Chapter 8

"Now, don't you be scared about that, Mr. Winkle. The doctor and I have made up our minds to fight this thing out. We've found out all about the girl and that it was simply a case of utter despair. It was a question of death by slow or by quick means. Society, law, prescribed the slow method, and the girl herself chose the rapid one. Well, now, as long as she was to be the sufferer in either case, it strikes me that she had about as good a right to a voice in the matter as the rest of us. Dr. Ralston and I checkmated her. (I can't afford to have that kind of thing happen in the hotel, of course.) But, by gad, we're not going to let them make a criminal of her. All the circumstances combined to do that before and she chose death. Well, we stopped her efforts in that line too, and now the court proposes to put the finishing touches on society's other inhumanities and send her up for it. Why, good God, man, just look at it! In substance that girl said, 'I'll die before I'll be forced into association with criminals,' and the court says, 'You shall do nothing of the kind. Science shall doctor you up and we will _send_ you up. Despair is a crime.' That girl tried every way she knew of to live right. She failed. No work that she could do came her way. Well, now, will you just tell me what she was to do? You know what any man on God's earth would do if _he_ had been situated that way and _could_ have sold his virtue--in the sense we use virtue for women. Well, some women are not built that way. They prefer to die. Life don't mean enough of happiness to them to pay for the rest of it--life as it is, I mean. Well, since women don't have anything to say about what the laws and social conditions shall be, it strikes me that the situation is a trifle arbitrary, to put it mildly. We make laws for and demands upon women that no man on earth would think of complying with, and then we tell 'em they sha'n't even die to get away from the conditions we impose and about which they are not allowed a word to say. To tell you the bald truth _I'm_ ashamed of it. So when we learned that girl's story we just made up our minds that since we had taken the liberty to keep her from getting out of the world by a shorter cut than the one usually prescribed in such cases--starvation--that we'd just take the additional liberty of keeping her from being hounded to insanity and made a criminal of by legal verdict."

Mr. Winkle gave a snort that startled John Boler, for he had been running on half to himself during the last of his talk and had almost forgotten that the old man was present. When he heard the explosion he mistook its meaning and his conscience gave him another smart twinge.

"Yes, I'm sorry, _very_ sorry, Mr. Winkle, that this trouble has come to you in my house, but who could have foreseen that--a--that is to say--"

"Trouble to _me?_" exclaimed Mr. Winkle. "Trouble to _me?_ Who's said anything about any trouble to me? Do you suppose I care what those young scamps say about me in the papers? Got to make a living, haven't they? Well, society doesn't object to their making a living by taking what does not belong to 'em, if it happens to be a man's reputation or a woman's chance to ever make an honest living again. Little thefts like that don't count That is not a crime; but dear me, Johnnie, do you suppose I care a tinker's dam about that, so for as _I_ go? God bless my soul, if the dear boys can sell their three columns of rot about me, and it will keep them off the heels of some poor devil that it might ruin, why, I'm satisfied. All I've got to say to you is, if they arrest you I'll go bail, and if they fine you I'll pay it, and if they jail you--hang it, Johnnie, I'll serve your term, that's all."

Mr. Boler laughed. "My punishment shall all be vicarious then, hey? Good idea, only it won't work in every-day life. The law doesn't let other people serve out your term. But I'm just as much obliged, and--and--to tell you the truth, Mr. Winkle, I'm--that is to say, I hope you will forgive me--the fact is, I forgive you freely for the part you took in helping to addle such brains as I had when I was a child. There is my hand. 'It' went a little too far this time, and--"

Mr. Winkle took off his glasses and polished them carefully. Then he placed them astride his nose and gazed thoughtfully at his old friend's son for fully a minute before he said a word. Finally he took the extended hand, shook it solemnly, and walked slowly away, wondering to himself if it could be possible that hard-headed old John Boler's son was touched a little in the brain. Mr. Boler noticed his perplexed expression and laughed merrily to himself as he started toward the elevator. Before he reached it he turned and beckoned to Mr. Winkle to follow him. On the third floor they were joined by Dr. Ralston.

"She is so much better now, Mr. Winkle," explained the genial hotel man, "and you are an older man than either the doctor or I, so I thought-- It just struck me that she might feel-- That you might like-- Oh, damn it, would you like to go up to see her? We are going now. A clergyman has called, and if she wants to see him we shall not stay but a minute; but as there is no woman about, as she is so alone, I thought perhaps she might like to have an older man come with us, for she seems to be a very sensitive girl. She has been silent about herself so far; but she is better now, and we want to find out what work she can do, and have a place ready for her when she is able to get about. Perhaps she will talk more freely to you."

The old gentleman looked perplexed, but made no reply until they were out of the elevator. Then he took Mr. Boler by the arm and said helplessly, "I--I am a bachelor, you know, Johnnie, and--"

"No!" laughed Mr. Boler. "Well, confound it, you don't look it. Anybody would take you for the proud father of a large brood. She will think you are and it may help her. Come on."

The old gentleman entered the darkened room last and sat down silently in the deepest shadow. The doctor stepped to the bed and spoke in a low tone. A white face on the pillow turned slowly, so that the only band of light that reached in from the open door fell full upon it. Mr. Winkle shuddered as he saw for the first time the delicate, pallid, hopeless face.

"A priest?" she said feebly, in answer to the doctor. "Oh, no. Why should I want to see a priest? You've had your way. You've brought me back to battle with a world wherein I only now acknowledged my defeat." Her voice trembled with weakness and emotion, but she was looking steadily at the doctor with great wide eyes, in which there burnt the intensity of mental suffering and a determination to free her mind even at the risk of losing the good-will of those who had intended to be kind to her. "A priest! What could he do? _This_ life is what I fear. His mission is to deal with other worlds--of which I know already what he does--and that is _nothing_. Of this life I know, alas! too much. Far more than he. He cannot help me, for I could tell him much he _cannot_ know, of suffering and fortitude and hope laid low at last, without a refuge even in cloistered walls. I know what he would say. His voice would tremble and he would offer sympathy and good advice--and, maybe, alms. These are not what I want or need. I am not very old--just twenty-two--but I have thought and thought until my brain is tired, and what good could it do for him to sit beside me here and say in gentle tones that it is very sad? No doubt that he would tell me, too, how wicked I have been that I should choose to die by my own hand when life had failed me."

She smiled a little, and her wan face lit from within was beautiful still in spite of its pallor. The doctor murmured something about natural sympathy, and Mr. Boler remarked that men who were fortunate would gladly help those who were in distress if only they knew in time. She did not appear to heed them, but presently went on as though her mind were on the clergymen below waiting to see her.

"To feel that it is sad is only human; but what is to be done? That is the question now. What is to be done for suffering in _this_ world? It is life that is hard to bear, not death. Sympathy with the unfortunate is good. Kind words and gentle tones as your priest recounts their woes are touching. Yes, and when they are drawn to fit the truth would melt a heart of stone; but unless action wings the sympathy and dries the tears, the object of his tenderness is in no wise bettered--indeed, is injured. Why? Because he lulls to sleep man's conscience and thereby gives relief from pangs that otherwise had found an outlet through an open purse. And when I say an open purse I do not speak of charity, that double blight which kills the self-respect in its recipient and numbs the conscience of the 'benevolent' man who grasps the utmost penny _here_ that he may give with ostentation _there_, wounding the many that he may heal the few. All this was safe enough, no doubt, while Poverty was ignorant, for ignorance is helpless always; but now--" There was a pause. She raised her head a little from the pillow and a frightened look crept into her eyes--"but now the poor are not so ignorant that it will long be safe to play at cross purposes with suffering made too intelligent to drink in patient faith the bitter draughts of life and wait the crown of gold he promises hereafter--and wears, meanwhile, himself. A _little_ joy on earth, they think, will not bedim the lustre of a life that is to come--if such there be. You see I've thought a little in these wretched days and months just past." She was silent again for a moment. A bitter smile crossed her face and vanished. The doctor offered her a powder which she swallowed without a word. John Boler stepped to the table and poured out a glass of wine, but when he held it toward her she shook her head and closed her eyes a moment. Then she spoke again as if no break had checked her thought. "Oh, no; I do not care to see your priest. The poor no longer fail to note his willingness to risk the needle's eye with camel's back piled high with worldly gain. If he may enter thus, why may not they with simpler train and fewer trappings? The poor are asking this to-day of prince and priest alike. No answer comes from either. Evasion does not satisfy. I ask, but no one answers. The day once was when silence passed for wisdom. That day is gone. To-day we are asking why? and why? and why? no longer, when? And so the old reply, 'hereafter,' does not fit the query. Why, not when, is what we urge to-day, and your replies must change to fit the newer, nearer question. When I say _your_ replies, I do not mean you, doctor, nor your friend. You two meant kindly by me. Yes, I know. I am not claiming that you are at fault, nor they--the fortunate--the prince and priest. I understand. Blind nature took her course and trod beneath her cruel feet the millions who were born too weak to struggle with the foes they found within themselves and in their stronger brothers. I know, I know."

She lay back on the pillow and closed her eyes wearily. Mr. Winkle drew near and stood behind the doctor's chair, still keeping in the shadow, but watching her pale face with an intensity born of a simple nature easy to stir and quick to resolve. The doctor touched her pulse with a light finger and gravely nodded his head as he glanced at his watch. Her heavy eyelids did not lift but her voice broke the silence again. There was a cadence in it that gave a solemn thrill to the three men as they listened, the doctor watching with professional interest the effect of the powder he had given; the other two waited, expecting they knew not what.

"The ignorance and cruelty of all the past, the superstitious fears, the cunning prophecies, the greeds and needs of men, joined hands and marched triumphant. They did not halt to ask the fallen what had borne them down. They did not silence bugle blasts of joy where new-made graves were thick. No silken flag was lowered to warm to life the shivering forms of comrades overcome and fallen by the way. The strong marched on and called themselves the brave. Sometimes they were. But other times the bravest had gone down, plucked at, perchance, by wife or child or friend whose sorrow or distress reached out and twined itself about the strong but tender heart and held it back until the foot lost step, and in the end the eye lost sight of those who only now had kept him company."

She lifted her small white hand and pointed as if to a distant battlefield, but her eyes remained closed. The doctor glanced uneasily at his watch and took her other wrist in his fingers again.

"The next battalion trampled him. The priest bent low and whispered 'over there, hereafter,' and slipped the treasure of the fallen hero beneath his ample robe to swell the coffers of the church, since dead men need no treasures."

Her voice was infinitely sad but she laughed a little and opened her eyes. They fixed themselves upon the silvered head of Mr. Winkle standing behind the doctor's chair.

"Perhaps I shock you. I do not mean to, but I have thought and thought these last few wretched months, and looking at the battlefields of life backward through all the ages, I thought I saw at night, in camp, the priest and conqueror meet beside the campfire and council for the next day's march. I thought I heard the monarch say, 'I go before and cleave my way. You follow me and gather up two things--the spoils I miss and all the arrows of awakened scorn and wrath embedded in the breasts of those of our own ranks who fall or are borne down, lest they arise and overtake us while we sleep and venge themselves on us. Tell them to wait. Their time will come. Tell them _I_ clear the way for them, and _you_ forgive a hatred which you see is growing up within their wicked breasts. Quiet, soothe, and shame them into peace. Assure them that _hereafter_ they, not we, shall have the better part. Gain time. Lay blame to me if need be; but always counsel patience, waiting, acquiescence, peace, submission to the will of God--_your will and mine_. Your task is easy. No danger lies therein. I take the risk and share with you the glory and the gain.' I heard the priest disclaim all greed of gain and go to do his part as loyal subject and as holy man. I saw all this and more before I took the last resolve you balked. You meant it kindly, doctor, yes, I know, but I am very tired and what is there ahead for me, or such as I, on battlefields like these?"

No one ventured a reply. She closed her eyes and waited. The doctor took another powder from his case and held it above her lips. She smiled and swallowed it.

"We take our powders very docilely," she said, with a bitter little laugh as the wine-glass left her hand and Mr. Boler's finger touched her own. He noticed that hers was very cold.

"They used to make us sleep in the good old days of priest and monarch, but our nerves are wrong just now. Our powders only make us think the more and have strange visions."

Dr. Ralston glanced at Mr. Boler and nodded his head mysteriously. The powder was beginning to work, he thought, for she had reverted to the old vision, and talked as if she were in a dream. "That way it was, another way it is, and still another will be," she was saying. "To-day the honest poor, the hampered weak, are defeated, dazed, and some of us are hopeless. Others there are who cling to hope and life and brood on vengeance. That is your danger, gentlemen, for days that are to come. You will have to change your powders. The old prescriptions do not make us sleep. We think, and think, and think. We strain our nerves and break our hearts, for what? A life as cold and colorless and sad as death itself--to some of us far sadder--and yet you will not even let us die. Again we ask you, why? There is no place on earth for such as we, unless we will be criminals. That is the hinge whereon the future turns. How many will prefer the crime to want? What dangers lie behind the door that now is swinging open? Intelligence has taught us scorn for such a grovelling lot, has multiplied our needs, and turned the knife of suffering in quivering wounds no longer deadened by the anaesthetics of ignorant content with life or superstitious fear of death. The door is swinging on the hinge. The future has to face creatures the past has made like demons. Some, like myself, behind the door, who do not love mere life, will turn the sharpened dagger on themselves. But there are others--"

Her voice sank. The three men thought that she had fallen asleep at last. The doctor drew a long satisfied breath and consulted his watch for the fourth time, making a mental note for future use in giving the drug whose action he was watching. He started and frowned, therefore, when her voice broke the silence again.

"Others there are, in spite of pain and anguish, in spite of woe and fear, who cling to life--who read in eyes they worship the pangs of hunger, cold, and mental agony. Where will their vengeance go? Who knows?"

She opened her great eyes and looked first at one and then at another, and repeated, "Who knows?"

Again there was no reply. After a long pause Mr. Winkle said gently:

"There is a place in life for girls like you. I shall charge myself with it. You shall find work and joy yet, my child. Now go to sleep. Be quiet. We have let you talk too long. Stop thinking sadly now. You think too much. You _think_ too much."

She closed her eyes quickly and there was a tightening of the lips that left them paler than before. Then a tear rolled slowly down her temple. Before it reached the pillow the doctor bent forward and dried it softly with his silk handkerchief. She opened her eyes wide at the touch. "'Be quiet?'" she repeated, "'stop thinking?' Oh, yes; _I_ will be quiet, but the rest, the others? Those with whom you do not charge yourself, who find no work, no joy? Will _they_ be quiet, will they stop thinking? Oh, yes; I can be quiet, very quiet, but the rest, the rest? The others who think too much--_all, all?_"

There was a wild look in her dry eyes. The doctor touched her wrist again and said softly to the men beside him, "It is working now. She will sleep. But the shock of all her trouble has left her mind unhinged, poor child. 'The rest? the others?' _We_ cannot care for all the countless poor. Her brain is surely touched, poor child, poor child. How can we tell whether the others will stop thinking, or how, or when? Her mind was wandering, and now she sleeps, poor child. Come out. She is best alone."

They closed the door gently behind them and stood a moment in awkward silence outside, each one afraid to speak and yet ashamed of his own tender helplessness. At last Mr. Winkle looking steadily in the crown of his hat, said huskily, "By gad, boys, there is something rotten in the state of Denmark." They all three laughed with an effort, but kept their eyes averted.

"It is a rat in the wainscoting of the storeroom," said John Boler, with a desperate attempt to regain his old manner and tone, "and I've got to go and look after it or there'll be the devil to pay with the Boler House." And he ran down the stairs three steps at a time heartily ashamed of his own remark, but determined not to allow the tears to show themselves either in his eyes or voice, and feeling that his only safety was in flight.

But Mr. Winkle had not stood silently behind the doctor's chair all that time for nothing, and if his nature was somewhat light, and if he had taken life so far as something of a jest, he was by no means without a heart. He did not now trouble himself very greatly about the tangled problems of existence, but he felt quite equal to dealing with any given case effectively and on short notice. With systems he was helpless, with individuals he could deal promptly. Therefore he, in common with the doctor and Mr. Boler, and, indeed, with most of us, occupied himself with the girl he saw suffering and in need.

When she had cried out, "But the rest, the others, what of them?" he had said nothing, because he had nothing to say. He was vaguely aware that when the smallpox broke out on one of Dr. Ralston's patients that astute practitioner did not essay to treat each individual pustule separately as the whole of the disease and so devote his entire skill and mind to each in turn until it was cured. But then he could not undertake to cure the whole human race of its various social ailments any more than Dr. Ralston could hope to look after all of its physical pains. So Mr. Winkle took this one little social pustule upstairs as his particular charge, and in his own peculiar way went about securing better conditions for her, leaving the "others who think too much" to somebody else, or to fate, as the case might be. Therefore, when Mr. Winkle reached the street door and met an officer of the law who had come prepared to learn the whereabouts of the would-be suicide or else take Mr. John Boler and Dr. Ralston into custody, the old gentleman made up his mind to begin his part in the future proceedings without further delay.

Unknown to Mr. Winkle himself, literature had lost a great novelist when he had gone into the mercantile business, and the surprises which he now sprang upon the policeman were no less astonishing and interesting to himself than they were to that astute guardian of the public morals.

"Want to know where she is, do you? Well, don't worry Johnnie Boler any more. They've already got him so his mind is a little affected. I'll tell you all about that girl. Her name is Estelle Morris. She worked for me for nine years as a nursery governess. Last month my youngest child died, and it upset Estelle so that she has been out of her head ever since. I thought if I'd bring her to the city maybe she might get over it, but she didn't, and the doctor gave her some stuff and she took a double dose by mistake, and all the row came from that and the long tongues of the servants, pieced out by the long pencils of the reporters. See!"

"Is that so?" exclaimed the officer. "Where is she now?"

Mr. Winkle had not thought of that, and he did not know exactly what to say; but he agreed to produce her in court on the following day if so ordered, and there the matter dropped for the moment.

That evening there appeared in a paper this "want:" "A good-looking young woman who is willing to lie like a pirate for the space of one hour for the sum of $50. May have to go to court." The number of handsome girls who were anxious to lend the activity of their tongues for the purpose named and the amount stipulated was quite wonderful. One particularly bright young miss remarked that she had been in training for just that position for years. She was confidential correspondent for a broker. Mr. Winkle accepted her on the spot.

"Now," said he, "look solemn and sad. That is right. You do it first rate. Whatever I tell about you you are to stick to. Understand that?"

"Perfectly. Years of practice," she responded, with entire simplicity and without a suspicion of humor.

"Your name is Estelle Morris, and you have been the governess of my children for nine years. How old are you?"

"Nineteen," said Estelle Morris demurely.

"Good gracious, girl, what could you teach at ten years of age? You've got to be older. Take the curl out of your hair in front and put on a bonnet with strings. I heard my niece say that made her look ten years older. Mind you, you are not a day under twenty-six. Not a day."

"All right," said Estelle Morris thoughtfully.

"You are to look sick, too, and--"

"Oh, I can fix _that_ easy enough. I'll--"

"Well, then fix it and come back here at exactly two o'clock this afternoon."