Chapter 11

"Well, well!" he resumed, "so _that_ was the way you worked it. Wouldn't that make the doctor mad, though--what was the old duffer's name, anyway? You did tell me, but I've got such a poor memory--now, yours is good, I'll bet a hat."

"Well," she said, "'tain't what it used to be, but I'll never forget old Malbey's name as long as I live, nor what he looks like, either. He looks like a potato with sprouts for eyes."

Brencherly laughed. He had a very clear, if unflattering, picture of the learned physician.

"But, say," she cried suddenly, "you're not trying to get me, are you?"

"Oh, _I'm_ no friend of the doctor's," he said easily. "Why, I brought you up here to hide you away safely. That was one of my rooms you woke up in. You see, I found you on a bench in the park out there, and you went to sleep so suddenly right while I was talking to you, that I thought you must be tired out."

She leaned forward, peering at him through the dusk. Her white pinched face looked skull-like in the faint light.

"Yes," she said slowly, "seems to me that I remember some woman saying she killed Victor Mahr, and me getting angry about it--and then I don't seem to know just _what_ happened. Well, young man, I'm much obliged to you, I'm sure. 'Tain't often an old woman like me gets so well taken care of."

"But why," he questioned softly, "were you so annoyed with the other lady? She had just as much right as you had, I suppose, to kill the gentleman?"

"She had not!" she shrilled. "She had not!" Then lowering her voice to a whisper, she murmured confidentially: "_My_ name ain't Welles!"

"Why, Mrs. Welles," he exclaimed, "how can you say so? If you aren't Mrs. Welles, who are you?"

"Just as if you didn't know!" she retorted scornfully.

"Well, perhaps," he admitted. "But never mind that now. Do you know that you lost your bag of clippings?"

Her hand flew to her breast. "Now, gracious me! How could I?"

"Oh, don't worry about them," he soothed. "I've got them all in my room. You shall have them again. Don't you want to come down and get them?" He was cramped and chilled to the bone; moreover, the stars had paled, and a misty fog of floating, impalpable crystal was slowly crossing the oblong of sky left visible by the edifices on both sides of the alley. He waited anxiously for her to reply, but she seemed lost in thought. He looked at her closely. She was asleep, her head resting against the blistered paneling of the door. He shifted his position slightly, and gazed at the coming of the dawn. Gradually the crystal white gave place to faintest violet, then flushed to rose color. The details of the coping above them became sharply distinct. Below them the canyon was full of blue shadow, but already the depths were becoming translucent. He looked at his strange companion. Should he wake her, he wondered. Softly he tried the door. It was locked from within. If he allowed her to slumber in peace, she might, on awakening, be terrified at the visible depths below. Now, all was vague in the blue canyon.

Very gently he pressed her hand and called her. "Mrs. Welles."

She awoke with such a violent start that for an agonized instant he felt his hold slipping. He held her firmly, however, and steadied her with voice and hand.

"Let's go indoors," he said quite casually. "You see if we sit here much longer, it's growing light, and people will see us. Then it won't be easy for me to keep you hidden. Now, if you'll just turn about and let me go first, I'll get you down quite easily and nobody the wiser for our outing."

She looked at him for a moment as if puzzled, then her brow cleared. "Very well, young man," she said. "I must have had a nap. Now, how do you want me to turn?"

He showed her, and with his arms on the outside of the ladder, her body next the rungs--as he had often seen the firemen make their rescues, he slowly steadied her to the landing below and assisted her in at the window.

With a sigh of relief he closed the window behind them and drew down the blinds.

"Now! that's all right, Mrs. Mahr. You're quite safe."

She turned on him her beady eyes and laughed her shrill chuckle. "There, didn't I tell you, you knew all the time? I guess you'll own up that it's the wife who's got the right to kill a husband, won't you?"

"Sure," he said. "I'll see that nobody else gets the credit, believe me!"

* * * * *

XIV

With Dorothy clinging to his hand, Marcus Gard watched the door of Mrs. Marteen's library with an ever-growing anxiety. Only the presence of the child, who clasped his hand in such fear and grief, kept him from giving way. The long reign of terror that had dragged his heart and mind to the very edge of martyrdom had worn thin his already exhausted nerves, and now--now that the lost was found again, it was to learn by what a slender thread of life they held her with them.

Every moment he could spare from the demands of his responsibilities was spent in close companionship with Dorothy in the house where only the sound of soft-footed nurses, the clink of a spoon in a medicine glass or the tread of the doctor mounting the stairs broke the waiting silence. For many days she had not known them. Now came intervals of consciousness and coherence, but weakness so great that the two anxious watchers, unused to illness, were appalled by the change it wrought. Now for the twentieth time they sat longing for and yet fearing the moment when Dr. Balys, with his friendly eyes and grim mouth, would enter to them with the tale of his last visit and his hopes or fears for the next.

The lamps were lighted, the shades drawn; the fire crackled quietly on the hearth. The room was filled with the familiar perfume of violets, for Dorothy, true to her mother's custom, kept every vase filled with them.

Silently Gard patted the little cold hand in his, as the sound of approaching footsteps warned them of the doctor's coming. In silence they saw the door open, and welcomed with a throb of relief the smile on the physician's face.

"A great, a very great improvement," he said quickly, in answer to Dorothy's supplicating eyes. "Quite wonderful. She is a woman of such extraordinary character that, once conscious, we can count on her own great will to save the day for us--and to-morrow you shall both see her. To-night, little girl, you may go in and kiss her, very quietly--not a word, you know. Just a kiss and go."

"Now?" whispered Dorothy, as if she were already in the sick room. "May I go now?"

"Yes. No tears, you know, and no huggings--just one little kiss--and then come back here."

Dorothy flew from the room, light and soundless as blown thistledown. The doctor turned to his friend.

"There is something troubling her," he said gravely, "something that is eating at her heart. Ordinarily I wouldn't consent to anyone seeing her so soon; but she called for you in her delirium; and now that she is conscious, she whispers that she must consult you. Perhaps you can relieve her trouble, whatever it is. I'm going to chance it; after Dorothy has seen her, you may. I don't know exactly what to say, but--well, answer the question in her eyes, if you can--but only a moment--only give her relief. She must have no excitement."

Gard nodded.

"I think I know," he said slowly.

The doctor nodded in understanding, as the girl appeared, her face drawn by emotion.

"Oh, poor mother!" she gasped. "She seemed--so--I don't know why--grateful--to me--thanked me for coming to her--_thanked_ me, Dr. Balys, as if I wasn't longing every minute to be with her! She is not quite over her delirium yet, do you think?"

Balys smiled. "Of course she is grateful to see you. Your mother has been very close to the Great Divide, and she, more than any of us, realizes it. Now," he said, turning to Gard, "go in and make your little speech; and, mind you, say your word and go. No conversation with my patient."

Gard stood up, excitement gripping him. He was to see her eyes again, open and understanding. He was to hear her voice in coherent tones once more! The realization of this wonder thrilled him. He went to her presence as some saint of old went to the altar, where, in a dream, the vision of miracle had been promised him. All the pain and torture of the past seemed nothing in the light of this one thing--that she was herself again, to meet him hand to hand and eye to eye. He entered the quiet room and crossed its dimly lighted spaciousness to the bed. The nurse rose tactfully and busied herself among the bottles on the distant dresser.

At last, after the ordeal that they had gone through, in the lonely, hollow torture chamber of the heart, they met, and knew. With a sigh of understanding, she moved her waxen fingers, and, comprehending her gesture, he took her hand and held it, striving to impart to her weakness something of his own vigor. For a moment they remained thus. Then into her eyes, where at first great repose had shone, there came a gleam of questioning. He leaned close above her to catch her whispered words.

"She doesn't know?"

"No," he answered. "Dorothy came to me with his letter. I got everything from the safe, and I sent her away so no further messages might reach her. Now do you see?"

She looked up at him.

Again he took her hand in his and strove to give it life, as a transfusion of blood is given through the veins.

There was silence for a moment. Then her white lips framed a request.

"Bring them--all the things from the inner safe--bring them to-morrow to me." Her eyes turned toward the fire that glowed on the hearth.

He comprehended her intention.

"To-morrow," he murmured, and, turning, softly left the room. With a few words to Dorothy he hurried from the house.

Instinctively he turned to seek the sanctuary of his library, but paused ere he gave the order to his chauffeur. No, before he could call the day complete, there was something else to do. He gave the address of the house on Washington Square. The mansion, as the limousine drew up before it, looked dark, almost deserted. He mounted the steps slowly, his mind crowded with memories--with what burning hatred in his heart he had come to face the owner of that house, to disarm Victor Mahr of his revengeful power. With what primeval elation he had stood upon that topmost step and drawn long breaths of satisfaction at the thought of the encounter in which, with his own hands he had laid his enemy low! Its thrill came to him anew. Again he recalled the hurried purposeful visit that had ended with his finding the enemy passed forever beyond his reach. Vividly he saw before him the silent room--soft lighted, remotely quiet; the waxen hand of a man contrasting with the scarlet damask of a huge winged chair, that hid the face of its owner. And more distinct than all else, staring from the surrounding darkness of the walls, the glorious, palpitating semblance of a warrior of long ago. The strangely living lips, the dusky hollows where thoughtful eyes gleamed darkling. The glint of armor half covered by velvet and fur. A gloved hand that seemed to caress a sword hilt, that caught one crashing ruby light upon its pommel--the matchless Heim Vandyke--the silent, attentive watcher who had seen his sacking of the dead; who seemed, with those deep eyes of understanding, to realize and know it all--the futile clash of human wills, the little day of love and hate, the infinite mercy, and the inexorable law.

Gard paused, his hand upon the bell. Now at last he could enter this house, and wish it peace. His errand, even the all-comprehending eyes of the dead and gone warrior could look upon without their half-cynic sadness.

As he entered the great silent hall, where the footfalls of the servant were hushed, as if overawed by tragedy, he seemed to leave behind him, as distinctly as he discarded the garment he gave into the lackey's hands, the bitterness of the past. He was ushered into a small and elaborate waiting room to the right. And a moment later Teddy Mahr entered to him, with extended hands.

The boy had aged. His face was white and drawn, but the eyes that looked into Gard's face were courageous and clear.

"Thank you for coming," he said frankly. "Shall we sit here, or--in Father's room?" His mouth twitched slightly. "It really must be part of the house, you know. It was his workshop--and I want it to be mine in the future. I haven't been in there since, and, somehow, if you don't mind, sir, I'd like you to come with me--to be with me, when I first go back."

Gard nodded and smiled rather grimly. "Yes, boy--I'd like to myself. I would have asked it of you, but I feared to awaken memories that were too painful for you. Let us go in. What I have to talk over with you concerns him, too."

They crossed the hall, and Teddy unlocked the heavy door and paused to find the switch. The anteroom sprung into light. In silence they crossed the intervening space to the inner door, which was in turn unlocked.

As the soft lights were once more renewed, Gard started, so vividly had he reconstructed the scene as he had last looked upon it, with that hasty yet detailed scrutiny of the stage manager. He was almost surprised to find the great damask-covered easy chair untenanted, and order restored to the length and breadth of the library table. Involuntarily his eyes sought the wall behind the desk, where the panoply of ancient arms glinted somberly, then scanned the polished surface of the wood in search of what?--of the stiletto that was a foil in miniature. Somehow, though he knew that it, along with other relics of that dreadful passing, were in charge of the officials of the law, he had expected to see it there. Something of the impermanence of life and the indifferent, soulless permanence of things, flashed through his mind. "Art and art alone, enduring, stays to us," he quoted the words aloud unconsciously. "The bust outlasts the throne, the coin--Tiberius." His eyes were fixed upon the picture, which, though thrown in no relief by the unlighted globes above it, yet in its very obscurity, dominated the room with its all but unseen presence.

"Oh, no, not that alone," Teddy Mahr objected. "Don't you think we live on, in what we have done, in what we have been, in what we desire to do?"

Gard was silent. The words seemed irony. "I believe," he said slowly, "that the end is not yet. I believe that we are each accountable for our individual being. I believe that every one of us is his brother's keeper." He was silent. His own short, newly evolved credo, surprised him.

Teddy crossed to the great armchair, and laid his hand on it reverently.

"It was here his Fate found him," he said with quiet self-control. "Where will Fate find me--or you--I wonder?"

"Fate _has_ found me," said Gard. "Death isn't the only thing that Fate means, but Life also; and it's of Life I came to speak to you--as well as the Past, that we must realize _is_--the Past. Of course, you know what has been learned--something about what happened here. Now, I want to tell you of my plans. I want, if possible, to keep things quiet--Oh, it's only comparatively speaking--but we can avoid a great deal of publicity, if you will let me handle the matter. It's for your sake, and I'm sure your father would desire it--and--pardon me, if I presume on grounds I'm not supposed to know anything of--but for Dorothy's, too. Dorothy may have to face bereavement too. Publicity, details, the nine days' wonder--it's all unpleasant, distressing. I have arranged to see the District Attorney to-morrow night. He can, if he will, materially aid us. This poor insane woman has delusions that it would be painful for you to even know. It would certainly be most unfortunate if she were tried or examined in public. I'd rather you didn't come--did not even see her at any time. Will you trust me? You have a perfect right to do otherwise, I know--but--will you believe me when I say I've given this my best thought, and I believe I am giving you the best advice?"

He stood very erect, speaking with formality, with a certainly stilted, "learned by rote" manner, very different from his usual fiery utterances.

Teddy respected his mood and bowed with courtly deference. "You were my father's friend," he said. "You were the last to be with him. I know you are giving me the wisest advice a wise man can give, and I accept it gratefully, Mr. Gard--for myself, and father and for Dorothy, too."

The older man held out his hand. Their clasp was strong and responsive. There were tears in Teddy's eyes, and he turned his head away quickly.

"Then," said Gard briskly, "it is understood. You also know and realize why I have kept the whole matter under seal. Why I have secreted this poor demented creature, have kept even you in ignorance of her whereabouts. Oh, I know I have had your consent all along; I know you have given me your complete trust long before this; but to-night I wanted your final cooperation in the hardest task of all--to acquiesce, while in ignorance, to permit matters that concern you, and you alone most truly and deeply, to be placed in the hands of others. I thank you for your faith, boy. God bless you."

Teddy saw his guest to the door, stood in the entry watching him descend to the street and his car, and turned away with a sigh. He reëntered the room they had left, and stood for a moment in grave thought. He sighed again as he plunged the apartment in darkness and, leaving, locked the doors one after the other. Something, some very vital part of his existence was shut behind him forever. There were questions that he might not ask himself--there were veils he must not lift--there was a door in his heart, the door to the shrine of a dead man--it must be locked forever, if he would keep it a sanctuary.

In the hall once more, he turned toward the entrance; his thoughts again with the strong, kindly presence of the man who had just left him. He wondered why he had never realized the vast, unselfish human force in Gard. "What an indomitable soul," he said softly. "I must have been very blind."

* * * * *

XV

The following day found Marcus Gard at the usual morning hour in conference with Dorothy. The girl was radiant. The nurses had reported a splendid sleep and a calm awakening. She had been allowed a moment with her mother, whose voice was no longer faint, but was regaining its old vibrant quality.

The doctor entered smiling and grasped Gard's extended hand.

"You said it," he laughed. "Whatever it was, you said it, all right. Mrs. Marteen slept like a child, and there's color in her face to-day. See if you can do as well again. I'll give you five minutes--no, ten."

Preceded by the doctor, he once more found his way through the velvet-hushed corridors to the softly lighted bedroom, where lay the woman who had absorbed his every thought. Her eyes, as they met his, were bright with anxiety, and her glance at the doctor was almost resentful. But it was not part of the physician's plan to interfere with any confidence that might relieve the patient's mind. With a casual nod to Mrs. Marteen, he called to the nurse and led her from the room, his finger rapidly tapping the sick-room chart, as if medical directions were first in his mind.

Left alone, Gard approached the bed, and in answer to the unspoken question in her eyes, fumbled in his pocket and brought forth the thin packets of letters and the folded yellow cheques. One by one he laid them where her hands could touch them. He dared not look at her. He felt that her newly awakened soul was staring from her eyes at the mute evidence of a degrading past.

A moment passed in silence that seemed a year of pain; then, without a sob, without a sigh, she slowly handed him a bundle of papers, withholding them only a moment as she verified the count; then, with a slight movement she indicated the fireplace. He crossed to it and placed the papers on the coals, where they flared a moment, casting wavering shadows about the silent room, and died to black wisps. Again and again he made the short journey from the bed to the grate; each time she verified the contents of the envelopes before delivering them to his hand.

Last of all the two yellow cheques crisped to ashes. He stood looking down upon them as they dropped and collapsed into cinders, and from their ashes rose the phoenix of happiness. A glow of joyful relief lighted his spirit. There, in those dead ashes, lay a dead past--a past that might have been the black future, but was now relinquished forever, voluntarily--gone--gone! He realized a supreme moment, a turning point. Fate looked him in the eyes.

He turned, and saw a face transfigured. There was a light in Mrs. Marteen's eyes that matched the glow in his own heart. Very reverently he raised her hand and kissed it; two sudden tears fell hot upon her cheeks and her lips quivered.

He had never seen her show emotion, and it went to his heart. He saw her gaze at her hands with dilating eyes, and divined before she spoke the question she whispered:

"Who killed Victor Mahr?"

He bent above her gravely. "His wife. The wife he had cruelly wronged--his wife, who escaped at last from an asylum. She is quite mad--now. She is in our hands, and to-night, at eleven o'clock, the district attorney will be at my house to see her and have the evidence laid before him--to save Teddy," he added quickly.

She looked at him wildly. "His wife--the wife that I--"

He took her hand quickly. He feared to hear the words that he knew she was about to say.

"Yes," he nodded. "Yes--she killed him."

Mrs. Marteen sank slowly back upon her pillows and lay with closed eyes. A heavy pulse beat in the arteries at her throat, and a scarlet spot burned on either cheek.

"Nemesis," she murmured. "Nemesis." She lay still for a moment. "Thank God!" she said at length, and let her hands fall relaxed upon the counterpane. She seemed as if asleep but for the quick intake of her breath.

Gard gazed upon her with infinite tenderness, yet with sudden bitter consciousness of the isolation of each individual soul. She was remote, withdrawn. Even his eager sympathy could not reach the depths of her self-tortured heart. But now at last he knew her, a completed being. The soul was there, palpitant, awake. The something he had so sorely missed was the living and real presence of spirit. It came over him in a wave of realization that he, too, had been unconscious of his own higher self until his love had made him feel the need of it in her. They two, from the depths of self-satisfied power, had gone blindly in their paths of self-seeking--till each had awakened the other. A strange, retarded spiritual birth.

He looked back over his long career of remorseless success with something of the self-horror he had read in her eyes as he had placed the incriminating papers in her frail hands. And as she had cast contamination from her, so he promised himself he would thrust predatory greed from his own life. They were both born anew. They would both be true to their own souls.

* * * * *

XVI

The softened electric light suffused a glamour of glowing color over the rich brocade of the walls of Marcus Gard's library, catching a glint here and there on iridescent plaques, or a mellow high light on the luscious patine of an antique bronze. The stillness, so characteristic of the place, seemed to isolate it from the whole world, save when a distant bell musically announced the hour.