“I am a new-comer in your life,” he said. “Moran has been there for years. You—he saw you attracted me. That became useful to him. Last night shows how useful. Why do you say these things to me about love? Love is not a thing to lie about. I know what love is, because you—some one I thought was you—had made it live in me. I don’t believe you now. I shall never believe you again. The thing you have just said is not true. I believe you have said it—in obedience to him. So he might have an eye which would look into my very soul.”
He stopped. She stood silent, pale, her lips parted as in horror. One hand crept upward flutteringly, stopped at her breast, moved outward toward Jim.
“Jim!” she whispered. “Jim! You didn’t say that. Tell me I didn’t hear that. Tell me! Tell me! You don’t know what you’re saying, what you’re doing. I had won. I had struggled and won. Don’t send me back to him.” Suddenly she gave way and threw herself on a bench beside the path, her hands over her ears as though to shut out some dreadful sound. “It’s a lie!” she panted. “A lie! A lie! A lie!”
Jim felt himself near the breaking-point. He turned and hurried, almost ran, out of the widow’s garden, but even as far as the gate he could hear her voice repeating: “A lie! A lie! A lie!”
CHAPTER XXI
All next day train-loads of logs came down from Camp One to be decked in Jim’s yard. Thirty-five thousand feet had been rolled off the first night and day; upward of forty thousand feet were added to it the second. It was enough to supply the saws for a week. Moran had made no visible move; no attempt to interfere with the men in the woods or with the running of trains had been made. This did not reassure Jim. Moran was not the man to be beaten so easily. He knew he would strike back—that the Clothespin Club would strike back—for Moran and the Club were as one in this war.
The blow came from the Club—one not altogether unlooked for. It was their logical move, but it would be costly to them. News of it came in telegrams from Jim’s agents, telling him that Welliver and Jenkins and Plum were offering clothespins at a further cut of ten per cent. in price.
Jim figured rapidly. He knew that now his mill was running efficiently, his crew of operators were trained, each machine was showing its production of seventy-five boxes of pins or better a day, he was making pins more cheaply than any other manufacturer in the country. He knew they could not make pins at such a price; that every box sold at such a figure represented a loss. It represented a loss to Jim of something like a cent and a half a box. Probably it meant from three to five cents to the Club. But they could stand it for a time. They had capital in reserve. Jim had none, or very little, to carry on an extended war. But fight he had to, whether he had the money or not.
Perhaps he could borrow more, but he very much doubted it. One resource he had—the option on old Louis Le Bar’s timber. That must be sold at once.
He determined to take the afternoon train to Grand Rapids to go over it in the big lumber offices. His immediate action was to wire his representatives generally to take no orders at the new price. To New York and Chicago he gave directions to sell one car-load each at a drop of five per cent. under the Club’s last figure. This would serve further to demoralize the markets in those centers and to compel the Club to protect its customers on the additional decline. It would cost Jim a few hundreds of dollars. How much more expensive it would be to the Club he did not know.