II.
From gracious deeds exhale the perfumes rare
Of active rest, glad care, and hopeful trust
The soul snuffs these, well pleased, and seems to share,
For once, a joy in concord with the dust.
Thus simple deeds, through Love, make known th' unknown—
That immaterial most substantial gain
Which makes of earth a heaven all its own.
And claims from spirit-land no sweeter reign.
So, while I learn in thine own atmosphere
To live, guard thou with patience all my ways,
For chance compels when weakness rules, and fear
Of self brings blackest night unto my days;
E'en now, through thee, my worst seems less forlorn,
And darkness breaks before the blushing morn.
He wondered that the word "soul" had as yet no synonym to express what he meant without, as he said, "borrowing the language of superstition." For this he claimed poetical license. He was amused at the similarity of his verse to some kind of religious prayer or praise. "Perhaps," he said, "all loves, when sufficiently refined, have only one language—whether the aspirations be addressed to Chemosh or Dagon or Mary or Jahveh, or to the woman who embodies all one knows of good. But perhaps, more likely, the song that perfect love sings in the heart has no possible language, but is part of 'the choir invisible whose music is the gladness of the world,' and to which we have all been trying to put words, in religions and poems.
"In twenty thousand years from now," he said, smiling, "archæologists will be fighting over a discussion as to whether, in these early days, any superstition still existed. Just before they come to blows over the matter my sonnets will be found, produced, and deciphered, and there will be rejoicing on one side to have it proved that at a certain time Anno Domini (an era supposed to refer to one Abraham or Buddha) man still claimed that a local god existed called 'Margaret,' who was evidently worshiped with fervor.
"But certainly," he added, as he read the sonnet for the third time, "their mistake will not be such a palpable one as that about the Song of Solomon."
CHAPTER XX.
Never but once to meet on earth again!
She heard me as I fled—her eager tone
Sank on my heart, and almost wove a chain
Around my will to link it with her own,
So that my stern resolve was almost gone.
"I can not reach thee! whither dost thou fly?
My steps are faint. Come back, thou dearest one!
Return, ah me! return!"—The wind passed by
On which those accents died, faint, far, and lingeringly.
Shelley, The Revolt of Islam.
After a prolonged visit in Montreal, Nina had been back in Toronto for a short time, during which she had seen no one except Jack, whose two visits she had rendered so unpleasant that he felt inclined to do anything from hara-kari to marrying somebody else.
At this time Geoffrey received a note one morning, addressed in Nina's handwriting. He turned pale as he tore it open:
"Dear Mr. Hampstead: I wish to see you for a moment this afternoon. If not too much trouble, would you call here at five o'clock?
"Yours sincerely,
"Mossbank, Tuesday.
"Nina Lindon."
There was nothing very exciting on the face of this line, nothing to create wrath. Yet Geoffrey tore it into shreds as if it had struck him a blow and was dangerous.
When he was shown into the drawing-room at Mossbank that afternoon, he was stepping forward with courteous demeanor and a faint "company smile" on his face, ready to look placidly and innocently upon any people who might be calling at the time. He passed noiselessly over the thick carpets toward the place where Nina was sitting, seeing quickly that there was nobody else in the room, but aware that the servant was probably at the door.
"How-de-do, Miss Lindon?" he said aloud, for the benefit of the inquisitive. "So you have come back to Toronto at last?"
"Yes," said Nina, also with an engaging smile. "And how have you been since I saw you last?" There was a charming inflection in her "company voice" as she said these words. Then, raising her tone a little, she said "Howard."
The servant outside the door took several steps in a circle on the tesselated pavement of the hall to intimate that he approached from afar and then appeared.
"Shut the door, please, Howard," said Nina softly. The man obliterated himself.
As soon as they were alone the heavenly sweetness of the caller and the called upon vanished. Geoffrey's face became grave and his eyes penetrating. He went toward her and took her hand in an effort to be kind, while he looked at her searchingly with a pale face. Nina looked weary and anxious. Neither of them spoke for a while. As Geoffrey regarded her, she turned to him beseechingly with both anxiety and affection in her expression. What he interpreted from the unhappiness of her visage was more than sufficient to disturb his equanimity. He got up and walked silently and quickly twice backward and forward. During this moment his mind apparently made itself up on some point finally, for, as he sat down as abruptly as he had risen, the tension of his face gave place to something more like nonchalance and kindness.
"You have something to tell me?" he said, in tones that endeavored to be kind.
Nina's face—sad, sorrowful, and tearful—bent itself low that she might hide it from his sight. "Yes," she managed to say at last, almost inaudibly.
Geoffrey endeavored to assist her. "Don't say any more," said he. "Bad news, I suppose?"
"The very worst," cried Nina, starting up, her eyes dilating wildly and despairingly with a sudden accession of fear.
"Hush, hush!" said Geoffrey, laying his hand soothingly and kindly on her arm. "You must not give way like that. You must control yourself. We have both of us too much at stake to tell our story to every one who likes to listen. Come and let us sit down and talk things over sensibly."
She gave him a quick look, half reproach, as if to say, "It is easy for you to be calm." But she sat down beside him, holding his coat-sleeve with both hands—hardly knowing what she did.
Hampstead leaned back, crossed his long legs in front of him, and counted the eyelet holes in his boot. Then he took her hand, in order to appear kind and to deal with the matter in an off-hand way.
"As Thackeray says, Nina, 'truly, friend, life is strewn with orange-peel.' Now and then we get a bad tumble; but we always get up again. And I don't think that we ought to allow ourselves to be counted among those weak creatures who most complain of the strength of a temptation that takes at least a year to work up. After all, there is no denying Rochefoucauld's wisdom when he said: 'C'est une espèce de bonheur de connaitre jusques à quel point on doit être malheureux.' I have been in a good many worries one way or another, and I always got out of them. We will get out of this one all right, so cheer up and take heart."
"I don't see how," said Nina, turning her head away and feeling a sudden hope. What was he going to say? Then she recollected that she had lavished a small income on a dress especially for this interview. Perhaps if he had an idea worth the hearing the dress might help it out. She arose, as if absently, and walked to the side window and rested her elbows against the sash in front of her. The attitude was graceful. As she turned half over her shoulder to look back at him she could hardly have appeared to better advantage. Her dress was really magnificent, and it fitted a form that was ideal. In spite of his late resolutions, Geoffrey was affected by the cunningly devised snare. A quick thought came through his head, which he banished about as quickly as it came.
"Well, of course, there is only one thing to be done," said he decisively, in a tone which told her that so far she had failed.
"What is that, dear Geoffrey? Do tell me, for I am very, very miserable. And say it kindly, Geoffrey. Don't be too hard with me now."
As she said this she swept toward him. She sank down beside him and kissed him, and looked up into his face. Again the thought came to him. Here were riches. Here was a woman whose beauty was talked about in every city in Canada, who could be his pride, who cared for him despairingly. If he wished, this mansion and wealth could be his. The delicate perfumes about her seemed to steal into his brain and affect his thought.
An hour ago his resolves for himself had appeared so unchangeable that they seemed of themselves to prop him up. And now he found himself trying, with a brain that refused to assist him, to prop up his resolutions, trying to remember what their best merits had been. One glimmer of an idea was left in him—a purpose to preserve his fealty to Margaret, and he thought that, if he could only get away for a moment to think quietly, he might remember what the best points of his resolutions had been. The perfumes, the beauty, the wealth, the liking he felt for her, the duty he owed to her, and perhaps her concentration upon what she desired—all conspired against him. But, with this part of an idea left to him, he succeeded in being able slightly to turn his head away.
When she asked him again what was to be done there was an unreal decisiveness in his voice as he said:
"Of course, the only thing to be done is for you to immediately marry Jack."
She sprang from him as if he had stabbed her. She was furious with disappointment.
"I will never marry Jack! What a dishonorable thing to propose!"
The idea of dishonor to Jack seemed, for the first time, quite an argument. When the ethics of a matter can be utilized they suddenly seem cogent.
"Very well," said Geoffrey, shrugging his shoulders and rising as if to go away. "My idea was 'any port in a storm'—a poor idea, perhaps, and certainly, as you say, entirely dishonorable, but still feasible. Of course, if you have made up your mind not to marry him, we may as well consider the interview as ended. I'm afraid I have nothing more to suggest."
He did not intend to go away, but he held out his hand as if about to say good-by. She stood half turned away trying to think. The idea of his leaving her to her trouble dazed her. She was terrified to realize that she would be without help.
"Oh, how cruel you are!"
She almost groaned as she spoke. She was in despair. She put her hands to her head hopelessly, her eyes dilated with trouble.
"Don't go yet, Geoffrey." Then she tried to nerve herself for what she had to say. After a pause: "Geoffrey, I can say things to you now, that I could never have said before. I must speak to you fully before you go. I must leave no stone unturned. There is no one to help me, so I must look after myself in what must be said. I went away with you, Geoffrey, because I loved you." She bit her lips to stay her tears and stopped to regain a desperate fortitude. "I cared for you so much that being with you seemed right—nay more, sacred. Oh, it drags me to the dust to speak in this way! But I must. Does not my ruin give me a right to speak? The question of a girl's reticence must be put away. I am forced to do the best I can for myself. And now I say, will you stand by me?" Her head drooped and her hands hung down by her side with shame at the position she forced herself to take when she added: "Will you do me justice, Geoffrey? Will you marry me?"
Hampstead was about to speak, but she knew at once that she had asked too much, and she continued more quickly and more despairingly: "Nay, I won't ask so much. I only ask you to take me away. I am distracted. I don't know what to do. I will do anything. I will be your slave. You need not marry me—only take me away and hide me—somewhere—anywhere—for God's sake, Geoffrey, from my shame—from my disgrace."
She was on her knees before him as she said these last words. If our pleasure-loving acquaintance could have changed places with a galley-slave at that moment he would have done so gladly.
The first thing he did was to endeavor to quiet the wildness of her despair. To be surprised by any person with her on her knees before him in an agony of tears would be a circumstance difficult to explain away.
As soon as he began to talk, it seemed to him a most dastardly thing to sacrifice Margaret's life now to conceal his own wrong-doing. In the light of this idea, Nina's wealth and beauty suddenly became tawdry. Margaret's nobility and happiness suddenly seemed worth dying for. They must not be wrecked in a moment of weakness. As if dispassionately, he laid before Nina the history of their acquaintance, and also his 'other obligations.' Really, it placed him in a very awkward, not to say absurd, position. He wished to do what was right, but did not see his way at all clear. The only way was to efface himself entirely, and consider only what was due to others. Before the world he was engaged to Margaret, and had been so all along. She had his word that he would marry her. If it were only "his word" that had to be broken, that might be done. But was the happiness of Margaret's life to be cast aside? Which, of the two, was the more innocent—which, of the two, had the better right or duty to bear the brunt of the disaster?
The way he effaced his own personality in this discourse was almost picturesque. Justice blindfold, with impartial scales in her hand, was nothing to him.
Nina said no word from beginning to end. All she heard in the discourse was something to show her more and more that what she wished must be given up. It was something to know that at least she had tried every means in her power to move him—feeling that she had a helpless woman's right to do so. And as the deep, kindly tones went on they calmed her and gradually compelled her tacitly and wearily to accept his suggestion, while his ingenuity showed her the sinuous path that lay before her.
At the same time, in spite of all his arguments and her own resolutions, she could not clearly see why she should be the one to suffer instead of Margaret. Margaret had so much more strength of character to assist her. The ability to bear up under sorrow and trouble was a virtue she was ready to acknowledge to be weaker in herself than in others. The confession of this weakness, through self-pity, seemed half a virtue, even though only made to insist upon compensations.
The next day, Jack called by appointment.
"I thought I would just send for you, Jack," said Nina, looking half angry and half smiling. "I felt as if I wanted to give trouble to somebody, and I thought you were the most available person."
"Go ahead, then, old lady. I can stand it. There is nothing a fellow may not become accustomed to."
Jack seated himself in one of Nina's new easy-chairs which yielded to his weight so luxuriously that he thought he would like to get one like it. He felt the softness of the long arms of the chair, and then, regaining his feet, turned it round.
"That's a nice chair, Nina. How much did it put the old man back?"
Nina looked at him inquiringly.
"Cost—you know. How much did it spoil the old man?"
"How do I know? He bought it in New York with a lot of things. Do you suppose I keep an inventory of prices to assist me in conversation?"
"I wish you did. I'd like to get one. But I don't know. When we get married you can hand it out the back gate to me, you know, and then we'll be one chair ahead—and a good one, too."
"I do wish you would leave off referring to getting married," said Nina. And then, "By the way, that is what I wanted to speak to you about—"
Jack smiled. "Be careful," he said. "Don't set me a bad example by referring to the subject yourself."
"Well, I will, for a change. I have been making up my mind to end this way of dragging on existence. This sort of neither-one-thing-nor-the-other has got to end. It wearies me. I am not half as strong as I was. I went away to pick up, and now I am no better."
"And how do you propose to end it?" Jack was surprised at the decision in her voice.
"I propose to break it off all together," said she firmly.
"Of course," said Jack, "there is no other alternative for you but marriage."
Nina was startled at first by these words. But he had only spoken them casually.
"Certainly. A break off or marriage are the only alternatives. Going on like this is what I will not stand any longer."
Jack was shaking in his shoes for fear this was the last of him. He controlled his anxiety, though, and shutting his eyes, he leaned back, supinely, as if he knew that what he said did not matter much. She would do as she liked—no question about that!
"I have, I think, at some previous time," said he, from the recesses of the chair where he was calmly judicial with his eyes shut, "advocated the desirability of marriage. I think I have mentioned the subject before. Of course, this is only an opinion, and not entitled, perhaps, to a great deal of weight."
Nina for the first time in her life was annoyed that Jack was not sufficiently ardent. The unfortunate young man had had cold water thrown over him too many times. He was getting wise. To-day he was keeping out of range. Nina had been decidedly eccentric lately and might give him his congé at any moment. She was evidently in a queer mood still, and, to-day, Jack would give her no chance to gird at him.
This well-trained care on his part bid fair to make things awkward. She saw that it had become necessary to draw him out, and with this object in view she asked carelessly, as if she had been absent-minded and had not heard him:
"What did you say then, Jack?"
"I was merely hinting, delicately, as an outsider might, that, of the two important alternatives, marriage seems to offer you a greater scope for breaking up the ennui of a single life that a mere change from one form of single life to another."
Jack did not see the bait she was holding out. He would not rise to it. Really, it was maddening to have to lead Jack on. He had been "trained down too fine."
"Well, for my part," she said laughingly, with her cheek laid against the soft plush of the sofa, "I don't seem to care now which of the alternatives is adopted."
Jack remained quiet when he heard this. Then he said coolly: "If I were not a wise man, that speech of yours would unduly excite me. But you said you wanted some one to annoy, and I won't give you a chance. If I took the advantage of the possibilities in your words we would certainly have a row. No, old lady, you are setting a trap for me, in order that you may scold afterward. You like having a row with me, but you can't have one to-day. 'Burnt child'—you know."
What could be more provoking than this. Nina, in spite of her troubles, saw the absurdity of her position, and laughed into the plush. But her patience was at an end. She sat upright again and said vehemently:
"Jack Cresswell, you are a born fool!"
He looked up himself, then, from the chair. There was an expression in Nina's face that he had not seen for a long time—a consenting and kind look in her eyes. He got up, slowly, without any haste, still doubtful of the situation; and as he came toward her his breath grew shorter. "I believe I am a fool, but I could not believe what I wished. Is it true, Nina, that you will take me at last?"
"Listen! Come and sit down, boy, and behave yourself."
Jack obeyed mechanically.
She turned around to face him, while she commanded his obedience and gave her directions with finger upraised, as if she were teaching a dog to sit up.
"To-morrow you will call upon my father at his office and ask his consent to our immediate marriage."
"Tell me to do something hard, Nina. I feel rather cooped up, just now. I could spring over that chandelier. I don't mind tackling the old man—that's nothing. Haven't you got some lions' dens that want looking after?"
"You'll feel tired enough when you come out of father's den, I'll warrant."
"I dare say. What if he refuses?"
"Jack," said Nina, "I am an heiress. I dictate to every man but my father. I have always had my own way, and always mean to have it. So, beware! But I don't care, now, whether he refuses or not. I have come to the conclusion that it was this long engagement that worried me, and I am going to end it in short order. I am getting as thin as a scarecrow. My bones are coming through my dress." Nina felt the top of one superbly rounded arm and declared she could feel her collar-bone coming through in that improbable place. "No, I don't care whether he refuses or not. I am going to marry you, Jack, before the end of the week."
Next day Jack found himself not quite so brave as he thought he would be on entering Mr. Joseph Lindon's office. He was ushered into a rather shabby little room, which the millionaire thought was quite good enough for him. He took a pride in its shabbiness. Joseph Lindon, he said, did not have to impress people with brass and Brussels. There was more solid monetary credit in his threadbare carpet than in all the plate glass and gilt of any other establishment in the city.
Cresswell paused on the threshold as he entered, and then, feeling glad that nobody else was in the room, advanced toward Mr. Lindon. Lindon saw him out of the corner of his eye as he came in, and a saturnine smile relaxed his face while he completed a sentence in a letter which he was writing.
"Good morning, Jack," he said briskly. "Come at last, have you?"
This was rather disconcerting, but Jack replied: "Yes, and you evidently know why." He said this cheerfully and with considerable spirit, but Mr. Lindon's next remark was a little chilling.
"Just so. I was afraid you would come some day. Let us cut it short, my boy. I have a board meeting in ten minutes."
"Well, you know all I've got to say. Now, what do you say?"
This was a happy abruptness on Jack's part, and Lindon rather liked him for it. It seemed business like. It seemed as if Jack thought too highly of Mr. Lindon's sagacity to indulge in any persuasion or argument. He lay back in his chair with an amused look.
"Why dammit, boy, she's not in love with you."
Jack shrugged his shoulders and smiled—as if that was point on which modesty compelled him to be silent But his individuality asserted itself.
"Is that all the objection?"
Evidently, abruptness and speaking to the point were preferred in this office, and Jack was prepared to give the millionaire all the abruptness he wanted.
"No," said Lindon. "Of course, that is not all. But I know, as a matter of fact, that my daughter does not care a pin about you. Don't think I have been making money all my life. I can tell when a woman is in love as well as any man. I have watched Nina myself when you were with her, and I tell you she does not care half enough for you to marry you."
"She says she does," said Jack, determined not to be browbeaten by this man's force.
"I don't believe a word of it, if she does say so. I was afraid, at one time, that she was going to make a goose of herself with you, and I waltzed her off to the Continent. But after she came back I thoroughly satisfied myself that she was in no danger, or else, my boy, you would not have had the run of my house as you have had. Under the circumstances, Jack, I was always glad to see you, since we came back last, and hope to see you always, just the same. Quite apart, however, from anything she may say or consent to, I have other plans for my daughter. I have no son to carry on the name, but my daughter's marriage will be a grand one. With her beauty and my money, she will make the biggest match of the day. I did not start with much of a family myself, but I can control family. When Nina marries, sir, she marries blood; nothing less than a dook, sir,—nothing less than a dook will satisfy me. And I'll have a dook, sir; mark my words!"
When his ambition was aroused, Mr. Lindon sometimes reverted to the more marked vulgarity of forty years ago.
Jack arose. The interview was ended as far as he was concerned.
Lindon felt kindly toward him. He was one of the few young men who were not overawed by his money and obsequious on account of his wine.
"Well, good-by," he said. "Don't let this make any interruption in your visits to Mossbank. You'll always find a good glass of wine ready for you with Joseph Lindon. I rather like you, Jack, and if you ever want any backing, just let me know. But, my boy"—here Lindon regarded him as kindly as his keen, business-loving face would allow, and he laid his hand on his arm—"my lad, you must be careful. Remember what an old man says—you're too honest to get along all through life without getting put upon. You must try to see into things a little more. Just try and be a little more suspicious. If you don't, somebody will 'go for you,' sure as a gun."
Jack saw that this was intended kindly, and he took it quietly, wondering if Joseph Lindon, while looking so uncommonly sober, could have been indulging in a morning glass of wine. He went out, and Mr. Lindon watched his free, manly bearing as he passed to the front door.
"If I had a son like that," he said warmly, "Nina could marry whom she liked. That boy would be family enough for me. He would have enough of the gentleman about him both for himself and his old father. Lord, if I had a son like that I'd make a prince of him! I'd just give him blank checks signed with my name. Darned if I wouldn't!"
To give a son unfilled signed checks seemed to be a culmination of parental foolishness which would show his fondness more than anything else he could do. Perhaps he was right.
CHAPTER XXI.
Life is so complicated a game that the devices of skill are liable to be defeated at every turn by air-blown chances incalculable as the descent of thistledown.—George Eliot's Romola.
During Jack's visit to her father's office, Nina passed the time in desultory shopping until she met him on King Street.
"I need not ask what your success was," said she, smiling, as she joined him. "Your face shows that clearly enough."
"Nothing less than a dook," groaned Jack, good-humoredly. "He seems to think they can be had at auction sales in England."
"I am glad he refused," said Nina, "because his consent would delay my whims. We have done our duty in asking him, and now I am going to marry you to-morrow, Jack."'
"To-morrow?"
"Yes, I am afraid, dear Jack, that if I allowed the marriage to be put off till next week or longer you might change your mind." She gave Jack a look that disturbed thought. Affection toward him on her part was something so new that this, together with her startling announcement, made it difficult for him accurately to distinguish his head from his heels.
"But I can not leave the bank at a moment's notice."
"No; but you can get your holidays a week sooner. You were going to take them in a week."
"Had we not better wait, then, for the week to expire?"
"Fiddlesticks! Don't you see that I want to give you a chance? What I am really afraid of is that I shall change my own mind. Father said only yesterday he was thinking of taking me to England at once. If you don't want to take your chances you can take your consequences instead."
It did not seem anything new or strange to Jack that she should give a little stamp of her foot imperiously, and in all the willfulness of a spoiled child determine suddenly upon carrying out a whim in spite of any objections. And Jack needed no great force of argument to push him on in this matter. His head was throbbing with excitement. To think of the bank was habitual to him; but the wildness of the new move commended itself to his young blood. The holidays were a mere matter of arrangement, for the most part, between the clerks, and he thought he saw his way to arranging for a fortnight's absence. "I'll make it all right," he said, thinking aloud. "I will arrange it with Sappy."
Whether "Sappy" was the bank manager or a fellow-clerk did not at the moment interest Nina.
"Why, Nina, I didn't know you were a person to go in for anything half so wild. It suits me. It will be the spree of my life! But how have you arranged everything? or have you arranged anything?"
"Oh, there is nothing very much to arrange. I know you can not leave the bank finally without giving due notice. So we will just go off now and get married, and when you come back, after a week or so, you can give the usual notice and then we will go to California. If your brother there wants you to go into the grape-farming he must know well enough that you have better chances there than here in the bank, and if, after all, the business there did not get on well, I dare say father will have changed his mind by that time."
"And how will you account for your absence from home?"
"Nothing simpler," said she, with a sagacious toss of her head. "I am just telegraphing to Sophronia B. Hopkins at Lockport, New York. You remember Sophronia B., when she was with us? I have telegraphed that I am coming to see her. She will answer to say 'Come along'; and then I will put her off for a couple of weeks and tell her to keep any letters forwarded for me from here until I come."
Jack was astonished. "I thought your head was only valuable as an ornament," said he, with affectionate rudeness.
"I have never, with you, had occasion to use it before. To-morrow, at half-past seven in the morning, you will take the train for Hamilton. I will take the 9.30 and we will go through to Buffalo together, where we will arrive about two o'clock, and then we can be married there and go West. But we need not arrange anything more now. You will be at the Campbells' to-night, and anything further can be spoken about there. Go off now to the bank and get everything ready. And, by the way, Jack"—here she held out her hand as if for good-by—while she asked, with what seemed to Jack an almost unimaginable coquetry and beauty, "you won't change your mind, dear Jack?" She gave him one glance from under her sweeping eyelashes, and then she left him to grope his way to the bank.
She thought, as she walked along, "I think I have read somewhere that 'whom the gods wish to take they first drive mad,' or something like that. It is just as well, as Geoffrey suggested, to keep Jack slightly insane to-day. It will prevent him from thinking my proposal strange. Poor Jack! To-day he would give me his right arm as a present. How shabbily I have treated him, and how well he has always behaved!"
About eleven on the following forenoon, Jack was waiting in the dining-room of the Hamilton railway station, looking out through the window to see Nina's train come in. He thought it better to escape observation in this way. Nor did Nina indulge in looking out the window of the Pullman. Everything had been fully arranged, and as the bridge train moved out of the station, Jack left his obscure post of observation and hastily passed through the crowd on the station and got on board the "smoker" in front. When clear of Hamilton he made his way back through the cars to the drawing-room car, where he found Nina, who was beginning to look a little anxious for his arrival.
The train took nearly two hours to trundle along to the bridge. For a time they talked together, but Nina was feeling the reaction of the excitement of getting away. She had had a good deal to do, and she did not feel that going away with Jack would prevent her from enjoying a fairly comfortable nap in the large swinging arm-chairs. She soon dozed off, and Jack, who was pleased to see her rest, walked to the end of the car and back again to calm his nerves. This sort of thing was new to him. He had a novel with him, but he could not read it. His "only books were woman's looks" to-day. Other people's adventures seemed poor to him just now, in comparison with his own.
While thus moving about restlessly he became a little interested in an elderly gentleman, evidently a clergyman, who was sitting unobtrusively behind a copy of the Detroit Church Herald. He passed this retiring person several times, in loitering about, and then, seeing him with his paper laid down beside him, stopped and said cheerfully:
"Got the car all to ourselves to-day."
"Yes," said the grave-looking person, with an American accent. "And pleasant, too, on a warm day like this. It's worth the extra quarter to get out from among the crying babies and orange-peel and come in here and travel comfortably. Going far?"
"Only as far as Buffalo," said Jack, taking a seat beside him, for want of anything better to do.
"That is where I reside."
"Ah, indeed!" said Jack. "You make Buffalo the scene of your official duties?"
The other nodded. "I have been for a visit to Detroit, and now I am going back to relieve my superior in the church, so that he may take a holiday also. I think we clergy need a holiday as much as any other people I ever saw. Do you know Buffalo at all?"
"Never was there in my life," said Jack.
"Humph! Well, it ain't a bad place, Buffalo, when you know the people well. I have only been there five years, but I have found in our congregation some real nice folks. Of course, mine is the Episcopal Church, and I have generally found the Episcopalians, in my sojournings in different places, to be the superior people of the locality."
From the compliment to the Episcopalians it was evident that the clergyman had no doubt Jack belonged to that aristocratically inclined sect, and Jack smiled at his friend's shrewdness, forgetting the fact that "Church of England—mild, acquiescent, and gentlemanly"—was written all over him, and that the cut of his clothes, the shape of his whisker, the turn of his head when listening, and even the solidity of his utility-first boots made it almost impossible for any person to suppose he belonged to any other denomination.
"I have heard," Jack said, "that the Buffalo people, many of them, have lots of money, and that they give freely to the churches. I suppose money is an element in a congregation which gentlemen of your calling do not object to?"
It seemed to Jack that the long gray eyes of the minister smiled at this point more because he thought he was expected to smile than from any sense of mirth. He was a grave man, who, behind a dignified reserve, seemed capable of taking in a great deal at a glance.
"No one can deny the power of money," he said. "But, though there is a good deal of it in St. James's Church, what with a paid choir, and the church debt, and repairs, and the new organ, and the paying of my superior in office, I can tell you there is not very much left for the person who plays second fiddle, as one may say."
"Ah!" said Jack sympathetically.
"When a man has a wife and a growing family to support and bring up in a large city, and prices away up, twelve hundred dollars a year don't go a very great ways, young man, and if it were not for our perquisites some of us would find it difficult to make both ends of the string meet around the parcel we have got to carry."
Jack was becoming slightly interested in this man and was wondering what his previous history was. He wondered that his new acquaintance had not made more money than he seemed to possess. There was something behind his grave immobility of countenance that suggested ability of some sort, he did not know what. His slightly varying expressions of countenance did not always seem to appear spontaneously, but to be placed there by a directing intelligence that first considered what expression would be the right one. It seemed like a peculiar mannerism which might in another man be the result of a slightly sluggish brain.
They conversed with each other all the way to the bridge, and although the dignified reserve of the clergyman never quite thawed out, Jack began to rather like him and be interested in his large fund of information about the United States and anecdotes of frontier life in California, where as a youth he had had a varied experience.
Their baggage was examined by the customs officer on the American side of the bridge, and the clergyman noticed a monogram in silver on Nina's shopping-bag, "N. L.," and the initials "J. C." on Jack's valises, and came to the conclusion from Jack's studied attentions to Nina when she awoke that, if the young couple were not married yet, it was quite time they were; and no doubt it entered the clerical mind that there might be a marriage fee for himself to come out of the little acquaintance. In view of this he renewed the conversation himself after the car went on by the New York Central toward Buffalo. Jack introduced the Rev. Matthew Simpson to Nina, and he made the short run to Buffalo still shorter with amusing stories of clerical life, ending up with one about his own marriage, which was not the less interesting on account of its being a runaway match and the fact that he had never regretted it. Jack felt that behind this elderly man's dignity there was a heart that understood the world and knew what young people were. So he told a short story on his account, which did not seem to surprise the reverend gentleman a great deal, and it was arranged that he should perform the ceremony for them at the hotel. On arriving in Buffalo they left their luggage at the station, intending to go on to Cleveland at four o'clock. On the way up Main Street, Mr. Simpson pointed out St. James's Church—a large edifice, partly covered with ivy—and also showed the parsonage where he lived. He urged them to wait and be married in the church, but Nina shunned the publicity of it and pleaded their want of time.
Jack and Nina had some dinner at the Genesee House, while Mr. Simpson got the marriage license ready. As luck would have it, Mr. Simpson himself issued marriage licenses, which, as he explained, also assisted him to eke out his small income; and as soon as they had had a hurried lunch, they all retired to a private parlor and the marriage ceremony was performed very quietly.
Two waiters were called in as witnesses, and it was arranged that on their return to Buffalo in a few days, they could call at the parsonage and then sign the church register, for which there was now no time before the four o'clock train left for Cleveland. The license was produced, filled out, and signed in due form, and on the large red seal were stamped the words, "Matthew Simpson, Issuer of Marriage Licenses." The presence of the stamp showed that he was a duly authorized person, and satisfied Jack that in employing a chance acquaintance he was not making any mistake.
They were glad when the ceremony was finished, and Jack was very pleasant with Mr. Simpson. They all got into the cab again, and rattled off toward the station. As they came near the parsonage of St. James's Church, Mr. Simpson said he thought he would go as far as the suburbs with them in their train to see how some people in the hospital were getting on. He said he would get down, now, at the parsonage, because he wished to take something with him to one of the patients, but that they must not risk losing the train.
"I will take another cab and meet you at the train. It is not a matter of much moment if I fail to catch it; but, Mr. Cresswell, if you get a bottle of wine into the car (perhaps you will have time to get it at the station), I will be pleased to drink Mrs. Cresswell's health."
"That's a capital idea," said Jack with spirit. "The wine will be doubtful, perhaps, but that won't be my fault. And now," he added, as the carriage stopped at the parsonage, "I want to leave with you your fee, Mr. Simpson, and I hope you will not consider that it cancels our indebtedness to you." Jack pulled out a roll of bills.
"Never mind, my dear young man," said Mr. Simpson heartily, "any time will do. I will catch you at the station, and, if I don't, you can leave it with me when you return here to sign the register."
Mr. Simpson got out, and Jack, finding he had only two five dollar bills, the rest being all in fifties, was rather in a dilemma how to pay Mr. Simpson twenty dollars for his fee.
"Here;" he said hurriedly, handing out a fifty, "you get this changed, if you have time, on your way down. You may possibly miss us at the station, and I can not hear of your waiting until we return."
"Very well," said Mr. Simpson, speaking as fast as his tongue would let him, "I will have to take my chance, and, if I can not catch you, just call in for the balance when you return. Don't lose a moment!" With a wave of his hand and a direction to the driver, Mr. Simpson went hurriedly up the parsonage steps, and the cab dashed off toward the Michigan Southern depot.
Jack had time to purchase the wine, which ought to have been good, judging from the price. Unfortunately, Mr. Simpson was too late to join them. The train went off without him, and Jack and Nina drank his jolly good health in half the bottle, and afterward the Pullman conductor struggled successfully with the rest.
Altogether they were in high spirits, Jack especially, and Nina's thankfulness for being safely married to one of the best of men made her very amiable.
Mr. and Mrs. John Cresswell approached Buffalo again, from the West, at the close of Jack's two weeks' holidays. They decided that it would be better for Nina to go straight to Lockport on the train which connected with the one on which they were traveling. There was nothing for Nina to do in Buffalo but sign the register and get her marriage "lines" from Mr. Simpson, and Jack could do this, they thought, without a delay on her part to do so. To arrange about the register she had written her name on a narrow slip of paper which Jack could paste in the book at the parsonage. This they considered would suffice, and Nina went on to pay her intended visit to Sophronia B. Hopkins. The run to Lockport occupied only a short time, and then she went to her friend's house.
In the mean time Jack, who was not like the husband in Punch in that stage of the honeymoon when the presence of a friend "or even an enemy" would be a grateful change of companionship, walked up Main Street smoking a cigar and trying to make the best of his sudden bereavement. He said after the first ten minutes that he was infernally lonely, but still the flavor of the cigar was from fair to middling. And, after all, tobacco and quiet contemplation have a place in life which can not be altogether neglected, and they come in well again after a while, no matter what may have caused their temporary banishment.
He strolled leisurely up to the parsonage and inquired for Mr. Simpson. The maid-servant said he did not live there. Jack thought this was strange.
"I mean the clergyman who has charge of the church alongside."
"Oh, yes, Mr. Toxham lives here. He is inside. Will you walk in?"
Jack was ushered into a clergyman's library, where a thin man with a worn face was sitting. Jack bowed, introduced himself, and said he had come here to see Mr. Matthew Simpson, "one of the associate clergymen in St. James's Church close by."
"I do not think I know anybody by the name of Simpson," said the clergyman. "My name is Toxham. I have no associate clergyman with me in the neighboring church. My church is called St. Luke's, not St. James's. I don't think there is any St. James's Church in Buffalo." Jack grasped the back of the chair and unconsciously sat down to steady himself. A horrible fear overwhelmed him. His face grew ashen in hue, and the clergyman jumped up in a fright, thinking something was going to happen.
"It's all right," said Jack weakly. "Sit down, please. You have given me a shock, and I feel as I never felt before. There, I am better now."
As he wiped away the cold perspiration that had started out in beads on his forehead he related the facts as to his marriage to Mr. Toxham, who was greatly shocked.
An idea occurred to him, and on looking through the city directory, as a sort of last chance, he found the name "Matthew Simpson, issuer of marriage licenses."
Jack started up, filled with wild and sudden hope. He got the address, and dashed from the house before Mr. Toxham could give him a word of advice. Arrived at the office of Matthew Simpson, he walked in and asked for that gentleman.
"I am Matthew Simpson," said the man he spoke to.
Jack looked at him as if he had seven heads, feeling the same trembling in the knees which he had felt when with Mr. Toxham. "Really," he thought, "if this goes on I'll be a driveling idiot by nightfall."
"Did you issue a marriage license on, let me see, two weeks ago to-morrow—on the 23d?"
"More than likely I did. Perhaps a good many on that day. You don't look as if you wanted one yourself. Anything gone wrong? But you can have one if you like. I do the biggest business in Buffalo. I sell more marriage licenses than any two men between here and—"
"Turn up your books," interrupted Jack savagely. He was beginning to wish to kill somebody.
"I always make a charge for a search," said the man cunningly, which was not true.
"Well, damn it, I can pay you. Look lively now, or the police will do it for me in five minutes, and put you where your frauds will be of no use to you."
It was Mr. Simpson's turn to lose color now. He was one of the trustees of a public institution in Buffalo, and people should be careful how they talk too suddenly about police to trustees. The books were produced, and Jack hurriedly looked over the list of the licenses sold on the 23d of the last month, and was surprised to find that one had been sold to himself. His age was entered and sworn to as fifty-five years, and the license was to marry Nina Lindon, spinster, aged twenty years. The addresses given were all Buffalo.
"There has been a great fraud done here," said Jack vehemently.
"All perfectly regular, my dear sir," said Mr. Simpson. "I remember the circumstance well. Old party, called John Cresswell, came in, dressed like a preacher, and wanted a license for himself. 'All right, my old covey,' says I to myself; 'trust an old stager like you to pick up the youngest and best.' So I perdooced the papers, which took about five minutes to fill up. He took the oath, I sealed and stamped the license, like this one here, and as soon as he got it he took out his purse and there was nothing in it. His face fell about a quarter of a yard. 'My goodness,' he says. 'I have come out without any money!' He then laid down the license and rushed to the door, and then turned round and says, quite distressed: 'I'll take a cab,' says he, 'and drive home and get your money. They're all waiting at the church for the marriage to take place, but, of course, you must be paid first.'"
"Well, I hated to see an old gent put about so, and his speaking about 'taking a cab' and coming from 'home' in such a natural, put-about sort of way kinder made me think he was solid, and, like a dum fool, I slings him the license and tells him to call in after the ceremony. He thanked me, with what I should call Christian gratitude in his face. Yes, sir, it was Christian gratitude, there, every time. And—would you believe it?—the old boozer never showed up since!"
"Ha!" said Jack, who only heard the main facts of what Simpson was saying. "Did you never see this old man before?" he added.
"Well, that is a funny thing about it. It seemed to me I knew the face. That was one thing that made me trust him. I could not swear to it, but I have a great mind for faces, and I believe I have, at some time or other, sold the old coon a license before."
Jack thought this would account for the old man, while on the train, giving the name Matthew Simpson, when he had the whole scheme quickly arranged in his head. Still, it might be that he was in fact some profligate, ruined clergyman, who played these confidence games to make a livelihood. The license was issued in his and Nina's names, and, although incorrect on its face and not paid for, might still, he thought, be a legal license for him to claim a bona-fide marriage under. If the license was good enough, the next thing to do was to go to the police office and find out what he could there. "The marriage might be a good one still."
He threw down the price of the license for Mr. Simpson, and asked him to be good enough to keep the papers in his possession carefully, as they might be required afterward. He left Mr. Simpson rather mystified as to the interest he took in the matter, and then, having still two hours before train-time, he repaired to the police headquarters. There he related in effect what had taken place to Superintendent Fox. Two or three quiet-looking men were lounging about, seeming to take but little interest in Jack's story. Detectives are not easily disturbed by that which excites the victim who tells his unfortunate experience. These fellows were smoking cigars, and they occasionally exchanged a low sentence with each other in which Jack thought he heard the word "Faro-Joseph." What that meant he did not know; but he described the gentleman of dignified aspect, whom he had known on the train as Rev. Matthew Simpson, and then he heard one of them mutter "Faro-Joseph" again, while they nodded significantly.
One of the men, who had his boots on a desk in front of him, was consulting his note-book. He then said:
"On the 23d of last month Faro-Joseph got off the train at the Central Depot at two o'clock. On the 26th he left on the Michigan Southern at 10 P. M."
It dawned upon Jack that his clerical friend was called "Faro-Joseph" in police circles.
"Why did you not warn me when you saw me in company with this man. He got off the train with me at the the time you say. Surely I should have had some word from you!"
"Well, gent, I tell you why. I was just about to arrest another man, and in the crowd I did not see that you were with him. Don't remember ever seeing you before. I might pass you twenty times and never know I had seen you. You're not the kind we reaches out for. Now, I dare say, unless a woman is of a fine figure—tall, possibly, or the kind of figure you admire—chances are you don't see her at all. That is, you could not tell afterward whether you had seen her or not. Same thing here. You're not the kind we hunt."
Jack turned to the superintendent and asked him whether this man, Faro-Joseph, was not really at one time a clergyman. The superintendent smiled pityingly.
"Why, he only started the sky-pilot game during the last ten years, and only takes it up occasionally. Though I believe it's his best holt. As a Gospel-sharp he'll beat anybody out of their socks. He's immense on that lay. What I call just perfect. He's all on the confidence ticket now and the pasteboards. Has quite given up the heavy business. Why, sir, you would forgive him most anything if you could see him handle card-board. We pulled him for a 'vag.' one night about four months ago; and, just to find out how he did things, I played a little game with him after we let him go on promise to quit. We put the stakes about as low as they could be put—five-cent ante, and twenty-five cent limit—just for the experiment. Now, sir, you would be surprised. He cheated me from the word 'go,' and I don't know yet how it was done. If he dealt the cards he would get an all-fired hand himself, and if I dealt him nothing he'd bluff me right up the chimney. For poker he has no match, I believe. All I know about that game is that I lost three dollars in thirty minutes."
"Perhaps you have his record written down somewhere?" said Jack, feeling sick at heart, and yet fascinated by the account of Faro-Joseph.
"Perhaps we have," said the superintendent, smiling toward one of the loungers near by. "Just come in this way."
The superintendent opened a large case like a wardrobe, and began flapping back a large number of thin flat wings that all worked on separate hinges. These wings were covered with photographs of criminals—a terrible collection of faces—and from one of them he took a very fair likeness of our clerical friend in another dress. Pasted at the back of the photograph was a folded paper containing a list in fine writing of his known convictions and suspected offenses for a period of over forty years. He had been burglar, counterfeiter, and forger, which the superintendent called the 'heavy business' that he had given up. Since those earlier days he had been train-gambler, confidence-man, and sneak-thief.
There was nothing to be done. Faro-Joseph never had been a clergyman. To put the law in force was out of the question for several reasons. Jack got away to catch his train for Toronto and to think and think what it would be best to do about Nina, and where and how they could get married properly.
CHAPTER XXII.
Spread no wings
For sunward flight, thou soul with unplumed vans!
Sweet is the lower air and safe, and known
The homely levels.
Dear is the love, I know, of wife and child;
Pleasant the friends and pastimes of your years.
Live—ye who must—such lives as live on these;
Make golden stairways of your weakness; rise
By daily sojourn with those fantasies
To lovelier verities.
(Buddha's Sermon—The Light of Asia.)—Arnold.
Jack made another mistake in coming on to Toronto after finding out the disastrous failure of his supposed marriage. If he had gone to Lockport and found Nina at her friend's house, perhaps some arrangement could have been made for their marriage in Buffalo on the following day. Mr. Toxham, the clergyman on whom Jack called at the parsonage, had tried to get his ear for advice on this subject. But, as mentioned before, when Jack read the address of Matthew Simpson he immediately bolted out, without waiting to listen to the suggestions which the clergyman tried to make. If this idea occurred to Jack, there were reasons why he did not act upon it. He was due at the bank the next morning, and regularity at the bank was a cast-iron creed with him—the result of continually subordinating his own wishes to that which the institution expected of him. The clerk who was doing his work there would be leaving for his own holidays on the following day, and Jack felt the pressure his duty brought upon him. Again, how would it be possible, after finding where Nina was staying in Lockport, to call at the house and take her away from her friends almost before she had fairly arrived? Geoffrey would have got over this difficulty. But he had the inventive mind which goes on inventing in the presence of shock and surprise. Jack was not like him on land. He had this ability only on a yacht during a sudden call for alert intelligence. His nerve had not been educated to steadiness by escapades on land, nor had he had experience in any trouble that required much insight into consequences. The discovery that the woman for whom he existed was not his wife seemed to prostrate and confuse thought. He felt the need of counsel, and was afraid to trust his own decision. If he could only get home and tell Geoffrey the whole difficulty, he felt that matters could be mended.
He arrived in Toronto about ten o'clock at night feeling ill and faint, having eaten nothing since a light breakfast thirteen hours before. He dropped in at the club and took a sandwich and some spirits to make him sleep. Then he went to his lodgings (Geoffrey was out somewhere), rolled into bed, and slept the clock round till eight the next morning.
As he gradually awoke, thoroughly refreshed, there was a time during which, although he seemed to himself to be awake, he had forgotten about his supposed marriage. He was single John Cresswell again, with nothing on his mind except to be at the bank "on time." So his troubles presented themselves gently; first as only a sort of dream that he had once been married to the love of his life—to Nina. When he fully awoke he began to realize everything; but not as he realized it the night before. Then, the case seemed almost hopeless. Now, his invigorated self promised success in some way. He was glad he had not met Geoffrey the night before. The morning confidence in himself made Geoffrey seem unnecessary. Rubbing his sleepy eyes, he walked through the museum of a sitting-room and into Hampstead's bedroom, where he fell upon that sleeping gentleman and rudely shook him into consciousness.
"Hello, Jack! Got back?" growled Geoffrey as he awoke.
"Yes. You had better get up if you want to attend the bank to-day."
"All right," said Geoffrey, sitting up. "What sort of a time did you have? Old people well?"
Jack was supposed to have been in Halifax, where his parents lived with the other old English families there.
"Yes, I had a pretty good time," said Jack. "The old people are fine!" he added, freshly. "How are things in the bank?"
Geoffrey then retired to his bath-room, and an intermittent conversation about the bank and other matters went on for a few minutes during the pauses created by cold water and splashing.
It was a relief to Jack that neither at breakfast nor afterward did Geoffrey ask any more questions about his fortnight's holiday. Hampstead knew better.
During the next six weeks Geoffrey was decidedly unsettled. "Federal" went up as a matter of course, and he sold out with advantage. He cleared five thousand dollars on this transaction, and had now a capital of fifteen thousand dollars. He was rather lucky in his venture into the stock market. His experience on Wall Street had given him a keen insight into such matters, and he studied probabilities until his chances of failure were reduced, keeping up a correspondence by telegraph and letter with his old Wall Street employers who, in a friendly way, shared with him some of their best knowledge.
Immediately after he had sold out "Federal" an American railway magnate died. This man almost owned an American railway which was operating and leasing a Canadian railway. No sooner was the death known than the stock of the Canadian Railway took a tumble. For a moment public confidence in it seemed to be lost. Now Geoffrey had studied chances as to this line. He knew that it was one of the few Canadian railways that under fair management was able to pay a periodical dividend—a small one at times, perhaps, but always something. It did not go on for years without paying a cent like some of the others. He had waited for this millionaire to die in order to buy the largely depreciated stock. When the opportunity arrived he bought on margin a very large quantity of it at a low figure. But the trouble was that the public did not agree with him and the few cool heads who tried to keep quiet, hold on, and wait till things reinstated themselves. An ordinary man's chances in the stock market do not depend upon his own sagacity more than does guessing at next week's weather. Fortunes are lost, like lives, not from the threatened danger but from panic. Bad rumors about the railway were afloat and the stock continued to go down. Geoffrey hastily sold out his other stocks for what he could get, and stuffed everything available into the widening gap through which forces seemed to be entering to overwhelm him.
In the meantime while Nina was at Lockport, Jack had gone on quietly with his work in the Victoria Bank. He had not given notice of his intentions to leave that institution, because, after his return, he had thought he would like to take more money than he had already saved to California with him. His brother had written previously to say that he ought to bring with him at least three thousand dollars, to put into the business of grape-farming, and Jack thought if he could only hold on at the bank, where he was fairly well paid, he might in a few months complete the sum required. Already he had put away over twenty-five hundred dollars, and it would not take long to save the balance.
Nina came back from Lockport blaming herself for her former unreasoning infatuation for Geoffrey. Hers was a nature that had of necessity to lavish its affection on something or somebody. If she could have given this affection, or part of it, to her own mother it would have been a valuable outlet in these later years. The confidences that ought to have existed between them would then have been the first links to be sundered when she sought Hampstead's society.
Unluckily Mrs. Lindon was not in every way perfect. While she had continued to be "not weary in well doing," as she called it, her daughter had been gradually commencing to consider how her duties and social law might be evaded. While Mrs. Lindon visited the Haven and listened to the stories of the women there which were always so interesting to her, and while she expended her time in ways that her gossip-loving nature sought, her daughter had been left the most defenseless person imaginable.
The fact to be remarked was, that the same impulses which had led Nina into wrong-doing previously were now becoming her greatest power for good. For those who claim to distinguish the promptings that come from Satan from those that come from Heaven, there is in nature a good deal of irony. Nature is wonderfully kind to the pagan, considering his disadvantages. When self has been abandoned for an inspiring object there is no reason to think that the self-surrendered devoted Buddhist, or the self-offered victim to Moloch, experiences, any less than the Salvation Army captain, that deep, heart-felt, soul-set, almost ecstatic gladness—that sensation of consecration and confidence—that internal song which the New Testament so beautifully puts words to. It is a great thing for a woman to be allowed to lavish her affection in a way permitted by society, for few have enough strength of character to hold up their heads when society frowns.
Nina was just such a woman as many whom her mother liked to converse with at the Haven. They were poor and she was rich and well educated, but she was neither better nor worse than the majority of them. Nevertheless, from a social point of view, she was on the right track now, apparently. From a social point of view, Mrs. John Cresswell with society at her feet would not be at all the same person as Nina Lindon disgraced. True, it would require subtlety and deception before she could feel that she had re-established herself safely, but, as Hampstead quoted, "some sorts of dirt serve to clarify," and to her it seemed the only way feasible. She did not like painstaking subtlety any more than other people. It gave her intense unrest. She looked gladly forward to the time when she would leave Toronto with Jack for California, said she longed with her whole heart for the necessity of deception to be over and done with. She did not know—Jack had not told her—that their supposed marriage was void, and she was following out the train of thought that leads toward ultimate good. She was saddened and subdued, wept bitter tears of contrition for her faults, and prayed with an agonized mind for forgiveness and strength to carry her through what lay before her.
The change in her was due to improved conditions under which her nature became able to advance by woman's ordinary channels toward woman's possible perfection. A great after-life might be opening before her. Some time, probably, her father's wealth would be hers. After long years of chastening remembrances of trouble, after years of the outflow toward good of a heart that refused to be checked in its love, and would be able from personal experience to understand, and thus lift up lovingly, wounded souls, and with many of the perfections of a ripened womanhood, we can imagine Nina as admirable among women, a power for good, controlling through the heart rather than the intellect, as generous as the sun.
But where will these beautiful possibilities be if her sin is found out?
Since her return Jack had not told Nina the terrible news which awaited her. The secret on his mind made him uneasy in her presence. When he had called once or twice in the afternoon he was very silent and even depressed, but she considered that he had a good deal to think about, and it was also a relief to her not to be expected to appear brilliantly happy. What he thought was that after he had earned the rest of the money he required they could get married at the first American town they came to on their way to California. He could not bring himself to tell her the truth, which would make her wretched in the mean time, and he did not see why the real marriage should not be deferred until it was more convenient for him to leave Canada. When Nina had spoken about going away, he had evaded the topic, and she did not wish to press the point. He explained his long periods of absence during this time by several excuses. His secret weighed so heavily upon him that he dreaded lest in a weak moment he might tell her. It was significant of the change in Nina toward him that, during the time he was there, nothing would induce her to sacrifice the restful moments to anybody. She would sit beside him, talking quietly and restfully, holding his hand in hers, or with her head upon his shoulder. Once, when he was leaving, all the hope she now felt welled up within her as she said good-by. All that was good and kind seemed to her to be personified in Jack, and it smote him when she put her arms round his neck and, with a quiet yearning toward good in her face, said:
"Good-by, Jack, dear husband!"
Jack's great heart was rent with pity and affection as he saw through the gathering mists that calm, wondrous yearning look in her face that afterward haunted him. He did not understand fully from what depths of black anguish that look came, straining toward the light. But he knew that he was not her husband, and he could see that when she called him by this name she was uttering a word which to her was hallowed.
Another week now slipped by, and Geoffrey could not understand why Jack had not gone to California. He called on Nina to ascertain how matters stood. She received him standing in the middle of the room. To-day Geoffrey closed the door behind him. It was the last time he ever intended to be in this house, and so he did not care much what the inquisitive door-opener might think.
There was no mark of special recognition on either side. He walked quickly toward her, seeing, at one quick glance, that he was not regarded as a friend.
"Why have you and Jack not gone yet to California?" he said, without prelude.
"I don't know," she answered coldly, still standing and eyeing him with aversion, as he also stood before her. "Has not Jack given any notice of his intention to leave the bank?"
"I have not heard of any. You ought to know that better than I," said Geoffrey. "By the way," he added, "you might as well sit down, Nina. There is no use that I see in playing the tragedy queen." His voice hardened her aversion to him.
"No," she said, her voice deep and full with resentment. "If I am always allowed to choose, I will never sit down in your presence again. You have come here to look after your own interests, and I have got to listen to you, to learn from your lips your devil's cunning. You are forced to tell me the proper plans, and I am forced to listen and act upon them. Now go on and say what you have to say."
Hampstead nodded, and said simply: "Perhaps you are right. I don't know that it is worth your while to take so much trouble, but I respect the feeling which prompts it."
Nina looked angry.
"Don't think I say this unkindly. You, or rather your conditions, have changed, and I merely wish to acknowledge the improvement. We will speak very simply to each other to-day. Now, about California; it appears to me that Jack does not intend to go there for a good while if allowed to do as he likes. You must go at once. He very likely is wishing to make more money before he leaves, but this won't do. He must go at once."
"I think," said Nina, "that there need be no further reason for your seeing me again after this interview. You have always, lately, been Jack's confidant. Send him to me this evening, and I will tell him to consult with you. After that, you can arrange with him everything necessary about our departure. He will need advice, perhaps, in many ways, and then he can (here Nina's lip curled) benefit by your wisdom."
"I would not sneer too much at the wisdom if I were you. My devil's cunning, as you are pleased to call it, has put you on the right track, whatever its faults may be. It has stood us both in good stead this time, and, if I did force you to marry Jack, you should not blame me for that now, and I do not think you do."
He turned to move toward the door. He did not consider that he had any right to say good-by, or anything else beyond what was absolutely necessary. But his reference to Jack, in a way that seemed to speak of his worth, aroused Nina; and this, together with the thought that she would never again see this man who had treated her whole existence as a plaything, induced her to speak again to him.
"Stop," she said. "I do indeed owe you something. You forced me to marry Jack, out of your own selfishness, of course, but still I must thank you for it. To my last hour I will thank you for that. Yes, I will even thank you for more—for the careful way you have shown me my way from out of my troubles. I think I am nearly done with anguish now. A little more will come, no doubt, and after that, please God, whatever troubles I endure will not be shameful. And now something tells me, Geoffrey, that I shall never see you again. I can not let you go without saying that I forgive you all. Some time, perhaps, you will be glad I said so. You have been by turns cunning, selfish, wise, and loving to me. You have also seemed—I don't know that you were, but you have seemed—cruel to me; but I do not think, now that I look back upon everything more calmly, that you have been unjust. No; a woman should bear her part of the consequences of her own deeds. I am glad that Margaret's happiness is still possible and that I did not drag anybody down with me. The more I think of everything the less I blame you. You will think I am getting wise to look at it in this way, but I never could look at it like this until now."
Nina was speaking in a way that surprised Geoffrey. Sorrow had altered her; dangers and changes were encompassing her. Though all love for him was dead, the man whom she had once worshiped stood before her for the last time. He, who had caused her more happiness and distress than any other person ever could again, stood in silence taking his leave of her—forever. Urged by hope, besieged by doubts and dangers, driven by necessities, her mind had acquired an abnormal activity, and she seemed all at once to be able to realize what it was to part from him for all eternity and to become conscious while she stood there of a power to rise in intelligence above everything surrounding her—above all the clogging conditions of our existence—and to judge calmly, even pityingly, of both herself and Geoffrey and of all the agonies and joys that now seemed to have been so small and unnecessary. As she spoke the whole of her life seemed spread out before her. She recollected, or seemed to recollect, all the events of her life, and she remained a moment gazing before her in a way that made her look almost unreal.
"I can see," she said slowly, in a calm, distinct voice, "everything that has happened in my life; but all the rest is all a blank to me."
Geoffrey noticed that, with her clearness of vision into the past, she evidently expected also to see something of the future and was startled and surprised at seeing nothing. She continued looking before her, as if unconscious of his presence, until she turned to him shuddering.
"Good-by, Geoffrey. I feel that something is going to happen in some way, either to you or to me; I don't know how. I see things to-day strangely, and there are other things I want to see and can not."
She looked at him with a look such as he had never seen in any one.
"You will never see me again, Geoffrey. I am certain of that. I pray that God may be as good to you as I have been."
Geoffrey grew pale. Something convinced him that she spoke the truth and that he never would see her again. There was something in her appearance and in her words that made him shudder. A rarefied beauty had spread over her; she seemed to be merely an intelligence, speaking from the purity of some other realm. It seemed as if it were no human prompting that urged her to the utterance of forebodings, and that her last words were as sweet as they were terrible.
He tried to look at her kindly, to cheer her, but he saw that, for the moment, the emotions of our ordinary life were totally apart from her and that he had become nothing to her but a combination of recollections.
He raised her hand to his lips, took a long look at her, and went his way, leaving her standing in the middle of the room calmly watching his retreat.
As Hampstead went back to the club he felt unstrung. He went in and drank several glasses of brandy to brace himself. He had been drinking a great deal during this excitement over his investments. At ordinary times he did not care enough about liquor to try to make a pastime of drinking. Now, there was a fever in his blood that seemed to demand a still greater fever. He did not get drunk, because his individuality seemed to assert itself over and above all he consumed. To-day, to add to the depression he felt about his prospects (for ruin was staring him in the face), the strange words of Nina—full of presentiment—her uncanny, prophetess-like eyes, and the conviction that he had seen her for the last time—all weighed upon him. Her last words to him haunted him, and he drank heavily all the evening.
He told Jack he had called to see Nina in the afternoon, and that she had expressed a wish to see him in the evening.
About eight o'clock Jack made his appearance at Mossbank. Mrs. Lindon had dragged her unwilling husband off to a dinner somewhere, so that the young people were not in anticipation of interruption.
Nina had got over the strange phase into which she had passed while saying good-by to Geoffrey during the afternoon, and was doing her best to appear natural and pleasant. After some conversation, she inquired whether he had given the bank notice of his intention to leave. When he said he had not, she let him know that she must leave Toronto at once, and the first thing he did was to ejaculate: "O my God, and we not married!"
Nina caught the words, and sprang toward him from the chair in which she had been sitting.
They were a pitiable pair; with faces like ashes, confronting each other.
"What did you say then, Jack? Tell me all—tell me quick, or you will kill me!"
"Yes, it's true," groaned Jack. "I found out when I went back to Buffalo that Simpson was only a blackleg criminal and no clergyman. We are no more married than we ever were."
As Jack said this he had his head down; it was bowed with the misery he felt. He dreaded to look at Nina. If he had looked, he would have seen her lips grow almost blue and her eyes lose their sight. The next moment, before he could catch her, she sank on the floor in shapeless, inert confusion.
Jack did not wish to call for help. He seized a large ornamental fan of peacock's feathers and fanned her vigorously.
She soon came to. But still lay for some time before she had strength to rise. At last he assisted her to a sofa, where she reclined wearily until able to go on with the conversation.
"Jack," she said, after a while, "if I don't get away from here in three days I will go mad. Think, now! I can not help you much in the arrangements to get away. You must arrange everything yourself. Just let me know when to go, and I will look after myself and will meet you somewhere—anywhere you propose. But I can not—I don't feel able to assist you more than that. Stop! an idea strikes me! You can not arrange everything yourself. There are always things that are apt to be forgotten. You must get somebody to help you think out things. When we go away I feel that it will be forever—at least, I felt so this afternoon. You will have to arrange everything, so that there need be no correspondence with Toronto any more."
"Yes," said Jack, "I think your advice is good. I have always relied on Hampstead. If you did not mind my telling him the whole story, Nina, I think his assistance would be invaluable."
"There is nothing that I dread his knowing," said Nina, as she buried her face in the cushions. "He is a man of the world, and will know I am innocent about our intended marriage. I thoroughly believe in his power, not only to help you to arrange everything, but also to take the secret with him to his grave."
"I am glad to hear you say so," said Jack. "I have always thought dear old Geoffrey, in spite of a good many things I would like to see changed, to be the finest all-round man I ever knew."
"Yes. Now go, Jack! I am too ill to talk a moment more. Simply tell me when and how I am to go and I will go. As for arranging anything more, my mind refuses to do it. Give me your arm to the foot of the stairs! So. Good-night!"
CHAPTER XXIII.
Mad, call I it; for to define true madness.
What is't, but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.
Hamlet.
After leaving Nina, Jack went to the club, where he found Geoffrey playing pool with half a dozen others, whose demeanor well indicated the number of times the lamp had been rubbed for the genius with the tray to appear. Geoffrey seemed to be in good-humor, but he gave Jack the idea of playing against time. He strode around the table rapidly as he took his shots, as if not caring whether he won or lost. The only effect the liquor seemed to have upon him was to make him grow fierce. Every movement of his long frame was made with a quick nervous energy, inspiriting enough to watch, but giving an impression of complete unrest. He was playing to stave off waking nightmares. Thoughts of his probable ruin on the following day came to him from time to time—like a vision of a death's head. The others with him noticed nothing different in him, but Jack, who was quietly smoking on one of the high seats near by, saw that he was in a more reckless mood than he had ever seen him before. He could not help smiling as his friend strode around the table in his shirt-sleeves, playing with a force that was almost ferocity and a haste apparently reckless but deadly in the precision that sense of power, skill, and alcohol gave him. After a while, in a pause, he spoke to Geoffrey, who at once divined that more trouble of some kind awaited him.
When they arrived at their chambers, Jack told him briefly of the journey with Nina for the purpose of getting married in Buffalo, and of what Nina had just said.
Geoffrey nodded; he was waiting for the something new that would affect himself—the something he was not prepared for.
"Is that all?" he asked sharply.
"No. That is not all," answered Jack gloomily.
"Go on, then."
"I don't feel as if I could go on," said Jack, not noticing the rough tone in which he was commanded to proceed. "But I suppose I must. The fact is, Geoffrey, I found out afterward that I was not married at all to her, and I never let her know until to-night."
"Is she dead, then?"
Geoffrey looked at him with his brow lowered, his eyes glittering. He felt like striking Jack.
"Gracious heavens, no! Why should she die?" cried Jack, startled from his gloom.
"It's enough to kill her," said Geoffrey. His contempt for Jack assisted the rage he felt against him. He had been drinking steadily all day, and now could hardly restrain the violent fury that seethed in him. "Go on, you infernal ass! Dribble it out. Go on."
"I see you feel for her, Geoffrey. I am the biggest fool that ever was allowed to live."
Then, with his face averted, he told Geoffrey the whole story of the mistake in Buffalo. His listener watched him, with lips muttering, while sometimes his teeth seemed to be bared and gleaming.
In this story, Geoffrey at first seemed to see a new danger to himself and his future prospects. Then it occurred to him that the new information did not much affect his own position. Two things seemed certain. One was, that Joseph Lindon would spare no expense to find out where Jack and Nina had gone and to be fully informed of everything that happened. Secondly, that Nina could never be able to show any legal marriage prior to the one now intended. This meant that Nina and Jack could not return to Toronto. A vague idea went through Geoffrey's head at this time.
When Jack had finished his story Geoffrey was calm in appearance. But his eyes were half closed, which gave him a cunning look.
Then he talked with Jack, so as to impress upon his mind the fact that it would be impossible for them ever to visit Canada again.
"Yes," said Jack. "Unless you come out to visit us you will never see us again. I could never make it right with the Toronto people. I will never again be able to return to Toronto; that's clear."
When he proposed to make arrangements as to the best ways and means of leaving Toronto, Geoffrey said he must have time to think over everything. It was late. It would be better to sleep, if possible, and arrange things further to-morrow. They parted for the night, having settled that Jack was to draw out his money at once.
On the next morning Geoffrey ascertained that he was ruined. The stock that he held in the Canadian railway had gone down beyond redemption as far as he was concerned. He had mortgaged everything he possessed, raised money on indorsed notes, raised it in every shape and way within his means, but he had been unable to tide over the depression. A further call had been made for margins, and he had not another cent to fill the gap and all his stock passed to other hands. He drank steadily all day and even carried a flask with him into the office, which he soon emptied. Hampstead was not by any means the same man now that he was three weeks previously. He looked sufficiently like his right self to escape a betrayal, but the liquor and the thought of his losses raged within him, and all the time an idea was insinuating itself into his frenzied brain. He had gone so far as carefully to consider many schemes to avert his ruin which he would not have countenanced before. His weakened judgment now placed Jack before him as one who conspired against his peace. He cunningly concealed it, but to him the mere sight of Jack was like a red flag to a bull. Just when all his plans were demolished, all his hopes gone, his entire ruin an accomplished fact, this fool came in to add fuel to the fire that burned him. In this way he regarded his old friend.
While in this state and while at his work in the bank the next morning he said to Jack, who occupied the next stall to him, that he had hit upon the best way for him and Nina to depart. It would be better for Jack to go away without giving any notice to the bank. The notice would be of no use if he did so, because, if he must go away the next morning, the notice would only raise inquiry. He told Jack to slip out and go down to the docks and find if there would be any sailing vessels leaving for American ports the next day. Jack could depart on a schooner; Nina could make some excuse at home and follow him by steamer.
Jack liked this proposal. He would have one more sail on old Ontario before he left it forever. He skipped out of the side door, and soon found a vessel at Yonge Street wharf that would finish taking in its cargo of fire-bricks and start for Oswego at noon the following day. He tried to arrange with the mate to go as a passenger, but the captain was going to take his wife with him on this trip, so Jack, if he wanted to go, would be obliged to sleep in the forecastle. He did not mind this much, and engaged to go "before the mast."
In the afternoon he told Nina about his intentions, and explained that she could take the steamer to Oswego on the day after he left, so that she would probably arrive there about the same time. He had drawn all his money out of the bank and was now ready to go. Nina said she could arrange about her own departure, and after they had made a few other plans as to her course in case she got to Oswego first, Jack kissed her and tried to cheer her from the depression in which she had sunk, and then he departed.
All that day Geoffrey grew more moody and further from his right self. To drown the recollections of his ruin and his other worries, he went on drinking steadily. The thought came to him again and again that his marriage with Margaret was now almost impossible. He knew that, as a married man, he could never live on his bank salary alone, and the capital to speculate with was entirely gone. What made him still more frenzied was the fact that he knew that this stock he had bought was bound to re-establish itself in a very short time. But, for the moment, every person else had gone mad. He alone was sane. Public lunacy about this stock had robbed him of his fifteen thousand dollars. He drank still harder when he thought this, and although he did not get drunk, he got what can be described vaguely as "queer," and the next stage of his queerness was that he became convinced that the public had in a manner robbed him, and that society owed him something. When a man's brain is in this state, he is in a dangerous condition.
Jack wished heartily that they should dine together, as this was his last evening in Toronto, but Geoffrey avoided doing so. He hated the sight of Jack, but he carefully concealed the aversion which he felt. He made an excuse and absented himself until nine or ten o'clock, and during this time he wandered about the city and continued drinking. He had not seen Margaret for over two weeks. Everything had been going wrong with him. Besides his own losses, he would be heavily in debt to the men who had "backed" his paper and who would have to pay for him.
Jack found him in their chambers when he returned for his last night at the old rooms, and there they sat and talked things over. Geoffrey tried to brace himself up for the conversation with a bottle of brandy which he had just uncorked, but it was quite impossible for him to pretend to be as cheerful as he wished.
Jack thought he was depressed, and said:
"I am sorry to see you in such bad spirits to-night, Geoffrey."
"Well, it's a bad business," said Hampstead, sententiously, looking moodily at the floor. As this might mean anything, Jack thought that Geoffrey was taking his departure to heart. He had every right to think that Hampstead would miss him.
It was now getting late, and Jack arose and laid his hand on Geoffrey's shoulder: "Don't be cut up, old man," he said; "I have been a fool, but I am glad that I know it and am able to make things as right as they can be made. I know you feel for Nina and me, but you will get some other fellow to room with you and—"
During the conversation Hampstead had drunk a good deal of the brandy. The kind words that Jack was speaking filled him with a fury which lunatic cunning could scarcely conceal. The idea in his mind had been settling itself into a resolve, and at this moment it did finally settle itself. He shook Jack's hand off his shoulder as he arose, glared at him for an instant, and then turned off to his bedroom. "Good night," he said over his shoulder. "It's late. I'm off." Then he entered his bedroom, shut the door, and bolted it.
As he went, Jack looked at his retreating form with tears standing in his eyes.
"I never," he said, "saw Geoffrey show any emotion before. I never felt quite sure whether he cared much about me until now. And now I know that he does. I hate to see him so cut up about it; but it is comforting to think, on going away, that he really liked me all this time."
Jack was a clean-souled fellow. He was one of those who, no matter how uproarious or slangy they are, always give the idea that they are gentlemen. With this nature a certain softness of heart must go. He stood watching the door through which Geoffrey had passed, and he thought drearily that never again would they have such good times together, and that most likely they would never meet again. He thought of Geoffrey's winning ways, of his prowess, of his strength, his stature, his handsome face, and his devil-may-care manner. He thought of their companionship, the incidents, and even dangers they had had together. He thought of the way Geoffrey had done his work that night on the yacht when returning from Charlotte. He stood thinking of all these things with an aching heart. As he turned away sadly, his heart full of grief at parting, he burst out with "Darned if I don't love that man," and he closed his door quickly, as if to shut out the world from witnessing a weakness.
On the inner side of Geoffrey's bedroom door there was something else going on, which represented a very different train of thought.
Geoffrey, after bolting his door, went to his dressing-case and took from it a pair of scissors and a threaded needle. Then he took an old waistcoat and cut the lining out of it. Then he took a second old waistcoat and sewed the pieces of lining against the inside of it, and also ran stitches down the middle of each piece after it was sewed on. Thus he had a waistcoat with four long pockets on the inside—two on each side of it, all open at the top.
When this was done he rolled into bed, where Nature hastened to restore herself.
Before breakfast in the morning, Jack hailed a cab and took his two valises to the Yacht Club beside the water's edge, and left them in his locked cupboard there. He only intended to take this amount of luggage with him. The rest of his things could come on when Geoffrey packed up and forwarded his share of their joint museum and library. Geoffrey did not turn up at breakfast. He breakfasted on a cup of strong coffee and brandy at a restaurant, and went to the bank early.
Mr. St. George Le Mesurier Hector Northcote, commonly called "Sappy" in the bank, was a younger son of a long-drawn-out race. He had been sent out to make his fortune in the colonies, and he had progressed so far toward affluence that, in eight years of "beastly servitude, you know," he had attained the proud position of discount clerk at the Victoria Bank, and it did not seem probable that his abilities would be ever recognized to any further extent. The great scope of his intelligence was shown in the variety of wearing apparel he was able to choose, all by himself, and he was the showman, the dude, the incroyable of the Victoria Bank. When he met a man for the first time he weighed him according to the merits of the garments he wore. He met Geoffrey as he came into the bank this morning.
"My deah fellah," he said, "where did you get that dreadful waistcoat?"
"None of your business, Sappy. You used to wear one yourself when they were in fashion. I remember your rushing off to get one from the same piece when you first saw this one."
Mr. St. George Le Mesurier Hector Northcote had a weak child's voice, which he cultivated because it separated him from the common herd—most effectually. It made all ordinary people wish to kick him every time he opened his mouth. He liked to be thought to have ideas about art, and he talked sweetly about the furniture of "ma mothah" (my mother.)
Geoffrey walked past this specimen with but little ceremony. The brandy and coffee and another brandy without coffee had succeeded in putting him into just the same state in which he had gone to bed on the previous night. He could talk to any person and could do his work, but fumes of alcohol and abandonment of recklessness had for a time driven out all the morality he ever possessed; and where some ideas of justice had generally reigned there flourished, in the fumes of the liquor which he had drunk, noxious weedy outgrowths of a debased intelligence unchecked by the self-respect of civilization. To-day, he was, to himself, the victim of a public that had robbed him. Society owed him a debt.
They all went to work in the usual way. About a quarter-past eleven o'clock Jack put his head to Geoffrey's wicket and they whispered together:
Jack said, "Time for me to be off?"
"Yes, just leave everything as if you were coming back. If you put away anything, or close the ledger, they may ask where you are before you get fairly off. By the way, how are you carrying your money?"
"By Jove! I forgot that," said Jack, "or I might have made the package smaller by exchanging for larger bills. It makes a terrible 'wollage' in my pocket."
Geoffrey stepped back a moment and picked two American bills for one-thousand dollars each from a package of fifty of them lying beside him.
"Here," he said. "Take these two and pin them in the watch-pocket of your waistcoat. Don't give me back your money here. Just run up to our chambers and leave your two thousand under my bed-clothes. I don't want any one to see you paying me the money here, or they will think I connived at your going. I can get it during the afternoon and make my cash all right."
Jack did not quite see the necessity of this, but he had not time to think it out, and even if he had, he would have done what Geoffrey told him.
"All right," he said, "thank you. That will make two 'one-thousands' and seven 'one hundreds,' and the rest small, for immediate use."
"Very well. Go into the passage, now, and wait at the side door. I will come out and say good-by to you."
Jack took his hat and sauntered out into the passage.
In a minute Geoffrey, with his hands in his pockets, strolled to the side door.
"Good-by, Jack," he said hastily. "When your schooner sails past the foot of Bay Street here, just get up on the counter and wave your handkerchief so that I may see the last of you."
"All right, dear old man. I'll not forget to take my last look at the old Vic, and to do as you say. I must run now, and leave the two thousand in your bed, and then get on board. Good-by. God bless you!"
Geoffrey sauntered back to his stall and took a drain at a flask of brandy to keep off the chill he felt for a moment, and to brace himself up generally.
Jack hurried off to the chambers, counted out the two thousand dollars which he had wished to get rid of, and after taking a last look at the old rooms, he hurried to the Yacht Club. Here he put the valises into his own skiff after changing his good clothes for the old sailing clothes already described. Then, under an old soft-felt hat with holes in the top, he rowed down to the schooner, threw his valises on board, and climbed over the side. He let his skiff go adrift. He had no further use for it. There were some stone-hookers at the neighboring dock. He called to the men on one of them and said, "There's a boat for you!" Then he dropped down the forecastle ladder with his luggage.
His arrival on board was none too early, for the covers were off the sails and the tug was coming alongside to drag the vessel away from the wharf, and start her on her way with the east wind blowing to take her out of the bay. The tug was towing her toward the west channel as they passed the different streets in front of the city. At Bay Street, Jack left off helping to make canvas for a minute, and, running to the counter, sprang up on the bulwarks and waved his handkerchief to somebody who, he knew, was watching through the windows of the Victoria Bank.
There was nothing to detain the schooner now. The wind was from the east, and consequently dead ahead for the trip, but it was a good fresh working breeze, and Geoffrey, when he saw how things looked on the schooner, knew that it had fairly started on its passage to Oswego.
He glanced around him to make assurance doubly sure, and then he divided the pile of forty-eight (formerly fifty) one-thousand-dollar bills into four thin packages. These he slipped hurriedly into the four long pockets which he had made in the waistcoat the previous night. He then buttoned up the waistcoat, and from the even distribution of the bills upon his person it was impossible to see any indication of their presence.
When this was done and he had surveyed himself carefully, he took another pull at the flask on general principles and proceeded to take further steps. He might as well have left the liquor alone, because his nerve, once he commenced operations, was like iron.
He banged about some drawers, as if he were looking for something, and then called out:
"Jack?"
No answer.
"Jack?"
Still no answer.
The ledger-keeper from A to M, who occupied the stall beyond Jack's, then growled out:
"What's the matter with you?"
"Where's Jack?"
"I don't know. He asked me to look after his ledger for a moment, and then went out. He has been out for over an hour, and if the beggar thinks I'm going to be skipping round to look up his confounded ledger all day he's mistaken. I'll give him a piece of my mind when he comes in."
"A to M" went on growling and sputtering, like a leaky shower-bath.
"That's all very well," said Geoffrey; "but you fellows are playing a trick on me, and I don't scare worth a cent."
Everybody could hear this conversation. Geoffrey then stepped on a stool and leaned over the partition, smiling, and seized the hard-working receiving-teller by the hair.
"Come, you beggar, I tell you I don't scare. Just hand over the money. Really, it's a very poor kind of a joke."
"What's a poor kind of a joke? Seizing me by the hair?"
Geoffrey looked at him smilingly, as if he did not believe him and still thought there had been a plan to abstract the money and frighten him.
"Well, I don't care much personally; but that packet of fifty thousand is gone, and if any fellow is playing the fool he had better bring it back."
Several of the clerks now came round to his wicket. This sort of talk sounds very unpleasant in a bank.
"Where did you leave the bills?" they asked.
"Right here," said Geoffrey, laying his hand on a little desk close beside the wicket, opening into the box in which Jack had worked.
"Well, you had better report the thing at once," said several, who were looking on with long faces.
"I shall, right straight," said Geoffrey energetically. His face bore an admirable expression of consternation, checked by the sang froid of an innocent bank-clerk. He strode off into the manager's room.
"Excuse me for interrupting you, sir. I thought it was a hoax at first, but it looks very much as if fifty thousand dollars had been taken from my box."
"What, stolen!"
"Looks like it—very. If you would kindly step this way, sir, I will explain what I know about it."
Geoffrey then showed the manager where the bills had been laid, and did not profess to be able to tell anything more.
"Mr. Northcote, ring up the chief of police, and tell me when he is there," said the manager. "Where is Mr. Cresswell?"
No answer.
"Does anybody know where Mr. Cresswell is?"
Ledger-keeper from A to M then said that Mr. Cresswell went out over an hour ago, and had asked him to look after his ledger for five minutes. Mr. Cresswell had not returned.
The manager walked into Jack's box and looked around him. Everything was lying about as if he had just stopped working, and this, to the manager's mind, seemed to give the thing a black look. It seemed as if Jack, if he had made off with the money, had left things in this way as a blind.
The telephone was ready now, and the manager requested the chief of police to send a couple of his best detectives at once. Only one was available at first. This man, Detective Dearborn, appeared in five minutes, and was made acquainted with all the known circumstances. When this was done, fully two hours had elapsed since Jack's departure, and still he had not turned up.
Detective Dearborn was a man with large, usually mild, brown eyes. There was nothing in the upper part of his face to be remarked except general immobility of countenance. The lower part of his face, however, was suggestive. His lower jaw protruded beyond the upper. Whether this means anything in the human being may be doubted, but one involuntarily got the idea that if this man once "took hold," nothing short of red-hot irons would burn him off.
He took a careful, mild survey of the premises, listened to everything that was said, remarked that the package could not have been taken from the public passageway if left in the place indicated, looked over Jack's abandoned stall, asked a few questions from the manager, and, like a sensible man, came to the conclusion that Jack had taken the money.
He walked into the manager's room and asked him several questions about Jack's habits and his usual pursuits. Geoffrey was called in to assist at this. Yes, he could take the detective to Jack's room. Jack had no habits that cost much money. "Had he been speculating at all?" Geoffrey thought not, although some time ago Mr. Cresswell had said that he was "in a little spec.," and hoped to make something. Did not know what the "spec." was.
"May I ask," said Dearborn, "when you last spoke to Mr. Cresswell?"
"We spoke to each other for a minute just before he went out. He asked me if I was going to the Dusenalls' 'shine' to-night. I said I was. Then he spoke about several young ladies of our acquaintance, and other things which had no reference to this matter."
"Was the lost money in the place you say at that time?"
"Yes. I remember having my hand on the packet while I spoke to him."
"May I ask if you at any time during the morning left your stall?"
"Yes, I did, once. I went out as far as the side door for an instant shortly after Mr. Cresswell went out."
"What for?"
"Well," said Geoffrey, smiling, "I was thinking of boating this afternoon, and I wanted to see how the sky promised for the afternoon."
The mild eyes looked at Geoffrey with uncomfortable mildness at this answer. It might be all right, but Dearborn thought that this was the first suspicious sound which he had heard.
"My young gentleman, I'll keep my eye on you," he thought. "That reply did not sound quite right, and you seem a trifle too unconcerned."
Another detective arrived now, and he was detailed to inform the others and to watch the railway stations and steamboats. Immediately afterward, descriptions of Jack flew all over Canada to the many different points of exit from the country. Had he tried to leave Canada by sail or steamboat he would have been arrested to a certainty. Geoffrey laughed in his sleeve as he thought of the way he had sent Jack off in a schooner—a way that few people would dream of taking, and yet, perhaps, the safest way of all, as schooners could not, in the ordinary course of things, be watched by the detectives. But if the news got beyond police circles that Jack had absconded with money, or if it should be discovered in any way that he had gone on the schooner to Oswego—if this were published—Joseph Lindon might become alarmed, and prevent his daughter from going to Oswego also. Even the news of Jack's departure for parts unknown might make him suspicious. With this in view he immediately said to the manager and the detective:
"I would like to make a suggestion, if there be no objection."
"Certainly, Mr. Hampstead. We will be glad to listen to what you have to say."
"Of course, I can not think that Mr. Cresswell took the money," said Geoffrey. "But I think if complete secrecy were ordered, both in the bank and elsewhere, while every endeavor was being made at discovery, the detectives would have a better chance of success, on whatever theory they may work. Possibly the money may be recovered before many hours are over, and in that case the bank might wish to hush the matter up quietly. Prematurely advertising a thing like this often does harm; and there can be no question about the interests of the bank in the matter."
"I will act upon that suggestion at once," said the manager. "In the mean time, you will go, please, with the detective and admit him to Mr. Cresswell's rooms, and see what is to be seen there. I will give the strictest orders that nothing of this is to be told outside by the officials or police."
Orders were delivered to all the detectives to give no items to newspaper reporters, and the chance of Nina's getting away on the following morning seemed secured. Geoffrey laughed to himself as he thought he had crushed the last adder that could appear to strike him.
He let Mr. Dearborn into Jack's room. Everything was in confusion. Bureau drawers were lying open, and Jack's valises were gone. Dearborn saw at a glance that Cresswell had fled, and he lost no time, but turned on his heel immediately, thanked Hampstead, and rattled down-stairs. Geoffrey first ascertained that he was really gone, and then went back, took out the two thousand dollars that Jack had put under his bed-clothes, and, hastily taking the forty-eight stolen bills from the interior of his waistcoat, he stuffed the whole amount into an old Wellington boot that was hanging on a nail in a closet. Out of Jack's two thousand he put several bills in his pocket to pay for his evening's amusements. He then returned to the bank. It will be seen that his object in not taking this two thousand from Jack at the bank was that he could not safely conceal such a large package on his person, and he could not put it with his cash, because, in case his cash was examined, it would be found to contain two thousand dollars too much, which would cause inquiry.
The manager while brooding over the event, and asking questions, soon found out that the missing bills had been all in one deposit. The receiving teller had taken them in the day before. The item was looked into and it was noted that this was a deposit of the Montreal Telegraph Company. On inquiry it was found to be a balance due from the Western Union Telegraph Company in the States for exchanges. The Montreal Telegraph Company had received the money from New York by express, and to guard against loss the Western Union had taken the precaution to write by mail to the company at Toronto giving the number of each bill in full, and saying that all the bills were those of the United States National Bank at New York. In two hours, therefore, Dearborn was supplied with the numbers of all the bills. Geoffrey was startled at this turn of events. But he thought it did not matter much. He could slip over to the States in a few months and get rid of the whole of the money in different places.
While all this internal commotion was going on at the Victoria Bank, Nina was paying a little visit to her father's office. She alighted from an equipage every part of which, including coachman, footman, horses, and liveries, had been imported from England. The coachman and footman did not wear their hats on one side or cross their legs and talk affably to each other as they seem to do in the American cities. Joseph Lindon was, in effect, perfectly right when he said they were the "real thing"—"first chop."
Nina swept through the outer office, looking more charming than ever. After she had passed in, one of the clerks, called Moses, indulged in the vulgar pantomime peculiar to clerks of low degree. He placed both hands on his heart, gasped, and rolled back against the wall to indicate that he was irretrievably smashed by her appearance.
Her father received her gladly.
"Ah!" he said, "you have condescended to pay me a visit, my fine lady! It's money you're after. I can see it in your eye. Now, how much, my dear, will this little visit cost me, I wonder? Just name your figure, my dear, and strike it rather high." Mr. Lindon was in a remarkably good humor.
"No, father, I did not come altogether for money. I came to know if I could go over to Oswego for a week. Louisa Dallas, who stayed with us last winter, wants me to go over."
"Certainly, my dear, you can do anything you please—in reason. I thought the Dallases lived in Rochester?"
"So they did; but they have moved. Well, that is all right. Now, if you have any money to throw away upon me I will try to do you credit with it. Don't I always do you credit?"
"Credit? You are the handsomest girl I ever saw. Do me credit? Why, of course, and always will. Come and kiss me, my dear. I declare you would charm the heart of a wheel-barrow. Now, how much would you like this morning? Strike it high, girl. Understand, you can have all the money you want. You will go to Oswego and see your friends and have a good time. Perhaps they won't have much money to throw away, but don't let that stand in the way. Trot out the whole of them and set up the entire business yourself. Take them all down to Watkin's Glen, or some place else. There's nothing to do in Oswego. You can't spend half the money I can give you. Why, dash it, I cleared fifty thousand dollars before lunch-time to-day, and now how much will you have of it?"
"Well, there's a little bill at Murray's for odds and ends."
"How much?"
"Oh, five or six hundred, perhaps."
"Blow five or six hundred! Is that all the money you can spend? Of course you are the best-dressed woman in town, but you must do better than this. I tell you you have just got to sweep all these other women away like flies before you. I'll clothe you in gold if you say the word. Five or six hundred! Rubbish!"
He struck a bell, and the impressionable Moses appeared.
"How much will you have?" he said to Nina, smiling. He loved to try and stagger her with his magnificence.
"I suppose Murray ought to be paid and a few other bills lying about." Nina thought this would be a good chance for Jack, and she said to herself she would strike it high.
"I suppose a thousand dollars would do," she said, rather timidly; adding, "with Murray and all."
"Damn Murray and all!" cried Mr. Lindon, in a burst of good nature. "You sha'n't pay any of them.—Moses, write Miss Lindon a check for a couple of thousand, and bring it here."
While Moses wrote the check out, Lindon, with a display of affection he rarely showed, drew Nina down upon his knee.
"How did you make so much money to-day, father?" she asked.
"Oh, you don't know anything about such matters. Yesterday I bought the stock of a Canadian railway. At ten o'clock this morning it took a sudden rise because I let people know I was buying. I got a lot of it before I let them know, and then up she went, steadily, the whole morning. At twelve o'clock I had made at least fifty thousand, and by nightfall I may have made a hundred thousand. I don't know how it stands just now, and I don't much care."
This was the identical stock Hampstead had been unable to retain. If he could have held on a few hours longer he would have made more honestly on this day than he had stolen at the same hour.
The check was signed and handed to Nina. She put it in her shopping-bag and took her father's head between her hands and kissed his capable old face with a warmth that surprised him a little. To her this was a final good-by.
"You're a good old daddy to me," she said, feeling her heart rise at the thought of leaving him forever. She ran off then to the door to conceal her feelings.
"Just wait," he said, "till we go to England soon, and then I'll show you what's what."
She made an effort to seem bright, and cast back at him a glance like bright sun through mists, as she said:
"Of course—yes. We must not forget 'the dook.'"
She cashed the check with satisfaction, knowing that it took Jack a long time to save two thousand dollars.
When she rolled down to the wharf the next day in the Lindon barouche, the officials on the steamboat's deck were impressed with her magnificence and beauty.
For most men, nothing could be more sweetly beautiful than her appearance, as she went carefully along the gangway to the old Eleusinian, and there was quite a competition between the old captain and the young second officer as to who should show her more civility.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Comprehensive talkers are apt to be tiresome when we are not athirst for information; but to be quite fair, we must admit that superior reticence is a good deal due to lack of matter. Speech is often barren; but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest.—George Eliot—(Felix Holt).
It did not take Detective Dearborn long to find out that Jack had engaged a cab early in the morning and had then removed some luggage from his rooms. This confirmed him in the idea that the crime had been a carefully planned one. But his trouble lay in not being able to find the driver of the cab. This man had driven off somewhere on a trip that took him apparently out of town, and Dearborn began to wonder whether Jack had been driven to some neighboring town, so as to proceed in a less conspicuous way by some railway.
Late at night, however, Jehu turned up at his own house very drunk. The horses had brought him home without being driven. He had been down at Leslieville all day, with some "sports," who were enjoying a pigeon-shooting match at that place, and who had retained cabby at regulation rates and all he could drink—a happy day for him. Dearborn found he could tell him nothing about the occurrence of the morning of the same day, or where he had gone with Jack's valises; so, perforce, he had to let him sleep it off till morning.
The first rational account the detective could get out of him was at ten o'clock on the morning following. He then found out why the valises had not been seen at the railway stations, or at any of the usual points of departure. The caretaker of the yacht club could only tell him, when he called, that Mr. Cresswell had been at the club somewhere about noon the day before, and had gone away in his boating-clothes, rowing east round the head of the wharf close by.
"I must tell you," said Dearborn to the caretaker, "that Mr. Cresswell's friends are alarmed at his absence and have sent me to look after him. Would you know the boat he went in if you saw it?"
"Oh, yes. I handle it frequently, in one way and and another. I painted it for him last spring."
"Well, if you don't mind making a dollar, I'd be glad if you would walk along the docks and help me find it."
"Come along," said the caretaker. "There is nothing to do here, at this hour, but watch the club-house, and I certainly can't make an extra dollar doing that. We'll call it two dollars if I find the boat, seeing as how I'm dragged off from duty."
"All right," said Dearborn, who had carte blanche for expenses from the bank.
They walked off together at a good pace.
"You say that none of the yachts left the harbor yesterday?"
"No. There they are, over there, every one of them."
"Well, what size was the skiff he went off in?"
"An ordinary fourteen-foot shooting-skiff. One of old Rennardson's. You mind old Rennardson? He built a handy boat, did the old man."
"Could it cross the lake?"
"Well it could, perhaps, on six days in the week, in summer. Perhaps on the seventh the best handling in the world wouldn't save her. But they are a fine little boat, for all that I've crossed the bay myself in them when there was an all-fired sea runnin'."
"Could it have crossed the lake yesterday?"
"I don't think Mr. Cresswell would be such a fool as to try. Perhaps he could have done it if anybody could. But risks for nothing ain't his style. Not but what he'll run his chances when the time comes. You should have seen him bring in that Ideal last fall, in the race I sailed with him. The wind sprung up heavy in the afternoon. Lord! it was a sight to see that boat come in to the winnin' buoy with the mast hanging over her bows like a Greek fruiter. You see, he had the wind dead after him, blowin' heavy, and he'd piled rags on to her, wings and all, till she was in a blind fury and goin' through it like a harpooned whale. The owner was a-standing by him a-watchin' for everythin' to carry out of her. 'Jack,' says he, 'she can't do it. The backstays won't do the work.' 'Slack them up, then, four inches, and let the mast do its own part of the work,' says Mr. Cresswell. And he kept on easin' backstays to give fair play all round, till the mast was hangin' forward like a cornstalk; but I'm dummed if he'd lift a rag on her till she passed the gun. Perhaps you don't care for that sort of thing. I follered the sea myself formerly. Lord! it was immense, that little sail! And thirty seconds ain't a great deal to win on. Nothin' but bull-head grit would ha' done it."
Mr. Dearborn was not much comforted by all this talk. Cresswell might have crossed the lake in his skiff. Evidently he was a man who would do it if he wished. They continued their search on every wharf and through every boat-house, which occupied a good deal of time.
Suddenly, near Yonge Street wharf, the caretaker said: "Give us your two dollars, mister. There's the skiff on the deck of the stone-hooker."
Inquiries soon showed that Jack had gone off on the schooner North Star to Oswego, and then Mr. Dearborn began to look grave. The schooner had got a long start. He was well acquainted with all different routes to different places, and he finally decided to go on the Eleusinian by water to Oswego. Possibly he might be able to come across the schooner in the lake before she arrived at Oswego, and bribe the captain to land him and his prisoner on Canadian soil, where his warrant would be good. He had still half an hour to spare, so he dashed off in a cab to the chief's office, and wired the Oswego police to arrest Jack, on the arrival of the North Star, on the charge of bringing stolen money into the States.
Of course, Dearborn knew he could not extradite Jack from Oswego for his offense, but he thought that after being locked up the money could be scared out of him, when he found that he could get a long sentence in the States on the above charge, which Dearborn knew could be proved if the stolen bills were found in his possession.
If Geoffrey had known what the able Mr. Dearborn had ferreted out, and what his plans were, he would have felt more uneasy.
As the afternoon wore on, it was interesting to watch two very unconcerned people at the bow of the upper deck of the Eleusinian. The steamer was making excellent time—plowing into the eye of the wind with all the power that had so nearly dragged the life out of the poor Ideal in the preceding summer. Nina was sitting in an arm-chair, cushioned into comfort by the assiduous second officer, who found that his duties much required his presence in that portion of the boat where Nina happened, to be. She was sitting, looking through the spyglasses from time to time at every sail that hove in sight, and seeming disinclined to leave the deck.
Mr. Dearborn was tempting providence by smoking a cigar close by. The steamer went almost too fast to pitch much, but there was a decided rise and fall at the bows. He noticed that the officer suggested to Nina that by sitting further aft she would escape some of the motion, and that she declined the change, saying she liked the breeze and was a good sailor. Once they passed close to a vessel with three masts. Dearborn had ascertained, before leaving, that the North Star had only two masts, so he was not anxious. Nina, however, knew nothing about the rig of the North Star, and she was up standing beside the bulwarks gazing intently through the binoculars at the crew. She seemed disappointed when she lowered the glasses, and Dearborn began to wonder whether this was "the woman in the case." He afterward watched her as she attempted to read a novel, and noticed that she continually stopped to scan the horizon. Still, nearly every person does this, more or less, and his idea rather waned again as he thought that this was quite too fine a person to bother her head about a poor bank-clerk—such a man as he was hunting. Mr. Dearborn, perhaps owing to the peculiar formation of his jaw, generally lost all idea of the respectability of a man as soon as he got on his trail. He might have the benefit of all doubts in his favor until the warrant for his arrest was placed in Mr. Dearborn's hands. After that, as a rule, the individual, whether acquitted or not at his subsequent trial, took no high stand in Mr. Dearborn's mind. If acquitted, it was only the result of lawyers' trickery; not on account of innocence. Men who ought to know best say that if a prize-fighter wishes to win he must actually hate his antagonist—must fight to really kill him; and that only when he is entirely disabled is it time enough to hope that he will not die. Mr. Dearborn, similarly, had that tenacity of purpose that made every attempt at escape seem to double the culprit's guilt, and in a hard capture this supplied him with that "gall" which could meet and overcome the desperate courage of a man at bay.
Soon another schooner loomed up in the moist air of the east wind, and, when the hull was visible, Mr. Dearborn approached Nina and said:
"Would you oblige me, madame, by allowing me to look through your glasses?"
"Certainly," said Nina; "they belong to the ship—not to me."
Dearborn took a long look at the approaching vessel. The North Star had been described to him as having a peculiar cut-away bow, and the vessel coming across their track had a perpendicular bow.
Nina then looked through the glasses intently, and for a moment they stood beside each other.
"I wonder why all the vessels seem to be crossing our track, instead of going in our direction," she said to quiet-looking Mr. Dearborn.
"I don't know much about sailing, miss. But I know that vessels can't sail straight into the wind. They seesaw backward and forward, first one way and then the other. How they get up against the wind I could never understand. They are like lawyers, I think. They see a point ahead of them, and they just beat about the bush till they get there. Some of these things are hard to take in."
Nina smiled.
"A good many of these vessels," added Mr. Dearborn, while he watched his fair companion, "are going to Oswego."
"Oh, indeed!" said Nina, unconsciously brightening.
"And the wind is ahead for that trip," said Dearborn.
"Is it?"
Nina had been round Lake Ontario in a yacht, and she had had an English boarding-school finish. She could have told the general course of the Ganges or the Hoang-ho, but she had no idea in what direction she was going on her own lake to Oswego. In English schools Canada is a land not worth learning about, and where hardly any person would live voluntarily. People go about chiefly on snow-shoes, and it is easy in most places to kill enough game for dinner from your own doorstep.
"Yes, it would take a sailing vessel a long time, I should think, to get to Oswego."
"How long do you suppose?" asked Nina.
"I don't really know. It depends on the vessel. I suppose a smart yacht could do it in a pretty short time. That Toronto yacht, the Ideal, I suppose, could—"
"Oh, you know the Ideal?"
"No. She was pointed out to me once. They say she's a rare one to go, and no mistake. That young fellow, Treadwell, that sails her—they say he is one of the finest yachtsmen in Canada."
"Oh," said Nina, laughing and blushing. It was funny to hear this quiet stranger praising Jack. She felt proud of his small glory.
"Yes," said Dearborn, rubbing his forehead, as if trying to recollect. "That's his name—Treadwell. However, it does not matter."
"Not at all," said Nina. She was somewhat more on her guard now against strangers since her experience with the Rev. Matthew Simpson. But evidently this man did not even know Jack's name, and did not want to know it for any reason.
Dearborn was hanging "off and on," as sailors say, thinking that if she knew anything about this Cresswell she would perhaps give him a lead. Not getting any lead, he muttered half aloud, by way of coming back to the point:
"Treadwell—Treadwell—no—that's not the name." Then aloud. "It's provoking when one can not remember a name, madame."
He then fell to muttering other similar sounding names, and Nina could not refrain from smiling at his stupid, mild way of bothering himself about what was clearly no use to him.
"Ah! I have it! What a relief it is to succeed in a little thing like that! Cresswell. That's the name!"
The air of triumph on the mild-eyed man was amusing, and Nina laughed softly to herself.
He turned from gazing over the water and saw her laughing. Then he smiled, too, as if he wished to join in, if there was anything to laugh at.
"You are amused, madame. Perhaps you know this gentleman quite well—and are laughing at my stupidity?"
"I ought to," said Nina, unable to resist the temptation to paralyze this well-behaved person of the middle classes. "I am his wife." And she laughed heartily at her little joke.
If ever a man did get a surprise it was detective Dearborn. For a bare instant, it threw him off his guard. He saw too much all at once. Here was the woman who perhaps had all the $50,000 on her person. He tried to show polite surprise and pleasure at the intelligence; but it was too late. For an instant he had looked keen. Comparatively, Nina was brighter nowadays. Danger and deception had sharpened her faculties. She was thoughtless enough, certainly, to mention who she was; but she did not see any reason why she should not. She might as well call herself Mrs. Cresswell now as when she got to Oswego, where she would have to do so. Mr. Dearborn had gone almost as far in self-betrayal. He longed for a warrant to arrest her, and get the money from her, but he said in his subdued, abstracted sort of way:
"How strange that is! No wonder you laugh! However, I said nothing against him—quite the contrary—and that is always a comfort when we feel we have been putting our foot in it. I was wondering, Mrs. Cresswell, who you were. It seemed to me I had seen you on the street in Toronto."
He spoke very politely. No one could take any exception to this tone. Even when he made the following remark it did not seem very much more than the ordinary growth of a chance conversation among travelers. He added:
"Let me see—a? Your maiden name was—a?" He raised his eyebrows with would-be polite inquiry; but it did not work. He had looked keen for the tenth part of a second, and now he might as well go in and rest himself for the remainder of the night.
Nina drooped her eyelids coldly.
"I do not know that that is a matter of any consequence."
She gave a little movement, as if she drew herself to herself, and she leisurely returned the glasses to their case.
Mr. Dearborn saw he had got his congé, and he wanted to kill himself. He felt rather awkward, and could not think of the right thing to say. The writer of Happy Thoughts has not provided mankind with the best reply to a snub that comes "straight from the shoulder." Even a Chesterfield may be unequal to the occasion.
"I hope you will not think me inquisitive?" he said lamely.
"Not at all," said Nina quickly. She slightly inclined her head, without looking at him, as she moved away to her chair—not wishing to appear too abrupt.
She sat there wondering who this man was, and thinking she had been foolish to say anything about herself. The evening came on chill, windy, and foggy, and she grew strangely lonely. She had got the idea that this man was watching her. It made her very nervous and wretched. She longed for some strong friend to be with her—some one on whom she could rely. Everything had conspired to depress her in the past few weeks. She had now left her home and a kind father—never to return. She was out in the world, with no one to look to but Jack. This would be a long night for her, she thought. She was too nervous to go to sleep. She felt so tired of all the unrest of her life. What would she not give to have all her former chances back before her again! How she longed for the mental peace she had known until lately. Oh, the fool she had been! the wickedness of it all! How she had been forced from one thing to another by the consequences of her fault! She was terribly wretched, poor girl, as the evening wore on. She went to her cabin and undressed for bed. She said her prayers kneeling on the damp carpet. She prayed for Jack's safety and for her own, and for the man who assisted her to all her misery. Still her despair and forlornness weighed upon her more and more. The sense of being entirely alone, without any protection from a nameless fear, which the idea of being watched all day by an unknown man greatly increased; the terrible doubt about everything in the future—all this culminated in an absolute terror. She lay in bed and tried to pray again, and then an idea she acquired when a child came to her, that prayers were unavailing unless said while kneeling on the hard floor. In all her terror, the conviction of wickedness almost made her faint, and to make things worse, she got those awful words into her head, "the wages of sin is death," and she could not get them out. Yielding to the idea that her prayers would be better if said kneeling, she climbed out panic-stricken to the cold floor, which chilled her to the bone, and terrified by the words ringing in her head she almost shrieked aloud:
"O God, take those words away from me! O God, thou knowest I have suffered! O God, I am terrified! I am alone. O God, protect me! Forgive me all things, for I do repent."
Here she felt that if she prayed any more she would be hysterical and beyond her own control. She crept back into bed; but all she could think of until she dropped to sleep, exhausted, was, "The wages of sin is death—The wages of sin—is Death."
CHAPTER XXV.
Brutus:
O that a man might know
The end of this day's business ere it come!
But it sufficeth that the day will end,
And then the end is known.
Julius Cæsar.
When Jack got on board the North Star he found that, although he had shipped as working passenger, the wily mate had taken him as one of the crew, with the intention, doubtless, of pocketing the wages which otherwise would have gone to the sailor who would have been employed. Several of the sailors were rather intoxicated, and the rest were just getting over a spree. They came down into the forecastle just before leaving, and seeing Jack there, whom they did not know, were very silent. One of them at last said:
"Is every man here a Union man?"
Jack knew he was not, and that, being ignorant of secret signs, he would perhaps be found out. He answered, "I don't belong to the Union."
The man who spoke first then, said sulkily: "That settles it; I'm going ashore. The rules says that no member shall sail on a vessel if there is any scab on board."
Jack understood from this, after a moment's thought, that this expression must refer to one who did not avail himself of the healthy privileges of the Sailors' Union.
He explained that he was only going as a passenger, and was not under pay.
This seemed to make the matter satisfactory, and after the malcontent quieted down they all got to work peacefully. It took them a long time to get all the canvas set while the tug towed the vessel out of and beyond the harbor.
Jack found he was no match for these men in the toil of making heavy canvas. He felt like a child among them. The halyards were so large and coarse to the touch, and after being exposed to the weather, their fiber was like fine wire and ate into his hands painfully, although the latter were well enough seasoned for yachting work. His hands almost refused to hold the ropes when they had got thoroughly scalded in the work, and by the time all the canvas was set he was ready to drop on the deck with exhaustion.
He was on the mate's watch. This man saw that, although Jack was physically inferior, his knowledge seemed all right. This puzzled the sailors. He was dressed in clothes which had looked rough and plebeian on the Ideal, but here he was far too well dressed. If there were tears in his clothes and in his hat, there were no patches anywhere, and this seemed to be, prima facie, a suspicious circumstance. He regretted that his clothes were not down to the standard. After being reviled on the yachts because they were so disreputable, he now felt that they were so particularly aristocratic that he longed for the garments of a tramp. He saw that if the sailors suspected that he was not one of themselves by profession they would send him to Coventry for the rest of the trip. This would be unpleasant, for as the men got sober they proved good-humored fellows in their way, although full of cranks and queer ideas.
At eight bells, on the first night, Jack came on deck in a long ulster, which, although used for duck-shooting and sailing for five years since it last saw King Street, was still painfully whole. The vessel was lying over pretty well and thrashing through the waves in creditable style. The watch just going off duty had "put it up" with the mate that Jack should be sent aloft to stow the fore-gafftopsail.
They could not make Jack out. And when he went up the weather-rigging, after slipping out of the ulster, every man on board except the captain was covertly watching him—wondering how he would get through the task. The topsail had been "clewed up" at the masthead—and was banging about in the strong wind like a suspended Chinese lantern.
Suppose a person were to tie together the four corners of a new drawing-room carpet, and were then to hoist it in this shape to the top of a tall pine tree bending in the wind to an angle of thirty degrees. Let him now climb up, and with a single long line master the banging mass by winding the line tightly around it from the top down to the bottom, and afterward secure the long bundle to the side of the tree. If this be done, by way of experiment, while the seeker after knowledge holds himself on as best he can by his legs, and performs the operation on a black night entirely by the sense of touch he will understand part of what our lake sailors have to do.
Jack, to say truly, had all he wanted. The sail was a new one. The canvas and the bolt-ropes were so stiff as to almost defy his strength. But he got it done and descended, tired enough. All hands were satisfied that he knew a good deal, and yet they said they were sure he was "not quite the clean wheat." The ulster had been very damaging.
The evening of the second day saw them still working down the lake, and having had some favorable slants of wind they had got well on their way. As Jack's watch went below at midnight, a fog had settled over the sea, and he was glad to get down out of the cold, and have a comfortable smoke before turning into his old camping blankets for the rest of his four hours off.
By the light of a bad-smelling tin lamp nailed against the Samson-post, and sitting on a locker beside one of the swinging anchor chains that came down through the hawse pipe from the deck above into the fore-peak under the man's feet, one of the sailors fell to telling one of his many adventures on the lakes. There was no attempt at humor in this story. It was a simple, artless tale of deadly peril, cold, exhaustion, and privation on our inland sea. It was told with a terrible earnestness, born of a realization of the awful anxiety that had stamped upon his perfect memory every little detail that occurred.
This was an experience when, in the month of December, the schooner he was then sailing on had been sent on a last trip from Oswego to Toronto. They had almost got around the Lighthouse Point at Toronto, after a desperately cold passage, when a gale struck them, and, not being able to carry enough canvas to weather the point, they were thus driven down the lake again with the sails either blown from the bolt-ropes or split to ribbons, with the exception of a bit of the foresail, with which they ran before the wind. To go to South Bay would probably mean being frozen in all winter, and perhaps the loss of the ship, so the captain headed for Oswego, hoping the snow and sleet would clear off to enable them to see the harbor when they got there. On the way down a huge sea came over the stern, stove in the cabin, and smashed the compasses.
"We hedn't kept no dead reckonin', an' we cudn't tell anyways how fast we wus goin'. We just druv' on afore it for hours. Cudn't see more'n a vessel's length anywheres for snow, and, as for ice, we wus makin' ice on top of her like you'd think we wus a-loadin' ice from a elevator; we wus just one of 'Greenland's icy mountings' gone adrift. Waal, the old man guv it up at last, and acknowledged the corn right up and up. Says he, 'Boys, she's a goner. We've druv' down below and past Oswego, and that's the last of her.'"
"This looked pretty bad—fur the old man to collapse all up like this; fur all on yer knows as well as I do that to get down below Oswego in a westerly gale in December means that naathin' is goin' to survive but the insurance. There's no harbors, ner shelter, ner lifeboats, ner naathin'. Yer anchors are no more use to yer off that shore than a busted postage-stamp. Thet's the time, boys, fur to jine the Salvation Army and trample down Satan under yer feet and run her fur the shore and pray to God for a soft spot and lots of power fer to drive her well up into a farm.
"Waal, gents, the old man tuckered out, and went off to his cabin fur to make it all solid with his 'eavenly parents, and two or three of us chaps as hed been watchin' things pretty close come to the conclusion thet we hedn't got below Oswego yet. So we all went in a body, as a kind o' depitation from ourselves, and says us to the old man: 'Hev you guv up the nevigation of this vessel? becus, ef yer hev, there's others here as wud like to take a whack at playin' captain.'
"'All right,' says the old man from his knees (fur he was down gettin' the prayers ready-made out of a book), 'I've guv her up,' says he; 'do you jibe your fores'l and head her fur the sutherd and look out for a soft spot. Yer kin do what yer likes with her.'
"So we jibes the fores'l then, just puttin' the wheel over and lettin' the wind do the rest of it, fer there was six inches of ice on to the sheets, and yer couldn't touch a line anywheres unless yer got in to it with a axe. Waal, the old fores'l flickers across without carryin' away naathin', and, just as we did this, another vessel heaves right across the course we bed been a-driven' on. Our helm was over and the ship was a-swingin' when we sighted her, or else we'd have cut her in two like a bloomin' cowcumber. And then we seed our chance. That ere vessel was goin' along, on the full kioodle, with every appearance of knowin' where she was goin' to—which we didn't. 'Hooray!' says we, 'we ain't below Oswego yet, and that vessel will show us the road. She's got the due course from somewheres, and she's our only chance.'
"And we follered her. You can bet your Sunday pants we was everlastin'ly right on her track. She was all we hed, boys, 'tween us and th' etarnal never-endin' psalm. Death seemed like a awful cold passage that time, boys! We wus all frost-bit and froze up ginerally; and clothes weren't no better'n paper onto us."
"But she had a leetle more fores'l onto her than we hed; and after a while she begun to draw away from us. We hed naathin' left more to set fer to catch up with her. We hollered to make her ease up, but she paid no attention. Guess she didn't hear, or thought we hed our compasses all right—which we hedn't. Waal, gents, it was a awful time. Our last chance was disappearin' in the snow-storm, and there wus us left there, 'most froze to death, and not knowin' where to go. Yer cudn't see her, thro' the snow, more'n two lengths ahead; and, when she got past that, all yer cud see was the track of her keel in the water right under our bows. Well, fellows, I got down furrud on the chains, and we 'stablished a line o' signals from me along the rest of them to the man at the wheel. If I once lost that tract in the water we wus done forever. Sometimes I wus afeared I hed lost it, and then I got it again, and then it seemed to grow weaker; and I thought a little pray to God would do no harm. And I lifts up my hand—so—"
The man had left his seat and was crouching on the floor as he told this part of the story. The words rolled out with a terrific energy as he glared down at the floor, stooping in the attitude in which he had watched the track in the water. The tones of his voice had a wild terror in them that thrilled Jack to the very core, and made him feel as if he could not breathe.
"And I lifts up me hand—so (and, gents, I wus lookin' at that streak in the water. I want yer to understand I was a-lookin' at it). And I lifts up me hand—so—and I says 'Holy Christ, don't let that vessel get off no farderer—'"
The story was never finished.
A sound came to them that seemed to Jack to be only a continuation of the horror of the story he had heard. A crash sounded through the ship and they were all knocked off their seats into the fore-peak with a sudden shock. They tumbled up on deck in a flash, and there they saw that a great steamer had mounted partly on top of the schooner's counter. The mainmast had gone over the side to leeward.
The schooner had been about to cross the steamer's course when they first saw her lights in the fog, and, partly mistaking her direction, the sailing captain had put his ship about. This brought the stern of the schooner, as she swung in stays, directly in line with the course of the steamer. The steamer's helm was put hard over, and the engines were reversed, but not until within fifty feet of the schooner. The stern of the schooner swung around as she turned to go off on the other tack, so that, although the stem or cutwater of the steamer got past, the counter of the schooner was struck and forced through the steamer's starboard bow under the false sides. When they struck, the schooner's stern was depressed in the seaway and the steamer's bow was high in the air, so that the latter received a deadly blow which tore a hole about six feet high by ten long in her bow. Both boats went ahead together, chiefly owing to the momentum of the huge steamer. And for a moment the steamer's false sides rested on what was left of the schooner's counter on the port side.
A man leaning over from the upper deck of the steamer cried:
"What schooner is that?"
"Schooner North Star, of Toronto," was the reply.
The man vaulted over the bulwarks and slid actively down the sloping side of the steamer to the deck of the schooner and looked around him. No sooner had he done so than the motion of the waves parted the two boats. The steamer ceased to move ahead. The forward canvas of the schooner had caught the wind and she was beginning to pay off on the port tack, the mainmast, mainsail, and rigging dragging in the water.
Jack, who was filled with helpless anxiety, then discovered that the steamer was the Eleusinian. At the same moment he heard a shriek from the bow of the steamer and there he saw Nina, her long hair driving behind her, beckoning him to come to help her. The steamer, filling like a broken bottle, had already taken one lurch preparatory to going down and Jack yelled:
"Jump, Nina! Jump into the water and I will save you!"
But Nina, not knowing that the steamer was going down, had not the courage to cast herself into the black heaving waves.
Jack saw this hesitation, and yelled to her again to jump. He made fast the end of a coil of light line, and then sprang to the bulwarks to jump overboard so that when he swam to the bows of the steamer Nina could jump into the water near him.
He knew without looking that the schooner, with no after-canvas set, could do nothing at present but fall off and drift away before the wind, as she was now doing, and as her one yawl boat had been smashed to dust in the collision, the only chance for Nina was for him to have a line in his hand whereby to regain the schooner as it drifted off. It was a wild moment for Jack, but his nerve was equal to the occasion. While he belayed the end of the light line to a ring on the bulwarks, he called to his mates on the schooner to let go everything and douse their forward canvas.
It takes a long time even to read what had to be done. What Jack did was done in a moment; but as he sprang to the bulwarks to vault over the side, a strong pair of arms seized him from behind and held him like a vice with his arms at his sides.
"Let me go," he cried, as he struggled in the grasp of a stranger.
"No, sir. You're wanted. I have had trouble enough to get you without letting you drown yourself."
Jack struggled wildly; but the more frantic he became the more he roused the detective to ferocity. He heaved forward to throw Dearborn over his head; but the two fell together, crashing their heads upon the deck, where they writhed convulsively.
The iron grip never relaxed. At last Jack, lifting Dearborn with him, got on his feet and, seizing something on the bulwarks to hold himself in position, he stopped his efforts to escape. "For God's sake," he cried brokenly, "for Christ's sake, let me go! See, there she is! She is going to be my wife!"
In his excitement Dearborn forgot that the woman on the steamer might have the stolen money with her. To him Jack's jumping overboard promised certain death and the loss of a prisoner.
As Jack tried to point to Nina, who was clasping the little flag-pole at the bow of the steamer—a white figure in the surrounding gloom, waving and apparently calling to him—he saw the steamer take a slow, sickening lurch forward, and then a long lurch aft. The bows rose high in the air, with that poor desolate figure clasping the flag-pole, and then the Eleusinian slowly disappeared.
For an instant the bows remained above the surface while the air escaped from the interior, and the last that could be seen was the white figure clinging desperately to the little mast as if forsaken by all. No power had answered her agonies of prayer for deliverance.
After the strong man who had pinioned Jack saw the vessel go down, he became aware that he was holding his culprit up rather than down. He looked around at his face, and there saw a pair of staring eyes that discerned nothing. He laid him on the deck then, and finally placed him in the after-cabin on the floor. Jack did not regain consciousness. His breathing returned only to allow a delirium to supervene. Dearborn and a sailor had again to hold him, or he would have plunged over the bulwarks, thinking the steamer had not yet sunk.
The captain's wife, who had been sleeping in the extra berth off the after-cabin, had been crushed between the timbers when the collision took place, and under the frantic orders of the captain the rest of the crew were trying to extricate the screaming woman. The mate had been disabled in the falling of the mainmast, so that no attempts were made to save those who were left swimming when the Eleusinian went down, and the schooner, under her forward canvas, sailed off, dragging her wreckage after her, slowly, of course, but faster than any one could swim. Thus no one was saved from the steamer except the detective, who had not thought of saving his own life when he had dropped to the deck of the schooner, but only of seizing Jack.
The mate was able, after a time, to give his directions while lying on the deck. The wreckage was chopped away, and the vessel was brought nearer the wind to raise the injured port quarter well above the waves until canvas could be nailed over the gaping aperture. When this was done they squared away before the wind, hoisted the center-board, and made good time up the lake. They had a fair wind to Port Dalhousie—the only place available for dockyards and refitting—where they arrived at two o'clock in the day.
After raving in delirium until they arrived at Port Dalhousie, Jack fell off then into a sleep, and when the Empress of India was ready to leave at four o'clock for Toronto, Dearborn woke him up and found that his consciousness seemed to have partly returned. The detective was pleased that the disabled vessel had sought a Canadian port, where his warrant for Jack's arrest was good. However, the prisoner made no resistance, and at nine o'clock he was duly locked up at Toronto, having remained in a sort of stupor from which nothing could arouse him.
CHAPTER XXVI.
The time is out of joint;—O cursed spite.
That I was ever born to set it right.
Hamlet.
As the afternoon wore on, on that day when the bank lost its $50,000, Geoffrey Hampstead was back at his work as usual. He did not change his waistcoat while at his rooms, because he thought this might be remarked. He merely left the money there, and went back to his work as if nothing had happened. The excitement among the clerks in the bank was feverish. Geoffrey let them know what he and Dearborn had seen in Jack's room, and that the confusion there clearly showed that he had gone off somewhere. Most faces looked black at this, but there were several who, in spite of the worst appearances, refused to believe in Jack's guilt. Geoffrey was one of them. Geoffrey was quite broken down. Everybody felt sorry for him. He had made a great friend of Jack, and every one could see that the blow had almost prostrated him.
Toward the end of the afternoon he said to a couple of his friends: "I wish you fellows would dine with me to-night. I feel as if I had to have somebody with me."
These two did so. In the evening they picked up some more of the bank men, and all repaired to Geoffrey's quarters. They saw he was drinking heavily, and perhaps out of fellow-feeling for a man who had had a blow, they also drank a good deal themselves, and lapsed into hilarity, partly in order to draw Geoffrey out of his gloom.
At one o'clock the night was still young so far as they were concerned, and the liquor in the rooms had run short. Geoffrey did not wish to be left alone. The noise and foolishness of his friends diverted his thoughts from more unpleasant subjects. When the wine ran out, he said they must have some more. They said it would be impossible to get it; but Geoffrey said Patsey Priest could procure it, and he rang on Mrs. Priest's bell until Patsey appeared, looking like a disheveled monkey. He was received with an ovation. Geoffrey gave him the money, and sent him to a neighboring large hotel to get a case of champagne. When he returned, having accomplished his errand, the young gentlemen were enthusiastic over him. He was made to stand on a table and take an affidavit on an album that he had brought the right change back. Then some jackass said a collection must be taken up for Patsey, and he headed the list with a dollar. Of course, everybody else gave a dollar also, because this was such a fine idea. Mr. St. George Le Mesurier Hector Northcote was delighted with Patsey. "Mr. Priest," he said, "you are a gentleman and a man of finish; but it grieves me to notice that your garments, although compatible with genius, do not, of themselves, suggest that luxury which genius should command. Wait here for a moment; you must be clad in costly raiment."
Mr. St. G. Le M. H. Northcote darted unsteadily, not to say lurched, into Geoffrey's room, looking for that "very dreadful waistcoat" which he had been pained to see Geoffrey wearing during the day. He found it at once in a closet, and, wrapping it in among several trousers and coats which he had selected at random, he came out again with the bundle in his hand.
"What are you doing there with my clothes?" asked Geoffrey, rising good-humoredly, but inwardly nervous, and going toward the bedroom as Northcote came out.
"I am going to give them to a gentleman whose station in life is not properly typified in his garb."
Geoffrey did not see the waistcoat lying inside one of the coats in the bundle, and so he thought it better to humor the idea than run any chances. He had taken off this objectionable article before going to dinner, intending to come back and burn it when he had more time.
He took the bundle from Northcote and handed it to Patsey as he dragged that individual to the door. "Here," he said. "Don't come down in rags to my room again. Now, get out."
Patsey disappeared hurriedly through the door. He had his own opinion of these young men who were so ready to pay for the pleasure of knocking him about, and if he had been required to classify mammalia he would not have applied the old name of homo sapiens to any species to which they belonged.
The next day, to kill time during the anxious hours, Geoffrey went out yachting with Dusenall and several others. As the wind fell off, they did not reach the moorings again until late in the evening, when they dined at the club-house on the island, and slept on the Ideal instead of going home. After an early breakfast the next morning they were rowed across the bay, and Geoffrey reached the bank at the usual time.
In this way, having been away from town all night, he knew nothing of the news that had spread like wildfire through certain circles on the previous night, that Jack Cresswell had been arrested and brought to Toronto. The first person whom he met at the door of the bank was the omnipresent Detective Dearborn, who smiled and asked him what he thought of the news.
"What news?" asked Geoffrey, his eyes growing small.
"Why, this," he replied, handing Geoffrey one of the morning papers, which he had not yet seen. Geoffrey read the following, printed in very large type, on the first page:
CLEVER CAPTURE!
JACK CRESSWELL, THE VICTORIA BANK ROBBER ARRESTED!
THE STOLEN $50,000 SUPPOSED TO BE NOW RECOVERED!
EXCITING CHASE AND EXTRAORDINARY DETECTIVE WORK!
A BULL'S-EYE FOR DETECTIVE DEARBORN!
PRISONER CAPTURED DURING A COLLISION BETWEEN TWO VESSELS!
WRECK OF THE STEAMER ELEUSINIAN!!
ALL ON BOARD LOST!!
EXCEPT THE WILY DETECTIVE.
GREAT EXCITEMENT!!
FURTHER DISCLOSURES ABOUT THE BANK!!!
THE BLOATED ARISTOCRACY SHAKEN TO ITS FOUNDATIONS!!!!
Detective Dearborn, on his arrival in Toronto, was so certain of convicting his prisoner that he threw the hungry newspaper reporters some choice and tempting morceaux. And, from the little that he gave them, they built up such an interesting and imaginative article that one was forced to think of the scientific society described by Bret Harte, when Mr. Brown—
Reconstructed there.
From those same bones an animal that was extremely rare.
Indeed, from the glowing colors in which the detective's chase was painted, from the many allusions to Jack's high standing in society and his terrible downfall, from a full description of Jack as being the petted darling of all the unwise virgins of the upper ten, and from the way that the name of Jack was familiarly bandied about, one necessarily ended the article with a disbelief in any form of respectability, especially in the upper classes, and with a profound conviction that society generally was rotten to the core. The name "Jack" seemed now to have a criminal sound about it, and reminded the reader of "Thimble-rig Jack" and "Jack Sheppard," and other notorieties who have done much to show that people called "Jack" should be regarded with suspicion.
Mr. Dearborn watched Geoffrey's face as he glanced over the newspaper. Dearborn had a sort of an idea from all he could learn, that Jack had had a longer head than his own to back him up, and, for reasons which need not be mentioned now, he suspected that there was more than one in this business.
However, Geoffrey knew that he was being watched, and his nerve was still equal to the occasion. He turned white, as a matter of course—so did everybody in the bank—and Dearborn got no points from his face.
Geoffrey handed him back the paper, and said commiseratingly: "Poor Jack, he has dished himself, sure enough, this time."
Dearborn served him then with a subpœna to attend the hearing before the police magistrate at an hour which was then striking, and Geoffrey walked over to the police court with him.
Standing-room in the court that day was difficult to get. In the morning well-worn habitués of that interesting place easily sold the width of their bodies on the floor for fifty cents.
Maurice Rankin had rushed off to see Jack in the morning. He knew nothing about the evidence, but he felt that Jack was innocent. He found his friend apparently in a sort of stupor, and was hardly recognized by him.
"You must have the best lawyer I can get to defend you, Jack," he said.
No answer.
"Don't you intend to make any defense or have any assistance? I can get you a splendid man in two minutes."
Jack shook his head slowly, and said, with an evident effort:
"No. I don't care."
Rankin did not know what to make of him; but, finally, he said:
"Well, if you won't have any person better, I will sit there, and if I see my way to anything I'll perhaps say a word. You do not object to my doing this, do you?" Jack's answer, or rather the motion of his head, might have meant anything, but Rankin took it to mean assent.
At half-past nine, Jack was led from the cell outside to the court-room by two policemen who seemed partly to support him.
A thrill ran through his old friends when they saw him. His face was ghastly, and his jaw had dropped in an enervated way that gave him the appearance of a man who had been fairly cornered and had "thrown up the sponge" in despair. He had not been brushed or combed for two nights and a day. He still wore his old, dirty sailing clothes. The sailor's sheath-knife attached to his leather belt had been removed by the police. His partial stupor was construed to be dogged sullenness, and it assisted in giving every one a thoroughly bad impression as to his innocence.
After he was placed in the dock he sat down and absently picked at some blisters on his hands, until the magistrate spoke to him, and then the policemen ordered him to stand up. When he stood thus, partly raised above the spectators, his eyes were lusterless and stolid and he looked vacantly in the direction of the magistrate.
"John Cresswell, it is charged against you that you did, on the 25th day of August last, at the city of Toronto, in the county of York, feloniously steal, take, and carry away fifty thousand dollars, the property of the Victoria Bank of Canada," etc.
Rankin saw that Jack did not comprehend what was going on. He got up, and was going to say something when the magistrate continued:
"Do you wish that the charge against you shall be tried by me or with a jury at the next assizes, or by some other court of competent jurisdiction?"
No answer.
The magistrate looked at Jack keenly. It struck him that the prisoner had been imbibing and was not yet sober, and so he spoke louder, and in a more explanatory and informal tone.
"You may be tried, if you like, on some other day, before the county judge without a jury, or you may wait till the coming assizes and be tried with a jury, or, if you consent to it, you may be tried here, now, before me. Which do you wish to do?"
Still no answer.
Rankin considered. He knew nothing of the evidence, and thought it impossible for Jack to be guilty. He did not wish to relinquish any chances his friend might have with a jury, and he felt that Jack himself ought to answer if he could. He went to him and said simply, for it was so difficult to make him understand:
"Do you want to be tried now or afterward?"
Jack nodded his head, while he seemed to be trying to collect himself.
"You mean to be tried now?"
Jack looked a little brighter here, and said weakly:
"Certainly—why not?"
Detective Dearborn, had not been idle since his return; and all the witnesses that the prosecution required were present.
His first witness was Geoffrey Hampstead. His evidence was looked upon by the spectators as uninteresting, and merely for the sake of form. Everybody knew what he had to say. He merely explained how the packet of fifty bills belonging to the Victoria Bank had been put in a certain place on the desk in his box at the bank, and that, he said, was all he knew about it.
At this point, Jack leaned over the bar and said; with a stupid pleasure in his face:
"Morry, there's old Geoffrey. I can see him. What's he talking about? Say, if you get a chance, tell him I am awfully glad to see him again."
Rankin now became convinced that there was something the matter with Jack's head, and he resolved to speak to the court to obtain a postponement of the case when the present witness had given his evidence.
It was also drawn from Geoffrey, by the county attorney, that the prisoner alone had had access to the place where the money lay, that it could not have been reached from the public hall-way, and that the prisoner had gone out very soon after he had spoken to the witness—when the money lay within his reach.
The crown prosecutor said he would ask the witness nothing more at present, but would require him again.
Rankin then represented to the police magistrate that his client was too ill to give him any instructions in the matter. The defendant was a personal friend of his, and although willing to act for him, he was, as yet, completely in the dark as to any of the facts, and in view of this he deemed it only proper to request that the whole matter should be postponed until he should be properly able to judge for himself.
The magistrate then asked, with something of a twinkle in his eye.
"What do you think is the matter with your client, Mr. Rankin?"
"It is hard for me, not being a doctor, to say," answered Rankin, looking back thoughtfully toward Jack. "I think, however, that he is suffering from some affection of the brain."
A horse-laugh was heard from some one among the "unwashed," and the police strained their heads to see who made the noise. The old plea of insanity seemed to be coming up once again, and one man in the crowd was certainly amused.
The magistrate said: "I do not think there is any reason why I should not go on hearing the evidence, now. I will note your objection, Mr. Rankin, and I perceive that you may be in a rather awkward position, perhaps, if you are in total ignorance of the facts."
Rankin was in a quandary. If he sat down and declined to cross-examine the witnesses or act for the defendant in any way, Jack might be convicted, and all chances for technical loopholes of escape might be lost forever. There might, however, in this case, if the trial were forced on, be a ground for some after proceedings on the claim that he did not get fair play. On the other hand, cross-examination might possibly break up the prosecution, if the evidence was weak or unsatisfactory. He came to the conclusion that he would go on and examine the witness and try to have it understood that he did so under protest.
After partly explaining to the magistrate what he wished to do, he asked Geoffrey a few questions—not seeing his way at all clearly, but just for the general purpose of fishing until he elicited something that he might use.
"You say that after the defendant spoke to you in the bank you heard him go out through the side door. Where does that side door lead?"
"It leads into an empty hall, and then you go out of an outer side door into the street."
"Is not this outer side door sometimes left open in hot weather?"
"Yes, I think it was open all that day."
"How are the partitions between the stalls or boxes of the different clerks in the Victoria Bank constructed?"
"They are made rather high (about five feet six high) and they are built of wood—black walnut, I think."
"Then, if the door of your box was closed you could not see who came in or out of Mr. Cresswell's stall?"
"Only through the wicket between our boxes."
"How long after Mr. Cresswell went out did you notice that the money was gone?"
"I can't quite remember. I was going on with my work with my back to the money. It might have been from an hour to an hour and a half. I went out to the side door myself for an instant, to see what the weather was going to be in the afternoon. It was some time after I came back that I found that the money was gone."
"Then, as far as you are able to tell, somebody might have come into Mr. Cresswell's stall after he went out, and taken the money without your knowing it?"
"Certainly. There was perhaps an hour and a half in which this could have been done."
"This package of money, as it lay, could have been seen from the public hall-way of the bank through your front wicket, could it not?"
"Yes."
"And it was perfectly possible for a person, after seeing the money in this way, to go around and come in the side door, enter Mr. Cresswell's box and take the money?"
"Yes, I have heard of as daring robberies as that."
"Or it would have been easy for any of the other bank officials to have taken the money?"
"If they had wished to do so—yes."
"And it would have been possible for you, when you went to the side door, to have handed the money to some one there ready to receive it?"
"Oh, yes," said Geoffrey, laughing; "I might have had a confederate outside. I could have given a confederate about two hundred thousand dollars that morning, I think."
"Thank you," said Rankin to Geoffrey, as he sat down.
Geoffrey saw what Rankin wanted, and he assisted him as far as he could to open up any other possibilities to account for the disappearance of the money.
The cabman who removed Jack's valises early in the morning was then called. He identified Jack as the person who had engaged him. Had been often engaged before by Mr. Cresswell. He also identified Jack's valises, which were produced.
Rankin did not cross-examine this man. His evidence was brought in to show that Jack's absconding was a carefully planned one—partly put into action before the stealing of the money—and not the result of any hasty impulse.
The caretaker of the yacht-club house was also called, for the same object. He told what he knew, and was restrained with difficulty from continually saying that he did not see anything suspicious about what he saw. The caretaker was evidently partial to the prisoner.
Detective Dearborn then took the stand, and as he proceeded in his story the interest grew intense. But when he mentioned meeting a young lady on the steamboat, and getting into a conversation with her, Rankin arose and said he had no doubt there were few ladies who could resist his friend Detective Dearborn, but that he did not see what she had to do with the case.
Then the county attorney jumped to his feet and contended that this evidence was admissible to show that this woman was going to the same place as the prisoner and had conspired with the prisoner to rob the bank.
Rankin replied that there was no charge against the prisoner for conspiracy, that the woman was not mentioned in the charge, and unless it were shown that she was in some way connected with the prisoner in the larceny evidence as to her conversations could not be received if not spoken in the prisoner's presence.
Rankin had no idea who this woman was or what she had said. He only choked off everything he could on general principles.
The magistrate refused to receive as evidence the conversation between her and the detective. So Rankin made his point, not knowing how valuable it was to his client.
Detective Dearborn was much chagrined at this. He thought that his story, as an interesting narrative of detective life, was quite spoiled by the omission, and he blurted out as a sort of "aside" to the spectators:
"Well, any way, she said she was Cresswell's wife."
This remark created a sensation in court, as he anticipated. But the magistrate rebuked him very sharply for it, saying: "I would have you remember that the evidence of very zealous police officers is always sufficiently open to suspicion. Showing more zeal than the law allows to obtain a conviction does not improve your condition as a witness."
Although merited, this was a sore snub for the able detective, and it seemed quite to take the heart out of him; but he afterward recovered himself as he fell to describing what had occurred in the collision and how he had got on board the North Star—the sole survivor from the Eleusinian. In speaking of the arrest he did not say that he had prevented Jack from saving the life dearest on earth to him. He gave the truth a very unpleasant turn against the prisoner by saying that Jack struggled violently to escape from the arrest and tried to throw himself overboard. This, of course, gave all the impression that he was ready to seek death rather than be captured. It gave a desperate aspect to his conduct, and accorded well with his sullen appearance in the court-room. Dearborn suppressed the fact that Jack had been delirious and raving for twelve hours afterward, as this might explain his present condition and cause delay. He had lost no opportunity of circulating the suggestion that he was shamming insanity.
After he had briefly described his return to Toronto with his prisoner, the crown attorney asked him:
"Did you find any articles upon his person?"
"Yes; I took this knife away from him."
"Ah, indeed!" said the crown attorney, taking the knife and examining it. "Quite a murderous-looking weapon."
"Which will be found strapped to the back of every sailor that breathes," interrupted Rankin indignantly. "I hope my learned friend won't arrest his barber for using razors in his daily work."
"And what else did you find upon him?" asked the attorney, returning to the case for want of good retort.
Detective Dearborn thought a sensation agreeable to himself would certainly be made by his answer:
"Well," he said, with the sang froid with which detectives delight to make their best points, "I found on him two of the stolen one-thousand-dollar bills—"
"Now, now, now!" cried Rankin, jumping to his feet in an instant. "You can not possibly know that of your own knowledge. You are getting too zealous again, Mr. Dearborn."
"Don't alarm yourself, my acute friend," said the crown attorney, conscious that all the evidence he required was coming on afterward. "We will prove the identity of the recovered bills to your most complete satisfaction." Then, turning to the witness, he said: "Go on."
Dearborn, who had made the little stir he expected went on to explain what the other moneys were that he had found on Jack, and described how he found the bills pinned securely inside a watch-pocket of a waistcoat that he wore underneath his outer shirt.
Rankin asked Dearborn only one question. There did not seem to be any use in resisting the matter except on the one point which remained to be proved.
"You do not pretend to identify these bills yourself?"
"No, sir, I don't. But we'll fix that all right for you," he said, triumphantly, as he descended from the box.
The clerk in the Montreal Telegraph Company's office who compared the numbers of the bills with the list of numbers sent from New York, then identified the two recovered bills beyond any doubt. He also swore that he personally deposited the package of bills with the receiving teller of the Victoria Bank.
The receiving teller swore to having received such a package and having handed it to Mr. Hampstead to be used in his department.
Geoffrey Hampstead was recalled, and acknowledged receiving such a package from the other clerk. But what surprised everybody was that he took up the recovered bills and swore positively that the stolen bills were of a light-brown color, and not dark-green, like the ones found on the prisoner.
Geoffrey had seen that the whole case depended on the identification of these bills. If he could break the evidence of the other witnesses sufficiently on this point, there might, he thought, be a chance of having Jack liberated.
A peculiar thing happened here, which startled the dense mass of people looking on.
The prisoner arose to his feet, and, taking hold of the railing to steady himself, said in a rolling, hollow voice, while Geoffrey was swearing that the stolen bills were of a light-brown color:
"Geoffrey, old man, don't tell any lies on my account. The bills were all dark-green." Then he sat down again wearily.
If there was a man in the room who until now had still hoped that Jack was innocent, his last clinging hope was dissipated by this speech.
A deep silence prevailed for an instant, as the conviction of his guilt sank into every heart.
Some said it was just like Geoffrey to go up and try to swear his friend off. They thought it was like him, inasmuch as it was a daring stroke which was aimed at the root of the whole prosecution. Probably he lost few friends among those who thought he had perjured himself for this object. Those who did not think this, supposed he was mistaken in his recollection as to the color of the bills. A small special edition of a vulgar newspaper, issued an hour afterward, said:
"In this case of Regina vs. Cresswell, if Hampstead had been able to shake the identification of these bills no doubt Regina would have 'got left.'"
When Jack had returned to consciousness, at Port Dalhousie, it was only partially. He looked at the detective dreamily when informed that he had to go to Toronto. He felt desperately ill and weak, and thought of one thing only—Nina's death. Even that he only realized faintly. Mentally and bodily he was like a water-logged wreck that could be towed about from place to place but was capable in itself of doing little more than barely floating. When Rankin had spoken to him, before the trial, about getting a lawyer, he was merely conscious of a slight annoyance that disturbed the one weak current of his thought. When the magistrate had addressed him in the court-room, the change from the dark cell to the light room and the crowd of faces had nearly banished again the few rays of intelligence which he possessed. He did not know what the magistrate was saying. Vaguely conscious that there was some charge against him, he was paralyzed by a death-like weakness which prevented his caring in the slightest degree what happened. When Rankin spoke incisively to him, the voice was familiar, and he was able to make an answer, and in the course of the trial gleams of intelligence came to him. The vibrations of Geoffrey's well-known voice aroused him with a half-thrill of pleasure, and during the re-examination he had partly comprehended that there was some charge against him about these bills, and he came to the conclusion that as Geoffrey must have known the true color of the bills, he was only telling an untruth for the purpose of getting him off. This was as far as his intelligence climbed, and when he sat down again the exertion proved too much for him, and his mind wandered.
Of course, after this terribly damaging remark, there was nothing left for Rankin to cling to. Clearly, Jack knew all about the bills, and had given up all hope of acquittal. The two other clerks were called to contradict Geoffrey as to the color of the bills, and with that the case for the prosecution closed.
Rankin said he was as yet unprepared with any evidence for the defense. Evidence of previous good character could certainly be obtained in any quantity from any person who had ever known the prisoner, and, in any case, he should be allowed time to produce this evidence. He easily showed a number of reasons why a postponement for a week should be granted.
The magistrate shook his head, and then told John Cresswell to stand up.
Jack was partly hoisted up by a policeman. He stood holding on to the bar in front of him with his head down, perhaps the most guilty looking individual that had been in that dock for a month.
"John Cresswell, the evidence against you in this case leaves no shadow of doubt in my mind that you are guilty of the offense charged. Your counsel has requested a delay in order that your defense may be more thoroughly gone into. I have watched your demeanor throughout the trial, and, although a little doubtful at first, I have come to the conclusion that you are shamming insanity. I saw you on several occasions look perfectly intelligent, and your remarks show that you fully understand the bearing of the case. I will therefore refuse to postpone the trial further than three o'clock this afternoon. This will give your counsel an opportunity to produce evidence of previous good character or any other evidence that he may wish to bring forward. Forty-eight thousand dollars of the stolen money are still missing, and, so far, I certainly presume that you know where that large sum of money is secreted. Unless the aspect of the case be changed by further evidence sentence will be passed on you this afternoon, and I wish to tell you now that if, in the mean time, you make restitution of the money, such action on your part may materially affect the sentence I shall pass upon you."
The magistrate was going on to say: "I will adjourn the court now until three o'clock," when he perceived that Jack, who was still standing, was speaking to him and looking at him vacantly. What Jack said while his head swayed about drunkenly was this:
"If you'll let me off this watch now I'll do double time to-morrow, governor. I never was sea-sick before, but I must turn in for a while, for I can't stand without holding on to something."
Nobody knew what to make of this except Detective Dearborn, who had possessed all along the clew to his distressing condition. But what did the detective care for his condition? John Cresswell was black with guilt. The fact of his being "cut up" because, a woman got drowned did not change his guilt. He and that deuced fine woman were partners in this business, and forty-eight thousand had gone to the bottom of the lake in her pocket The detective could not forgive himself for not allowing Jack to try and save the girl. The girl herself was no object, but it would have fetched things out beautifully as a culmination of detective work to bring her back also—along with the money. Forty-eight and two would make fifty, and if the bank could not afford to give away one in consideration of getting back the forty-nine—Bah! he knew his mad thirst to hold his prey had made him a fool.
Was it the formation of his jaw? They say a bull-dog is not the best fighter, because he will not let go his first grip in order to take a better one.
The court-room was empty in five minutes after the adjournment, and a couple of the "Vics" followed Jack down-stairs. Rankin went down also and was going to get Jack some stimulant, but he found the bank fellows ahead of him. One of them had got a pint of "fizz," another had procured from the neighboring restaurant some oysters and a small flask of brandy.
These young men were beautiful in the matter of stand-up collars, their linen was chaste, and extensive, and-their clothes ornamental, but they could stick to a friend. The language of these young men, who showed such a laxity in moral tone as to attempt to refresh an undoubted criminal, was ordinarily almost too correct, but now they were profane. Every one of them had been fond of Jack, and their sympathy was greater than their self-control. For once they forgot to be respectable, and were cursing to keep themselves from showing too much feeling—a phase not uncommon.
Rankin saw Jack take some brandy and that afterward he was able to peck at the oysters. Then he walked off to No. 173 Tremaine Buildings to think out what had best be done and to have a solitary piece of bread and butter, and perhaps a cup of tea, if Mrs. Priest's stove happened to have a fire in it.
CHAPTER XXVII.
So Justice, while she winks at crimes,
Stumbles on innocence sometimes.
Hudibras.
He who is false to present duty breaks a thread in the loom, and will find the flaw when he may have forgotten its cause.—Henry Ward Beecher.
About two o'clock on this day of the trial, when Geoffrey and all the rest of the bank-clerks were hurrying through their work in order to get out to attend the police court, Mr. Dearborn came in unexpectedly, and talked to Hampstead for a while. He said that the prisoner Cresswell was very ill, perhaps dying, and had begged him to go and bring Geoffrey to see him—if only for a moment.
"All right," said Hampstead, "I'll speak to the manager about going, and will then drop over with you."
He did so, and they walked to the police station together. They descended into the basement, and Mr. Dearborn unlocked a cell which was very dark inside.
"You'll find him in there," said the detective. "I'll have to keep the door locked, of course, while you are with him."
Geoffrey entered, and the door was locked on the outside. He looked around the cell, and then a fear struck him. He turned coolly to the detective, who was still outside the bars, and said: "You have brought me to the wrong cell. Cresswell is not in this one."
"Well, the fact is," said Mr. Dearborn, "a warrant was just now placed in my hands for your arrest, and, as they say you are particularly good both at running and the manly art, I thought a little stratagem might work the thing in nice, quiet shape."
"Just so," said Hampstead, laughing. "Perhaps you are right. I don't think you could catch me if I got started. Who issued the warrant, and what is it about?"
"Here is the warrant. You are entitled to see it. An information was laid, and that's all I know about it. You'll be called up in court in a few minutes, and I must leave you now—to look after some other business."
At three o'clock, when the court-room was packed almost to suffocation, the magistrate mounted the bench, and Cresswell was brought up and remanded until the next morning. The spectators were much disappointed at not hearing the termination of the matter, but their interest revived as they heard the magistrate say, "Bring in the other prisoner."
A dead silence followed, broken only by the measured tread of men's feet in the corridor outside. The double doors opened, and there appeared Geoffrey Hampstead handcuffed and accompanied by four huge policemen. In ten minutes, any person in the court could easily sell his standing-room at a dollar and a half a stand, or upward.
There was no hang-dog look about Geoffrey. His crest was high. It was surprising to see how dignified a man could appear in handcuffs. Suppressed indignation was so vividly stamped upon his face that all gained the idea that the gentleman was suffering an outrage. As he approached the dock, one of his guards laid his hand on his arm. Hampstead stopped short and turned to the policeman as if he would eat him:
"Take your hand off my arm!" he rasped out. The man did so in a hurry, and the spectators were impressed by the incident.
A charge about the fifty thousand dollars was read out to Geoffrey, similar to that in the Cresswell case. That he did, etc.—on, etc.—at, etc.—feloniously, etc.—and all the rest of it.
Now Hampstead did not see how, when he was apparently innocent, and another man practically convicted, he could possibly be thought guilty also. The case against Cresswell had been so complete that it was impossible for any one to doubt his guilt. Hampstead knew also that if he were tried once now and acquitted, he never could be tried again for the same offense. He had been fond of talking to Rankin about criminal law, and on some points was better posted than most men. He did not know whether Jack would be well enough to give evidence to-day, if at all, and if, for want of proof or otherwise, the case against him failed now, he would be safe forever. Jack might recover soon, and then the case would be worse if he told all he knew. He did not engage a lawyer, as this might seem as if he were doubtful and needed assistance. He was, he thought, quite as well able to see loopholes of escape as a lawyer would be, so long as they did not depend on technicalities. Altogether he had decided, after his arrest and after careful thought, to take his trial at once.
He elected to be tried before a police magistrate, said he was ready for trial, and pleaded "not guilty."
About this time the manager of the Victoria Bank, who was very much astonished and hurt at the proceedings taken against Geoffrey, leaned over and asked the county attorney if he had much evidence against Mr. Hampstead. The poor manager was beginning almost to doubt his own honesty. Every person seemed guilty in this matter. As for Jack and Hampstead, he would have previously been quite ready to have sworn to his belief in their honesty.
"My dear sir," replied the county attorney, "I don't know anything about it. Mr. Rankin came flying down in a cab, saw the prisoner Cresswell, swore out a warrant, had Mr. Hampstead arrested, sent the detectives flying about in all directions, and that's all I know about it. He is running the entire show himself."
"Indeed!" said the manager. "I shall never be surprised at anything again, after to-day."
Nobody knew but Rankin himself what was coming on. Several detectives had had special work allotted to them, but this was all they knew, and the small lawyer sat with apparent composure until it was time to call his first witness.
Mr. St. George Le Mesurier Hector Northcote was the first witness called, and his fashionable outfit created some amusement among the "unwashed." Rankin, with a certain malignity, made him give his name in full, which, together with his affected utterance, interested those who were capable of smiling.
After some formal questions, Rankin unrolled a parcel, shook out a waistcoat with a large pattern on it, and handed it to the witness.
"Did you ever see that waistcoat before?"
"Oh, yes. It belongs to Mr. Hampstead. At least it used to belong to him."
"When did you see it last?"
"Up in his rooms a few evenings ago."
"That was the night of the day the fifty thousand dollars was stolen from the bank?"
"Yes."
"What did you do with it then?"
"I took it out of his bedroom closet to give to a poor boy."
"Why did you do that?"
"I thought it was a kindness to Mr. Hampstead to take that very dreadful waistcoat away from him. I took this and a number of other garments to give to the boy."
"You were quite generous that night! Did Mr. Hampstead object?"
"Object? Oh, no! I should have said that he took them from me and gave them to the boy himself."
"Now, why were you so generous with Mr. Hampstead's clothes, and why should he consent to give them to the boy?"
This was getting painful for Sappy. His manager was standing, as he said, plumb in front of him.
"Well, if I must tell unpleasant things," said Sappy, "the boy was sent out that evening to get us a little wine, and I thought giving him that waistcoat would be a satisfaction to all parties."
"You were perfectly right. You have given a great deal of satisfaction to a great many people. So Mr. Hampstead was entertaining his friends that night?"
"Yes. We dined with him at the club that evening, and adjourned afterward to his rooms to have a little music."
"Ah! Just so. Seeing how pleasantly things had been going in the bank that day, and that his particular friend Cresswell had decamped with fifty thousand dollars, Mr. Hampstead was celebrating the occasion. Now, I suppose that, taking in the cost of the dinners and the wine—or rather, excuse me—the music, and all the rest of it, you got the impression that Mr. Hampstead had a good deal of money that night?"
"That's none of your business," said Sappy, firing up. "Mr. Hampstead spends his money like a gentleman. I suppose he did spend a good deal that night, and generally does."
"Very good," said Rankin.
He then went on to ask questions about Hampstead's salary and his probable expenses, but perhaps this was to kill time, for he kept looking toward the door, as if he expected somebody to come in. Finally he let poor Sappy depart in peace, after making him show beyond any doubt that Geoffrey wore this waistcoat at the time of the theft at the bank—that the garment was old fashioned, and that it had seemed peculiar that Hampstead, a man of some fashion, should be wearing it.
Patsey Priest was now called, and he slunk in from an adjoining room, in company with a policeman. He had a fixed impression in his mind that Geoffrey was his prosecutor, and that he was going to be charged with stealing liquors, cigars, tobacco, and clothes. He was prepared to prove his innocence of all these crimes, but he trembled visibly. His mother had put his oldest clothes upon him, as poverty, she thought, might prove a good plea before the day was out. The difference between his garments and those of the previous witness was striking. His skin, as seen through the holes in his apparel, suggested how, by mere laches, real estate could become personalty.
"Where were you on Wednesday night last, about one or two o'clock in the evening?"
"I wus in Mr. 'Ampstead's rooms part of the time."
"Did you ever see that waistcoat before?"
"Yes, I did, and he gev it to me, so help me on fourteen Bibles, as I kin prove by five or six gents right in front of me over there, and its altogether wrong ye are fur to try and fix it on to a poor boy as has to get his livin' honest and support his mother, and her a widder—"
"Stop, stop!" called Rankin. "Did you get this other waistcoat at the same time?"
"Yes, I did, an' a lot more besides, an' I tuk them all up and gev them to me mother just the same as I gives her all me wages and the hull of the clothes an' more besides give me fur goin' round to the Rah-seen House fur to buy the drinks—"
"That will do, that will do," interrupted Rankin. "You can go."
"Faith, I knew ye'd hev to discharge me, fur I'm as innercent as y'are yerself."
Mrs. Priest was called.
She came in with more assurance now, as she had become convinced, from seeing Hampstead in the dock and guarded by the police, that the matter in question did not refer to her consumption of coal, or her legal right to perquisites.
"Mrs. Priest, did you ever see that waistcoat before?" said Rankin.
"See it before! Didn't you take it out of me own hands not two hours ago? What are ye after, man?"
Rankin explained, that the magistrate wished to know all about it.
"Well, I'll tell his lordship the hull story: Ye see, yer 'anor, the boy gets the clothes from Mr. Geoffrey and brings them up to me last Wednesday night begone and says they was give to him, an' the next day I wus lookin' through them, and I thought I'd sell this weskit becas the patthern is a thrifle large for a child, an' I puts me 'and into these 'ere pockets on the inside an' I pulls out a paper—"
"Stop! Is this the paper you found?"
"Yes, that's it; 'an I thought it might be of some use, as it hed figures on it and writin'. An' I says to Mr. Renkin, when he come into my room to-day fur to get a cup—"
"Never mind what I came in for," said Rankin, coloring.
"An' I says to Mr. Rankin, sez I, 'Is this paper any use, do you think, to Mr. 'Ampstead.' An' he looks at it awful hard and sez, 'Where did yer get it? An' then I ups and told him (for I wus quite innercent, and so wus the boy) that I had got it out of the weskit—out of these 'ere inside pockets. An' then I shows him that other weskit an' how the lining of one weskit had been cut out and sewn onter the other—as anybody can see as compares the two—an' I never saw any weskit with four long pockets on the inside before, an' I wondered what they wus fur.
"An' I hedn't got the words out of me mouth before Mr. Renkin turned as white as the drippin' snow and says, 'My God!' an' he grabs the two weskits widout me leave or license, an' also the paper, an' I thought he'd break his neck down the stairs in the dark. An' that's all I know about it until the cops brought me and the child here in the hack, after we put on our best clothes fur to be decent to answer to the charge before yer lordship; an' if that's all yer lordship wants ter know, I'd like to axe yer lordship if there'll be anythin' comin' to me fur comin' down here widout resistin' the cops?"
As Rankin finished with Mrs. Priest, the police magistrate reminded the prisoner that he had the right to cross-examine the witness.
Hampstead smiled, and said he had no doubt all she said was true.
Rankin then read the marks on the piece of paper. It was a longish slip of paper, about three inches wide, and had been cut off from a large sheet of office letter-paper. There had been printing at the top of this sheet when it was entire. On the piece cut off still remained the printed words "Western Union." On the opposite side of the paper, which seemed to have been used as a wrapper and fastened with a pin, were the figures, in blue pencil, "$50,000," and, below, a direction or memorandum: "For Mont. Teleg. Co'y. Toronto." These words had had a pen passed through them.
The excitement caused by this evidence was increased when Hampstead arose and requested to be allowed to withdraw his consent to be tried before the magistrate.
"I see," he said, smiling, "that my friend Mr. Rankin has been led astray by some facts which can be thoroughly well explained. But I must have time and opportunity to get such evidence as I require."
The magistrate rather sternly replied that he had consented to his trial to-day, and said he was ready for trial, and that the request for a change would be refused. The trial must go on.
The Montreal Telegraph clerk was then called, and identified the wrapper as the one that had been around the stolen fifty thousand dollars. He had run his pen through the written words before depositing the money in the Victoria Bank. He again identified by their numbers the two one-thousand dollar bills found on Jack, and he was then told to stand down until again required.
The receiving teller of the bank could not swear positively to the wrapper. He remembered that there had been a paper around the bills with blue writing on it, which he thought he had not removed when counting the bills.
Rankin then requested the police to bring in John Cresswell.
Want of proper nourishment had had much to do with Jack's mental weakness. Besides the exhaustion which he had suffered from, he had not, until his friends looked after him, eaten or drunk anything for over forty hours. He had neglected the food brought him by the police.
As the constable half supported him to the box, he was still a pitiable object, in spite of the champagne the fellows had made him swallow. As his bodily strength had come back under stimulant, his intellect had returned also with proportional strength, which of course was not great. His ideas as to what was going on were of the vaguest kind. He looked surprised to see Geoffrey in custody, but smiled across the room to him and nodded.
After he was sworn, Rankin asked him:
"You went away last Wednesday on a schooner called the North Star?"
"Yes."
"Did any person tell you to go in this way, instead of by steamer or railway?"
"I think it was Geoffrey's suggestion at first. I had to go away on private business. I think we arranged the manner of my going together."
"Did any person tell you to take your valises to the yacht club early on Wednesday morning?"
"I think it was Hampstead's idea originally, and I thought it was a good one."
"You wished to go away secretly?"
"Well, we discussed that point. I was going by rail, but Hampstead thought the schooner was best."
"You evidently did everything he told you?"
"Certainly, I did," said Jack, as he smiled across to Geoffrey. "Hampstead has the best head for management I know of."
"Quite so. No doubt about that! Now, since the accident to the boats in the lake some bills were found upon you. Are those your bills?" (producing them).
"Yes, they look like my bills. The seven one-hundred dollars I got myself, and the two for one thousand each I got—" Jack stopped here and looked troubled. He looked across at Geoffrey and remained silent. It came to him for the first time that Hampstead was being charged with something that had gone wrong in the bank about this money.
The magistrate said sharply "I wish to know where you got that money. You will be good enough to answer without delay."
Jack looked worried. "My money was all in smallish bills, and either Geoffrey or I (I forget which) suggested that I had better take these two American one-thousand-dollar bills, as they would be smaller in my pocket. He slipped these two out of a package of bills which I imagine were all of the same denomination."
Rankin evidently was wishing to spin out the time, for he glanced at the side door whenever it was opened.
He went on asking questions and showing that Geoffrey had been at the bottom of everything, and in the mean time three men appeared in the room, and one of them handed Rankin a parcel.
"During your trial this morning I think I heard you say that the bills you saw on Hampstead's desk were all dark-green colored?"
"I think they were all the same color as these two. He ran his finger over them as he drew these two out."
"I have some money here," said Rankin. "Does this package look anything like the one you then saw?"
"I could not swear to it. It looks like it."
Even the magistrate was excited now. The news had flown through the business part of the city that Geoffrey Hampstead had been arrested and was on trial for stealing the fifty thousand dollars. The news stirred men as if the post-office had been blown up with dynamite. The court-room was jammed. When word had been passed outside that things looked bad for Hampstead, as much as five dollars was paid by a broker for standing room in the court. It had also become known that Maurice Rankin had caused the arrest to be made himself, and that nobody but he knew what could be proved. People thought at first that the bank authorities were forcing the prosecution, and wondered that they had not employed an older man. The fact that this young sprig, professionally unknown, had assumed the entire responsibility himself, gave a greater interest to the proceedings.
The magistrate leaned over his desk and asked quietly:
"What money is that you have there, Mr. Rankin?"
Maurice's naturally incisive voice sounded like a bell in the death-like stillness of the court-room.
"These," he said, "are what I will prove to be the forty-eight thousand-dollar bills stolen from the bank."
The pent-up excitement could be restrained no longer. A sound, half cheer and half yell, filled the room.
Rankin had not been idle after he left Mrs. Priest that day. He first went in a cab to Jack, and simply asked him if Geoffrey had worn the large-patterned waistcoat on the day he went away. Jack remembered hearing Sappy talking about his wearing it. Rankin then drove to the Montreal Telegraph clerk, who identified the wrapper. Then he had the warrant issued for Hampstead's arrest, and also subpœnas, which were handed to different policemen for service, with instructions to bring the witnesses with them if possible. The Priests, mother and son, he secured by having a constable bring them in a cab. He then requested the magistrate to hear the case at once.
He supposed, rightly enough, that Hampstead, on becoming aware that the numbers of the stolen bills were all known would be afraid to pass any of them, and would still have the money somewhere in his possession. So he had three detectives sent with a search warrant to break in Geoffrey's door and search for it. He thought it was by no means certain that they would find the money, and he was anxious on this point, but he knew that, even if he failed to secure a conviction against Hampstead, he had at least sufficient evidence to render Jack's conviction doubtful. In the case against Hampstead, Jack's evidence would be heard in full, and Rankin felt satisfied that in some way it would explain away the terribly damaging case that had been made out against him in the morning.
The sudden shout in the court had been so full of sympathy for Jack and admiration for Rankin's cleverness that for the first time in his magisterial existence "His Worship" forgot to check it, and the call to order by the police was of the weakest kind. All the bank-clerks of the city were jammed into that room, and for a moment Jack's friends were wild.
A few more questions were put to Jack, but only to improve his position before the public as to the charge against himself.
"Are you aware that you have been made a victim of in a matter where the Victoria Bank was robbed of fifty thousand dollars?"
"No," said Jack, looking dazed. "I am not."
"Are you aware that you were tried this morning for stealing that money?"
"I seemed at times to know that something was wrong. Once I knew I was charged with stealing something or other, but I did not know or care. I must have been unconscious after the collision in the lake. The first thing I knew of, they said we were at Port Dalhousie. We must have sailed there with nothing drawing but the forward canvas, and that must have taken a good while."
Jack was now allowed to stand down, but he was not removed from the court-room.
To clear up Jack's record thoroughly, Rankin called Detective Dearborn and, before the magistrate stopped the examination as being irrelevant, he succeeded in showing that Jack had been delirious for twelve hours after his arrest. The fact that Dearborn had not mentioned these circumstances placed him in a rather bad light with the audience, while it showed once again what a common habit it is with the police to suppress and even distort facts in order to secure a conviction.
The telegraph clerk identified the recovered forty-eight bills, and the receiving teller, gave the same evidence as in the Cresswell case, and then the detective who found the money in Hampstead's room was called.
As soon as he heard his first words, Geoffrey knew what was coming and rose to his feet and addressed the magistrate:
"I suppose, Your Worship, that it is not too late to withdraw my plea of not guilty and at this late hour plead guilty. This will be my only opportunity to cast a full light on this case, and, if I may be permitted, I will do so."
The magistrate nodded. Geoffrey continued:
"Of course, it is perfectly clear that Cresswell is quite innocent. For private reasons, in a matter that was entirely honorable to himself, Cresswell wished to leave Canada. He was going through the States to California, and did not intend to return, and would have resisted being brought back to Canada. There was no law existing by which he could be extradited. He could only be brought back by his own consent. From the way I sent him on the schooner, his arrest before arriving in the United States was in the highest degree improbable. If he had afterward been arrested in the States I could have at once arranged to be sent by the bank to persuade him to return. I had it all planned that he never should return. He would have done as I told him. Even if he insisted on coming back I then would be safe in the States. Of course, I did not know that identification could be made of the bills—which could not have been foreseen—and my object in giving him two of them was that suspicion would rest temporarily on him, which might be necessary to give me time to escape. As it turned out, if Cresswell had insisted on returning to Canada he would be returning to certain conviction—part of the identified money being found on him.
"So far I speak only of my intentions at the time of the theft. But I hope no one will think I would allow my old friend Jack Cresswell to go to jail under sentence for my misdeeds. To-night I intended to cross the lake in a small boat and then telegraph to the bank where to find all the money at my chambers. This, with a letter of explanation, would have acquitted Jack. I had to save him—also myself, from imprisonment; but there was another matter worth far more than the money to me which I hoped to be able to eventually make right. If I had got away to-night the bank would have had its money to-morrow.
"On the day before the theft I had lost all my twelve years' earnings and profits in speculation. If I had been able to hold my stocks until the evening of the theft I would have made over seventy-five thousand dollars. For weeks during the excitement preceding my loss I had been drinking a great deal, and when the chance came to recoup myself from the bank I seemed to take the money almost as a matter of right."
As Geoffrey continued he was looking up out of the window, evidently oblivious of the crowd about him, thinking the thing out, as if confessing to himself.
"I know that without the liquor I never would have stolen, and that with it I became—"
His face grew bitter as he thought of his thieving Tartar uncle and his mother who could not be prevented from stealing. But he pulled himself together and continued: "It would have been open to me to call men from this gathering to give evidence as to my previous character, and I have no hesitation in leaving this point in your hands if it will do anything to shorten my sentence. On this ground only am I entitled to ask for your consideration, and you will be doing a kindness if you will pass sentence at once."
As Hampstead said these words he looked abstractedly around for the last time upon the scores of former friends who now averted their faces. There was no bravado in his appearance. He held himself erect, as he always did, and his face was impenetrable. His eyes claimed acquaintance with none who met his glance. Some smiled faintly, impressed as they were with his bearing, but he seemed to look into them and past them, as if saying to himself: "There's Brown, and there's Jones, and there's Robinson, I wonder when I will ever see them again?"
There were men in that throng who knew, when Hampstead spoke of the effects of the liquor on him, exactly what was meant, who knew from personal experience that, if there is any devilish tendency in a man or any hereditary predisposition to any kind of wrong-doing, alcohol will bring it out, and these men could not refrain from some sympathy with him who had partly explained his fall, and somehow there were none who thought after Geoffrey's statement that he would have sacrificed Jack to imprisonment under sentence.
The magistrate addressed him:
"Geoffrey Hampstead, I do not think there has been anything against your character since you came to Toronto. That an intelligence such as yours should have been prostituted to the uses to which you have put it is one of the most melancholy things that ever came to my knowledge. I can not think you belong to the criminal classes, and I would be glad to be out of this matter altogether, because I feel how unable one may be to deal for the best with a case like yours. It may be that if you were liberated you would never risk your ruin again. I do not think you would; but, in that case, this court might as well be closed and the police disbanded. I am compelled to make your case exemplary, and I sentence you to six years in the Kingston Penitentiary."
A dead silence followed, and then his former friends and acquaintances began to go away. They went away quietly, not looking at each other. There was something in the proceedings of the day that silenced them. They had lost faith in one honest man and had found it again; and another, on whom some nobility was stamped, they had seen condemned as a convict. As they took their last look at the man whom they had often envied and admired, they wished to escape observation. So many of them were thinking how, at such a time in their lives, if things had not luckily turned out as they did, they, too, might have fallen under some kind of temptation, and they knew the sympathy that comes from secret consciousness of what their own possibilities in guilt might have been.
Geoffrey received his sentence looking out of the window toward the blue sky and the swallows that flew past. Every word that the magistrate had said had in it the tone of a friend, which made it harder to bear. While he heard it all vividly, he strained to keep his attention on the flying swallows in order that he might not break down. Outside of that window, and just in that direction, Margaret, the wife that never would be, was waiting for him. The man's face was like ashes. Oh, the relief to have dashed himself upon the floor when he thought of Margaret!
Yet he held out. He felt it would be better for him to be dead; but he met his fate bravely, and now sought relief in another way. He caught Rankin's eye, and motioned to him to come near.
With a face that was afraid to relax its tension, he said, with an effort at something like his ordinary speech:
"Rankin, you forsook me sadly to-day, did you not? But I can still count on you to do me a good turn—if only in return for to-day."
"Go on, Geoffrey. Yes, I have disliked you from the first. But now I don't. You make people like you, no matter what you do. You take it like a man. What do you want?"
Rankin could not command his countenance as Geoffrey could. Now that he had accomplished the work of convicting him, it seemed terrible that one who, with all his faults, appeared so manly a man, and so brave, should be on his way to six years' darkness.
Geoffrey pulled him closer and whispered in his ear: "Go to Margaret—at once—before she can read anything! Take a cab. Tell her all. Break it to her. You can put it gently. Go to her now—let her know, fairly, before you come away, that all my chances are gone—that she is released—that I am nothing—now—but a dead man."
His head went down as the words were finished with a wild effort, and his great frame shook convulsively for a moment. The thought of Margaret killed him.
During the day, before his arrest, he had seen that he would have to return at least part of the money to corroborate his story and to save Jack. And he could not abscond with the balance, because that would mean the loss of Margaret. By returning the money and saving himself from imprisonment, he had hoped that eventually she would forgive him. And now—
Maurice could not stand it. He said, hurriedly: "All right. I'll see you to-morrow." And then he dashed off, out a side door, and into a cab. And on the way to Margaret he wept like a child behind the carriage curtains for the fate of the man whom he had convicted.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Yea, it becomes a man
To cherish memory, where he had delight,
For kindness is the natural birth of kindness.
Whose soul records not the great debt of joy,
Is stamped forever an ignoble man.
Sophocles (Ajax).
As Rankin broke the news to Margaret—by degrees and very quietly—she showed but little sign of feeling. Her face whitened and she moved stiffly to the open window, where she could sit in the draught. As she made Rankin tell her the whole story she simply grew stony, while she sat with bloodless hands clinched together, as if she thus clutched at her soul to save it from the madness of a terrible grief.
Suddenly she interrupted him.
"Dismiss your cab," she said. "I will walk back with you part of the way."
When she turned toward him, the strained face was so white and the eyes so wide and expressionless that he became afraid.
"Perhaps you would rather be alone," said he, doubtful about letting her go into the street.
She seemed to divine what was in his mind, for she made him feel more at ease by a gentler tone:
"Alone? No, no! Anything but that! The walk will do me good."
The cab was dismissed while she put on her hat, and as they walked through the quiet streets toward the heart of the city, he went on with all the particulars, which she seemed determined to hear. Several times they met people who knew her and knew of her engagement to Hampstead, and they were surprised to see her walking with—of all men—Maurice Rankin. But she saw no one, gazing before her with the look which means madness if the mind be not diverted. Suddenly, as they had to cross one of the main arteries of the city, a sound fell upon Margaret's ear that made her stop and grasp Rankin by the arm. Then the cry came again—from a boy running toward them along the street:
"Special edition of the Evening News! All about Geoffrey Hampstead, the bank robber!"
For a moment her grasp came near tearing a piece out of Rankin's arm. But this was only when the blow struck her. She stopped the boy and bought a paper. She gave him half a dollar and walked on.
"This will do to give them at home," she said simply. "I could not tell them myself."
But the blow was too much for her. To hear the name of the man she worshiped yelled through the streets as a bank robber's was more than she felt able to bear. She must get home now. Another experience of this kind, and something would happen.
"Good-by!" she said, as she stopped abruptly at the corner of a street. Not a vestige of a tear had been seen in her eyes. "I will go home now. You have been very kind. I forgive you for—"
She turned quickly, and Rankin stood and watched her as she passed rapidly away.
No. 173 Tremaine Buildings had become slightly better furnished since the opening of this story. Between the time when he made the cruise in the Ideal and the events recorded in the preceding chapters, Rankin had contributed somewhat to his comforts in an inexpensive way. In order to buy his coal, which he did now with much satisfaction, he had still to practice the strictest economy. But he took some pleasure in his solitary existence. From time to time he bought different kinds of preserves sold in pressed-glass goblets and jugs of various sizes. After the jam was consumed the prize in glassware would be washed by Mrs. Priest and added to his collection, and there was a keen sense of humor in him when he added each terrible utensil to his stock. "A poor thing—but mine own!" he would quote, as he bowed to an imaginary audience and pointed with apologetic pride to a hideous pressed-glass butter-bolt.
In buying packages of dusty, doctored, and detestable tea he acquired therewith a collection of gift-spoons of different sizes, and also knives, forks, and plates, which, if not tending to develop a taste for high art, were useful. At a certain "seven-cent store" he procured, for the prevailing price, articles in tinware, the utility of which was out of all proportion to the cost.
Thus, when he sat down of an evening and surveyed a packing-box filled with several sacks of coal, all paid for; when he viewed the collection of glassware, the "family plate," and the very desirable cutlery; when he gazed with pride upon his seven-cent treasures and his curtains of chintz at ten cents a mile; when he considered that all these were his very own, his sense of having possessions made him less communistic and more conservative. Primitively, a Conservative was a being who owned something, just as Darwin's chimpanzee in the "Zoo," who discovered how to break nuts with a stone and hid the stone, was a Tory; the other monkeys who stole it were necessarily Reformers.
About ten o'clock on the evening of the trial Rankin was sitting among his possessions sipping some "gift-spoon" tea. Around him were three evening papers and two special editions. The "startling developments" and "unexpected changes" which had "transpired" at the Victoria Bank had made the special editions sell off like cheap peaches, and Rankin was enjoying the weakness—pardonable in youth and not unknown to maturity—of reading each paper's account of himself and the trial. They spoke of his "acuteness" and "foresight," and commented on his being the sole means of recovering the forty-eight thousand dollars. One paper must have jumped at a conclusion when it called him "a well-known and promising young lawyer—one of the rising men at the bar."
"The tide has turned," he said. "Twenty cents a day is not going to cover my total expenses after this. I feel it in my bones that the money will come pouring in now." He was mechanically filling a pipe when a rap at the door recalled him from his dream. A tall Scotchman, whom Rankin recognized as the messenger of the Victoria Bank, handed him a letter and then felt around for the stairs in the darkness, and descended backward, on his hands and knees, for fear of accidents.
A pleasing letter from the manager of the Victoria Bank inclosed one of the recovered thousand-dollar bills.
Rankin sat down. "I shall never," he said, with an air of resolve, "steal any more coal! And now I'll have a cigar, three for a quarter, and blow the expense!"
Two weeks afterward there came to him a copy of a resolution passed by the bank directors, together with a notification that they had arranged with the bank solicitors, Messrs. Godlie, Lobbyer, Dertewercke, and Toylor, to have him taken in as a junior partner.
Immediately after Geoffrey was sentenced, Jack Cresswell was, of course, discharged. A dozen hands were being held out to congratulate him, when Detective Dearborn drew him through a side door into an empty room, where they had a short talk about keeping the name of Nina Lindon from the public, and then they departed together for Tremaine Buildings in a cab, while the two valises in front looked, like their owner, none the better for their vicissitudes. Dearborn felt that little could be said to mend the trouble he had caused Jack, but he did all he could, and there was certainly nothing hard-hearted in the care with which the redoubtable detective assisted his former victim to bed. Mrs. Priest was summoned, also a doctor. Jack was found to be worse than he thought, and Patsey was ordered to remain within call in the next room, where he consumed cigars at twelve dollars the hundred throughout the night.
The next day Mrs. Mackintosh and Margaret came down in a cab to Jack's lonely quarters, and insisted upon his being moved to their house during his illness. While unable to go home to his parents at Halifax he was loath to give trouble to his friends, and made excuses, until he saw that Margaret really wished him to come, and divined that his coming might be a relief to her.
It was so. In the weeks that followed, whatever these two suffered in the darkness and solitude of the nights, during the day-time they were brave. The heart of each knew its own bitterness. In a short time Jack found the comfort of speech in telling Margaret many things. Unavoidably Geoffrey's name came up, for he was entangled in both their lives. Little by little Jack's story came out, as he lay back weakly on his couch, until, warmed by Margaret's sympathy, he told her all about Nina and himself—so far as he knew the story—and in the presence of his manifold troubles, and at the thought of his suffering when he witnessed, as a captive, Nina's death, Margaret felt that she was in the presence of one who had known even greater grief than her own. This was good for her. After a while she was able to speak to Jack about Geoffrey, and this brought them more and more together.
When he got well, his breach of duty in going away without notice was overlooked, and he was taken back to his old post. There he worked on as the years rolled by. Country managerships were offered to him, and declined. He had nothing to make money for, and the only thing he really enjoyed was Margaret's society, in which he would talk about Nina and Geoffrey without restraint. For many years he remained ignorant that his marriage with Nina was, after all, for New York State a valid one, since marriage by simple contract, without religious ceremony, is sufficient in that State. He never dreamed Geoffrey had been indirectly the cause of his life's ruin, and always spoke of him as a man almost without blame. However unreasonable, there are, among all the faulty emotions, few more beautiful than a man's affection for a man. When it exists, it is the least exacting attachment of his life.
Margaret listened to his superlatives about Geoffrey. She listened; but as the years passed on she grew wiser. When walking in the open fields, or perhaps beside the wide lake, an image would come to her in gladsome colors, in matchless beauty—a Greek god with floating hair and full of resolve and victory, and in her dreams she would see and talk with him, and would find him grave and thoughtful and tender, and all that a man could be. Then would come the rending of the heart. This was a thief who had decoyed his friend, and, good or bad, was lost to her.
And thus time passed on. For two or three years she went nowhere. She tried going into society, after Geoffrey's sentence, thinking to obtain relief in change of thought, but the experiment was a failure. She found that she had not the elasticity of temperament which can doff care and don gayety as society demands. So she gave up the attempt for years, and then went again only at her mother's solicitation. She said she had her patients at the hospital, her studies with her father, her many books to read, her long walks with Jack and Maurice Rankin, and what more did she want?
She did not hear of Geoffrey. The six years of his imprisonment had dragged themselves into the past, and she supposed he was free again, if he had not died in the penitentiary. But nothing was heard of him, and thus the time rolled on, while Margaret's mother secretly wept to see her daughter's early bloom departing, while no hope of any happy married life seemed possible to her.
Grave, pleasant, studious, thoughtful, as the years rolled by, she went on with her hospital work. From the depths of the grief into which she was plunged, she could discern some truths that might have remained unknown if her life had continued sunny—just as at noonday from the bottom of a deep pit or well the stars above us can be seen. To her the bitterness of her life was medicinal. Speaking chemically, it was like the acid of the unripe apple acting upon the starch in it to make a sugar—thus to perfect a sweet maturity. She was one of the richly endowed women in whom sensitiveness and strength combine peculiarly for either superlative joy or sorrow, and hers was a grief which, for her, nothing but tending the bed of sickness seemed to mitigate. Many a bruised heart was healed, gladdened, and bewitched by the angel smile on the sweet firm, full lips which could quiver with compassion. There are some smiles, given for others, when grief has made thought for self unbearable, which nothing but a descent into hell and glorious rising again could produce.
CHAPTER XXIX.
This is peace!
To conquer love of self and lust of life,
To tear deep-rooted passion from the breast,
To still the inward strife;
For glory, to be lord of self;...
... For countless wealth,
To lay up lasting treasure
Of perfect service rendered, duties done
In charity, soft speech, and stainless days;
These riches shall not fade away in life
Nor any death dispraise.
(Buddha's Sermon.—The Light of Asia.) Arnold.
Geoffrey Hampstead had come out of the penitentiary with his former hopes for life shattered. Margaret was lost to him. He came out without a tie on earth—a living man from whom all previous reasons for existence seemed to have been removed. For six years he had worked in the penitentiary with all the energy that was in him, in order to keep his thoughts from driving him mad. At one time all had been before him. And now—Oh, the silent grinding of the teeth during the first two years of it! After that he grew quieter and became able to regard his life calmly. He learned how to suffer. To a large extent he ceased now to think about himself. In the lowest depths of mental misery self died. Then, for the first time in his life, he was able to realize the extent of his wrongs to others. What now broke him down gradually was not, as at first, the bitterness of his own lost hopes, but the thought that the life of Margaret was wrecked—and by him, that the lives of others had been wrecked—and by him. This was what the penitentiary now consisted of. This was the penitentiary which would last for always.
When the period of his sentence had expired, he had gone to New York and obtained work with his old employers on Wall Street. But his mind was not in his occupation. With his energy, it was impossible to live with no definite end in view. Why plod along on microscopic savings, like a mere machine to be fed and to work? When mental anguish, for him the worst whip of retribution, had made thought for self so unbearable that at last it died, there arose in him, untarnished by selfishness, the nobility which had always been occultly stamped upon him, and which in prison enabled him to protect himself, as it were, against madness, and to refuse to be unable to suffer—a nobility able to realize the perfection of a life lived for others, which none can realize until first thought for self has been in some way killed. Rightly or wrongly, he had become convinced in years of anguished thought that with a continually aching heart may coexist an internal gladness that arises from the gift of self to others and makes the suffering not only bearable but even desirable—that this was altogether a mental phenomenon, such as memory, but one on which religions had been built, and that it was capable of making a heaven of earth and leading one, with the ecstasy of self-gift, even to crucifixion.
He determined to go to Paris to study medicine. For this, money was required, and he conceived a plan for making a small fortune suddenly. If he failed, what then? The world would lose a helper. His employers, on being approached, saw that if proper contracts were made they were sure to get their money back, and supplied him with all he required for expenses.
Mr. Rankin, of the firm of Godlie, Dertewercke, Toylor, and Rankin, had, for more than six years, shared with Jack Cresswell the old rooms "vice Hampstead, on active service." All Geoffrey's old relics had been left untouched. He had sent word to have them sold, and Rankin, to satisfy him, had let him think they were sold and that the money they brought had been applied as directed. The money had been applied as directed; but it had come out of Rankin's little bank account, and so, until the time came when they could be handed over to Hampstead, the old trophies remained where they were after being insured for a sum which, for "old truck and rubbage only fit for a second-'and shop," seemed, to Mrs. Priest, suspiciously large.
Rankin had received from a client the disposal of several passes on a special train that was to take some railway officials and their families to Niagara Falls to see the great swimmer, John Jackson, together with his dog, endeavor to swim the Whirlpool Rapids. Half the world was excited over this event, which had been advertised everywhere. While dining with Jack at the Mackintoshes on the Sunday previous to the event, Rankin proposed that Margaret should accompany Jack and him to see the trial made.
Margaret hesitated, but Rankin said: "Oh, you know, as far as the fellow himself is concerned, it will be hard to say how he is as he goes past. You'll just see a head in the water for a moment, and then it will have vanished down the river."
"I don't suppose there will be much to see if the water takes him past at the rate of nineteen miles an hour," said Margaret.
"Just so. There won't be much to see. But we can have a pleasant day at the falls and give the abused hack-men a chance. The 'special' will have a number of ladies on board, and, if you like champagne, now's your chance. What is a special train without champagne?"
"Well, what do you say, mother?" asked Margaret.
Mrs. Mackintosh, to give her daughter an acceptable change and to get her out of her fixed ways, would have sent her to almost anything from balloon ascension to a church lottery.
"Do as you wish, my dear. I think I would like you to go. I do not see how it would be possible for a spectator to know whether the man was suffering or not in those waters, and, as for his sacrificing his life, why that is his own lookout. If he lives I suppose he will get well paid, will he not, Mr. Rankin?"
"They expect he will make about twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars. Arrangements have been made not only with the railways, but also with the hotels for his commission on all profits, which will be paid to him if he lives, or, if not, to his family. I don't know that it should be necessarily looked upon as a suicidal speculation. I have examined the water a good many times, and am by no means certain that his safe passage is impossible, if he can keep on the surface and not get dragged under where the water seems to shoot downward. If he gets through, or even if he tries it and fails, he will prove himself as brave a man as ever lived."
"I think I will go," said Margaret, brightening up with her old love for daring. "It is not like going to a bullfight, and the excitement will be intense."
So they went off on the special, and when they arrived at the rapids, after descending the precipice in the hydraulic lift, they went along the path to the platform where the photographs are taken. This place was filled with seats, numbered and reserved, and Rankin's party were seated in the front row. No less than a hundred thousand people were watching the forces of the river at this time. They were noticing how the precipices gradually converged as they approached the rapids, and how apparent was the downward slope of the water as it rushed through the narrowed gorge. They were noticing how the descending current struck projections of fallen rock at the sides, causing back-waves to wash from each bank diagonally across the main volume of the river, and make a continual combat of waters in the middle of the stream. Here, the deep, irresistible flow of the main current charges into the midst of the battle raging between the lateral surges, and carries them off bodily, while they continue to fight and tear at each other as far as one can see down the river. It is a bewildering spectacle of immeasurable forces, giving the idea of thousands of white horses driven madly into a narrowing gorge, where, in the crush, hundreds are forced upward and ride along on the backs of the others, plunging and flinging their white crests high in the air and gnashing at each other as they go.
The worst spot of all is directly in front of the platform, where Rankin's party was sitting. They waited until the time at which Jackson was advertised to begin his swim, and then they grew impatient. Jack was standing on a wooden parapet near at hand waiting until the swimmer should appear around the bend far up the river, for they could not see him take to the water from the place where they were.
All at once, before the rest of the people near him could see anything, Jack called out: "There he is!" as he descried, with his sailor's eyes, two black specks on the water far away, up above the bridges.
Jackson and his dog had jumped out of a boat in the middle of the river, in the calm part half a mile up, and, as they swam down with the current under the bridges, the dense mass of people there admired the easy grace with which he swam, and remarked the whiteness of his skin. His dog, a huge creature, half Great Dane and half Newfoundland, swam in front of him, directed by his voice. Both of them could be seen to raise themselves once or twice, so that they could get a better view of the wild water in front of them. The dog recognized the danger, and for a moment turned toward the shore and barked; but his master raised his hand and directed him onward. Another moment, now, and the fight for life began, for reaching the shore was as impossible as flying to the moon.
The first back-wash that came to them was a small one, and they both passed through it, each receiving the water in the face. The next wash followed almost immediately, and they tried to swim over it, but it turned both man and dog over on their sides and spread them out at full length on the surface of the main current. The people on the suspension bridge could see that both received a terrible blow. They both seemed to dive under the next wave, and then the water became so turbulent and the speed of their passage so great that it was impossible to give a minute description of what happened.
Rankin's party and the multitude of spectators now watched what they could see in breathless silence. At times, as the swimmers approached, our party could see them hoisted in the air on the top of a wave, or ridge or upheaval of water. Most of the time they were lost to sight in the gulleys or, valleys, or else they were beneath the surface. It does not take long to go a few hundred yards at nineteen miles an hour, and in what scarcely seemed more than an instant the man, with the dog still in front of him, had come near them. What Jack noticed was that as the man here shook the water out of his eyes and raised himself, shoulders out, by "treading water," his skin was almost scarlet. This, alone told a tale of what he had gone through since the people on the bridges had remarked the whiteness of his skin.
He was now almost opposite them, and his face, set desperately, turned, during an instant in a quieter spot, toward the platform. Margaret gave a piercing shriek, and fell back into Rankin's arms. At the next half-moment a huge boiling mountain, foaming up against the current in which the swimmer's body floated, struck him a terrible blow, and threw the dog back on top of him. Both were engulfed. After a while the dog's head appeared again, but Geoffrey Hampstead was overwhelmed in the Bedlam of waters, whose foaming, raging madness battered out his life.