Chapter 23

"You may put me in jail for contempt of court, if you like," she jested. "I refuse to testify. But I will tell you what you asked to know--if that will do any good. Every word of the story about Mr. Griswold--the story that you overheard, you know--was true; every single word of it. Do you suppose I should have dared to embroider it the least little bit--with you sitting right there at my back?"

"But you did think for a while that he might be the man--what?"

"Yes; I did think so--for a while."

Broffin got up and took a half-burned cigar from the ledge of the summer-house where he had carefully laid it at the beginning of the interview.

"You've got me down," he confessed, with a good-natured grin. "The man that plays a winnin' hand against you has got to get up before sun in the morning and hold _all_ trumps, Miss Grierson--to say nothin' of being a mighty good bluffer, on the side." Then he switched suddenly. "How's Mr. Galbraith this morning?"

"He is very low, but he is conscious again. He has asked us to wire for the cashier of his bank to come up."

Broffin's eyes narrowed.

"The cashier is sick and can't come," he said.

"Well, some one in authority will come, I suppose."

Once more Broffin was thinking in terms of speed. Johnson, the paying teller, was next in rank to the cashier. If he should be the one to come to Wahaska....

"If you haven't anything else for me to do, I reckon I'll be going," he said, hastily, and forthwith made his escape. The telegraph office was a good ten minutes' walk from the lake front, and in the light of what Miss Grierson had just told him, the minutes were precious.

Something less than a half-hour after Broffin's hurried departure, Miss Grierson, coated and gauntleted, came down the Mereside carriage steps to take the reins of the big trap horse from Thorsen's hands. Contrary to her usual custom, she avoided Main Street and drove around past the college grounds to come by quieter thoroughfares to the industrial district beyond the railroad tracks.

For the first time in a riotous week, Pottery Flat was outwardly peaceful and its narrow streets were practically empty. Just what this portended, Margery did not know; but she found out when she turned into the street upon which the Raymer property fronted. Smoke was pouring from the tall central stack of the plant, and it had evidently provoked a sudden and wrathful gathering of the clans. The sidewalks were filled with angry workmen, and an excited argument was going forward at one of the barred gates between the locked-out men and a watchman inside of the yard.

The crowd let the trap pass without hindrance. However coldly Lake Boulevard and upper Shawnee Street might regard Miss Grierson, there was no enmity in the glances of the Flat dwellers--and for good reasons. In want, Miss Margery had poured largesse out of a liberal hand; and in sickness she had many times proved herself the veritable good angel that some people called her.

It was one of the strikers who offered to hold the big Englishman when the magnate's daughter sprang from the trap at the office door, and for the young fellow who offered she had a smile and a pleasant word. "I wouldn't trouble you to do that, Malcolm; but if you'll lead him along to that post and hitch him, I'll be much obliged," she said.

Though it was the first time she had been in the new offices, she seemed to know where to find what she sought; and when Raymer took his face out of his desk, she was standing on the threshold of the open door and smiling across at him.

"May I come in?" she asked; and when he fairly bubbled over in the effort to make her understand how welcome she was: "No; I mustn't sit down, because if I do, I shall stay too long--and this is a business call. Where is Mr. Griswold?"

"He went up-town a little while ago, and I wish to goodness he'd come back. You'd think, to look out of the windows, that we were due to have battle and murder and sudden death, wouldn't you? It's all because we have put a little fire under one battery of boilers. They tried to burn us out last night, and I'm going to carry steam enough for the fire pumps, if the heavens fall."

"You have been having a great deal of trouble, haven't you?" she said, sympathetically. "I'm sorry, and I've come to help you cure it."

Raymer shook his head despondently.

"I'm afraid it has gone past the curing point," he said.

"Oh, no, it hasn't. I have discovered the remedy and I've brought it with me." She took a sealed envelope from the inside pocket of her driving-coat and laid it on the desk before him. "I'm going to ask you to lock that up in your office safe for a little while, just as it is," she went on. "If there are no signs of improvement in the sick situation by three o'clock, you are to open it--you and Mr. Griswold--and read the contents. Then you will know exactly what to do, and how to go about it."

Her lip was trembling when she got through, and he saw it.

"What have you done, Margery?" he asked gently. "If it is something that hurts you----"

"Don't!" she pleaded; "you mu-mustn't break my nerve just at the time when I'm going to need every shred of it. Do as I say, and please, _please_ don't ask any questions!"

She was going then, but he got before her and shut the door and put his back against it.

"I don't know what you have done, but I can guess," he said, lost now to everything save the intoxicating joy of the barrier-breakers. "You have a heart of gold, Margery, and I----"

"Please don't," she said, trying to stop him; but he would not listen.

"No; before that envelope is opened, before I can possibly know what it contains, I'm going to ask you one question in spite of your prohibition; and I'm going to ask it now because, afterward, I may not--you may not--that is, perhaps it won't be possible for me to ask, or for you to listen. I love you, Margery; I----"

She was looking up at him with the faintest shadow of a smile lurking in the depths of the alluring eyes. And her lips were no longer tremulous when she said: "Oh, no, you don't; I know just how you feel; you are excited, and--and impulsive, and there's a sort of getting-ready-to-be-grateful feeling roaming around in you, and all that. If I were as mean as some people think I am, I might take advantage of all this, mightn't I? But I sha'n't. Won't you open the door and let me go? It's _very_ important."

"Heavens, Margery! don't make a joke of it!" he burst out. "Can't you see that I mean it? Girl, girl, I want you--I need you!"

This time she laughed outright. Then she grew suddenly grave.

"My dear friend, you don't know what you are saying. The gate that you are trying to break down opens upon nothing but misery and wretchedness. If I loved you as a woman ought to love her lover, for your sake and for my own I should still say no--a thousand times no! Now will you open the door and let me go?"

He turned and fumbled for the door-knob like a man in a daze.

"Don't you--don't you think you might learn to--to think of me in that way?--after a while?" he pleaded.

He had opened the door a little way, and she slipped past him. But in the corridor she turned and laughed at him again.

"I am going to cure you--you, personally, as well as the sick situation--Mr. Raymer," she said flippantly. Then, mimicking him as a spoiled child might have done: "I might possibly learn to--think of you--in that way--after a while. But I could never, never, _never_ learn to love your mother and your sister."

And with that spiteful thrust she left him.

XXXVI

THE GRAY WOLF

As it chanced, Jasper Grierson was in the act of concluding a long and apparently satisfactory telephone conversation with his agent in Duluth at the moment when the door of his private room opened and his daughter entered.

As on a former occasion, she went to sit in the window until the way to free speech should be open, and she could not well help hearing the closing words of the long-distance conference.

"You sit tight in the boat; that's all you've got to do," her father was saying. "Keep the young fellow with you as long as you can; the other man is too sick to talk business, right now. When you can't hold the young one any longer, let me know. We'll play the hand out as it lays. Get that? I say, we'll play the hand out as it lays."

He had hung the receiver on its hook and was pushing the bracketted telephone-set aside when Margery crossed the room swiftly and placed an envelope, the counterpart of the one left with Raymer, on the desk.

"There is your notice to quit," she said calmly. "You threw me down and gave me the double-cross the other day, and now I've come back at you."

Another man might have hastened to meet the crisis. But the gray wolf was of a different mettle. He let the envelope lie untouched until after he had pulled out a drawer in the desk, found his box of cigars, and had leisurely selected and lighted one of the fat black monstrosities. When he tore the envelope across, the photographic print fell out, and he studied it carefully for many seconds before he read the accompanying documents. For a little time after he had tossed the papers aside there was a silence that bit. Then he said, slowly:

"So that's your raise, is it? Where does the game stand, right now?"

"You stand to lose."

Again the biting silence; and then: "You don't think I'm fool enough to give you back your ammunition so that you can use it on me, do you?"

"Those papers and that picture are copies: the originals are in a sealed envelope in Mr. Raymer's safe. If you haven't taken your hands off of Mr. Raymer's throat by three o'clock this afternoon, the envelope will be opened."

Jasper Grierson's teeth met in the marrow of the fat cigar. Equally without heat and without restraint, he stripped her of all that was womanly, pouring out upon her a flood of foul epithets and vile names garnished with bitter, brutal oaths. She shrank from the crude and savage upbraidings as if the words had been hot irons to touch the bare flesh, but at the end of it she was still facing him hardily.

"Calling me bad names doesn't change anything," she pointed out, and her tone reflected something of his own elemental contempt for the euphemisms. "You have five hours in which to make Mr. Raymer understand that you have stopped trying to smash him. Wouldn't it be better to begin on that? You can curse me out any time, you know."

Jasper Grierson's rage fit, or the mud-volcano manifestation of it, passed as suddenly as it had broken out. Swinging heavily in his chair he took up the papers again and reread them thoughtfully.

"You had a spotter working this up, I suppose: who is he, and where is he?" he demanded.

"That is my affair. He was a high-priced man and he did his work well. You can see that for yourself."

Once more the papers were tossed aside and the big chair swung slowly to face the situation.

"Let's see what you want: show up your hand."

"I have shown it. Take the prop of your backing from behind this labor trouble, and let Mr. Raymer settle with his men on a basis of good-will and fair dealing."

"Is that all?"

"No. You must cancel this pine-land deal. You have broken bread with Mr. Galbraith as a friend, and I'm not going to let you be worse than an Arab."

Grierson's shaggy brows met in a reflective frown, and when he spoke the bestial temper was rising again.

"When this is all over, and you've gone to live with Raymer, I'll kill him," he said, with an out-thrust of the hard jaw; adding: "You know me, Madge."

"I thought I did," was the swift retort. "But it was a mistake. And as for taking it out on Mr. Raymer, you'd better wait until I go 'to live with him,' as you put it. Besides, this isn't Yellow Dog Gulch. They hang people here."

"You little she-devil! If you push me into this thing, you'd better get Raymer, or somebody, to take you in. You'll be out in the street!"

"I have thought of that, too," she said, coolly; "about quitting you. I'm sick of it all--the getting and the spending and the crookedness. I'd put the money--yours and mine--in a pile and set fire to it, if some decent man would give me a calico dress and a chance to cook for two."

"Raymer, for instance?" the father cut in, in heavy mockery.

"Mr. Raymer has asked me to marry him, if you care to know," she struck back.

"Oho! So that's the milk in the cocoanut, is it? You sold me out to buy in with him!"

"You may put it that way, if you like; I don't care." She was drawing on her driving-gloves methodically and working the fingers into place, and there were sullen fires in the brooding eyes.

"I've been thinking it was the other one--the book-writer," said the father. Then, without warning: "He's a damned crook."

The daughter went on smoothing the wrinkles out of the fingers of her gloves. "What makes you think so?" she inquired, with indifference, real or skilfully assumed.

"He's got too much money to be straight. I've been keeping cases on him."

"Never mind Mr. Griswold," she interposed. "He is my friend, and I suppose that is enough to make you hate him. About this other matter: ten minutes before three o'clock this afternoon I shall go back to Mr. Raymer. If he tells me that his troubles are straightening themselves out, I'll get the papers."

"You'll bring 'em here to me?"

"Some day; after I'm sure that you have broken off the deal with Mr. Galbraith."

Jasper Grierson let his daughter get as far as the door before he stopped her with a blunt-pointed arrow of contempt.

"I suppose you've fixed it up to marry that college-sharp dub so that his mother and sister can rub it into you right?" he sneered.

"You can suppose again," she returned, shortly. "If I should marry him, it would be out of pure spite to those women."

"If?"

"Yes, 'if.' Because, when he asked me, I told him No. You weren't counting on that, were you?" And having fired this final shot of contradiction she departed.

After Miss Grierson had driven home from the bank between ten and eleven in the morning, an admiring public saw her no more until just before bank-closing hours in the afternoon. Broffin was among those who made obeisance to her as she passed down Main Street in the basket phaeton between half-past two and three; and a minute later he abandoned his chair on the hotel porch to keep the phaeton in view and to mark its route.

"It's Raymer, all right, and not the other one," he mused when the little vehicle had gone rocketing over the railroad crossing to take the turn toward the Iron Works. "The iron-man is the duck she's tryin' to help out of the labor-rookus. She was over there this morning, and she's goin' there again, right now."

As the phaeton sped along through the over-crossing suburb there were signs of an armistice apparent, even before the battle-field was reached. Pottery Flat was populated again, and the groups of men bunched on the street corners were arguing peacefully. Miss Grierson pulled up at one of the corners and beckoned to the young iron-moulder who had offered to be her horse-holder on the morning visit.

"Anything new, Malcolm?" she asked.

"You bet your sweet life!" said the young moulder, meeting her, as most men did, on a plane of perfect equality and frankness. "We was hoodooed to beat the band, and Mr. Raymer's got us, comin' and goin'. There wasn't no orders from the big Federation, at all; and that crooked guy, Clancy, was a fake!"

"He has gone?" she said.

"He'd better be. If he shows himself 'round here again, there's goin' to be a mix-up."

Miss Grierson drove on, and at the Iron Works there were more of the peaceful indications. The gates were open, and a switching-engine from the railroad yards was pushing in a car-load of furnace coal. By all the signs the trouble flood was abating.

Raymer saw her when she drove under his window and calmly made a hitching-post of the clerk who went out to see what she wanted. A moment later she came down the corridor to stand in the open doorway of the manager's room.

"I'm back again," she said, and her manner was that of the dainty soubrette with whom the audience falls helplessly in love at first sight.

"No, you're not," Raymer denied; "you won't be until you come in and sit down."

She entered to take the chair he was placing for her, and the soubrette manner fell away from her like a garment flung aside.

"You are still alone?" she asked.

"Yes; Griswold hasn't shown up since morning. I don't know what has become of him."

"And the labor trouble: is that going to be settled?"

He looked away and ran his fingers through his hair as one still puzzled and bewildered. "Some sort of a miracle has been wrought," he said. "A little while ago a committee came to talk over terms of surrender. It seems that the whole thing was the result of a--of a mistake."

"Yes," she returned quietly, "it was just that--a mistake." And then: "You are going to take them back?"

"Certainly. The plant will start up again in the morning." Then his curiosity broke bounds. "I can't understand it. How did you work the miracle?"

"Perhaps I didn't work it."

"I know well enough you did, in some way."

She dismissed the matter with a toss of the pretty head. "What difference does it make so long as you are out of the deep water and in a place where you can wade ashore? You _can_ wade ashore now, can't you?"

He nodded. "This morning I should have said that we couldn't; but now--" he reached over to his desk and handed her a letter to which was pinned a telegram less than an hour old.

She read the letter first. It was a curt announcement of the withdrawal of the Pineboro Railroad's repair work. The telegram was still briefer: "Disregard my letter of yesterday"; this, and the signature, "Atherton." The small plotter returned the correspondence with a little sigh of relief. It had been worse than she had thought, and it was now better than she had dared hope.

"I must be going," she said, rising. "If you will give me my envelope?"

He crossed to the safe and got it for her. His curiosity was still keen-edged, but he beat it back manfully.

"I wish you wouldn't hurry," he said hospitably. He was searching the changeful eyes for the warrant to say more, but he could not find it.

"Yes, I really must," she insisted. "You know we have a sick man at home, and----"

"Oh, yes; how is Mr. Galbraith getting along? He has been having a pretty hard time of it, hasn't he?"

"Very hard. It is still doubtful if his life can be saved."

"He is conscious?"

"He has been to-day."

"And he understands his condition?"

"Perfectly. He had us wire for some of his bank people this morning. The cashier can't come, but he is sending a Mr. Johnson--the paying teller, I believe he is."

"Poor old man!" said Raymer, and his sympathy was real.

She was moving toward the door, and he went with her.

"I know you are not entertaining now--with Mr. Galbraith to be cared for; but I'd like to come and see you, if I may?" he said, when he had gone with her through the outer office and the moment of leave-taking had arrived.

"Why not?" she asked frankly. "You have always been welcome, and you always will be."

He hesitated, and a blond man's flush crept up under his honest eyes. "I've been hoping all day that you didn't really mean what you said this morning--about my mother and sister, you know," he ventured.

"Yes," she affirmed relentlessly; "I did mean it."

"But some day you will change your mind--when you come to know them better."

"Shall I?" she said, with a ghost of a smile. "Perhaps you are right--when I come to know them better."

He was obliged to let it go at that; but when they reached the phaeton, and the horse-holding clerk had been relieved, he spoke of another matter.

"I'm a little worried about Kenneth," he told her. "He came down this morning looking positively wretched, but he wouldn't admit that he was sick. Have you seen much of him lately?"

"Not very much"--guardedly. "Did you say he had gone home?"

"I don't know where he has gone. He left here about half an hour before you came, and I haven't seen him since."

"And you are worried because he doesn't look well?"

"Not altogether on that account. I'm afraid he is in deep water of some kind. I never saw a person change as he has in the past week or so. You know him pretty well, and what a big heart he has?"

She nodded, half-mechanically.

"Well, there have been times lately when I've been afraid he'd kill somebody--in this squabble of ours, you know. He has been going armed--which was excusable enough, under the circumstances--and night before last, when we were walking up-town together, I had all I could do to keep him from taking a pot-shot at a fellow who, he thought, was following us. I don't know but I'm taking all sorts of an unfair advantage of him, telling you this behind his back, but----"

"No; I'm glad you have told me. Maybe I can help."

He put her into the low basket seat, and tucked the dust-robe around her carefully. While he was doing it he looked up into her face and said: "I'd love you awfully hard for what you have done to-day--if you'd let me."

It was like her to smile straight into his eyes when she answered him.

"When you can say that--in just that way--to the right woman, you'll find a great happiness lying in wait for you, Edward, dear." And then she spoke to the Morgan mare and distance came between.

As once before, in the earlier hours of the same day, Miss Grierson took the roundabout way between the Raymer plant and Mereside, making the circuit which took her through the college grounds and brought her out at the head of upper Shawnee Street. The Widow Holcomb was sitting on her front porch, placidly crocheting, when the phaeton drew up at the curb.

"Mr. Griswold," said the phaeton's occupant. "May I trouble you to tell him that I'd like to speak to him a moment?"

Mrs. Holcomb, friend of the Raymers, the Farnhams, and the Oswalds, and own cousin to the Barrs, was of the perverse minority; and, apart from this, she had her own opinion of a young woman who would wait at the door of a young man's boarding-house and take him off for a night drive to goodness only knew where, and from which he did not return until goodness only knew when. So there was no stitch missed in the crocheting when she said, stiffly: "Mr. Griswold isn't in. He hasn't been home since morning."

Miss Grierson drove on, and the most casual observer might have remarked the strained tightening of the lips and the two red spots which came and went in the damask-peach cheeks. But it was not until she had reached Mereside, and had gained the shelter of the deserted library, that speech came.

"O pitiful Christ!" she sobbed, dropping into a chair and hiding her face in the crook of her arm; "he's done it at last!--he's trying to hide, and that's what they've been waiting for! _And I don't know where to look!_"

But Matthew Broffin, tilting lazily in his chair on the down-town hotel porch, knew very well where to look, and he was watching the one outlet of the hiding-place as an alert, though outwardly disregardful, house-cat watches a mouse's hole.

XXXVII

THE QUALITY OF MERCY

On no less an authority than that of the great doctor who came again from Chicago for a second consultation with Doctor Farnham, Andrew Galbraith owed his life during the two days following his return to consciousness to the unremitting care and devotion of one person.

Seconding the efforts of the physicians, and skilfully directing those of the nurses, Margery threw herself into the vicarious struggle with the generous self-sacrifice which counts neither cost nor loss; and on the third day she had her reward. Her involuntary guest and charge was distinctly better, and again, so the two doctors declared, the balance was inclining slightly toward recovery.