“As you will.” The minister rose. “I gave you your name, Anita. I consecrated your father’s soul to Heaven, and his body to the dust, and I will give his daughter in marriage to the man he chose for her protector, whenever it is your will. But, Mr. Blaine, what do you say? You seem to have more influence over Miss Lawton than I, although I can scarcely understand it. Don’t you agree with me that the world will talk?”
“I do!” responded Henry Blaine fervently. “And I say––let it! It can say of these two children only what I do––bless you, both! Sorrow and suffering and tragedy have taken their quota of these young lives––now let a little happiness and joy and sunshine and love in upon the circumspect gloom you would still cast about them! You ministers are steeped in the spiritual misery of the world, the doctors in the physical; but we crime-specialists are forced to drink of it to its dregs, physical, mental, moral, spiritual! And there is so much in this tainted, sin-ridden world of ours that is beautiful and pure and happy and holy, if we will but give it a chance!”
Doctor Franklin coughed, in a severely condemnatory fashion.
“Now that I have learned your opinion, in a broad, general way, Mr. Blaine, I can understand your point 311 of view in regard to that young criminal, Charles Pennold, when at the time of the trial you used your influence to have him paroled in your custody, instead of being sent to prison, where he belonged.”
“Exactly.” Blaine’s tone was dry. “I firmly believe that there are many more young boys and men in our prisons, who should in reality be in hospitals, or in sheltering, uplifting, sympathetic hands, than there are criminals unpunished. And you, with your broadly, professionally charitable point of view, Doctor,” he added with keen enjoyment, “will, I am convinced, be delighted to know that Charley Pennold is doing splendidly. He will develop in time into one of my most trusted, capable operatives, I have no doubt. He has the instinct, the real nose, for crime, but circumstances from his birth and even before that, forced him on the wrong side of the fence. He was, if you will pardon the vernacular, on the outside, looking in. Now he’s on the inside, looking out!”
“I sincerely trust so!” the minister responded frigidly and turned to the others. “I will leave you now. If it is your irrevocable desire to have the ceremony at noon to-morrow, I will make all the necessary arrangements. In fact, I will telephone you later, when everything is settled.”
“Oh, thank you, Dr. Franklin! I knew you wouldn’t fail us!” Anita murmured. “Don’t forget to tell Mrs. Franklin that she will hear from me. She must surely come, you know!”
When the door had closed on the minister’s broad, retreating back, Ramon Hamilton turned with a suspicion of a flush in his wan cheeks, to the detective.
“If I’d gone to any Sunday school he presided over, when I was a kiddie, I’d have been a train-robber now!” 312 he observed darkly. “I’m glad you lit into him about young Pennold, Mr. Blaine. He started it!”
“But think of the others!” Anita Lawton turned her face for a moment to the spring-like day outside. “Mr. Mallowe dead in his cell from apoplexy, Mr. Carlis imprisoned for life, Mac Alarney and all the rest facing long years behind gray walls and iron bars––oh, I know it is just; I remember what they did to my father and to me; and yet somehow in this glorious sunshine and with all the ages and ages just as bright, spreading before me, I can find charity and mercy in my heart for all the world!”