CHAPTER X
The old-fashioned Deming mansion in Evansville, so often a witness to scenes of gayety or sorrow or boredom, was to-day shrouded in a singular and terrible air of hushed expectancy. Voices were low, every action was tense. Old Doctor Irvin, curator of the family's health these two-score years and more, had come over from Louisville, and through the high halls flitted two white-capped nurses. The servants were tremulous, afraid, gulping in their throats.
Thus Armstrong found the place when he arrived on the noon train from New York. Deming took him into the library, and to his flood of questions lifted a protesting hand. Dorothy was ill before her time, and no one knew what was happening upstairs.
"Irvin's got those rooms to himself—he's turned us all out and has refused to give out any information," said Deming brokenly. "Something's wrong, we know, but there's nothing to be done. Irvin has never lost a case in sixty years of practice—well, well, hope for the best. How did things turn out? No more trouble?"
Armstrong, pacing up and down the room, laughed harshly.
"No more trouble," he repeated, almost bitterly. He was fresh from victory, master of those who had sought his destruction; destiny lay in his hand, yet he turned on Deming with a swift irony. "The trouble's over. We smashed Macgowan—but that devil has a most uncanny brain. The very last thing, he gave me a word and a look that I'll never forget. 'How long,' he said to me, with his damnable sneer, 'how long will these folks let you go on playing with their money?' That was all. And it started me to thinking—"
Armstrong resumed his nervous stride up and down. Deming nodded slowly, wearily.
"The easiest thing on earth, Reese, is for a man to fool himself—"
At this instant the door swung open. The nurse appeared, but shook her head at Deming.
"The doctor wants Mr. Armstrong upstairs."
Armstrong left the library and hastened to the upper hall. There he found old Doctor Irvin, outside the closed door of Dorothy's room. Irvin swung around to meet Armstrong, faced him, put hands to shoulders with a sudden air of challenging defiance. In the narrowed, keen old eyes Armstrong read a momentary flare of vivid enmity which astounded him. "What is it?" he demanded swiftly. "Is she so ill—"
"You call yourself a husband?" said Irvin, the Donegal burr coming harshly from his tongue. "What've ye been lookin' at all these months, eh? Why haven't ye been gripping at the big things instead o' the dollars? No, not you. Grip, grip, grip! That's all ye can see or do. Well, there's one thing you can't grip, my man."
"What d'you mean?" Armstrong exclaimed, wondering. "Is Dorothy—"
"There's one thing ye can't grip, as you'll learn. No; I'm telling the truth when I tell ye that I don't know about Dorothy. This thing is mental and spiritual with her. She's been so bent on having it out with ye that it'll either kill or cure—oh, ye poor blind fool! There's no fool like a sincere fool—"
Armstrong smiled suddenly. "I know it, Irvin," he said quietly. "I should have written Dorothy—but it's one of those things that's mighty hard to write. I think I know what you mean, and if I'd only known earlier that Dorothy realized it also—well, no matter now. Is she very ill?"
"She is," said Irvin, staring at him with penetrating gaze. "D'you mean to say that you've seen this thing for yourself? Well, go your way to her and talk it out, and heaven send ye may cool down the fever that's in her heart! It's her only chance."
He swung Armstrong to the door.
The room was empty save for the figure on the bed. Armstrong crossed the floor, knelt beside Dorothy, felt her fingers creep into his. Her blue eyes fluttered open, her look fell upon him like a caress.
"Dear!" she said, faintly. "What kept you away? You wrote that you'd won—"
"Yes, we won," said Armstrong, yet cold sweat sprang on his face. Dorothy's voice, her mortal pallor, above all the look in her eyes—these things pierced him. He knew that he must talk swiftly to keep her from talking, as Irvin had ordered him.
"There was more trouble that kept me," he went on. "Macgowan made a remark that opened my eyes—dear girl, I've had a tough time trying to realize the truth of it all, now I've seen it at last."
He paused, trying to find words, and a sudden wondering smile came to her lips.
"Reese! Nothing has been visible to you except the things you have seen—do you understand? The things which are seen are temporal—but those which are not seen are eternal; and you never saw them. Is that it? Have you—"
"Hush, my dear," he commanded, and smiled down into her eyes. "Yes, that's one way of putting it. And the queer thing is that it should have come to me from Macgowan—"
"It didn't—it came to you from me, from my heart and mind!"'
"Well, it came," he went on hastily. "It's like Irvin said—I've done nothing but grip. I've denied it, I've never believed it, but it's been true. Oh, it's hard to see myself as I really have been, stripped bare of my fine theories and plausible words! Yes, I've reached out only for the things actual and temporal. All my fine reasonings were false at bottom—I was blinded by everything."
Even now, clearly as he saw the fact, he shrank from the admission; he moved dry lips, trying to deny it, yet forced himself on to lay bare his inmost self before those blue eyes that stared up at him, to expose to this wife of his all the struggle through which he had so lately passed.
It was the veriest truth that behind all his actions for others had been his action for himself. Had it been to save Deming that he had gripped so hard, on his wedding-day? So he had thought, yet now he found the thought crumbling before the deeper truth. Had it been for the sixteen thousand that he had fought Macgowan—or to keep himself from going under? He understood now the flaming will to victory which even in his own sight had been masked. He could no longer delude himself, hypnotize himself. The truth faced him in naked guise, and it was ugly.
All this poured from his lips, and Dorothy's fingers gripped ever more tightly on his, and tears came into her eyes until she closed them to ease the smart. Here, where least expected, she found a new Reese Armstrong—a man never glimpsed ere this, glowing with discovery and eager with action, yet humble and bitterly penitent withal.
"I fought it out with myself, Dorothy, and then I took action," concluded Armstrong. "I realized that when it came down to rock bottom, that last bitter jibe of Macgowan's had a ring of truth. After all, I've been playing with other people's money—just that. Nothing criminal in it, nothing wrong in it; yet there's dynamite underneath. I've managed to readjust my whole viewpoint on things, Dorothy—or I hope that I have."
"To find the things which are not seen, dear?" came the faint voice.
"I hope so." Armstrong nodded and drew a long breath. "Well, here's what happened! I had the whip-hand, so I came down to the office four days ago and began to clean house. First, I got clear out of Consolidated,—lock, stock and barrel. I turned over every scrap of stock and practically all the ready money I had and could raise—in return for which I procured a controlling interest in the Deming Food concern here. Then I went to work and smashed Consolidated—put it into liquidation. I don't dare leave that structure to be grabbed by other men like Macgowan once I'm out of it. I've personally guaranteed that every investor gets his money back in full anytime, if he doesn't care to wait for the profits of the liquidation—but they'll all wait, never fear! Consolidated can get rid of all the other companies and then liquidate itself; and the result will be a good profit for every investor who hangs on. And as for me—"
"Yes, Reese?" asked Dorothy quickly, as he paused. A smile touched his lips.
"Well, as for me, Dorothy—that's up to you. I've sort of figured on selling our little estate, coming back here, settling down and running the Deming concern, if your father wants to go into partnership with me. What do you say? I'm through with the big town and the whole game—through for good. I don't want to play with other people's money any more, Dorothy—just with my own, after this. And besides—"
"The things which are seen are temporal," said Dorothy, and a low laugh came from her throat. "Oh, Reese, you've made me so happy! And now we'll find the other things together—the things that are eternal—"
Armstrong felt her fingers reach out to him. He put down his face and kissed the soft palms, gently, and then knelt there silently for a long while. When at last he lifted his head and looked at her again, she was asleep, and a smile was on her lips. The hall door was opening, and he looked up to see Irvin coming across the room. Quietly he disengaged himself and went to the door. Irvin, after a brief examination, joined him in the hall, closed the door, then caught Armstrong's shoulder.
"Look here—what have you done to her?" he snapped out.
Armstrong smiled wearily and wiped his forehead. He was very pale.
"I don't know, Irvin. I think the only thing I did was to make her happy," he said simply. "How is she looking—"
"You're a better doctor than I am, for she's turned the corner this blessed minute," said Irvin emphatically—then suddenly struck Armstrong on the shoulder and gripped his hand. "Oh! By the piper, I clear forgot to tell you! I wouldn't let a soul know about it until I was sure which way Dorothy was goin'—go on into the next room across the hall—"
"What for?" demanded Armstrong, in astonishment at this outburst.
Irvin seized his arm and propelled him across the hall-way, abruptly giving vent to a low and whimsical cackle of laughter. He flung open the door.
"Go in, ye big rascal, and see what the stork left for ye!"
THE END