[CHAPTER XXX]
Time Begins His Revenges
Political and social undercurrents were slowly working to the surface in the world of Stirling. Though it was barely spring, the mayoralty campaign was well under way, promising a close struggle in the fall. A more immediate matter was the threatened strike, which the men's leaders were urging in the hope that the approaching annual meeting of the stockholders of the street-railway might bring some relief. In these affairs the attitude of Ellis was of importance.
The newspapers called him the Sphinx, since he gave no sign of his purposes. In politics, of course, it was to be assumed that he was on the side of the machine. But against the strike he might take a variety of courses, with a variety of results, all of which were, by the speculative, mapped and calculated in advance. He might yield and avoid the strike, he might defy it, or at the last minute he might by some sudden action entirely change the aspect of affairs and bring himself profit and credit. Just how this last could be done no one seemed to be sure, but since from day to day matters were growing worse and Ellis made no move, it was confidently stated that he had "something up his sleeve."
Otherwise there was no explaining his conduct. His opponents did not dare to believe that he was blinded by self-confidence, and yet his own followers, trust him as they might, were uneasy. His manner showed a steady, almost savage determination to win, and yet he did not "tend to business." There were days when he was absent from his office altogether, refusing to talk with his subordinates except by telephone—and they hated to discuss plans except within four walls. There was even one day when he disappeared altogether, just when the Stirling representatives had come down from the State capital to confer with him on the street-railway bill, the prospects of which, on account of the clause conferring eminent domain, were none too bright. Ellis, when at last his men found him in the evening, said only that he had been at Chebasset. Moreover, his men got little out of him: with an odd new gleam in his eye, he merely listened as they spoke; he gave no directions, and when they begged him to run up to the capital and lobby for himself he thanked them and said he'd think it over. Feeling their journey to have been for nothing, they left him, grumbling among themselves. Something seemed wrong with him.
Something was wrong with him. A man with a pain gnawing at his heart and a ghost always before his eyes cannot attend to his work. It was not the Colonel's ghost that dogged Ellis: he never troubled for his part in Blanchard's death. Judith, splendid in cold anger, haunted him. She spoiled his sleep, she came between him and his work, she tormented him by the vision of what he had lost. There was a steady drain upon him, as from an unhealed wound—or from that inward bleeding which, on the very first day of their acquaintance, he had felt on leaving her. No, he was not himself; his mind was confused, his energies wasted, by the constant alternation of anger and despair.
When realisation swept upon him suddenly, then he shut himself up, refused himself to all, and fought his fury until he had controlled it. That day when he went to Chebasset he had not intended to go, but on his way to his office there suddenly rushed over him the sense of his loss. Possessed by the thought, he took the train to Chebasset and wandered half the day among his grounds, tormenting himself by the recollection that these drives, walks, shrubberies were laid out for Judith, and now she would never live among them. When he took out of his pocket a slip of paper bearing her signature and told himself that she was in his power—in his power!—he found no pleasure in the thought.
In the evening he had not cast off his mood, and when he met his men, sent them away dissatisfied. One, bolder or more foolhardy than the others, lingered a moment. "Say," he asked, "what's wrong?"
"Nothing," answered Ellis.