You see, she was a crazy girl from the beginning. As soon as ever I see her I know the thing to tell her is that I have been in prison for stealing—I do not tell her I am innocent; I tell her I was starving! It was funny to see her—I was like a saint to her! I think of all I can that is piteous and wild and of a great pride, broken, like a sick eagle! I tell her about Ingham, but all wrong and round the other way, and how he cannot marry me because I am without money or place, and leaves me, when I am eighteen, without a dollar and without a name. And how when that had come to a young girl I could not write. All, all because society had kept me from my place in life and, having turned me out, had locked me into jail because I could not starve.
Eh me, you should have seen her! She used herself like a maid to me, and a mother and a little lover, all in one. And I might have done very well with her, and the world would have been all for me to walk,—or this little running colt, she would have known the reason!—but for my bad luck. Nicola who would do better in this country with education wishes me to work with him. And how can I guess the growing brat will grow so far and high? So I am glad enough to make a little butter to my bread. Try living once, three women, the Hope woman and Christina and me, off the salary of a girl younger than eighteen and you will see. But who would think that all the while this monkey girl was looking in the glass of my grace, to steal and steal and steal from me? And would steal once too often, for the moving-picture show, and gets herself into a corner! That was, indeed, the justice of the gods.
All this time I have made Christina keep me secret. I have still the brown and the blue eye, to be noticed everywhere, and I do not want Filippi on my hands, nor yet Jim Ingham. And for all she begs me to know this Denny, whom she persists to tell about me, I think he has a look that is not simple—the look of a man who has been about, and may guess too much—and so I will not—I am too sensitive and proud, and cannot face a person in the world except my little sister, whom I love so much and who is all I have! Except, I want the poor, devoted, kind, good folk who brought me up! So when she is eighteen she begins to buy for me this farm and here she welcomes my mother and Nicola. Nicola has found out friends of ours and kinsfolk who have long run, among people of our nation in New York, a business called the Arm of Justice, and we work for that; I having the best ideas, but, alas, ever doomed to hide. And on the farm we live in innocence and peace, and conduct our business excellently, out of the way of those from whom we make a little money, and here comes at last the sick puppy, Filippi, not to be kept off, who can but sit quiet and lick his paws in the background, that Christina shall not know of him.
And then, it is the first year of Ten Euyck being coroner, and a man who has been paying us, unfortunately, dies, and Ten Euyck, nosing, nosing, he comes upon our trail. And he sees how we have had nothing to do with the death, only the man had no more to pay and so he killed himself. And Ten Euyck sends for me, and tells me he is sorry for me and he will not inform against me. He tells me of a young girl he knows in the highest of society, for whom a friend of his had so great a fancy he was ready to marry her, and I knew he was that friend. And the girl dare not but lead him on, but all the time she prefers some one else and is in trouble; and he tells me all he has found out and he says, "I would not tell this to you, if I did not think you grateful to me and too discreet to use it otherwise than as I wish, when you know liberty is in my hand!" So I know what I am to do, and the girl goes mad. And he pays me by and by, but not enough. But what can I do?
We are going mad, too, for money, for our bad luck is always there! That man who made Filippi pay has found us out, and exacts of us more and more. We are in terror of the law from Ten Euyck, who has let none see him but me, and not one strand to hold him by, and of the Camorra from this brute. We work hard, we run great danger, and we remain poor, so that if we lose Christina we have nothing but what we must make and pay away—and Christina engages herself to Ingham! Was it not enough to break the heart! What use is it to work, to struggle, to be beautiful, and to have nothing? And here is this silly girl, not worth my little finger, who has all!
Three times more I work for Ten Euyck, and that man Kane gets after us. It is all the fault of Ten Euyck, who has made us conspicuous, and he knows Kane thinks there is something strange, and he loses his nerve. He comes always to the farm like a caller, when I have sent all away but me, for he will put nothing in writing, and he drives his own machine. And one day he is raging against Ingham and Christina, and what he would give to know against them, any more than Ingham's dissipation, and I think "Maybe I can make something out of this!"
By and by I rejoice to hear that there is trouble with Jim Ingham. He is not the boy I found him. He has let himself go wild so long he cannot tame himself, all at once, and then he is exacting, like a fiend, and jealous and suspicious, not believing in himself, nor anything, nor anybody; and I laugh to myself, if she should know why! For were there nothing else at all, it would annoy me that chit should marry him! But I am pleased, and in that moment I let her bring out to me her Will Denny and her Nancy Cornish. And so I spoil my life and break my heart, and do not know myself with love.
I have come to be twenty-eight years old and nothing has counted. Then I meet him, and nothing else can count. I say to myself that I will have him, and I know it is not possible but I shall get him. But still he is all eyes and ears for a rag of a girl, who is so sick with love she knows not even how to charm. She knows nothing at all but to love him; and to love him nicely—so that she would not make him unhappy, even to hold him forever! It makes me ill to look at her, and still I cannot get him to look at me. But I can make him seem to look at me. I can make him ever with me, and amused by me, and of a manner a little sweet and tender to me—the poor sister of Christina, whom he can see to be dying on her feet for love of him. And the little rag of a girl sees how beautiful I am and full of life and far above her every way and fit for him, and knows no better than to grow pale and to keep out of the way, and to be silent and cold with him. And he begins to be hurt and not to follow her so hard, and then she finds me crying, crying. And at first I will not tell, but then I say how I must go away, because I love him. By and by I say that I would not have to go but I am afraid if I stay I will steal him from her. And at last, very reluctant, I show her a letter—for Nicola, who has done something in that line, too, was ever a good brother to me and taught and helped me well, so that it was in Will's hand. It said how he would never forsake Nancy, who loved him, for she could not live without him, but I was brave and strong and he must be so, too. It said how we were each other's mates, he and I, but met too late, and his heart would be mine forever, but he could never forsake nor pain his poor Nancy. Crack, she broke her engagement, the little fool! Who never had scarcely been able to understand how he should love her, as no more could I—and she shuts herself away from him, and will not answer and will tell him nothing! Only, she's changed her mind. And he says to Christina, "I am too old for her, and not so gay!" And I see him tear up the photographs she has sent back, and sneer at them, and say how God knows she could never have taken him for a beauty! And oh, I am so kind to him! I am so gentle and so sad, and I get new clothes and dress my hair, and always he can see me die of love. And so there comes a day when he asks me if I would be afraid to take the pieces of our lives and see what we could make of them together.—Ah me! and to think it all had to be kept secret because I was still so proud and sad! For bethink you, there was Filippi!
I think at last what a fool I am not to have divorced Filippi long ago! Here I am, betrothed to marry and it is all to do yet! Long ago, had I not been so soft-hearted, or had I thought of it, I might have been rid of fearing the spy who threatens him with the Camorra, in being rid of him. I wonder how much Filippi will take to set me free, and he makes a horrible fuss and will take nothing at all! But his spy is begun all fresh, killing him by inches with demands for five thousand dollars. And he asks also five thousand, now, not to report Nicola who has remained silent and a friend to us! It is all like a mad spider's web which but entangles more and more. And I think I will get that ten thousand from Ingham because I do not publish the story I have told Christina. Or else from Ten Euyck, because I do.
I send the Arm of Justice letter to Ingham's office that it may be forwarded to Europe. And then I hear from Christina that she cares for him no longer and has written him, and already he is coming back to argue with her. Oh, my luck, my bad luck! If he has lost her already, he will fight my lies! He will get my letter, too; he will connect that with her broken promise, he will ask her if she knows a girl with a brown eye and a blue, and what may he not guess and put into her head about my business? I am in despair, I have a fit of crazy rage, and I think, too, I will get ahead of him, so she will not listen to him. I say to her, "That man who ruined my life years ago, that was James Ingham!" I say to her, "I could not let it go on, dear sister. But don't let him know where I am." He comes straight to her, before he has my letter, and all she says to him is, "You have never known all these years that I had a sister." And then she tells him her sister's name, and he goes away.