Chapter XX: Broken Faith

"Sweet are the uses of adversity," sang the great bard who is supposed to have known human nature in all its mutations; and humanity has echoed the aphorism until it has come to believe in some sort that bufferings are benedictions, and hard knocks merely the compacting blows that harden virtues, as the blacksmith's hammer beats a finer temper into the steel upon the anvil.

With all due respect for the shades of the mighty, and for the tacit approval of the many, I beg leave to offer the _argumentum ad hominem_ in rebuttal. Fight the conclusion as I may, I cannot resist the convincement that ill winds have never blown me any good; that, on the contrary, the steady pressure of hardship and misfortune, during a period when my life was still in a great measure in the formative state, exerted an influence which was altogether evil, weakening the impulses which should have been growing stronger, and giving free rein to those which, under more favoring conditions, might never have been quickened.

When I forsook the breakfast-table and the hotel, after having read the newspaper story telling how effectively Agatha Geddis had removed herself from my path, it was to make a joyous dash for the first train leaving the capital for Cripple Creek. With shame I record it, I had already forgotten my own culpable weakness in permitting a dastardly fear of consequences to make me Agatha's puppet and a sharer in her more than questionable dissipations; had forgotten that by every step I had taken with Agatha Geddis I had increased the distance separating me from Mary Everton.

Perhaps it is only a characteristic of human nature to minimize evils past, and evils to come, at the miraculous removal of a great and pressing evil present; even so, one may suffer loss. I was hastening back to take up the dropped thread of my relations with Phineas Everton and his daughter, and I should have gone softly, as one who, knowing himself the chief of sinners yet ventures to tread upon holy ground. But by the time the train was slowing into the great gold camp at the back of Pike's Peak, these, and all other chastening thoughts, were crowded aside to make room for the one jubilant fact: I was free and I was going back to Polly.

Barrett was the first man I met upon reaching our offices. If he were surprised at seeing me in Cripple Creek when I should have been well on my way to the Pacific Coast, he was quite as evidently disappointed.

"I thought you had started for California," he said in his evenest tones.

"I thought so, too; but it was only a false start." Then I had it out with him. "You and I both know, Barrett, why you thought I ought to go, and the reason wasn't even remotely connected with the shipping of the car-load of test-ore. If you have seen the morning papers, you probably know why it is no longer necessary for me to leave Colorado."

He turned to stare absently out of the office window. When he faced about again there was a frown of friendly concern wrinkling between his straight-browed level eyes.

"How the devil did you ever come to get mixed up with the Geddis woman, Jimmie?" he demanded.

I evaded the direct question. "It is a long story, and some day I may be able to tell you all of it. But I can't do it now. You must take my word for it, Bob, that I haven't done a single thing that I didn't believe, at the time, I was compelled to do. That sounds idiotic, I know; but it is the simple truth."

Again he turned to the window and was silent for a full minute. I knew that I had in no uncertain measure forfeited his good opinion--that, I had earned the forfeiture: also, I knew perfectly well what he was doing; he was leaving me entirely out of the question and was weighing the hazards for Polly. When he turned it was to put a hand upon my shoulder.

"I'm taking you 'sight unseen,' old man," he said, with the brotherly affection which came so easily to the front in all his dealings with me. "If you tell me it's done and over with, and won't be resurrected, that's the end of it, so far as I am concerned. What comes next?"

"A little heart-to-heart talk with Polly's father," I said, and began to move toward the door. But he stopped me before I could get away.

"Just one other word, Jimmie: wouldn't it be better to let things rock along for awhile until the dust has time to settle and the smoke to blow away? You've come back red-handed from this thing--whatever it is--and----"

"No," I returned obstinately. "It is now or never for me, Bob. I'm sinking deeper into the mire every day, and Polly has the only rope that will pull me out. You'll say that I am much more likely to drag her in; maybe that is true, but just now I'm like a drowning man. Possibly it would be better for all concerned if I should drown, but you can't expect me to take that view of it." And with that I crossed the corridor to the laboratory.

I can say for Phineas Everton that he was at all times and in all things a fair man, generous to a fault, and always ready to give the other fellow the benefit of the doubt. I sought him that afternoon with an explanation which was very far from explaining, but he listened patiently and with an evident desire to draw favorable inferences where he could from my somewhat vague story of my entanglement with Agatha Geddis.

It was perfectly apparent to me that I was not making the story very clear to him; I couldn't, because any complete explanation would have reached back too far into my past. The half-confidence was inexcusable, and I was aware of this. I owed this man, whose daughter I wished to marry, the fullest and frankest statement of all the facts. But I didn't give it to him.

"You are trying to tell me that the affair with this woman had its origin in a former foolish infatuation?" he said at length.

"It might be called that; but it dates back to my--to a time long before I came to Cripple Creek."

"You gave me to understand yesterday that she had a hold of some sort upon you. Were you under promise to marry her?"

"No, indeed; never in this world!"

He was sitting back in his chair and regarding me gravely.

"I am an old-fashioned man, Bertrand, as I told you yesterday. I have always entertained an idea--which may seem archaic to the present generation--that a young man intending to marry ought to be able to give as much as he asks. You haven't made a very good beginning."

I admitted it; admitted everything save the imputation that my relations with Agatha Geddis had been in any sense wilfully immoral.

He gave a wry smile at this, as if the distinction were finely drawn and the credit small.

"Because it fell to my lot to be a schoolmaster in her native town, I had an opportunity of observing Miss Geddis while she was yet only a young girl, Bertrand," he remarked. "She gave promise, even then, of becoming a disturbing element in the affairs of men. As a school-girl she had a following of silly boys who were ready to take her at her own valuation of herself. There are times when you remind me very strongly of one of them, though the resemblance is only a suggestion: the boy I speak of was a bright young fellow named Weyburn, who afterward became a clerk in Mr. Geddis's bank."

There are moments when the promptings of the panic-stricken ostrich lay hold upon the best of us. Since I could not thrust my head into the sand, I wheeled quickly to stare at a framed photograph of Bull Mountain and the buildings of the Little Clean-Up hanging on the laboratory wall.

"He was one of the fools, too, was he?" I said, without taking my eyes from the photograph.

"He turned out badly, I am sorry to say, and I have often wondered if the young woman was not in some way responsible. There was a defalcation in Geddis's bank, and Weyburn was found guilty and sent to the penitentiary."

Here was another of the paper life-walls. One little touch would have punctured it and vague recollection would instantly become complete recognition. I held my breath for fear I might unconsciously give the rending touch. But Everton's return to the question at issue turned the danger of recognition aside.

"To get back to the present time, and your plea for a rehearing," he went on. "I wish to be entirely fair to you, Bertrand; as fair as I can be without being unfair to Polly. Barrett told me yesterday afternoon that you had gone, or were going, to the Pacific Coast. I am taking it for granted that you had no intention of accompanying this woman?"

"I certainly had not. Nothing was further from my intentions. On the other hand, her flight last night with another woman's husband is the one thing that makes it possible for me to be here to-day."

"You can assure me that your connection with her is an incident closed; and for all time?"

"It is, unquestionably. I hope I shall never see her or hear of her again."

For a moment he sat nibbling the end of the pencil with which he had been figuring, trying, as I well understood, to be fairly equitable as between even-handed justice and his prejudices. There was a sharp little struggle, but at the end of it he said: "As I remarked yesterday, I labor under all the disadvantages of the average American father. I can occupy the position only of a deeply interested onlooker. But I'll meet you half-way and lift the embargo. You may resume your visits to the house if you wish to."

"I want more than that," I broke in hastily. "I am going to ask Polly to be my wife. If she says Yes, I don't want to wait a minute longer than I'm obliged to."

He demurred at that, intimating that I ought to be willing to wait until a reasonable lapse of time could prove the sincerity of my protestations. He was entirely justified in asking for delay, but I begged like a dog and he finally gave a reluctant consent--contingent, of course, upon his daughter's wishes in the matter. Half an hour later I was sitting with Polly Everton before a cheerful grate fire in the living-room of the cottage on the hill, trying, as best I might, to tell her how much I loved her.

One of the things a man doesn't find out until after he has been married quite some little time is that the best of women may not always wear her heart on her sleeve, nor always open the door of the inner confidences even to the man whose life has become a part and parcel of her own. Mary Everton's eyes were deep wells of truth and sincerity as I talked, but I read in them nothing save the love which matched my own when she gave me her answer. If I had known all that lay behind, I think I should have fallen down and worshiped her.

I did not know then how much or how little she had heard of the Agatha Geddis affair. None the less, I broke faith, if not with her, at least with myself. I did not tell her that she was about to become the wife of an escaped convict; that her life must henceforth be lived under a threatening shadow; that her children, if she should have any, might be made to share the disgrace of their father.

Once more I make no excuses. A little later, if I had waited, the just and honorable impulse might have reasserted itself; I might have realized that the removal of one unscrupulous woman out of my path merely took the lightning out of the edge of the nearest cloud. But in the supreme exaltation of the moment I considered none of these things. In this climaxing of happiness the disaster which had hung over my head for weeks and months seemed as far removed and remote as it had been imminent only a few hours before.

We were together through what remained of the afternoon; until it was nearly time for Phineas Everton to come home. When we parted I had gained my point and our plans were all made. We were to be married very quietly the following day. I had no wish to make the wedding the social function which my position as one of the three partners in the Little Clean-Up might have justified; and Polly agreed with me in this.

It was not until after I had left the house that I remembered that the forced financing of Agatha Geddis's elopement had practically drained my bank account. There had been no mention of money in our talk before the fire; we were both far and away beyond the reach of any such sordid topic. But Phineas Everton would have a right to ask questions, and I must be prepared to answer them. After dinner at the hotel I captured Barrett, drove him into a quiet corner of the lobby, and made my wail.

"Heavens and earth!" he gasped when I had told him the shameful truth. "Are you telling me that you let that woman hold you up for all the ready money you had in the world?"

"It listens that way," I confessed; adding, out of the heart of sincerity: "It was cheap at the price; I was glad enough to be quit of her at any price."

"This is pretty serious, Jimmie," he asserted, after he had re-lighted his cigar. "It isn't the mere fact that you have recklessly chucked a small fortune at the Geddis person--that is a mere matter of dollars and cents, and the Little Clean-Up will square you up on that. But there is another side to it. The dreadful thing is the fact that she had enough of a grip on you to make you do it. I'll like it better if you will say that you were blind drunk when you did it."

"I wasn't--more's the pity, Bob; on the contrary, I was never soberer in my life."

"Of course, you haven't told Polly."

"No--not yet."

"Nor Everton?"

I shook my head. "I didn't want to commit suicide."

Barrett chuckled softly.

"I happen to know this fellow the Geddis woman is running away with," he said. "He has gone through his wife's fortune, in addition to squandering a good little chunk that his father left him. And you've grub-staked 'em both to this! Well, never mind; it's a back number, now, and you have given me your word for it. Don't worry about the money you are going to need for the honeymoon. There is plenty in the bank--in my account, if there isn't any in yours."

I thanked him with tears in my eyes. Was there ever another such generous soul in this world, or in any other? He stopped me in mid career, wishing to know more about the wedding.

"Let the money part of it go hang and tell me more about this hurry business you've planned for to-morrow. It's scandalous and unheard of, but I don't blame you a little bit. Dope my part out for me while you're here--so I'll know where I am to come on and go off."

For a little while longer--as long a while as I could spare from Polly--we talked of the impromptu wedding and arranged for it. Barrett was a brother to me in all that the word implies. He took on all of the "best man's" responsibilities--and more. When I was leaving to walk up the hill he walked to the corner of the side street with me, and at the last moment business intruded.

"I forgot to tell you," he cut in abruptly. "After you left yesterday afternoon a court notice was served upon us. Blackwell's lawyers have taken the Lawrenceburg suit to the Federal court--on the ground of alien ownership--and we've got to show cause all over again why we shouldn't be enjoined for trespass. Benedict seems to be more or less stirred up about it."

"If that is the case, I oughtn't to be going away," I said.

"Yes, you ought; Gifford and I can handle it."

Notwithstanding Barrett's assurance I was vaguely disturbed as I climbed the hill to the Everton cottage. Blackwell had proved to be a veritable bull-dog in the long-drawn-out fight, and the tenacity with which he was holding on was ominous. Why the Lawrenceburg people should make such a determined struggle to wipe us out was beyond my comprehension. It had been proved in the State courts, past a question of doubt, that our title to the Little Clean-Up was unassailable, and still Blackwell hung on. What was the animus?

If I could have had the answer to that question it is conceivable that my one evening as Polly Everton's affianced lover--an evening spent in the seventh heaven of ecstasy before the cheerful coal blaze in the cottage sitting-room--would have been sadly marred.