To take the other road, her road—that was what May demanded of me. How little she knew the situation! That would mean immediate ruin for me and mine, and for those men who had trusted me with their money. The world that I had been building all these years would crumble and vanish like smoke into the void out of which I had made it! Not that May's talk had meaning or sense to it, either. Nor do men made as I am alter at the sound of words. We are as we are, and we grow with the power to do that which we must do. May was merely an unreasonable and narrow woman, who saw but one kind of good.
In all the forty years of my life there had been no evil as I know evil. No man could say that he had harm from me—unless it might be poor Ed Hostetter—and for thousands of such workers as live from day to day, depending on men like me to give them their chance to earn bread for their wives and children, I had made the world better rather than worse. Unthinking thousands lived and had children and got what good there was in life because of me and my will.
But to the others, the good ones, to Farson and Dround and May, I was but a common thief, a criminal, who fattened on the evil of the world. What had they done to make life? What was their virtue good for? They took the dainty paths and kept their clothes from the soil of the road. Yes, and what then? A renewed sense of irritation rose within me. Why should I be pestered like this, why should I lose my brother and May, why should Sarah be hurt, because they were too good to do as I had done?
So my brother and May went their way. They left me lonely. For the first time since the day, many years before, when I walked out of the police station alone into the city, the loneliness of life came over me. To-morrow, in the daylight, in the fierce fight of the day, that weakness would go; but to-night there was no hand to reach, no voice to speak, from the multitude of the world. One person only of all would know, would place big and little side by side and reckon them rightly—would understand the ways I had followed to get my ends. Jane Dround would throw them all a smile of contempt, the little ones who weigh and hesitate!
There was the soul of the fighter.
CHAPTER XXIII
HAPPINESS
I learn of Mr. Dround's intentions—A plea for myself—Despots—A woman's heart—The two in the world that are most near—Sarah's cry—Jane defends herself—To go away forever—Vows renewed
"Henry is simply furious—thinks his name has been involved—and he means to sell every share of stock he holds as soon as the agreement expires."