Part 2

In the middle of the forenoon he heard Ann's step pounding heavily up the stairs of the quiet house.

"She's away out again, Misther Jimmie!" the big woman panted. "I but shtepped out the alley to the corner for an onion. An' I'm just back this blessed minute. An' she's away!"

Wardwell started for the door, but came back. "There's no use going out now," he said. "I wouldn't know where to look. Probably she has started off on some new thought. But about noon I'll know where to look for her. Don't worry, Ann; she's not in the least danger." But it was a confidence he was far from feeling, whatever his common sense might tell him.

Long before noon he was walking Fifth Avenue expecting to see Augusta upon her quest among the working women. But Augusta did not come. He went home, not knowing what else to do, and sat stupid and useless through the entire afternoon, waiting until it should be time to go to look for her in the places they had been haunting in the evenings of the last week or so.

Just as the dusk was gathering he heard her key in the door and ran down the stairs. She staggered into his arms in the hall and began to cry fearfully. They were the first tears that he had seen her cry in these weeks, and he did not know whether it was good or bad.

"Oh Jimmie, Jimmie," she cried, with the first direct appeal that she had made to him, "they wouldn't let me have her! They wouldn't let her come with me! I wanted to take her by the hand and bring her home. And they wouldn't--She wanted to come!--They wouldn't let me! Oh, Jimmie, they said she was a crazy woman! My darling good mamma! She isn't crazy, she just forgot.

"She said she was Rosie Dale--that was her name before she was married--and that she was eighteen. They had it in the book! And the man laughed!"

"Yes, yes, dear. No, no, of course not," Wardwell repeated soothingly as he carried her up to her mother's room. When Ann had brought her something to drink he sat down beside the lounge on which Augusta lay and began to question quietly.

"Tell Ann and me," he prompted, "just where you went first."

"To Bellevue. It came to my mind so strong. I just had to go there. And I begged and begged with the man who had the book, and then another man came, and at last they let me see the book myself. And there it was, Rosie Dale. You see she'd just forgotten. And I asked the man, and he laughed. He said she was sixty if she was a day! And she thought she was eighteen! They brought her there from a hat factory. She used to make hats when she first came to New York, a young girl. I know it all now."

"And then?" questioned Wardwell quietly.

"Oh, Jimmie, that was more than a week ago. They took her there for 'observation.' Nobody knew anything about her. And they sent her to Ward's Island.

"I went there over the cold, black water. Oh! it was so cold and so black. But I didn't care, I was going to get my darling mother.

"But they wouldn't let me go to her. They said it wasn't the day. And one man was so cruel. He said people ought to take better care of their folks. And, oh, it wasn't my fault! Was it, Jimmie?"

"No, no, child, of course not."

"And then they did let me into the place. And I waited and waited. And then I saw a door open, and I looked in.

"Oh Jimmie, a great big room! And all the most terrible people, looking so queer, and talking to themselves! And, Jimmie, I said: That's _Hell_ in there!

"And then, Oh! Over in a far corner, my poor darling mamma, crouching, her back turned to the rest!

"Oh Jimmie, Jimmie! She didn't know me at all! But she isn't crazy! You _know_ she isn't! She's just forgotten.

"They took me away. They said I couldn't have her. They said I was only a little girl. Where was my father? Didn't I have any brothers?

"And so they said--It was the head doctor now--He said I couldn't have her, I wasn't of age, I couldn't make a home for her.

"Then they--He said if I was married and had a husband and a home I could have her. That was the only way.

"Can that be so, Jimmie? Can that be so? Is that the only way I can take her out of that place and have her? Have I got to be married to have her with me? Have I got to be married?"

"Why, no," said Jimmie, rising sharply and striding across the room. "Why no, certainly, of--of--course not--_of course not!_"

Then he turned to meet the brilliant, half hysterical, pleading eyes of the girl fixed full upon him.

"Of course not. Of course--" he murmured, sitting down again.

II

Augusta's question was still ringing in Wardwell's ears the next morning, as they stood near the bow of the "Thomas J. Brennan" shivering in the driving spray of the East River. He had gone out late last night to look up a lawyer friend. He had learned that what had been told Augusta yesterday was practically correct. Short of having a good deal of money, there was no way in which she could have her mother's "commitment" set aside except by having a husband and the surety of a home.

He had not told Augusta what he had learned, and he knew that she was bringing him over here today in the hope that he, or they combined, could induce the hospital people to let her mother go home with her. He knew that it was impossible, that they could do nothing. But he had come because Augusta would have come anyway, and he could not see her facing it alone.

At the Island dock "Johnnie the Horse" met them, and prancing up to Augusta motioned her to get into the little wagon to which he had himself hitched. Wardwell had heard of this harmless lunatic, had heard the reporters laughing over his antics. But now when he looked at him gambolling about, a great horse's tail bobbing from his coat to carry out the crazy delusion that he was a horse, he suddenly hated him. And he cringed inwardly, thinking of Augusta having to come and go through this. Why did they not keep such things out of sight? He pushed roughly past the big gangling lunatic and hurried Augusta along. But the fellow pranced grotesquely along beside them, saying:

"You needn't mind me. I'm only Johnnie the Horse. See me! I'm a horse! Look at me!"

Some one called to him and he turned back. But Wardwell, feeling the tremor in Augusta's arm, swore that she must not be allowed to go through this. He did not know what he would do. There seemed to be nothing that he could do.

They brought the patient out to where Wardwell and Augusta sat. They had not been able to find clothes to fit the large woman. The sight of her, untidy, forlorn, the great hopeless wreck of her shapely, competent self, brought a fresh shudder to Wardwell. He dared not look at Augusta.

"You know me this morning, don't you, mamma?"

"Oh yes, daughter, of course, of course." The big Woman gently disengaged herself from Augusta's clinging embrace and turned to where she had caught a glimpse of Wardwell.

"Oh, Mr. Jimmie, is it you? I thought of you when they didn't come to find me. But I couldn't think of the place. I got lost, it seems. My memory's not as good as it was. And every day I was looking for a sight of my little daughter Augusta coming to look for me. But I wouldn't like her to see me here."

"Why, mamma darling," the girl broke in, "I'm your Augusta! I'm your daughter. You called me daughter yesterday. Don't you know me today?"

"Yes, daughter, hush; yes, to be sure."

Rose Wilding drew quietly away, leaving Augusta dazed and heart sick. A fear more terrible than all--that her mother did not know her at all, would never know her--fell black upon her. True, her mother had called her "daughter." But she remembered that Rose Wilding had always had a habit of calling every girl daughter. Every girl in the neighborhood had been daughter with her.

The big woman took Wardwell by the hand and led him aside into a corner of the room.

"They're all like that here," she explained in a cautious whisper. "Every one of them thinks she's somebody else. I suppose the poor thing heard me speak of my daughter, and it wandered into her head that she was the one. And you might as well humor them. It does them no harm. You never can tell what they'll think of next. God help all that's afflicted!"

"But, that _is_ your Augusta," said Wardwell.

"Now, Mr. Jimmie, you know you're always at you nonsense!" Rose Wilding answered, smiling slowly at him.

Now, curiously enough, it was that smile that brought the perspiration to Wardwell's forehead. It was the sane, deep, slowbreaking smile of Rose Wilding herself, the smile that had won the heart and the confidence of every child in every poor family of the parish. They knew her all, the big woman, the big woman of the smiling eyes, the mother heart, the never empty hand. There was Rose Wilding herself, in that smile. And yet, and yet--Wardwell reached at his tightening collar--there was a something else, a something deeper, farther away, elusive. And there was poor little stricken Augusta, standing alone in the middle of the room. He could see the sharp pink tips of her nails cutting into the palms of her hands as she fought back the bursting tears.

The blood rushed back into his heart and he felt himself gasping as a man does when he takes the leap in a desperate, cold dive. He did not know whether he was a good man or not. He did not know whether he was kind or cruel. But he knew that he had the answer to Augusta's question of the night before.

He loved Augusta with a love which had deepened in these weeks from a boy's harum-scarum affection into the deep, tender, protecting love of a man. He loved her, and would have given his life to save her the anguish of having to leave her mother in this place. Yet, he knew that it was unfair, wrong, unnatural. For her mother's sake, Augusta would sacrifice herself and marry any man. Wardwell knew it. Being Augusta, there was no choice for her. It was cruel, an outrage on her brave girlhood. But--So help him God!--he'd try to see that she never suffered from it.

Thus Wardwell of the funny sheet.

He nodded quietly to Augusta to leave the room. She went, strangely obedient to the look in his eyes. Then he turned to Rose Wilding.

"Now, Mrs. Wilding," he said easily, "Augusta and I are going to be married right away so that you can come home and live with us."

Rose Wilding sat down easily, smiling broadly. She seemed at ease once Augusta had left the room. "It wouldn't do for you to be in this place long, Mr. Jimmie," she said, "if it acts that way on you."

She was so like herself in her answer, so sane, so unruffled and ready, that Wardwell forgot the place where they were, and why they were there, and began to argue earnestly.

"Sounds funny, doesn't it? But then, it needn't. I don't have to play the fool always. And if Augusta cared enough for me--"

Rose Wilding sat up with a sharp movement. Wardwell could see the jealous, protecting mother-light in her eyes, as she questioned sternly:

"Just what has been going on?"

"Nothing," said Jimmie honestly. "I have not spoken a word to Augusta."

"Then it is just one other bit of your nonsense," she said with an air that dropped the matter altogether.

And Wardwell let it stand so. For a moment he had thought that he ought to try to make her understand. But he suddenly felt the hopelessness of it. It would not do any good. If she could understand, she would never give her consent. And it might do her great harm to let her be bothered and excited at this time. He and Augusta would have to face the problem out for themselves. A sudden wave of overpowering tenderness came breaking over him, so that he never knew what he said at leaving Rose Wilding.

He found Augusta out in a long, black corridor, looking from a window down across the dreary face of the water. She was so pathetically little, so tender, so sensitive, so delicately fashioned for pain! With a queer mingling of emotions, he found himself praying that she might be spared; and at the same time almost cursing himself because he was not a better man, more worthy of her.

On the boat they were practically alone. And as they stood out near the open prow, watching the cold drift of the spray as it broke over the bow, they saw the busy slits of streets sliding by, saw men and women how they hurried about their own business, saw that no one had time for thought of anything but that which concerned himself in the way of living.

And I think it came to both these two, at the same moment, how really alone they were out of all the world. Their doings or their thoughts were of no account to anyone. And in the weeks a common thought, an anxiety shared, had drawn them together, had almost made them forget that there was a world around them.

Suddenly Augusta shivered and cowered against Wardwell's arm.

"I can't," she moaned brokenly. "I can never stand it! I shall go mad so they'll have to put me in there too! And I know that if they'd only let me have Mamma she'd get all better and know me. If she was only at home, she'd remember everything!"

Wardwell put his arm gently around her shoulder.

"I didn't mean to say it this way, dear," he said softly. "But I think you know what I feel. I probably wouldn't be much good, but I'd _serve_."

Augusta turned to look gravely up at him. It was a new and strange Wardwell this, serious and humble. He was so downright and simple, so clear in his boyish honesty; she had not the slightest question. He meant just what he said. He wanted her.

She reached up quietly and, taking his big blond face in her little hands, kissed him deliberately on the lips.

Wardwell was astonished, frightened almost, by the steady, instant decision of the girl's way. He had expected to plead, to reason, to argue her into giving way to him--while all the time he would be doubting whether it was right. But she had taken decision out of her own wise heart. And Jimmy Wardwell had never again a thought but that it was the right decision.

They stood a little while clinging to each other, entirely untroubled by any part of the world that might be looking on or interesting itself.

Then Wardwell began to count the practical things.

"We'll have to see your priest, I suppose that's the first thing."

"Yes, Fr. Davis. But he will know that I am right," she answered easily. "Maybe he will have to go to the Cardinal's. But he will know that it's for Mamma. He knows her so well, and how good she's always been to everybody. He would do anything for her, I know he will."

At the ferry house Wardwell announced that they would ride across town in a taxicab.

"I'm on my way to be married," he proclaimed to the general world. "I've got to start right."

The strain of the weeks seemed to have lifted from him. And although he knew that there were difficulties ahead, he was in the mood to consider them all met and vanquished. He was, in fact, Wardwell himself again. Augusta saw the mood, knew that his feeling was largely intended to make a hard place easy for her, and she was willing to fall in with it, to a certain extent.

"You musn't spend all of your two dollars, Jimmie. You know you'll have a lot of expenses."

"Who said two dollars? I've got more than two dollars. I've got investments, mining stocks, real wealth. I've got friends--I can borrow, potential wealth. I've got a headful of jokes, and jokes without heads, or tails; all wealth. And, if all these will not suffice, I've got--_a dress suit!_" he wound up in a hoarse dramatic whisper, looking warily around to see that his admission was not caught by any who might have avaricious designs toward the suit.

"Yes, but you'll need the dress suit."

"Not at all," he contended furiously. "We'll be married early in the morning, when I couldn't possibly wear the thing. I wouldn't feel respectable."

"I insist on the dress suit," Augusta said firmly. "So, come,"--she was leading him towards the cross-town car--, "I'll pay the fares, so you can save the whole two dollars for some mighty extravagance."

"I suppose you're beginning the tyranny. But I haven't got the will to resist. This is married life, I suppose," he grumbled as he followed her to the car.

"I wonder who teaches them to begin right from the beginning? Anyhow, it's going to be a success," he groaned as he sat down beside her. "I can feel it right from the start. Already I'm subdued, tamed, tractable!"

"You are a kind, dear gentleman," said Augusta with a sudden gentle look up at him. And Wardwell went strangely silent.

At home, they found opposition where they had least looked for it. Ann set herself vigorously against the whole plan. She denounced Wardwell as a scheming villain taking advantage of Augusta's youth and ignorance.

"Not one foot further," she asserted stoutly, "will the scheme go. I'll stop it myself. I'll not stand by and see you profit from the poor lamb's trouble." She stood in her kitchen, where her will was the law of the land, and defied Wardwell foot and horse. "I always misdoubted your right sense, with your skylarking. But now I know you were only playing the fool to cover your villainy. Any man that would think of such a thing!"

"But he didn't think of it, Ann," said Augusta quickly, "I--"

"I think we'd better wait to know what the priest says, Ann," Wardwell cut in quickly. "Surely you won't go against what he says is right."

To this Ann had no answer, except to mutter that no priest in his right mind would have anything to do with such a thing.

In the sombre old parish house in Sixteenth Street an austere and quiet man listened with sympathy to Augusta, and studied Wardwell. He knew Rose Wilding. He knew that there was no other way in which she could be brought home to the love and care which she would need. But the responsibility of asking a dispensation for the immediate marriage of these two children, as they seemed to him, was one that he did not care to undertake.

In the end, in answer to Augusta's pleading, he said slowly:

"I do not know. I feel that I am not wise enough to advise. But I will send you to the Chancellor himself. He can give you an instant answer, which I could not."

"Serves me right," said Wardwell, when they were in the street again. "If I could have told him that I had a regular job, he'd have listened to me. The best I could say was that I was trying to write. And he was too polite to tell me that all the people in the United States that have ever been in high school, and plenty that haven't, are trying that--or have tried it."

"You _can_ write, Jimmie," said Augusta sincerely. And then she smiled. "But you look so cherubically young!"

"I'm twenty-four!" he exploded.

"And look nineteen, and, sometimes--"

"Act fourteen, eh? That's right, let's fight. That'll soon bring the wrinkles to my alabaster brow. And then you'll be satisfied."

"We wont fight ever, Jimmie," said Augusta gently as she took his arm and fell into step with him.

The Chancellor received them promptly when he had read the note of introduction and explanation which they had brought from the priest. He was an extremely busy man whose work it was, day after day, year after year, to give quick decisions which he knew must affect the lives and happiness of individual men and women. But in most of these decisions he had no discretion. He had but to have the facts, and state the inflexible law that governed him.

This, however, was a matter in which no law tied his hands. Neither was there any law to direct his action. He had only his own human judgment to tell him whether what these two young people wished to do was wise and right, or whether a sacrifice was not being made by one or both of them which was not justifiable. They were free, of course; but he was convinced from Augusta's manner that if the Church would not sanction the marriage, then Augusta would not be married.

He listened until Augusta had told her full story. He asked Wardwell a question or two. He sat awhile in thought. Then he arose quickly and walked into another room.

Wardwell's trained reporter's ears noted that the Chancellor was telephoning. When they had repeated to him the word Eminence twice or three times, his mind recorded mechanically that the Chancellor was talking to the Cardinal. But he was not thinking of it. He was watching the look in Augusta's eyes. For a little time back, while they had been talking, he had noticed that she was troubled and perplexed. He felt that the difficulties and doubts that were being put in their way were worrying her, perhaps making her less sure than she had been that they were doing right. And he felt himself wishing that they could have gone straight to the license clerk, like other couples. But he knew something of how Augusta felt about the matter, and he would not think of asking her to do anything that would hurt her.

Now she was sitting leaning forward in that listening, straining attitude, with that same deep, unconscious yearning in her eyes which he had seen in the weeks of torturing search. As well as if she had told him, he knew that she had forgotten him and the place where she was, to listen to the call of her mother.

When they heard the priest's step coming back into the room, Wardwell saw the look in her eyes turn suddenly to one of quick, happy assurance. She looked up at the Chancellor as he came toward them, and Wardwell could see that there was not the slightest doubt or fear in her mind but that everything was right for them.

"I have spoken with the Cardinal," the Chancellor said quickly. "He wishes to see you both. He is the young lady's pastor, the Parish Priest of New York. It is just a step around to the Avenue. You will go there, please," he said as they got to their feet. To Wardwell, as he took his hand at parting, he added:

"Because you are strange to us, young man, you may be thinking that unusual difficulties are being put in your way. But, you are intelligent, you know that we are thinking of just one thing, the life happiness of this young girl and of you."

"I know that," said Wardwell simply, shaking hands.

In a little room, as simple and unadorned as the quiet grace of his own bearing, the Parish Priest of New York received them and began to question Augusta.

Wardwell, listening, found himself forgetting somewhat of the business in hand and absorbed suddenly in his own particular business. He was a born writer and novelist, in spite of his own jibes. And, just as the true artist finds himself forever reaching for a brush, he could never be in the presence of character without trying to grasp at the one vital element which was the spring of it.

He had seen and studied power in many men, preachers, demagogues, statesmen, men of the business that is called big. He knew that there was but one individual in the world who could speak an authorative word to more people than could this quiet-spoken, ageing man before him. But a sense of power was not the dominating impression which he got. There was something fuller, more complete than mere power. There was a sense of ripeness, of comprehension, of--of _understanding_. He had the word at last. The Parish Priest of New York--that was it. If this man were the pastor of a little country place he would know and understand every man, woman and child in it. Here, he was as near to every soul of the millions that looked to him as he was to the little girl who now sat before him telling him why she wanted to be married.

"I think you have realized already, child, that marriage must not be undertaken for any but the one motive. That you should wish to marry in order to care for your mother is very good in you, but it is not enough either for you or for the man whom you would marry."

"Yes, but it is right for me to marry Jimmie, I know it is right, Your Eminence."

"Could you tell me how you know?" the Cardinal probed gently.