“I quite understand, Mr. Power,” said the official, an assistant manager, as it happened, and a shrewd and kindly man. “It is useless to think of leaving New York before tonight. Come to my desk. I’ll write a telegram for you which will straighten things out. Will you travel by the Pennsylvania and Rock Island Route? I thought so. The train starts at seven o’clock; so you have plenty of time to receive an answer from Bison. Now, how will this do?”
And he wrote:
“Your telegrams only just opened. Coming by tonight’s train by Pennsylvania road. Wire me care of station agent, Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne, Chicago, and Omaha. Message today before six will reach me at Waldorf Hotel. Give my love to mother and bid her cheer up.”
Power muttered what he conceived to be words of thanks. Then, rushing to his rooms in the hotel like a hunted animal seeking sanctuary, he read MacGonigal’s earlier telegrams. There were letters, too, no less than three from his mother, who seemed perplexed and uneasy because of the varying postmarks on his correspondence, but made no mention of her illness.
Indeed, the last letter, dated only a week earlier, spoke of a shopping expedition to Denver she and Mrs. Moore and the two girls had taken the previous day. MacGonigal, too, was not explicit. “Mrs. Power very ill and desperately anxious to see you,” ran one telegram. Another told of Dr. Stearn being summoned, and remaining in constant attendance; but the burden of each and every message was that he, Power, must come home.
It was not surprising that the unhappy son should see in his mother’s sudden collapse the hand of the Almighty. Deep in the heart of every man and woman is planted the conviction that an unseen and awful deity deals out retribution as well as justice to erring humanity. Power was under no delusion as to his personal responsibility for his actions. He had done wrong, and now he was being punished. “A man’s heart deviseth the way, but the Lord directeth his steps.” Sternly and terribly had his feet been turned to the new path; but if he flung himself on his knees and prayed now, it was not for forgiveness of his own sin, but in frenzied petition that it should not be visited on his mother and Nancy. Even in this new delirium of suffering he did not forget the woman he loved. Though his torment was as the torment of a scorpion, he asked that Nancy, too, might be spared. On his head be the punishment; but let the Divine Ruler of the world have pity on her youth, and find innocence in her, for she had been hardly dealt by!
He was still kneeling in anguish of spirit when an awe-stricken page entered the room with a telegram. If aught were needed to crush him into the dust, it was forthcoming in Dacre’s guarded words:
“Have accidentally secured brief talk on telephone with friend indicated, who arrived this morning Fall River steamer. No secret made of intentions, which I am bidden to warn you are final. Going with father to Europe at once; but would not discuss reasons, for which, obviously, I could not press. I am puzzled and shocked. Command me in any way. Have you received urgent summons to Bison? Your mother is ill.”
Then, and not until then, did some Heaven-sent clarity of vision reveal to Power that Nancy had not been acting a part when she wrote the letter he found in the hut. It was only too true that, as he told Peter Granite in the first mad words which burst from his lips, she had left him forever. He did not pretend to understand her motives—he was sure he never would understand them—but her action, at least, was finite. He knew now she was gone beyond recall. By some malign trick of fate she was probably stating her unalterable resolve over the telephone to his friend at the very moment he was reeling under the shock of MacGonigal’s frantic messages with reference to his mother.
Well, be it so! His dream of a life’s happiness had been shattered by a thunderbolt from a summer sky, and, crowning misery, here was his mother at death’s door, in a state of mind surely aggravated by distress because of uncertainty as to his whereabouts! Sheer despair was again calming if benumbing him when, by ill-chance, his haggard eyes dwelt on Nancy’s letter. The concluding words seemed to grip him by the throat: