Rogers have been engaged in."

"Oh, has he!"

The Mayor, in the agreeable experience of meeting Helen, had forgotten

there was such a person as her father. But he was the gallant no longer.

His feet spread apart, his face grew stern, and he looked Helen squarely

in the eyes.

"Well," he demanded, "--and what do you think o' your father now?"

"My father?" she said blankly.

David caught his arm. "Keep still, Hoffman!" he cried roughly.

The Mayor looked from one to the other in astonishment. "What," he

cried, "d'you mean you hadn't told her it was her father?"

The colour of summer faded slowly from Helen's face, and a hand reached

out and caught a stoop railing. Her eyes turned piercingly, appealingly,

to David. After a moment she whispered, "My father--was that man?"

He nodded.

Her head sank slowly upon her breast, and for moment after moment she

stood motionless, silent.

The Mayor when he had thought of her as an instrument to strike her

father, had not thought the instrument itself might be pained. Filled

with contrition, he stammered: "Please, Miss, I'm sorry--I didn't mean

to hurt you."

She did not answer; she seemed not to have heard. A moment later she

lifted a gray, drawn face to David.

"Mr. Aldrich," she said tremulously, "will you please put me in a cab?"

* * * * *

In the cab she sat with the same stricken look upon her face. She had,

as David had once said to the Mayor, always regarded her father as a man

of highest honour. She had never felt concern in his business affairs,

or any business affairs, despite the fact that her interests overreached

in so many directions the usual interests of women, and despite the fact

that her heart was in various material conditions which business had

created and which business could relieve.

Seen from the intimate view-point of the home, her father was generous

and kind. She had heard of the reports that circulated in the distant

land of business, and she had glanced at some of the articles that had

appeared in years past in magazines and newspapers, and she knew that

stories were at this time current. Her conception of her father had

given the silent lie to all these reports. She believed they sprang from

jealousy, or false information, or a distorted view. They had troubled

her little, save to make her indignant that her father was so maligned;

and even this indignation had been tempered with philosophic mildness,

for she had remembered that it had ever been a common fate of men of

superior purpose, or superior parts, or superior fortune, to be

misunderstood and to be hated.

But, all of a sudden, her conception of her father was shattered. This

thing he had indubitably done was certainly not without the legal law,

and perhaps not wholly without the cold lines of the moral--but it was

hard-hearted, brutal. "The man who would do that would do anything," she

had said to David; and all the way home in the cab this thought kept

ringing through her consciousness, and kept ringing for days afterwards.

It led logically and immediately to the dread question: "After all, may

not these other stories be true?"

Helen did not belong to that easy-conscienced class who can eliminate

unpleasantness by closing their eyes against it. She had to face her

question with open vision--learn what truth was in it. She secured all

she could find in print about her father and read it behind the locked

door of her room. There was case after case in which her father, by

skilful breaking of the law, or skilful compliance with it, or complete

disregard of moral rights, had moved relentlessly, irresistibly, to his

ends over all who had opposed him. The picture these cases drew was of a

man it sickened her daughter-love to look upon--a man who was truly, as

the articles frequently called him, an "industrial brigand," and whose

vast fortune was the "loot of a master bandit."

The articles seemed woven of fact, but she could not accept them

unsubstantiated. She must know the truth--beyond a single doubt. At the

same time, she, her father's daughter, could not go to the men he had

wronged, demanding proof. At length she thought of her Uncle Henry, whom

she loved and trusted, and whom she knew to be intimately acquainted

with her father's career.

To him she went one night and opened her fears. "Are these things true?"

she asked.

And he said: "They are true."

She went away, grief-burdened, feeling that the whole structure of her

life was tottering. And two questions that before had been vaguely

rising, became big, sharp, insistent: What should be her attitude toward

her father, whom she loved? And what should be her attitude toward his

fortune, which she shared?

CHAPTER II

DAVID SEES THE FACE OF FORTUNE

When David had handed Helen into the cab, she had not spoken to him, had

not even said, "Thank you," and had rolled away without giving him so

much as a backward glance. He now felt it had been brutal,

dishonourable, to trap her into denouncing her father and then to strike

her with her father's guilt. He was certain she was deeply offended, and

this conviction grew as day after day passed without a word from her.

But there were other things to be thought of during these days. There

was his future--upon which, uncertain as it was, he saw that Lillian

Drew was to be a parasite; for she had made another call (while Kate was

out of the office; he was thankful for that) and had carried away the

larger fraction of his small store of money. He was again

workless--again at the base of that high, smooth wall which before he

had been able to surmount only with, as it were, his last gasping

effort.

What he should do, he had no idea. But his own future he thrust aside as

being a less pressing problem than Rogers's future and Rogers's present.

As Rogers had predicted, the fact that he was Red Thorpe quickly reached

the ears of his clients, and they all lost no time in withdrawing their

property from his charge. The owner who had forced David's dismissal as

janitor demanded with the same delicacy that Rogers should vacate the

rooms he occupied; but Rogers had a lease and, moreover, had paid a

month's rent in advance, so they and their belongings were not tumbled

into the street.

These days were for Rogers solid blackness. David had promised to share

with him, but he saw that there was doubt of David's having anything to

share. Even if David did, his bitter mood now looked upon that portion

as charity, and little more agreeable to his pride than public

charity--which he saw as a near-looming, shame-laden spectre, feared

more than death. That he who had had the brains to achieve independence,

who had been on the verge of fortune, should have been crushed to his

present extremity--this filled him with wild revolt. Kate, with a

subdued gentleness that begged to serve; Tom, with his alert

willingness; David, with his constant presence and consideration; the

Mayor, with his ever-ready vituperation and bluff words of hope that

rang hollow;--they all tried to lift the draping blackness from about

him--and failed, because they had nothing but blackness to hang in its

place.

But some definite plan for the future had to be made, and Rogers himself

made it. Since Colorado was not for him, he would, as soon as his month

here was ended, secure as cheap a room as he could find and try to

stretch his small funds to reach that final day when he would have no

need of more.

Kate's father fell with the rest of the Rogers regime, and from the

basement they moved into a couple of cheap rooms a few blocks away.

David had often considered the relation between Kate and her father:

aside from keeping him alive Kate was of no service to him--he was a

terrible drag on her; if they could be separated, with his maintenance

secured, he would be no worse off and she would be far better. David now

talked the matter over with Rogers; together they talked it over with

Kate, who finally yielded; and David enlisted the interest of Dr.

Franklin in behalf of getting old Jimmie into an institution for

inebriates.

There was little for Kate to do in Rogers's office, but she insisted on

remaining and remaining without salary. "It's because of me all this

happened--you may need me--I'm going to stay," she said to Rogers. "I've

still got most of my last month's wages--two or three weeks will be soon

enough to get a job." And nothing Rogers urged could move her.

Tom begged to be allowed to go to work, but David prevailed on him to

continue in school. "Something good will surely turn up," David said to

the boy. But days went and nothing arose. David was on the point of

yielding to Tom, when into the general gloom there shot, for him, a

bright shaft of hope. Ten days after he had put Helen into the cab a

letter came to him addressed in her handwriting. He hardly dared open

it, for he expected reproof--delicately conveyed, of course, but still

reproof. When he drew the letter from its envelope an enclosure fell

unheeded to the floor. Instead of censure he found this:

"It seems your address was not on your manuscript, so Mr. Osborne

has sent the enclosed letter to you in care of me. I can hardly

refrain from opening it. I feel certain there is good news in it. I

congratulate you in advance!

"You know how interested I am, so I know you'll come and tell me

all about it just as soon as you learn the book's fate. You'll find

me in almost any time."

David picked up the envelope--stamped in one corner with "William

Osborne & Co," a name he had once worshipped from afar off--ripped it

open and read the following, signed by Mr. Osborne himself:

"We have been greatly interested in your story. If you will call at

your convenience I shall be glad to talk with you about it."

David stared at the three type-written lines. The letter was not an

acceptance--but then neither was it a rejection. A wild hope leaped up

within him. Could it be here was a ladder up the unseizable wall? Could

it be the success he had failed of five years before was at last about

to be won? He dared not let himself be swept to these dizzy heights; he

knew how far it was to the ground. So he told himself it could not be

possible. Still, was there not a chance?

He slipped away without hinting of his hope to Rogers--there would be

time for telling later, if anything was to tell--and at ten o'clock

reached a little five-story brick building off Union Square that was the

home of William Osborne & Co. At first he had not the courage to enter.

He remembered, as he walked on, a manuscript novel he had left here in

the long ago--and it came back to him that this was the very manuscript

he had been working over on that day, now more than five years gone,

when Morton's death had summoned him to St. Christopher's.

When he reached the door again he drove himself in and was swung to the

top floor in a little creaking elevator, and before his courage had time

to recede he was within a railed-off square in a large room and had

given his name to a boy to be carried to Mr. Osborne. In a moment the

boy returned and led him across the room, filled with sub-editors,

manuscript readers and stenographers, and ushered him into a small

private office. Here at a desk sat a white-haired man chatting with two

visitors.

The white-haired man rose as David entered and smiled a kindly,

spectacled smile. "I'm very glad to see you, Mr. Aldrich. If you'll

excuse me for a minute, I'll be right with you."

David sat down in the chair Mr. Osborne indicated and waited with

pulsing suspense for the two men to go. There, on one corner of Mr.

Osborne's desk, which was littered with letters, manuscripts and

magazine page-proofs, he saw his book. He felt, as he waited, almost as

he had felt five years before during the suffocating minutes between the

return of the jury with its verdict and the verdict's reading. The

verdict on the book was ready. What was it to be?

At length the two men went away. Mr. Osborne turned from the door and

came toward David, smiling cordially, his hand outstretched.

"Let me congratulate you, Mr. Aldrich!" he said heartily.

David rose and put a nerveless hand into Mr. Osborne's. "You mean--you

like it?"

"Indeed I do! If you and I can come to an agreement, we shall be proud

to publish it."

David gazed swimmingly at him. There was a whirling, a bubbling, within

him--but he managed to say with fair control: "It's hardly necessary to

tell an old publisher how happy a new author is to hear that."

Mr. Osborne sat down and David automatically did likewise.

"You, Mr. Aldrich, have particular reason to feel happy. We print a

great many well-written, dramatic stories--stories which are just that,

and no more. That, of course, is a great deal. But when a book, without

impairment to its dramatic and artistic quality, leaves a profound

impression regarding some aspect of life--that book has an element of

bigness that the other stories lack. Mr. Aldrich, yours is such a

story."

David felt he was reeling off his chair. "Yes?" he said.

Mr. Osborne went on to praise the book in detail. After a time he

proposed terms. David took in hardly a word of the offer; his mind was

over-running with his success, his praise. But he accepted the terms

instantly.

This settled, Mr. Osborne picked up several yellowed type-written sheets

from his disordered desk. "By the way, are you the David Aldrich that

submitted us a novel five or six years ago called 'The Master Knot?'"

"Yes," said David.

"I thought you might be interested in the readers' opinions on that

story, so I had them brought in."

He handed the sheets to David, and when he saw David had glanced them

through, he remarked: "You see they all amount to the same. 'The author

knows how to write, but he does not know life.'" He gazed steadily at

David through the kindly spectacles. "Since then, Mr. Aldrich, you have

come to know life."

"I think I have." David strained to keep his voice natural.

"Yes, you have come to know life--to feel it." He paused, and considered

within himself. For all his warmth, there had been in his tone and

manner, caution, reserve. Suddenly these fell away, and he radiated

enthusiasm.

"I try never to raise false hopes in a young author," he cried, "but

I've got to say more than I've said. Really, I think I've made what a

publisher is always looking for, hoping for--a great find, a real

writer! You're going to do big things!"

David dared not respond; he knew his voice would not be steady.

"Yes--big things," Mr. Osborne repeated. "But here's another point I

wanted to speak of. We can use several short stories from you in our

magazine. If you have any, or will write some, that are anywhere near as

good as the book, I can guarantee acceptance."

It was a moment before David could trust himself to speak. "I have none,

but I should like to write some." Then he suddenly remembered he had not

the money to carry him through the period that must elapse before the

stories could be written and paid for. "But I fear I'm not in a position

to write them just now," he added.

Mr. Osborne had had thirty years' experience with the impecuniosity of

authors. "Money?" he queried.

There was no taking offence at the friendly way he asked this. "Yes,"

David confessed.

"I think we can solve that difficulty. I don't know how the book there

is going to sell. I was a publisher before you were born, but after all

my experience I have to regard the commercial side of publishing as

pretty much of a gambling game. Critically, your book is certain of

great success. Financially--I don't know. It may win in a large way; I

hope so. But you are sure of at least a moderate sale. Suppose, then, I

make you a small advance on your royalty. Say--let's see--well, three

hundred. Will that do?"

David felt, as he had felt since he had heard his verdict, that to

venture beyond a monosyllable would be to explode. He swallowed. "Yes,"

he said.

"Very well, then. Do you prefer check or cash?"

"Cash."

Ten minutes later David entered the street, three hundred dollars in his

pocket, his heart wild with joy, hope. He wanted to run, to shout, to

fly. His glowing face was the visage of triumph.

At last the success he had prayed for--striven for--given up--had come!

He turned northward, to carry the news to Helen. A suggestion of hers

flashed into his mind: the book might help pay his debt to the Mission.

Obeying impulse he walked into a bank he was at the instant passing, and

when he came out there was in an inner coat pocket a draft for two

hundred dollars made out to the Reverend Joseph Franklin.

All the way to Helen's door there was no pavement beneath his feet. When

he had called here the last time--the time he had read her part of the

story; he was a shabby creature then--he had borne himself very humbly

toward the footman. Now he asked for Helen with a buoyant ring in his

voice and fairly flung his coat and hat upon the astonished servant; and

he bowed with a new dignity to Helen's aunt, Mrs. Bosworth, whom he met

on the stairway.

Helen met him at the drawing-room door. "I can read the news in your

face!" she cried. "I'm so glad!"

He laughed joyously as he caught her hand. "Yes, Mr. Osborne took it!"

"I knew he would! And he likes it? Tell me--how does he like it?"

"You must ask him. But--he likes it!"

"Immensely--I'm certain! Come, you must tell me all!"

They sat down and David told her of his half-hour with Mr. Osborne.

Since receiving her note that morning he had not once thought of the end

of their last meeting. If he had, and had been aware of the pain that

meeting had brought her, he would have marvelled at the ease with which

she threw her misery aside for the sake of a mere friend, a dishonoured

friend. But he did not wonder; he just drank recklessly of this glorious

draught, compounded of her praise and her joy in his joy.

At the end he told her of the three hundred dollars--never thinking that

it was barely more than the price of the simple-looking gown she wore,

that it was but a penny to the rich furnishings of the drawing-room,

that it was her father's income for perhaps less than a quarter of a

business hour. And completely abandoned to the boyish happiness that

forced him to share everything, he told her of the draft for two hundred

dollars.

Her face shadowed; this man, who was paying back, had suddenly brought

to mind her father, who was not paying back. But quickly a deep glow

came into her eyes.

"You should be as proud of this as of any of the rest," she said.

She gazed at him thoughtfully, her head slightly nodding. "Yes--you are

going to win all you started out to win," she went on, her low voice

vibrating with belief. "You are going to clear your name; you are going

to achieve a personal success; you are going to carry out your dream to

help save the human waste. Yes, you are going to do it all."

His success, her words, the glowing sincerity in her brown eyes, swept

him to the heights of exaltation. Suddenly his love made another of its

trials to burst from him.

He leaned toward her. "And there's something else to tell you."

"Yes?"

But he did not go on. Instantly his love was being fought back. Exalted

though he was, the old compelling reasons for silence had rushed into

him.

"Yes? What is it?" she asked.

He swallowed hard. "Some other time," he said.

"When the time comes, I shall be glad to hear it."

He looked into her steady eyes, and saw she had no guess of what the

thing might be.

"When the time comes--I shall tell," he said. But in his heart was no

belief that time would ever come.

CHAPTER III

HELEN'S CONSCIENCE

When David reached home he found the Mayor had just brought over

Rogers's lunch and Kate, with the help of Tom, was arranging it on the

table. He threw his happiness among them in a score of words.

The Mayor stepped forward, his face ruddied with a smile. "Friend, put

'er there!" invited his gruff diaphragm, and David put his hand to bed

in the big, mattress-soft palm. "Well, sir, I'm certainly happy--that's

me! On the level, when I first heard you were tryin' to write a book,

said I to myself, private-like, 'he'd better be makin' tidies.' But

you're the goods, friend! Every man and woman on the Avenue has got to

buy one o' your books, you bet!"

"Say, pard, you're certainly it!" cried Tom, who had seized him from the

other side. "Dat puts you on top--way up where you belongs. An' no more

worryin' about de coin!"

"I'm glad too,--you know that, Aldrich!" said Rogers, grasping David's

hand. Rogers's face was drawn; David's success had freshened,

emphasised, his own failure. "I wish both of us could have pulled out.

But if only one of us could, it's best that that one is you. I'm glad,

Aldrich!"

David felt the pain behind Rogers's words, felt their pathos, and he

suddenly was ashamed of his success. "It's because I was doing something

where the world did not have to trust me," he said apologetically.

"It's because you are the exceptional man, doing the exceptional thing.

They have a chance. The others have not."

Kate had not moved since David had announced his good fortune. She stood

with her hands on the table and leaning slightly against it, her white,

strained face fastened on David. "I'm glad, too," she now said, in a

voice that had a trace of tremolo; and, turning abruptly, she went into

the office.

In there, alone, she sat at her desk with her cheeks in her hands. Soon,

with a little burst of despair, she cried out: "Why did this have to

happen!" And she added, with a moan: "Oh, David, this puts you such a

long ways off!"

That afternoon and evening David could settle to nothing; and that night

he slept not a minute for sweeping joy, for flashing ideas for stories,

for swift, vivid visions of the future.

The next morning he had a note from Helen asking him to call in the

afternoon. "You remember my speaking to you about the check for twenty

thousand dollars my father gave me," she said, when he had come. Her

face was pale and she spoke with an effort. "I've decided what to do

with it. I want you to help me."

"If I can," he said.

"I've been thinking a great deal about Mr. Rogers." She paused, then

went on, her voice more strained. "He should not have lost that money. I

have cashed the check. I want to give the money to Mr. Rogers--not as a

gift, but as property that belongs to him."

He looked wonderingly into her pained eyes. "You're in earnest?" he said

slowly.

"I am--I must do it. And I want you to take the money to him, from"--she

obeyed a sudden instinct of blood-loyalty--"from my father."

His anger against her father suddenly flamed up. "From your father? I

know how much your father knows of this plan!"

She went on as if she had not heard him, though she had quivered at his

words. "I want you to take the money to Mr. Rogers. You will know what

to say."

The full significance of what she had said was just dawning upon him. He

gazed at her, wondering what must have been passing in her mind these

last few days.

"Mr. Rogers is very proud," he said. "He'll not take the money--at least

not from me."

"You're certain?"

"From me--never."

"Then I must take it to him myself." She rose. "I'll be ready in a few

minutes. You must go with me."

He rose also. Her white face, that met his so squarely, told him how

deeply she felt, how strong her determination was.

"Yes, I'll go with you," he said.

When she re-entered the library she was dressed in the suit of autumn

brown and the brown hat with its single rose, which she had worn the day

they had met at St. Christopher's. He knew she felt the matter of her

errand too keenly to speak of it, and too absorbingly to speak of

anything else; and so, in silence, they went out into the street.

Half an hour later they entered Rogers's office. "Just wait a minute,

while I tell him you're here," whispered David, and went into the living

room where Rogers was. Presently he brought her in, introduced her to

Rogers, and withdrew.

Helen had never seen Rogers. Her picture of him was purely of the

imagination, and imagination had put in its vague portrait the hard

lines, the hang-dog look, the surly bearing that might well remain with

a reformed criminal. So she was totally unprepared for the slight figure

with the wasted, intellectual face that rose from an easy-chair by the

air-shaft window, and for the easy gesture and even voice with which he

asked her to be seated. She recognised instantly that to make him accept

the money would prove a harder task than she had counted.

"Thank you," she said, and sitting down she studied Rogers's face for

the moment she was adjusting her faculties to the new difficulty. "Did

Mr. Aldrich tell you why I wished to see you?"

"No." He would be courteous to her for the sake of the request David had

made to him, but his hatred of her father allowed him only a

monosyllabic reply.

To speak words that would show warm sympathy for him and no disloyalty

to her father, this was her problem. "Mr. Aldrich has told me of your

land enterprise and how--it failed," she said with a great effort,

feeling that her words were cold and ineffective. "He told me how you

lost a large sum that you had practically gained. He told me that it

was--my father--who made you lose it."

Her first effort would carry her no further. He nodded.

She clutched the arms of her chair, breathed deeply, and drove herself

on. "You should not have lost it. I have come to bring you--to ask you

to let me return to you"--a brown-gloved hand drew a roll of bills from

the bag in her lap "this money that belongs to you."

She held the elastic-bound roll out to him. His interlocked hands did

not move from his lap.

"I don't just understand," he said slowly. "You mean that this money is

the equivalent of what I should have made in the land deal?"

"Yes."

His face tinged faintly with red, his bright eyes (he had discarded

glasses, now that a disguise no longer served him) darted quick flames,

and he leaned toward her.

"Do you think I can take as a gift that which I honestly earned?" he

demanded in a low, fierce voice.

"But it is not offered as a gift. It is restitution."

"Restitution! So you want to make restitution? Can you restore the

strength despair has taken from me? My good name was built on deception,

but I had worked hard for it and it was dear to me. Can you restore my

good name? I've lost everything! Can you restore everything?"

The ringing bitterness of his voice, the wasted face working with the

passion of despair, the utter hopelessness of the future which her

quick vision showed her--all these stirred a great emotion which swept

her father from her mind. Before, she had sympathised with Rogers

abstractly; now her sympathy was for a hopeless soul, bare and agonising

beneath her eyes.

Her words rushed from her, in them the throb of her heart. "No! No! I

can't give them back--no one can. Oh, what a wrong it was!"

He stared at her. The wrath and bitterness on his face slowly gave place

to surprise.

"Oh, but it was a shame!" she cried, her face aflame, her voice aquiver.

And then a sense of the irretrievableness of this wreck laid hold upon

her and a quick sob broke forth. She felt a sympathetic agony for

Rogers, and an agony that she, through her blood, was the cause of his

wrecked life.

"Oh, it was terrible, terrible! You are right! Restitution cannot be

made--only the pitiful restitution of money. But you must let me make

that--you must!"

He felt that he was speaking to a friend, and it was as to a friend that

he said quietly: "I can't."

"But you _must_!" She was now thinking of but one thing, how to force

him to take the bills. "I'm not doing you a favour. I'm asking a favour

from you. I come to you in humility, contrition. The money I bring is

not my money--it is your money. My father entered your house and took

it; I bring it back to you. You merely accept your own. You see that,

don't you? Surely you see that!"

Rogers did not answer at once. He was so dazed by the rush of her

words--words that sprang from complete sympathy and understanding,

words that might have come from his own heart--that he could not.

She had risen and now stood above him. "You understand, don't you?" she

went on imploringly. "My father has done wrong; I feel it just as though

I had done it. I must repair the wrong as far as I can. You must take

this money for my sake, don't you see?"

He rose and started to speak, but she cut him off. "I know what is in

your heart; your pride wants you to refuse. If you refuse, you do only

one thing: you deny me the relief of partially correcting a wrong. That

is all. Is it right for you to deny me that? Will you yourself not be

doing a wrong?"

He was trembling; she had taken the only road to his consent. But he

made no motion toward the money in her outstretched hand.

"For my sake--I beg you--I implore you." She spoke tremulously, simply.

He held out a thin hand, and she laid the money in it. "For your sake,"

he breathed.

"Thank you," she said.

Helen felt herself growing weak and dizzy. The reaction was setting in.

"I must go. I can't ask you to forgive me--but won't you let me, as one

that would like to be regarded as a friend, wish that there may be

brightness ahead which you don't see."

She held out her hand, timidly. He grasped it. He could not speak.

"Thank you," she whispered, and slowly turned away. At the door she

paused, and looked back. "My best wishes are with you," she said, and

went out.

CHAPTER IV

THE ORDEAL OF KATE MORGAN

That night David and Rogers had a long talk. In consequence,

correspondence was re-opened with the sanitarium at Colorado Springs,

and David began to spend part of his time in helping equip Rogers for

the distant struggle against death.

During the two weeks since his exposure Rogers had not railed; he had

borne his defeat in grim, quiet despair. His bitterness did not now

depart; he had not forgotten his defeat, and he had not forgiven the

world. But his life now had an object, and the hope, which the really

brave always save from even the worst wreck, began to stir within him.

The next two weeks David worked with his pen as he had never worked

before. He was in that rare mood when things flow from one. Before the

end of the two weeks he turned in to Mr. Osborne two short stories which

Mr. Osborne, with the despatch a publisher gives a new author he is

desirous of holding, immediately examined, accepted and paid for at a

very respectable rate. Mr. Osborne suggested a series of articles for

his magazine, spoke of more stories, assured David he would have no

difficulty in marketing his writing elsewhere; and when David left the

publisher's office it was with the exultant sense that financially his

future was secure.

Mr. Osborne assured him his book was going to turn much serious thought

to our treatment of the criminal and other wasted people, and that his

shorter writings were going to help to the same end. His publisher asked

him to speak before a club interested in reform measures, and his talk,

straight from the heart and out of his own experience, made a profound

impression. The success of this speech suggested to him another means of

helping--the spoken word. He felt that at last his life was really

beginning to count.

But he realised he was still only at the beginning. Before him was that

giant's task, conquering the respect of the world--with the repayment of

St. Christopher's as the first step. The task would require all his mind

and strength and courage and patience, for years and years and

years--with success at the end no more than doubtful.

The more David pondered upon the ills he saw about him, the less faith

did he have in superficial reforms, the deeper did he find himself going

for the real cure. And gradually he reached the conclusion that the idea

behind the present organization of society was wrong. That idea,

stripped to its fundamentals, was selfishness--and even a mistaken

selfishness: for self to gain for self all that could be gained. Under

this organization they that have the greatest chance are they that are

strong and cunning and unscrupulous, and he that is all three in

greatest measure can take most for himself. So long as the world and

its people are at the mercy of such an organization, so long as

self-interest is the dominant ideal--just so long will the great mass of

the people be in poverty, just so long will crime and vice remain

unchecked.

He began to think of a new organization of society, where individual

selfishness would be replaced as the fundamental idea by the interest of

the whole people--where "all men are born free and equal" would not be

merely a handsome bit of rhetoric, but where there would be true

equality of chance--where the development of the individual in the

truest, highest sense would be possible--where that major portion of

vice and crime which spring from poverty and its ills would be wiped

out, and there would remain only the vice and crime that spring from the

instincts of a gradually improving human nature. And so, without losing

interest in immediate changes that might alleviate criminal-making

conditions, David set his eyes definitely upon the great goal of a

fundamental change.

Since Rogers would soon be gone, David began to look for new quarters.

His pride shrunk from a boarding-house, where he knew he would be liable

to snubs and insults. As money matters troubled him no longer, he leased

a small flat with a bright southern exposure, in an apartment house just

outside the poorer quarter. If he and Tom prepared most of their own

meals they could live here more cheaply than in a boarding-house, and he

could save more to quiet Lillian Drew and to pay off the debt to St.

Christopher's.

One afternoon, while David was at the Pan-American talking to the

Mayor, and Kate was at her desk type-writing a manuscript, the office

door opened and closed, and a low, satiric voice rasped across the room:

"Hello, little girl!"

Kate looked about, then quickly rose. Her cheeks sprang aflame. At the

door stood Lillian Drew, smiling mockingly, her face flushed with

spirits.

"Hello, little girl!" she repeated.

Kate's instinctive hatred of this woman, founded partly on what Lillian

Drew obviously was, but more on the certainty that she had some close

and secret connection with David's life, made Kate tremble. A year

before the wrathful words that besought to pass her lips would have

burst forth unchecked. But she controlled herself.

"What do you want?" she demanded.

To pain a person who stirred her antagonism, this twenty uncurbed years

had made one of Lillian Drew's first instincts. She had observed before

that Kate disliked her and stung under her "little girl;" consequently

to inflict her presence and the phrase on Kate was to gratify instinct.

She walked with a slight unsteadiness to David's chair, sat down and

smiled baitingly up into Kate's face. "I've just come around to have a

visit with you, little girl. Sit down."

Kate grew rigid. "If you want Mr. Aldrich, he's not here."

"Oh, yes, he is. But I don't want him just yet. I want to have a visit

with you." She looked Kate up and down. "Well, now, for such a little

girl, you're not so bad."

Kate's eyes blazed. "I tell you he's not here. There's no use of your

waiting."

"I'm in no hurry at all. But you're too thin. You've got to put on ten

or fifteen pounds if you expect to catch his eye."

Kate pointed to the door. "Get out of here!--with that breath of yours!"

The vindictive fire gathered in Lillian Drew's eyes; the return blow of

her victim had roused her pain-giving desire into wrath.

"Oh, you want to catch him, all right!" she laughed, malignantly. "I saw

that in a second the other day from the way you looked at him. But d'you

think he'll care for a girl like you? I came the other day and found no

one around but that nice father of yours. I had a little talk with him,

and--well, I've got you sized up just about right. And you think you're

the girl for him!"

Kate took one step forward and drew back her open hand. But the hand

paused in mid-blow. "You drunken she-devil!" she blazed forth, "get out

of here!--or I'll have the police put you out!"

Lillian Drew sprang up, as livid as if the hand had indeed cracked upon

her cheek, and glared at the flame of hatred and wrath that was Kate

Morgan. Rage, abetted by liquor, had taken away every thought, every

desire, save to strike this girl down. Her hands clenched; but blows

make only a passing hurt. All her life she had used words; words, if you

have the right sort, are a better weapon--their wound is deep,

permanent.

"You little skinny alley-cat!" she burst out furiously. "You think

you're going to marry him, don't you. You marry him! Oh, Lord!"

Kate shivered with her passion. "Get out!"

Lillian Drew gave a sharp, crunching, gloating laugh. "That's it!--you

think you're going to marry him. You think he's a thief, don't you. You

think you're in his class. Well--let me tell you something."

She drew close to Kate and her eyes burned upon Kate with wild

vindictive triumph. "He's not a thief--he never was one!"

"It's a lie!" cried Kate.

"Oh, he says he is, but he's not. He never took that five thousand

dollars from St. Christopher's. He pretends he did, but he didn't. You

hear that, little girl?--he didn't. Phil Morton took it. I know, because

I got it.--D'you understand now?--that he's not a thief?--that he's ten

thousand miles above you? And yet you, you skinny little nothing, you've

got the nerve to think you're going to catch him! Oh, Lord!"

"You're drunker than I thought!" sneered Kate.

"If it wasn't true, d'you suppose he'd be paying me to keep still about

it?"

"Pay you to keep still about his not being a thief! And you want me to

believe that too?" Kate laughed with contempt. Then she inquired

solicitously: "Would you like a bucket of water over you to sober you a

bit?"

At this moment the hall door opened and David entered the room. He

paused in astonishment. "What's the matter?" he asked sharply.

The two had turned at his entrance, and, their faces ablaze with anger,

were now glaring at him. Kate was the first to speak, and her words

tingled with her wrath.

"Nothing. Only this charming lady friend of yours--don't come too near

her breath!--has been telling me that you didn't take the money from the

Mission--that Mr. Morton did--that she got it--that you're paying her

not to tell that you're innocent."

The colour slowly faded from David's face. He held his eyes a moment on

Kate's infuriate figure, and then he gazed at Lillian Drew. She gazed

back at him defiantly, but the thought that her betrayal of the secret

might cut off her supplies began to cool her anger. David thought only

of the one great fact that the truth had at last come out; and finally

he exclaimed, almost stupidly, more in astoundment than wrath:

"So this's how you've kept it secret!"

Kate paled. Her eyes widened and her lips fell apart. She caught herself

against her desk and stared at him.

"So--it's the truth!" she whispered with dry lips.

But David did not hear her. His attention was all pointed at Lillian

Drew. "This is the way you've kept it, is it!" he said.

"She's the only one I've told," she returned uneasily.

Her effrontery began to flow back upon her. "She's only one more you've

got to square things with. Come, give me a little coin and I'll get out,

and give you a chance to settle with her."

"You've had your last cent!" he said harshly.

"Oh, no, I haven't. I don't leave till you come up with the dough!" She

sat down, and looked defiantly at him.

Kate moved slowly, tensely, across to David, gripped his arms and turned

her white, strained face upon his.

"So--you never took that Mission money!" Her voice was an awed,

despairing whisper.

Her tone, her fierce grip, her white face, sent through him a sickening

shiver of partial understanding. "I'm sorry--but you know the truth."

She gazed wide-eyed at him; then her voice, still hardly more than a

whisper, broke out wildly: "Yes--yes--you took it, David! Say that you

took it!"

He was silent for a moment. "If I said so--would you believe me?" he

asked.

Her head slowly sank, and her hands fell from his arms. "Oh, David!" she

gasped--a wild, choked moan of despair. She took her hat and jacket from

their hooks, and not stopping to put them on, not hearing the triumphant

"Good-bye, little girl" of Lillian Drew, she walked out of the office.

She moved through the acid-sharp November air, a white-faced automaton.

She felt a vague, numb infinity of pain. She perceived neither the

causes of the blow nor its probable results; she merely felt its impact,

and that impact had made her whole being inarticulate.

But presently her senses began to rouse. She began to see the outlines

of her disaster, its consequences; her great vague pain separated into

distinct pangs, each agonisingly acute. She felt an impulse to cry out

in the street, but her instinctive pride closed her throat. She turned

back and hurried to her room, locked herself in, and flung her hat upon

the floor and herself upon the bed.

But even here she could not cry. All her life she had been strong,

aggressive, self-defending; she had cried so rarely that she knew not

how. So she lay, dry-eyed, her whole body clenched, retched with sobs

that would not come up.

Lillian Drew's words, "He's ten thousand miles above you," sat upon her

pillow and cried into her ear. She had seen David's superior quality and

his superior training; but she and he had both been thieves--they were

both struggling to rise clear of thievery. This commonness of experience

and of present effort had made him seem very near to her--very

attainable. It was a bond between them, a bond that limited them to one

another. And she had steadfastly seen a closer union a little farther

ahead.

But now he was not a thief. The bond was snapped--he was ten thousand

miles above her! Her despair magnified him, diminished herself; and when

she contrasted the two she shrunk to look upon the figure of her

insignificance. He must see her as such a pigmy--how could he ever care

for such paltriness? He never could. He was lost to her--utterly lost!

All that afternoon she was tortured by her hopelessness. In the evening

she became possessed by an undeniable craving to see David, and she went

to David's house and asked him to walk with her. For the first minute

after they were in the street the silence of constraint was between

them. David could but know, in a vague way, of Kate's suffering; he was

pained, shamed, that he was its cause.

In the presence of her suffering, to him, with his feeling of guilt, all

else seemed trivial. But there was one matter that had to be spoken of.

"You've not told a soul, have you, what you learned this afternoon?" he

asked.

"No," she returned, in a muffled voice.

"I was sure you hadn't. I was afraid this afternoon that Rogers had

overheard, but he didn't; either you talked in low voices, or he was

asleep. No one must ever know the truth--no one--and especially Rogers."

"Why him especially?" she asked mechanically.

David hesitated. "Well, you see one thing that makes him feel close to

me is that he believes we have both been in the same situation. In a way

that has made us brothers. If he knew otherwise, it might make a

difference to him."

"I understand!" said Kate's muffled voice.

She asked him details of the story Lillian Drew had revealed, and since

she already knew so much, he told her--though he felt her interest was

not in what he told her.

At length--he had yielded himself to her guidance--they came out upon

the dock where they had talked a month before. She had wanted to be with

him alone, and she had thought of no better place. Despite the wind's

being filled with needles, they took their stand at the dock's end.

They looked out at the river that writhed and leaped under the wind's

pricking--black, save beneath the arc lamps of the Williamsburg bridge,

where the rearing little wave-crests gleamed, sunk, and gleamed again.

For several minutes they were silent. Then the choked words burst from

her:

"I'm not fit to be your friend!"

"You mustn't let this afternoon make a difference, Kate," he besought.

"It doesn't to me. Fit to be my friend! You are--a thousand times over!

I admire you--I honour you--I'm proud to have you for a friend!"

She quickly looked up at him. The light from the bridge lamps, a giant

string of glowing beads, lay upon her face. In it there gleamed the

sudden embers of hope.

"But can you love me--some time?" she whispered.

It was agony to him to shake his head.

"I knew it!" she breathed dully.

When he saw the gray, dead despair in her face, he cried out, in his

agony and abasement:

"Don't take it so, Kate! I'm not worthy to be the cause of so much

pain."

She looked back at the river; the wind had set her shivering, but she

did not know she was cold. He saw that she was thinking, so he did not

speak. After several minutes she asked in a low voice:

"Do you still love Miss Chambers?"

He remained silent.

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"As much as I love you?"

"Yes."

There was a pause. When she next spoke she was looking him tensely in

the face.

"Would she love you if she knew the truth?"

"I shall never tell her."

"But would she love you?" she repeated, fiercely. She clutched his arms

and her eyes blazed. "She'd better not!--I'd kill her!"

The face he looked down into was that of a wild animal. He gazed at it

with fear and fascination.

The vindictive fire began slowly to burn lower, then, at a puff, it was

out. "No!--No!" she cried, convulsively, gripping his arms tighter. "I

wouldn't! You know I wouldn't!"

The face, so rageful a minute before, was now twitching, and the tears,

that came so hard, were trembling on her lashes. Her eyes embraced his

face for several moments.

"Ah, David!" she cried, and her words were borne upward on the sobs that

now shook her, "even if you don't love me, David--I want you to be

happy!"

CHAPTER V

THE COMMAND OF LOVE