Chapter 14

The high tower of his heaven-grasping ambitions seemed suddenly insecure and founded upon shifting sands. The incense the sycophant world burned before him became a stench in his nostrils. The fetishes he had tossed to the crowd now faced him as real gods; and they were not to be blinded with dust, nor bought with gold. The specious and tortured verbiage of twisted law never for one moment deceived the open ears of Justice, even though it tied her hands, and her voice was the voice of condemnation. Honor--he had sold it. Faith--he had not kept it. Truth--he had distorted to fit whatever garb he had chosen for her to wear. And, withal, he had hailed himself conqueror; had placed his laurels himself upon his head, ranking all others beneath him. The clamor of the mob he had interpreted as acclaim. Now he heard above the applause the hoarse chorus of disdain and fear. It had been his pride to see men fall back and make way at the very mention of his name. Now he felt that they shrank from him--not before his greatness, but from his very contact. He had driven his fellow creatures from him, and in return, they withdrew themselves.

If they came to him fawning, they but showed their lower natures. He had not called forth the power for good, from these the necromancy of his personality had touched. He had conjured evil, he had pandered to base forces.

The realization had not come easily. His habits of thought would return and blind him as of old. He had laughed at himself; he had derided the new gods, he had disobeyed them and their strange commands--only to return crestfallen, contrite, feeling himself unworthy. He became aware that he had run a long and victorious race for a prize he had craved--only to find that the goal to which it brought him was not that of his old desires. That was but withered leaves, spattered with the blood of those who lost. He had turned from it, and now his steps sought another conquest and another reward. He must strive for a goal unseen, but more real and more worthy than the little crowns of little victories.

His somber thoughts left him refreshed, as if from a bath of deep, clear waters. His spirit felt clean and elated as it rose from the depths. It was with a smile that he pushed back his chair and rose from the table where, for a full hour, he had sat in silent self-communing. He still smiled as he entered the motor and was driven to Mrs. Marteen's.

He found her awaiting him, with outstretched hands, and the look in her eyes that he always longed for--the look he had divined rather than seen on that day of days, when the Past had been renounced and consumed. There was no embarrassment in their meeting. True, there had been daily exchange of letters during the months of her enforced exile; but they had been only friendly, surface tokens, giving no real hint of the realities beneath. But they had grown toward one another, not apart. It was as if they had never been sundered; as if all the experiences of all the intervening days had been experiences in common.

He gazed at her happily now, rejoicing in the firmness of her step, the brightness of her eyes, the healthy color of her skin. She came with him gladly at his suggestion and they drove in silence through the crowded streets and the silence was in truth, golden. At the door of the great house he descended, gave her his hand and conducted her quickly through the vast, soft-lighted hall to his own sanctum. He closed the door quietly and pressed the electric switch. Instantly the mellow lights glowed above the portrait, which throbbed in response, a glittering gem of warmth and beauty.

Mrs. Marteen's body stiffened; the color receded from her face, leaving it ashen. Her great eyes dilated.

"Do you know why it is there?" he asked at length in a whisper.

"Yes," she murmured. "We have traveled the same road--you and I. I understand."

He took her hand and raised it to his lips. "You don't know all that this picture recalls to me--and I hope you will never know; but you and I," he said slowly, weighing his words, "are not of the breed of those who cry out with remorse. We are of those who live differently. That is the constant reminder of what _was_. I do not want to forget. I want to remember. Every time the iron enters my soul I shall know the more keenly that I have at last a soul."

Again they fell silent.

"According to the accepted code I suppose I should make a clean breast of it, even to Dorothy, and go into retirement," she said at length. "I have thought of that, too; but I cannot _feel_ it. I want to be active; to be able to use myself for betterment; make of myself an example of good and not of evil. What I did was because of what I was. I am that no longer, and my expression must be of the new thing that has become me--a soul!" she said reverently.

"A soul," he repeated. "It has come to me, too. And what is left to me of life has no place for regrets. I have that which I must live up to--I _shall_ live up to it."

"We have, indeed, traveled the same road; but you--have led me." She looked at him with complete comprehension.

"We will travel the new road together," he said finally, "hand in hand."

THE END