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THE old ramshackle hack that had made its stand in front of the Cassell House so long that it had acquired the status of a local institution, was tearing furiously out Sangamon Avenue. The appearance of this ancient vehicle outside its proper habitat, usually betokened some emergency; and when Emily, with an ear keen for omens that day, heard the rattle of its rheumatic joints far down the street, and when she saw it verify her impression of disaster by turning in at the carriage gate and rolling up under the dripping trees, she flew to the door with her face as white as if she had seen a messenger boy coming with a telegram.
When she saw the door of the hack burst open before the hack itself could come to a stop, and Jerome imperil his bones by leaping out between its wheels, she was relieved to have him whole and sound before her eyes, for she had half expected to see his limp form borne in by careful attendants. Her fears were partly realized when she saw his gray face and the blue circles that lay under his eyes, and they were expressed in the breathless voice in which she exclaimed, as he leaped up the steps:
“Jerome! What is it!”
“Come in here—quick,” he said. She followed him at speed, imploring him to confess that he was ill. He did not answer, but led the way in hot haste to the sitting room, and then across that to Emily’s little writing desk, which stood open in the bay window. She watched him in wonderment as he fumbled in the breast of his coat and produced at last a paper, which, rustling forth, he spread before her on the desk. Then he seized a pen, plunged it in the ink, and pushing her into the chair he had dragged up to the desk, he said:
“Here Em—sign this—quick!”
She looked at him in amazement that each moment widened her eyes the more; looked at him and then looked at the paper he held to the leaf of her desk with a trembling finger. She took the pen mechanically.
“Here,” he said, jerking out his words; “right there—under my name. You’re to sign with me.”
She noted the blaze in his eyes; the odor of tobacco and liquor he exhaled oppressed her; she looked from him to the paper on the desk, then back to him again. In her bewilderment she gasped:
“Why—what is it for?”
“Oh, it’s a note!” he said, crossly, while his brows gathered in his impatience. “Sign it, quick! I haven’t a minute to lose! I’ll explain it to you afterward.”
She looked again into his brilliant eyes, she felt his tainted breath upon her face, then something of his own fever of haste caused her heart to leap, and she put her name to the note below where Jerome had scrawled his own. Garwood snatched up the note and thrust it back in his pocket. Then he turned to go. But Emily arose and caught at him.
“Jerome! Dear! What is it! What has happened? What is it for?”
The tumult of his troubled soul broke forth and he poured it out upon her.
“It’s for money—money—money!” he cried, and he smote the unstable little desk with his fist, making it rock. “What is everything for in these days!” His breath came hard and fast, the blue crescents in which his eyes burned deepened perceptibly, and his eyes flamed as if all the fires of all excitement were about to leap out. In his cheeks, now of an unusual pallor, two red spots glowed.
“But what is the money for?” she persisted, still clinging to him as he backed away from her. “Tell me—won’t you?”
“It’s for votes—votes—votes! Votes that I need more to-day than I ever needed them!”
“Oh, Jerome!” she cried. “Don’t—don’t say that, don’t talk that way! Wait—wait, dear, sit down until you’re calmer.”
“Calmer!” he roared. “Calmer! With all my enemies at my heels?”
“But, dear, I don’t like the sound of that. It would be better if you were beaten honorably.”
“Honorably!” he sneered. “Honorably! Do you know what it would mean to me to be beaten now? Do you know what it would mean to you! Do you want to go to the poor-house?”
He stopped in his mad rush of words and flung out his jaw at her pugnaciously.
Emily stood trying to hold her husband’s wild, unsteady eyes in her own gaze for a moment.
“Why, Jerome,” she said in low, even accents, “it would be as bad as—as—as that story they told of you in your first campaign!”
His face without relaxing took on the mockery of a smile, then he laughed harshly. The tone of the laugh shuddered through Emily. She had released her hold on him, and now she took a step backward. Her lips were parted and at last she spoke, her words coming reluctantly from her throat. It was scarcely above a whisper that she said:
“Was that all—true?”
She saw the conviction in his eyes before it came to its verification on his lips. He laughed again, the same harsh laugh as before.
“True!” he cried. “Of course it was true, you poor little fool!”
The words brought a cry from her, and, clasping her hands before her face, she turned and sank into the chair and put her head down on the desk.
Garwood stared at her awhile, then took a step toward her. He drew nearer and bent over her, tried to draw her at last up into his arms.
“Emily!” he said. “Don’t—it’s all—I was—I was—crazy—”
Her head shook slowly from side to side.
“Go away,” she said. “Go away—oh, please go away!”
She burst into tears, and relinquishing his hold of her he drew himself up, swayed an instant, steadied himself by the desk, and then said:
“All right, then, I’ll go.”
And he left the room and the house, trying to reclaim his dignity with the erectness with which he took his careful steps down from the veranda and to the waiting carriage. Then Emily heard the hack roll away.