Frank nodded. Then the millionaire, after a fractional pause, crossed to the door and held it open. Frank looked into his face for one fleeting second. Then he moved toward the door. A look of indecision was in his eyes, but finally he turned deliberately, and with decision.
"Good-bye, Mr. Hendrie," he said. Then he added in a low, earnest tone. "I thought I hated you, sir, but—I don't."
The millionaire made no reply, and the boy passed out.
Nor was the latter conscious of the deepening tenderness in the older man's eyes. All he felt, all he knew, was that the last shadow of the past, of his past sufferings at this man's hands, had been swallowed up in the great bond of sympathy now existing between them. Each man was ready to lay down even his life for one poor, helpless, sick woman; each was inspired by a love that now knew no limits to its sacrifice of self.
Hendrie turned back from the door with a deep sigh. He raised his right hand and stood thoughtfully gazing at it. It was almost as if he were examining it, seeking something his conscience told him he would find upon it. He knew, too, that his thought was of something unclean. He knew, too, that however much he had longed to grip the departing boy's hand in honest affection he had no right to do so—yet.
His return to Deep Willows was almost precipitate. He wanted to spend not a moment more than was necessary away from the roof which sheltered Monica. The chaotic condition of railroad affairs in Calford interested him not one whit now. He cared nothing for the rights or wrongs of the battle raging between labor and capital. The weary women and hungry children of the strikers, for all he cared could die in the ditches their husbands had dug for them.
As for the employers, let them fight their battles out as best they could. It mattered not at all if the country's entire trade were left at a standstill, nor was it of consequence what anarchy reigned. The stock markets might collapse, and shares might fall beyond redemption. His wealth counted for nothing in the stress of his feelings. Just one thing counted; one poor, flickering, suffering life.
So he rushed headlong back to Deep Willows to pass the time of waiting with what patience he could. Humanly speaking, he had played his last card for the saving of that one life, so there was nothing left for him but to pace the floors of his luxurious home hoping and fearing, now threatening to himself the life of the man who had made the chances of timely help so remote, now praying to Almighty God, as never in his life he had prayed before, to spare him the life he loved.
He had reached the one terrific moment in his life when he realized that the world, in which his heart and mind had been so long wrapped, meant nothing. He was down to the bare skeleton of human nature when primal passions alone counted. He knew that he had shed for ever the coat of civilization. It had always fitted him ill. Now the natural love of man for woman, male for female, in its simplest form, dominated his whole being. And with it came all those savage instincts with which the natural world seeks to protect its own.
The destruction of his wheat lands passed him by. He did not see that blackened world as his loyal servant Angus saw it. He had neither patience nor inclination to listen to lamentations, just as he had no lamentation to make over it for himself.