Helen of the Old House

by Harold Bell Wright

The opposing theory, which was skillfully advanced by Jake Vodell himself and fostered by his followers, was that the mysterious assassin was an agent of McIver's and that the deed was committed for the very purpose of charging the strikers with the crime and thus turning public sympathy against them.

This view, so plausible to the minds of the strikers, prepared, as they were, by hardship and suffering, found many champions among the Mill men themselves. Not a few of those who had stood with Charlie in his opposition to the agitator and against their union joining the strike now spoke openly with bitter feeling against the employer class. The weeks of agitation—the constant pounding of Vodell's arguments—the steady fire of his oratory and the continual appeal to their class loyalty made it easy for them to stand with their fellow workmen, now that the issue was being so clearly forced.

So the lines of the industrial battle were drawn closer—the opposing forces were massed in more definite formation—the feeling was more intense and bitter. In the gloom and hush of the impending desperate struggle that was forced upon it by the emissary of an alien organization, this little American city waited the coming of the dark messenger to Captain Charlie. It was felt by all alike that the workman's death would precipitate the crisis.

And through it all the question most often asked was this, "Why was the workman, Charlie Martin, at the gate to Adam Ward's estate at that hour of the night?"

To this question no one ventured even the suggestion of a satisfactory answer.

All that long day Helen kept her watch beside the wounded man. Others were there in the room with her, but she seemed unconscious of their presence. She made no attempt, now, to hide her love. There was no pretense—no evasion. Openly, before them all, she silently acknowledged him—her man—and to his claim upon her surrendered herself without reserve.

James McIver called but she would not see him.

When they urged her to retire and rest, she answered always with the same words: "I must be here when he awakens—I must."

And they, loving her, understood.

It was as if the assassin's hand had torn aside the curtain of material circumstances and revealed suddenly the realities of their inner lives. They realized now that this man, who had in their old-house days won the first woman love of his girl playmate, had held that love against all the outward changes that had taken her from him. John and his mother knew, now, why Helen had never said "Yes" to Jim McIver. Peter Martin and Mary knew why, in Captain Charlie's heart, there had seemed to be no place for any woman save his sister.