"This man is a devil," he said, "he will rob me shilling by shilling until I am a beggar. Good God! that it should have come to this after twenty years; twenty years which have achieved so much; twenty years of such slavery as few men have known. And I am helpless; and this beggar is here to remind me of my enemies, to tell me that I walk in chains and that their eyes are following me."
He threw himself upon his bed dressed as he was and tried to sleep. The stillness of the house gave fruitful visions, magnifying all his fears and bringing him to an unspeakable terror of the days which must come after. He had many ambitions yet to achieve, great ideas which remained ideas, masterly projects which must bring him both fame and riches, but he would have abandoned them all this night if freedom had been offered him. Years ago, he remembered, Boriskoff, the young miner, had earned his hatred, he knew not why unless it were a truth that men best hate those who have served them best. To-night found that old hatred increased a thousand fold and shaping itself in schemes which he would not even whisper aloud. He had always been looked upon as a man of good courage and that courage prompted him to a hundred mad notions—to swift assassination or to slow intrigue—last of all to self destruction should his aims miscarry. He would kill himself and cheat them after all. Many another in Petersburg had sacrificed his life rather than suffer those years of torture which discovery brought. He knew that he would not shrink even from the irrevocable if he were driven far enough.
A man may take such a resolution as this and yet a great desire of life may remain to thwart it. Gessner found himself debating the issues more calmly as the night wore on, and even asking himself if the presence of a stranger in his house might be so intolerable as he had believed. He had seen little of Alban and that little had not been to the young man's disadvantage. If the youth were not all that report had painted him, if the amenities of the house should civilize him and kindness win his favor, then even he might be an advocate for those to whom he owed such favors. This new phase set Gessner thinking more hopefully than at any time since the beginning of it. He rose from his bed and turning on the lamps began to recall all that the Pole had demanded of him. The terms of the compact were not so very unreasonable, surely, he argued. Let this young Kennedy consent to remain at "Five Gables" and he, Richard Gessner, would answer for the rest. But would he consent to remain—would that wild life of the slums call him back to its freedom and its friendships? He knew not what to think. A great fear came to him, not that the lad would remain but that he would go. Had it been at a reasonable hour, he would have talked to him there and then, for the hours of that night were beyond all words intolerable. He must see Kennedy and convince him. In the end, unable to support the doubt, he quitted his own room, and crossed the landing, irresolute, trembling, hardly knowing what he did.
* * * * *
It would have been about five o'clock of the morning when he entered Alban's room and discovered him to be still sleeping. A sound of heavy breathing followed by a restless movement had deceived him and he knocked upon the door gently, quite expecting to be answered. When no reply came, he ventured in as one who would not willingly pry upon another but is compelled thereto by curiosity. The room itself should have been in darkness, but Alban had deliberately drawn the heavy curtains back from the windows before he slept, and the wan gray light of dawn struck down upon his tired face as though seeking out him alone of all that slept in the house. A lusty figure of shapely youth, a handsome face which the finger of the World had touched already, these the light revealed. He slept upon his back, his head turned toward the light, his arm outstretched and almost touching the floor.
Gessner stood very still, afraid to wake the sleeper and by him to be thus discovered. No good nationalist at any time, he had always admired that product of a hard-drinking, hard-fighting ancestry, the British boy; and in Alban it seemed to him that he discovered an excellent type. Undoubtedly the lad was both handsome and strong. For his brains, Silas Geary would answer, and he had given evidence of good wit in their brief encounter last night. Gessner drew a step nearer and asked himself again if the detective's reports were true. Was this the friend of vagabonds, the companion of sluts—this clean-limbed, virile fellow with the fair face and the flaxen curls and the head of a thinker and a sage? A judge of men himself, he said that the words were a lie, and then he remembered Boriskoff's account, the story of a father who had died to serve an East End Mission, and of a devoted mother worsted in her youth by those gathering hosts of poverty she had set out so bravely to combat. Could the son of such as these be all that swift espionage would have him? Gessner did not believe it. New hopes, as upon a great freshet of content, came to him to give him comfort. He had no son. Let this lad be the son whom he had desired so ardently. Let them live together, work together in a mutual affection of gratitude and knowledge. Who could prevail against such an alliance? What rancor of Boriskoff's would harm the lad he desired to be the husband of his daughter. Aye, and this was the supreme consolation—that if Alban would consent, he, Gessner, would so earn his devotion and his love that therein he might arm himself against all the world.
But would he consent? How if this old habit of change asserted itself and took him back to the depths? Gessner breathed quickly when he remembered that such might be the end of it. No law could compel the boy, no guardian claim him. Twice already he had expressed in this house his contempt for the riches which should have tempted him. Gessner began to perceive that his fate depended upon a word. It must be "yes" or "no" to-morrow—and while "yes" would save him, the courage of a hundred men would not have faced the utmost possibilities of "no."
This simple truth kept the man to the room as though therein lay all his hopes of salvation. At one time he was upon the point of waking Alban and putting the question to him. Or again, he tried to creep back to the landing, determined, in his own room, to suffer as best he could the hours of uncertainty. Distressed by irresolution he crossed to the window at last and breathed the cool sweet air of morning as one being a stranger to such a scene at such an hour. The sun had risen by this time and all the landscape stood revealed in its morning beams. Not yet had London stirred to the murmur of the coming day—no smoke rose from her forest of chimneys, no haze drifted above the labyrinth. Far below she lay, a maze of empty streets, of shuttered shops, of vast silent buildings—a city of silence, hiding her cares from the glory of the dawn, veiling her sorrow and her suffering, hushing her children to rest, deaf to the morning voices; rich and poor alike turning from the eyes of the day to Mother Sleep upon whose heart is eternal rest. Such a city Gessner beheld while he looked from the window, and the golden beams lighted his pallid face and the sweet air of day called him to deed and resolution. What victories he had won upon that grimy field; what triumphs he had known; what hours of pomp and vanity—what bitter anguish! And now he might rule there no longer. Detection had stalked out of the unknown and touched him upon the shoulder. Somewhere in that labyrinth his enemies were sleeping. But one human being could shield him from them, and he a lad—without home or friends, penniless and a wanderer.
He drew back from the window, saying that the hours of suspense must be brief and that his will should prevail with this lad, at whatever sacrifice. Believing that his old shrewdness would help him, and that in Alban not only the instrument of his salvation but of his vengeance should be found, he would have quitted the room immediately, had not his eye lighted at hazard upon a rough paper, lying upon the floor by the bed, and a pencil which had tumbled from Alban's tired hand. Perceiving that the lad had been drawing, and curious beyond ordinary to know the subject of his picture, he picked the paper up to discover thereon a rude portrait which he recognized instantly for that of his daughter, Anna. Such a discovery, thrusting into his schemes as it did an idea which hitherto had escaped him, held him for an instant spellbound with wonder. A clever man, accustomed to arrive at conclusions swiftly, the complexity of his thoughts, the strife of arguments now unnerved him utterly. For he perceived both a great possibility and a great danger.
He is "to marry Lois Boriskoff" was the silent reflection—"to marry the daughter. And this—this—good God, the man would never forgive me this!"