Part 24

"Why, it was a piece that appeared in one of the morning papers, a vile scurrilous sheet that had always attacked my father covertly; but this was the first open attack, and it was simply a huge lie. And it has been repeated again and again. Why, only the other day the same paper republished it with huge headlines and charged that my father was the cause of all the trouble in the city--my father, who is the best, the kindest, the most charitable man I ever knew--who has almost beggared himself trying to furnish facilities to the poor! Oh, I can't bear it! I wish I had that man under my heel this minute! I would just grind him to powder! I would!" She turned, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks glowing with fervor, her face rigid with resolution, her white teeth shut together as if they were a trap to hold her enemy till death. "Give the cat milk! I could have poured molten metal down that man's throat--cheerfully--yes, cheerfully."

It may be well believed that as she proceeded, the amusement died out of my face and mind. I turned the other way to keep her from seeing the change that must have come over me. I was thinking hard and I thought quickly, as, 'tis said, a drowning man thinks. Life and death both flashed before me--life in her presence, in the sunlight of those last weeks, and the shadow of perpetual banishment. But one thing was certain. I must act and at once. I turned to her and was almost driven from my determination by the smile in her eyes, the April sunlight after the brief storm. But I seized myself and took the leap.

"I wrote that piece."

She actually laughed.

"Yes, I know you did."

"I did--seriously, I wrote it; but----"

I saw the horror oversweep her face. It blanched suddenly, like the pallor on a pool when a swift cloud covers the sun, and her hand went up to her bosom with a sudden gesture as of pain.

"Oh!" she gasped. The next second she sprang up and sped away like a frightened deer.

I sprang up to follow her, to make my explanation to her; but though, after the first twenty steps, she stopped running and came down to a walk, it was still a rapid walk, and she was fleeing from me. I felt as though the gates of Paradise were closing on me. I followed her at a distance to see that she reached home safely, and with a vain hope that she might slacken her gait and so give me an excuse to make such explanation as I could. She, however, kept on, and soon after she passed beyond the park I saw a trap draw up beside the pavement, and, after a moment in which the driver was talking to her, a young man sprang out and throwing the reins to a groom, joined her and walked on with her. In the light of the street lamp I recognized young Canter. I turned back cursing him; but most of all, cursing myself.

It has been well observed that there is no more valuable asset which a young man can possess than a broken heart. In the ensuing weeks I bore about with me if not a broken, at least a very much bruised and wounded one. It is a tragic fact in the course of mortality that a slip of a girl should have the power to shut the gates of happiness on a man. There were times when I rebelled against myself at being as big a fool as I knew myself to be, and endeavored to console myself by reverting to those wise bits of philosophy which our friends are always offering to us in our distress from their vantage ground of serene indifference. There were doubtless as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it, but I was not after fishing--somehow I could not get a grasp on the idea that there were as lovely and attractive girls in the world whom I was likely to meet as Eleanor Leigh, whom I now felt I had lost and might possibly never recover.

I walked the streets for some time that evening in a very low state of mind, and Dix, as he trudged solemnly along with his head now against my leg, now a step in the rear, must have wondered what had befallen me. By midnight he looked as dejected as I felt. Even when at length, having formulated my letter, I took him out for a run, he did not cheer up as he usually did. That dog was very near a human being. He sometimes appeared to know just what went on in my mind. He looked so confoundedly sorry for me that night that I found it a real consolation. He had the heart of a woman and the eyes of an angel. The letter I wrote was one of the best pieces of advocacy I ever did. I set forth the facts simply and yet clearly and, I felt, strongly. I told the plain truth about the paper, and I had the sense not to truckle, even while I expressed my regret that my work had been made the basis of the unauthorized and outrageous attack on her father and the lie about herself. With regard to the rights of the public and the arrogance of the class that ran the railways and other quasi-public corporations, I stood to my guns.

This letter I mailed and awaited, with what patience I could command, her reply. Several days passed before I received any reply, and then I got a short, little cool note saying that she was glad to see that I felt an apology was due to her honored father, and was happy to know that I was not the author of the outrageous headlines. It was an icy little reply to a letter in which I had put my whole heart and I was in a rage over it. I made up my mind that I would show her that I was not to be treated so. If this was the way in which she received a gentleman's full and frank amende, why, I would have no more to do with her. Anger is a masterful passion. So long as it holds sway no other inmate of the mind can enter. So long as I was angry I got on very well. I enjoyed the society of my friends and was much gayer to outward appearances than usual. I spent my evenings with Marvel and Wolffert or some of my less intimate companions, treated myself and them to the theatre, and made altogether a brave feint at bravery. But my anger died out. I was deeply in love and I fell back into a slough of despond. I thought often of confiding in John Marvel; but for some reason I could not bring myself to do so.

Adam driven suddenly out of Paradise with Eve left behind to the temptation of the serpent will give some idea of what I felt. I had the consolation of knowing that I had done the right thing and the only thing a gentleman could have done; but it was a poor consolation when I looked back on the happiness I had been having of late in the presence of Eleanor Leigh. And now between her and me was the flaming sword which turned every way.

My heart gave a sudden drop into my boots one evening when I came across an item in the society columns of an afternoon paper, stating that it was believed by the friends of the parties, that Mr. Canter would, before very long, lead to the altar one of the reigning belles of the city. I had always disliked "Society Columns," as the expression of a latter-day vulgarity. Since then I have detested them.

I finally determined to try to get an interview with her whose absence clouded my world, and wrote her a note rather demanding one. As I received no reply to this, I called one evening to see her, if possible. The servant took in my card and a moment later returned with the statement that Miss Leigh was not at home. I was sure that it was not true. I came down the steps white with rage and also with a sinking of the heart. For I felt that it was all over between us.

Those whom the Gods hate they first make mad, and it was by no accident that the passion of anger and the state of madness have come to be known by the same terms in our tongue. I have always held since then that every true lover has something of madness in him while the passion rages. I could cheerfully have stormed her house and carried Eleanor Leigh away. I recalled with grim envy William the Conqueror's savage wooing when he met the Count's daughter who had insulted him and rode her down, to receive soon afterward her full submission. This somewhat barbarous form of proving one's passion having passed out of vogue, I testified my spleen by falling into a state of general cynicism which I vented so generously that Wolffert finally asked me what had happened to me, and conjectured that I must have met with a cross in love. This recalled me sufficiently to myself to make me dissemble my feelings, at least when in his presence. But I was certainly not rational for some time, and, sleeping or waking, I was haunted by the voice of the siren to whom I had fatally listened. What must I do in my folly the next time I met Miss Leigh, which I did quite accidentally one day on the street, but carry my head so high and bow so slightly that the next time we met, which was far from being as accidental as it might have appeared, she carried her head very high and did not bow at all. It was at some sort of a fair held for charity--and, ever since then I have hated them. Feeling assured that Eleanor Leigh would go, I attended myself with no more charitable object than to benefit a very wretched young lawyer, who was deeply conscious that he had made a fool of himself the last time he saw her. When I arrived, she was nowhere to be seen and I was on the point of leaving when, turning, I found her standing in the midst of a group, her arms full of flowers, which she was selling. All I have to say is that since that time I have felt that Pluto was entirely justified in that little affair in the Sicilian meadows. Thinking to make the amende for my foolish airiness when I last saw her, I made my way up to Miss Eleanor Leigh; but as I approached and was in the very act of speaking to her she turned her back on me. It was a dead cut--a public insult, as humiliating as she could make it. I left the fair in a rage which lasted long. As I wandered through the forlorn streets that night I fed my heart on instances of woman's inconstancy, and agreed with the royal lover that, "Mal habil qui s'y fie." But it was a poor occupation and brought me little consolation. In his "Inferno," Dante has given twelve different and successive circles in the depths of perdition, each lower than the other. I passed through every one of them, and with no companion but my own folly.

XXX

SEEKING ONE THAT WAS LOST

One may not hate his personal enemy; but one should hate an enemy to mankind. Had I known what fresh cause I had to hate Pushkin, I should not have been so supine.

Since I began to work seriously my practice had increased, and I was so interested in working on my old ladies' case that I was often detained at my office until late at night; and several times on my way home I observed a man acting somewhat curiously. He would keep along behind me, and if I turned back, would turn up a by-street or alley. He was a big, brawny fellow, and I never saw him except at night. At first, it had made no impression on me; but at length, I noticed him so often that it suddenly struck me that he was following me. Rendered suspicious by my former experience, I began quietly to test him, and was having a very interesting time leading him around the town, when unexpectedly I discovered who he was. It was a singular feeling to find oneself shadowed; to discover that the man who has passed all others indifferently in the crowd has singled you out and follows you, bound to you by some invisible thread, tracking you through the labyrinth of the thoroughfares; disregarding all the thousands who pass with their manifold interests and affairs, and that, singling you out with no known reason, he sticks to you through all the mazes of the multitudes. It comes to you gradually, dawning by degrees; then bursts on you suddenly with a light that astonishes and amazes. You are startled, frightened, incredulous; then you suspect, test, and are convinced; you suddenly spring from obscurity and indifference into an object of interest to yourself; and then it becomes an intellectual game between hunter and hunted. New powers awaken, dormant since the days when man lived in the forest.

When I awoke to the fact that the big man I had noticed was following me, for a moment the sensation was anything but pleasant. My hair almost stirred on my head. The next moment anger took the place of this feeling--indignation that one should dare to shadow me, to spy on my actions. I determined to confront the spy and thwart him. It was not difficult to do; he was an awkward fellow. The game was easier than I had supposed. One night when I had observed him following me, waiting until I reached a favorable spot, I turned quickly with my hand on my pistol, which I had put in my pocket, and faced him under a street lamp, stepping immediately in front of him and blocking his way.

"Otto!"

With a growl he pulled his hat down closer over his brow and, stepping aside, passed on. I went home in a maze. Why should he follow me? I had not long to wait before I was enlightened.

One evening shortly afterward I was about to leave my office when there was a heavy step outside the door, and without a knock the door flew open, and the old Drummer entered. He looked so haggard and broken that I was on my feet in a second.

"What is the matter?" I gasped. "Is any one dead?"

"Vorser! Elsa?--Vere iss Elsa?" He stood before me like a wounded bison at bay, his eyes red with passion.

"Elsa! What!--'Where is she?' Tell me----?"

"Fhat haf you done vit my daughter?"

"Your daughter! What do you mean?" I asked quietly. "I have not seen her since I left your house. Tell me what has occurred."

He soon saw that I knew nothing of her, and his face changed. Yet he hesitated.

"Ze Count said--" He began hesitatingly and stopped, thinking over something in his mind.

It all came to me in a second. That scoundrel! It was all accounted for now--the change in the family toward me--the notice to leave--the spying of Otto. Count Pushkin had used me as a blind to cover his own wickedness. I suddenly burst out into a wrath which opened the old Drummer's eyes. What I said of Pushkin cannot be repeated. What I proceeded to do was wiser. Why had I not pitched him out of the window that first evening, and so have ended his wicked career! I felt as if I were the cause of my friend's wretchedness; of Elsa's destruction. I sat the old fellow down in a chair, and made him tell me all the facts.

He informed me that for some time past he and her mother had noticed that Elsa had not been the same to Otto, and Otto had been unhappy, and had thrown up his place; then she had wished to break with him; but they would not let her. And of late she had been staying out a good deal, visiting her friends, she said, and when they urged her to marry Otto, she had always begged off, and Otto was wretched, and they were all wretched. Count Pushkin had intimated that she was in love with me, and that I was the cause of her action. They could not believe it.

"Yet, ze Count--?" The old fellow was not able to go on. I relieved him and he took up the thread elsewhere, and told of Otto's following me to find out. And two or three nights before there had been trouble; she had come in late, and her mother had scolded her, and insisted on knowing where she had been, and she had told her a lie--and they had insisted on her carrying out her agreement with Otto, to which she assented. And this morning she was missing.

The old fellow broke down again. His grief was almost more for Otto than for himself. "He iss a good boy; he iss a good boy," he repeated again and again.

"Maybe, we were too harsh with her, sir, and now she may be dead." He was overcome by grief.

I did not believe she was dead; but I feared for her a worse fate. He still did not suspect Pushkin. The Count was his friend, he said; he had known him since his boyhood.

"I will find her," I said. And I knew I should if I had to choke the truth out of Pushkin's throat.

"If you do, I vill bless you, and her mother vill, too!"

I told him to go home and console her mother.

"She has gone to see the preacher. He will know how to console her--and he will help her also."

"Why do you not go to the police?"

"Oh! Ze police! Ze police! Efery one say 'Ze police!' Ze police vill nod do notings for me. I ham nod von Union-man. Zay haf zeir orders. Ven I hax ze police zay say, 'Don't vorry, Elsa vill come home by-m-by, ven she get readee.'"

I had heard the same thing said about the police, and recalled what I had heard McSheen say to Wringman about keeping them from interfering. But I felt that they were probably right in their views about Elsa.

I had recourse to my detective again, and gave him all the information I possessed.

"Oh! We'll find out where she is," he said, with that inscrutably placid look on his face which I had learned was the veil under which he masked both his feelings and his purposes. "You can tell her father she isn't dead." This in answer to the old man's suggestion that she had been murdered, which I had repeated. Then he added, "But there are worse things than death."

His eyes glistened and he buttoned up his coat in a way he had when there was any sharp work on hand. It always reminded me of a duellist. In a few days he had a clew to the lost girl, and justified my suspicions.

It was as I feared. Pushkin had inveigled her from her home and had taken her to a house which, if not precisely what I apprehended, was not less vile. It was one of those doubly disreputable places which, while professing to be reasonably respectable, is really more dangerous than the vilest den. The girl was possibly not actually at the place now, but had been there. Getting some suspicion of the place, she had insisted on leaving, but the woman of the house, said Langton, knew where she was.

"She is a hard one to handle. She has protection."

"Of the police?"

"Of those who control the police. She has powerful friends."

"I don't care how powerful they are, I will get that girl," I said.

I hesitated what to do. I had not wholly abandoned hope of making up my trouble with Eleanor Leigh. I did not wish my name to be mixed up in a scandal which probably would get into the papers. I determined to consult John Marvel, and I said so to Langton.

"You mean the preacher? Won't do any harm. He's straight. He's helping to hunt for her, too. I saw him just after I located her, and he had already heard."

I determined to go and see him, and told Langton to keep on following up his clew. When I went to Marvel's house, however, he was not at home. He had been away all day, since early morning, the girl who opened the door told me. I went to the police station. Marvel had been there and made a complaint about a house, and they were going to send a man around to investigate.

He was a terrible crank, that preacher was, but all the same he was a good sort of a fellow, the officer said. Some people thought he was too meddlesome and mixed up too much with affairs that did not concern him, but for his part, he had seen him do things and go where it took a man to go. As the officer was going in a short while, I determined to accompany him, so waited an hour or so till he was detailed, and then set out. When we arrived the place, for all outward signs of evil, might have been a home for retired Sunday-school teachers--a more decent and respectable little hotel in a quiet street could not have been found in town. Only the large woman, with heightened complexion, Mrs. Snow, who, at length, appeared in answer to the summons of the solemn officer, seemed to be excited and almost agitated. She was divided between outraged modesty and righteous indignation. The former was exhibited rather toward me, the latter toward the officer. But this was all. She swore by all the Evangelists that she knew nothing of the girl, and with yet more vehemence that she would have justice for this outrage. She would "report the officer to the Captain and to his Honor the Mayor, and have the whole --th precinct fired." The officer was very apologetic. All we learned was that, "A lady had been brought there by a gentleman who said he was her husband, but she had refused to let her in. She did not take in people she did not know." As there was nothing to incriminate her, we left with apologies.

The strongest ally a man can enlist in any cause is a clear-headed, warm-hearted woman. In all moral causes they form the golden guard of the forces that carry them through. John Marvel's absence when I called to consult him was due to his having got on the trace of Elsa. Another of my friends had also got on her trace, and while I was hesitating and thinking of my reputation, they were acting. As soon as he learned of Elsa's disappearance he consulted the wisest counsellor he knew. He went, with rare good sense, to Eleanor Leigh. He had a further reason for going to her than merely to secure her aid. He had heard my name connected with the affair, and old John had gone to set me straight with her. He did not know of the trouble at the Charity Fair, and Miss Leigh did not enlighten him. Miss Eleanor Leigh, having learned through Marvel that the Loewens were in great trouble, as soon as her school was out that day, went to the Loewens' house to learn what she could of the girl, with a view to rendering all the aid she could. A new force had been aroused in her by John Marvel. Precisely what she learned I never knew, but it was enough, with what she had gleaned elsewhere, to lead to action. What she had learned elsewhere pointed to a certain place in town as one where she might secure further information. It was not a very reputable place--in fact, it was a very disreputable place--part saloon, part dance-hall, part everything else that it ought not to have been. It was one of the vilest dens in this city of Confusion, and the more vile because its depths were screened beneath a mass of gilding and tinsel and glitter. It lay on one of the most populous streets and, dazzling with electric lights, furnished one of the showiest places on that street. It was known as "The Gallery," an euphemism to cover a line of glaring nude figures hung on the walls, which, by an arrangement of mirrors, were multiplied indefinitely. Its ostensible owner was the same Mr. Mick Raffity, who kept the semi-respectable saloon opening on the alley at the back of the building where I had my office. Its keeper was a friend of Mr. Raffity's, by the name of Gallagin, a thin, middle-aged person with one eye, but that an eye like a gimlet, a face impervious to every expression save that which it habitually wore: a mixture of cunning and ferocity.

The place was crowded from a reasonable hour in the evening till an unreasonable hour in the morning, and many a robbery and not a few darker crimes were said to have been planned, and some perpetrated, around its marble tables.

At the side, in a narrow street, was a private entrance and stairway leading to the upper stories, over the door of which was the sign, "Ladies' Entrance." And at the rear was what was termed by Mr. Gallagin, a "Private Hotel."

Young women thronged the lower floor at all hours of the night, but no woman had ever gone in there and not come out a shade worse, if possible, than when she entered. The Salvation Army had attempted the closing of this gilded Augean Stable, but had retired baffled. Now and then a sporadic effort had been made in the press to close or reform it, but all such attempts had failed. The place was "protected." The police never found anything amiss there, or, if they did, were promptly found to have something amiss with their own record. To outward appearance it was on occasions of inspection as decorous as a meeting-house. It was shown that the place had been offered for Sunday afternoon services, and that such services had actually been held there. In fact, a Scripture-text hung on the wall on such occasions, while close at hand hung the more secular notice that "No excuse whatever would be taken if one lady or gentleman took another lady's or gentleman's hat or wrap."