Chapter VII: Part IV: A Pickaxe and a Spade (1)

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XV.

THE SMALL, SLIGHT MAN.

TWO months had passed and the first snow was whitening the streets of Hamilton. It was falling thick on Carberry hill, up which Clarke Unwin was plodding early one evening on a visit to the Earle cottage.

His errand was one of importance. A crisis was approaching in his affairs and he was determined to settle, once and for all, whether poor Polly’s money was to be sacrificed to her father’s increasing demands, or whether she could safely be allowed to follow her own wishes and give five thousand dollars of it to the lover whose future fortunes seemed to depend upon his possession of this amount.

Ephraim Earle had told her with something like a curse that he should expect from her this very sum on the first of the month, but if this demand were satisfied then Clarke’s own hopes must go, for his friends in the Cleveland works were fast becoming impatient, and Mr. Wright had written only two days before that if the amount demanded from him was not forthcoming in a fortnight, they would be obliged to listen to the overtures of a certain capitalist who was only waiting for Clarke’s withdrawal to place his own nephew in the desired place.

Clarke Unwin had not visited the Earle cottage since Ephraim took up his abode in it. Polly had refused to go there, and he himself felt no call to intrude upon a man who was personally disagreeable to him, and whom he could not but regard as a tyrant to the sweet girl whose life had been all sunshine till this man came into it with his preposterous demands and insatiable desire for money.

On this day, however, he had received her permission to present her case to her father and see what could be done with him. Perhaps when that father came to know her need he would find that he did not want the money as much as he made out; at all events the attempt was worth trying, and thus it was that Clarke braved the storm on this October night to interview a man he hated.

As he approached the brow of the hill he heard a noise of mingled laughter and singing, and glancing from under his umbrella he perceived that the various windows of the cottage were brilliantly lighted. The sight gave him a shock. “He is having one of his chess and checker orgies,” he commented to himself, and demurred at intruding himself at a time so unfavorable. But the remembrance of his mother and Polly, sitting together in anxious expectation of the good effects of his visit, determined him to proceed; and triumphing over his own disgust, he worked his way as rapidly as possible, and soon stood knee-deep in the snow that was piled up before the cottage door. The wind was blowing from the north and it struck him squarely as he raised his hand to the knocker, but though it bit into his skin, he paused a moment to listen to the final strains of old Cheeseborough’s voice, as he sang with rare sweetness a quaint old English ballad.

When it was over Clarke knocked. A sudden pushing back of chairs over a bare floor announced that his summons had been heard, and presently he had the satisfaction of seeing the door open and the figure of Mr. Earle standing before him. Clarke did not wait to be addressed.

“I am Clarke Unwin,” he announced. “May I be allowed the pleasure of a few minutes’ conversation with you?”

“A _few_ minutes,” emphasized the other, drawing back with almost too free an air of hospitable welcome. “I hope you will not limit yourself to a _few_ minutes, my boy; we have too good company here for that.” And without waiting for any demur on the part of his more than unwilling guest, he flung open a door at the right, and ushered him, greatly against his will, into the large parlor where Clarke had last stood with Polly at his side.

Just now it was filled with the choicest of the convivial spirits in town, most of whom had been playing checkers or chess and smoking till not a face present was fully visible. Yet Clarke, in the one quick glance he threw about him, recognized most if not all of the persons present—Horton by his oaths, which rang out with more or less good-natured emphasis with every play he made, and the three cronies in the corner by various characteristics well known in Hamilton, where these men passed for “the three disgraces.”

One person only was a perfect stranger to Clarke, but him he scarcely noticed, so intent was he on his errand and the desire he had of speaking to Mr. Earle alone.

“Hurrah! Come! Here’s Clarke Unwin!” shouted a voice from the depths of the smoky pall. “Brought your flute with you? Nobody comes here without some means of entertaining the company.”

“Off with your coat; there’s snow sticking to it! Uh! You’ve robbed the room of all the heat there was in it,” grumbled old Cheeseborough, whose fretfulness nobody minded because of the good nature that underlay it.

“Freedom Hall, this!” whispered Earle, still with that over-officious air Clarke had noticed in him at the doorway. “Sit with your coat on, or sit with it off; anything to suit yourself; only one thing we insist on—you must take a good glass-full of this piping hot cider before you speak a word. So much for good fellowship. Afterward you shall do as you please.”

“I have not come for enjoyment, but business,” put in Clarke, waving the glass aside and looking with some intentness into the face of the man upon whose present disposition depended so much of his own happiness and that of the young girl he had taken to his heart.

Earle, who had a secret pride in his own personal appearance which, now that he was in good physical condition, was not without a certain broad handsomeness, strutted back a pace and surveyed Clarke with interest.

“You are looking,” said he, “to see how I compare with that picture over your head. Well, as I take it, that picture, though painted sixteen years ago, does not do me justice. What do you think?”

Clarke, somewhat taken aback, as much by the smile which accompanied these words, as by the words themselves, hesitated for a moment and then boldly said:

“What you have gained in worldly knowledge and intercourse with men you have lost in that set purpose which gives character to the physiognomy and fills all its traits with individuality. In that face on the wall I see the inventor, but in yours, as it now confronts me, the——”

“Well, what?”

“The centre of this very delightful group,” finished Clarke, suavely.

It was said with a bow which included the whole assembly. Earle laughed and one or two about him frowned, but Clarke, heeding nobody, asked if he could not have a moment’s conversation with his host in the hall.

Earle, with a side glance directed, as Clarke thought, toward the one slight man in the corner whose face was unfamiliar to him, shook his head at this suggestion and blurted out: “That’s against the rules. When the Hail-Fellow-Well-Met Society comes together it is as one body. What is whispered in one corner is supposed to be heard in the next. Out with your business then, here. I have no secrets and can scarcely suppose you to have.”

If this was meant to frighten Clarke off it did not succeed. He determined to speak, and speak as he was commanded right there and then.

“Well,” said he, “since you force me to take the town into our confidence, I will. Your daughter——”

“Ah,” quoth Earle, genially, “she has remembered, then, that she has a father. She sends me her love, probably. Dear girl, how kind of her on this wintry night!”

“She sends you her respects,” Clarke corrected, frankly, “and wants to know if you insist upon having the last few dollars that she possesses.”

“Oh, what taste!” broke in the father, somewhat disconcerted. “I did think you would have better judgment than to discuss money matters in a social gathering like this. But since you have introduced the topic you may say to my dutiful little girl that since I have only asked for such sums as she is perfectly able to part with, I shall certainly expect her to recognize my claim upon her without hesitation or demur. Have you anything more to say, Mr. Unwin?”

Clarke, whose eye had wandered to the stranger in the corner, felt no desire to back out of the struggle, unpleasing as this publicity was. He therefore answered with a determined nod, and with a few whispered words which caused a slight decrease in the air of bravado with which his host regarded him.

“You persist,” that individual remarked, “notwithstanding the rules I have had the honor of quoting to you? I should not have expected it of you, Mr. Unwin; but since your time is short, as you say, and the subject must be discussed, what do you advise, gentlemen? Shall I listen to the plea of this outsider—outsider as regards this meeting, I mean, not as regards my feelings toward him as a father—and break our rules by taking him into another room, or shall I risk a blush or two for my charming little daughter’s perversity, and hear him out in your very good company and perhaps, under your equally good and worthy advice?”

“Hear him here!” piped up Cheeseborough, whose wits were somewhat befuddled by something stronger than cider.

“No, no, shame!” shouted Emmons. “Polly is a good girl and we have no business meddling with her affairs. Let them have their talk upstairs. I can find enough here to interest me.”

“Yes, yes, there’s the game! Let’s finish the game! Such interruptions are enough to spoil all nice calculations.”

“You were making for the king row.”

“Checkmate in three moves!”

“Here! fill up my glass first!”

“I declare if my pipe hasn’t gone out!”

Clarke, who heard these various exclamations without heeding them, glanced at Earle for his decision, but Earle’s eye was on the man in the farthest corner.

“Well, we’ll go upstairs!” he announced shortly wheeling about and leading the way into the hall. Clarke followed and was about to close the door behind him when a slim figure intervened between him and the door, and the stranger he had previously noticed glided into the hall.

“Who’s this?” he asked, noticing that this man showed every sign of accompanying them.

“A friend,” retorted Earle, “one of the devoted kind who sticks closer than a brother.”

Clarke, astonished, surveyed the thin young man who waited at the foot of the stairs and remarked nonchalantly, “I do not know him.” Earle, with a shrug of the shoulders, went upstairs.

“You may have the opportunity later,” he dryly remarked; “at present, try and fix your attention on me.” They proceeded to the inventor’s workroom, where they found a light already burning.

“Sit down!” commanded Earle, with something of the authority which his years, if not his prospective attitude toward the young man warranted. But he did not sit himself, nor did the friend who had followed him upstairs and who now hovered about somewhere in the background. “It will take Emmons just ten minutes to perfect the ‘mate’ he has threatened,” observed Earle as they faced each other. “Can you finish your talk in as short a time? For I must be down there before they start a fresh game.”

“Five minutes should suffice me,” returned Clarke, “but you may need a longer time for argument. Shall I state just what our situation is as regards this money you want from Polly?”

“If you will be so good!”

“With that man listening in the doorway?”

“With that man listening in the doorway.”

“Polly has no money to spare, Mr. Earle. Of the twenty thousand left her you have already had ten——”

“For my just debts, Mr. Unwin.”

“For your just debts, granted, Mr. Earle, but those debts were not incurred for her benefit, nor have you ever deigned to particularize to her just what they were.”

“I would not burden her young mind.”

“No, it has been enough for you to burden her purse.”

“I should have burdened her conscience had I neglected to ask for her assistance.”

“And will you now, by declining to take away her last hope, allow her the means of retrieving the fortune of which you have so nearly robbed her?”

“Her hopes? Her means? I think you are speaking for yourself, sir.”

“In speaking for myself, I speak for her; our interests are identical.”

“You flatter yourself; Miss Earle is not yet your wife.”

“Would you come between us?”

“God forbid! I am willing that Polly, as you call her, should marry whom she will—when I am dead.”

“Or when you have robbed her of every cent she owns.”

“Oh, what language! I marvel you have not more delicacy of expression, Mr. Unwin. Your father was noted for his refinement.”

“He had not to deal with—” the word was almost out, but Clarke restrained himself—“with a man who could forsake his motherless child in her tender years, only to expect unbounded sacrifices from her when she has attained maturity.”

“I expect no more than she will be glad to grant. Maida has pride—so have you. You would neither of you like to see her father in jail.”

Clarke bounded to his feet.

“We do not imprison men here for debt,” he cried.

“No, but you do for theft.”

The word, so much worse than any he was prepared for, turned Clarke pale. He looked to right and left and shrank as he caught the eye of the slim watcher in the hall beyond.

“You surely are not a criminal,” he whispered. “That man——”

“Never mind that man. Our ten minutes are fast flying by and you do not yet seem to see that I cannot afford to relinquish my hold on Polly.”

“Do you mean that your debts——”

“Were incurred in private? Certainly, and under circumstances which place me in a dilemma of no very pleasing nature. If they are not all paid by the first of next month, I shall have to subject my very conscientious little daughter to the obloquy of visiting her father in prison. It is a shame, but such is the injustice of men.”

“You have stolen then?”

“Too harsh a word, Clarke. I have borrowed money for the purpose of perfecting my experiments. The experiments have failed, and the money—well, the man from whom I borrowed it will have it, that is all. He is strict in his views, notwithstanding his long forbearance.”

“Who is this man? I should like to talk to him. That fellow behind you is surely not he?”

“Oh, no; he is only a detective.”

“A detective!”

“Who likes my table and bed so well he never knows when he has had enough of either.”

“Shameful!” sprang from Clarke’s set lips, as his eyes flew first to the watchful but nonchalant figure in the hall, and then to the tall, commanding form of the man who could accept his degrading situation with such an air of mingled sarcasm and resignation.

“And you are the man to whom the French government sent her badge of honor!”

“The same, Clarke,” tapping his breast.

“And you dare to call Polly your child; dare to return to Hamilton with this disgrace upon you, to make her life a hell and——”

“Maida is my child; and as for this disgrace, as you call it, it will be easy enough for her to elude that; a certain check drawn on her bank and signed by her name will do it.”

“I should like to be sure of that,” returned Clarke, springing back into the hall and confronting the man who stood there. “If you are a detective,” said he, “you are here in the interest of the man whom Mr. Earle has robbed?”

The slight young man, in no wise disconcerted, smiled politely, but with an air of quiet astonishment directed mainly toward Ephraim Earle.

“I am here in the interest of Brown, Shepherd, & Co., certainly,” said he. “But I have uttered no such word as robbed, nor will, unless the first of the month shows Mr. Earle’s indebtedness to them unpaid.”

“I see. In what city does Brown, Shepherd, & Co. do business?”

“In New York, sir.”

“Merchants, lawyers, bankers, or what?”

“Bankers.”

“Oh, I remember; in Nassau street?”

“Just so.”

Mr. Earle, who had taken up a cigar from his table while this short colloquy took place, stepped forward.

“A very strict firm, thorough, and not much given to showing mercy, eh?”

“Not much,” smiled the man.

“You see!” gesticulated Mr. Earle, turning to Clarke with a significant smile.

Clarke, with a sudden heartsick sense of what this all meant to him, assumed a stern air.

“Mr. Earle,” said he, “I must entreat that you come at once and present this matter to Polly. She ought to know particulars, that she may judge whether or not she will sacrifice her fortune to save you from the disgrace you have incurred.”

“What, now, with my house full of guests? Impossible. The affair will keep till to-morrow. I will be down to-morrow and tell her anything you wish.”

“She cannot wait till to-morrow. I must send the letter to-morrow which decides my future.”

“That’s unfortunate; but you can send your letter all the same. I know what her decision will be.”

Clarke felt that he knew too, but would not admit it to himself.

“I have said my say,” he remarked. “Either you will let her know your precise position to-night, or I will take it upon myself to ask her for the money for my own uses. She will not deny me, if I press her, any more than she will probably deny you. So take your choice. I am going back to the friends below.”

Earle, who had not expected such condign treatment from one whom he had hitherto regarded as a boy, glanced at the detective, and, with the characteristic shrug he had picked up in foreign countries, cried out in somewhat smothered tones, in which caution struggled oddly with his natural bravado:

“Well, we’ll compromise. I cannot leave the H. F. W. M.; but I’ll tell you what I will do. I’ll write out the situation for my daughter, and you shall carry the paper with you. Won’t that do, considering the circumstances, eh?”

Clarke, to whom this man’s character was a perfect anomaly, murmured a hesitating consent and hurried down into the room below. Earle followed him, and, entering with frank jocularity, in striking contrast with the other’s dejected appearance, he cheerfully called out:

“Well, I’ve convinced the boy, somewhat, against his will, I own, that a few thousands spent on the invention I have now on hand will bring in a much larger fortune to Maida than that I have perhaps rather recklessly expended. It was just so when I was perfecting my first invention, don’t you remember? Every dollar I spent on it was begrudged me, and yet see what an outcome there was to it at last.”

“Yes, yes; but where is all that money now?” queried old Cheeseborough, wagging his iron gray head. “Nobody here ever saw a dollar of it, and I have heard people say they don’t believe you ever got it.”

“Would you bring up the saddest hours of my life?” asked Earle, with a sudden cloud on his brow. “I got the money, but—” he stopped, shook himself and changed his tone for one of cheerful command. “Here, you! Start a fresh game, Emmons. I see that your checkmate is good. I’ve got to write a letter. Who will bet that I won’t get my six pages done before Hale will succeed in getting three men into the king row?”

“I will!”

“Put down your dollar then!”

“There it is.”

“And there’s mine, with a condition to boot. I’ll write the letter _in this room_, and give Cheeseborough another chance at a song, if you say so.”

“Done! Fire away, old man; here goes my first move!”

“And here my first word.”

And, to Clarke’s mingled surprise and disgust, Earle threw himself down before a table, took up a pen and began to write. Cheeseborough piped up with his thin, sweet voice something between a dirge and a chant, and Horton went on with his oaths.

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XVI.

THE LETTER.

WHEN Ephraim Earle had taken up his abode in the cottage on the hill, Mrs. Unwin had moved into a small house on a side street in the lower part of the town. In the cozy parlor of this same house, she was now sitting with Polly, waiting for her son’s return.

He had been gone a couple of hours, and both Mrs. Unwin and Polly were listening anxiously for the sound of his step on the porch. Polly, with the impatience of youth, was flitting about the room and pressing her face continually against the icy panes of the window, in a vain endeavor to look out; but Mrs. Unwin, to whom care had become a constant companion during these last months, was satisfied to remain by the fire, gazing into the burning logs and dreaming of one whose face had never vanished from her inner sight since that fatal evening she had seen it smile again upon her as in the days of her early youth. Yes, she was thinking of him while Polly was babbling of Clarke; thinking of the last sentence he had uttered to her, and thinking also of the vague reports that had come to her from day to day, of his increased peculiarities and the marked change to be observed in his appearance. Her heart was pleading for another sight of him, while her ear was ostensibly turned toward Polly, who was alternately complaining of the weather and wondering what they should do if her father insisted upon having the money, right or wrong. Suddenly she felt two arms around her neck, and rousing herself, looked down at Polly, who in her restlessness had fallen on her knees before her and was studying her face with two bright and very inquiring eyes.

“How can you sit still,” the young girl asked, “when so much depends upon the message Clarke will bring back?” Mrs. Unwin smiled, but not as youth smiles, either in sorrow or in joy, and Polly, moved by that smile, though she little understood it, exclaimed impetuously:

“Oh, you are so placid, so serene! Were you always so, dear Mrs. Unwin? Have you never felt angry or impatient when you were kept waiting or things did not go to your liking?”

The sweet face that was under Polly’s steady gaze flushed for an instant and the patient eyes grew moist. “I have had my troubles,” admitted Mrs. Unwin, “and sometimes I have not been as patient with them as I should. But we learn forbearance with time, and now——”

“Now you are an angel,” broke in Polly.

“Ah!” was Mrs. Unwin’s short reply, as she stroked the curly head nestling in her lap.

“Clarke says that whatever happens I must be brave,” babbled the forlorn-hearted little girl from under that caressing hand. “That poverty is not so dreadful, and that in time he will win his way without help from any one. But Oh, Mrs. Unwin, to think I might be the means of giving him the very start he needs, and then to be held back by one—Dear Mrs. Unwin, do you think it wicked to hate?”

The question was so sudden, and the vision of the girl’s uplifted head with its flashing eyes and flushed cheeks so startling, that Mrs. Unwin hesitated for a moment, not knowing exactly what to say. But Polly, carried away now by a new emotion, did not wait for any answer.

“Because I am afraid I really hate him. Why has he come into our lives just when we don’t want him; and why does he take from us everything we have? If he loved me I could bear it possibly, but he don’t even love me; and then—and then—he lives in such a way and spends his money so recklessly! Don’t you think it is wrong, Mrs. Unwin, and that I would be almost justified in not giving him everything he asks for?”

“I should not give him this last five thousand, unless he can show you that his need is very great. No one will blame you; you have been only too generous.”

“I know, I know, and I am sure you are right, but notwithstanding that, something assures me that I shall do just what he wishes me to. I cannot refuse him—I do not know why, perhaps because he _is_ my father.”

Mrs. Unwin, whose face had assumed a look of resolution as Polly said this, impulsively stooped and inquired with marked emphasis, “Then you feel—you really feel at last, that he is your father? You have no doubt; no lurking sensation of revolt as if you were sacrificing yourself to an interloper?”

Polly’s head sank on her clasped hands, and she seemed to weigh her answer before replying; then she responded with almost an angry suddenness.

“I wish I could feel he is not what he pretends to be, but the villainous impostor Dr. Izard considers him. But I cannot. No, no, I have no such excuse for my antipathy toward him.”

Mrs. Unwin leaned back, and her countenance resumed its dreamy expression.

“Then I shall not advise you,” said she. “You must follow the dictates of your own conscience.”

Polly rose and ran again to the window, this time with a cry of joy. “He is coming! Clarke is coming! I hear the gate click,” and she bounded impatiently toward the door.

In a few minutes she returned with her lover; he had a letter in his hand and he was contemplating her with saddened eyes.

“You will need courage, dear, to read this,” said he. “It is from your father and it puts his case before you very clearly—too clearly, perhaps. Your estimate of him was not far from correct, Polly. The story of his past life is not one you can read without shame and humiliation.”

“I knew it! I saw it in his face the first time I looked at him. I saw it before. I saw it in his picture. O Clarke, I shrink even from his writing; must I read this letter?”

“I think you should; I think you should know just what threatens us if you refuse him the money.”

Polly took the letter.

“You have read it?” she inquired.

But Clarke shook his head.

“I know the nature of its contents, but I did not wait to read the letter. He wrote it in a roomful of men, under a wager——” Clarke paused; why hurt her with these details? “But what does that matter? It is the facts you want. Come, screw up your courage, dear; or stay, let me read it to you.”

She gave him the letter and he read to her these words:

DEAR MAIDA: You wish to know why I want another five thousand
dollars after having received a good ten thousand from you already.
Well, I am going to tell you. I have two passions, one for
mechanical invention and one—I must be candid or this letter will
fail in its object—for wild and unlimited pleasure. When I was young
I had not enough money to indulge in but one of these instincts, but
on the day I saw twenty thousand dollars in my hand, my other
passion, long suppressed, awoke, and notwithstanding the fact that
your mother lay dying in the house, I resolved to leave the town
where I was known as soon as she was decently buried, for as I said
to myself, the possession of twenty thousand dollars means the
making of a fortune in Monte Carlo, and a maddening good time of it
meanwhile.

But twenty thousand dollars do not always bring a fortune, even in
Monte Carlo. I lost as well as won and though I had the good time I
had anticipated I was not much richer at the end of five years than
I was before my first invention was perfected. And then came a
struggle. My good times grew fewer and I was forced to change my
name more than once as I drifted from France to Italy and from Italy
to Germany, seeking to reinstate myself, but being dreadfully
hampered by my taste for the luxuries of life and the companionship
of men who were sufficiently good-natured, but not always honest or
sincere. At last I awoke to the necessity of action. I had an
idea—one that had been floating in my head ever since the perfection
of my first invention, and I realized that if I could but develop it
practically I was sure to win a greater sum than that I had earned
by my first efforts. But to do this it would take money—considerable
money, and I had none. Now how could I remedy this defect? I knew
but one way—by play. So I began to play for keeps, that is for a
capital, denying myself this time and forgetting for once the
delights that can be got out of a thousand francs. I saved, actually
saved, and becoming strangely prosperous the moment I set a distinct
purpose before my eyes, I won and won till I had a decided nest-egg
laid up in the leathern bag which I secretly wore tied about my
waist. But though this looked well, it did not satisfy me. I wanted
thousands and I had but hundreds; so I took a partner who was not
above a trick or two and—well, you do not understand these
things—but matters went very smoothly with me after this, so
smoothly that possibly I might have allowed myself one little
glimpse into my old paradise if I had had a little more confidence
in my own discretion and had not been afraid of the charms of a spot
that swallows a man, neck and crop, if he once plunges his head into
it. So for a few months more, I remained firm and grew steadily
rich, till the day came when by an enormous streak of luck I became
the owner of the very amount I had calculated it would take to put
into operation my new invention.

I was in St. Petersburg when this happened, and for five hours I sat
in my garret chamber feasting my eyes upon the money I had acquired,
and shutting my ears to every sound from without that summoned me to
the one short hour of wild enjoyment I had certainly earned. Then I
put the money back into my bag, took the frugal supper I had
prepared and went to bed with the determination of rising early and
devoting the early hours of the morning to drawing my first plans.

But in that sleep _I forgot the essential idea upon which the whole
thing rested_. It went from me as utterly as if it had been wiped
out. In vain I prodded my memory and called upon all the powers of
earth and air to assist me in my dreadful dilemma. I no more knew
where to place the lines I had for years seen clearly before me than
if I had never conceived the thing or seen it a completed object in
my mind’s eye. Success had dampened my wits, or in the long struggle
with my second passion I had lost my hold upon the first. The money
necessary to elucidate the idea was mine, but I had lost the idea!
The situation was maddening.

Fearing the results of this unexpected disappointment upon my
already weakened self-control, I fled to my partner, who was a good
fellow in the main, and begged him to take and keep for a week my
leather bag with its valuable contents, adding that he was not to
give it back to me till the seven days were up, even if I entreated
him for it on my knees. He promised, and greatly relieved I left him
for a stroll through the streets. You see I hoped to regain my idea
before the week was out. But alas for the weakness of human nature!
Instead of keeping my mind upon work, I spent my time in gorgeous
rooms hung with mirrors in which was reflected every lovely thing I
worshipped. I heard music, and—but why enlarge the vista further?
Not having any goal for my energy, I fell, and when I got my money
back, I lived another five years of boundless luxury.

When the last dollar went, I fell sick. I was in New York now,
calling myself Harold Deane, and I boarded in a humble
boarding-house in Varick street where there was one kind woman who
looked after me without asking whether I had any money to pay for my
keep. I sent fifty dollars to that woman out of the first money you
gave me, my dear. Pardon the digression. I merely wished to show you
that I am not without gratitude. When I recovered from my delirium
and lifted up my head again in this wicked, fascinating world, my
mind was clear as a bell and I saw, all in a minute, the machine
again, line for line, whose action was to transform trade and make
me a millionaire. Though I was too weak to sit up, I called out for
pencil and paper, and at the risk of being thought crazy, scrawled a
rude outline of the thing I had lost so long from my consciousness
and which I held now by such uncertain tenure that I feared to lose
it again, if I let the moment go by. This I put under my pillow. But
when I awoke from the sleep which followed, the drawing was gone,
destroyed by the good woman who thought it the mad scrawling of a
delirious man. But this loss did not trouble me at this time, for
the image remained clear in my mind and I was no longer afraid of
losing it.

But again I had no money, and confident that in this country and in
my present condition it would be useless for me to seek it in the
old way, I cast about in my mind how to obtain it by work. Reason
pointed out but one course. To get into some large business or
banking establishment, and after winning the confidence of the
moneyed men I would thus meet, to reveal my idea and obtain their
backing. But this was no easy matter for a poor wretch like me. My
life had left its imprints on my face, and I had neither means nor
friends. But I had something else that stood me in good stead. I had
audacity and I had wit, together with a sound business instinct as
regards figures. And so in time I was successful and was taken into
the banking house of Brown, Shepherd, & Co. in Nassau street.

Again I had an incentive toward thrift. For three months I worked
for their good-will, and after that for the good of my purse. This
latter phrase may not be plain to you, but when you consider the
possibilities opened by a banking house to enrich a man accustomed
to use his wits,—possibilities so much greater than those afforded
by the selfish consideration of a few capitalists with whom one in
my position comes in contact,—you can understand me more readily. At
the end of that time I had fifteen thousand dollars laid away; and
the company did not even know that they had sustained any loss.
Well, I meant to repay them when I realized my fortune, but—luck has
been against me, you know—the sight of the money was too much for me
one night, and I forgot everything in a wild spree which lasted just
one week.

When it was over and I came to myself I found that I had again
forgotten the essential part of my invention, and that the money,
which I always carried in the old bag about my waist and which I had
never lost sight of before, was also gone, leaving me destitute of
everything but the clothes I wore. I was desperate then and thought
of killing myself, but I hated blood and have a horror of poison, so
I delayed, expecting to go back to the banking house as soon as my
appearance would warrant it. But I never went. I received from some
unknown friend a warning that my absence had provoked inquiry, and
that my reappearance in Nassau street would be the signal for my
arrest, so I not only kept away from that part of the city, but left
the town as soon as I had money to do so, wandering as far west as
Chicago and sinking lower and lower as the weeks went by, till my
old trouble gripped me again and I found myself in a hospital, given
up for dead. The name by which I was entered there was Simeon
Halleck, but I had worn a dozen during my lifetime.

I was regarded by those around me as a stray and by myself as a lost
man, when suddenly one night, no matter how, I learned, my little
daughter, that you, whose existence I had almost forgotten, was not
only alive and well, but likely to become the inheritor of a pretty
fortune. At this I plucked up courage, conquered my disease and came
out of the hospital a well man. Having been known as Simeon Halleck,
it was necessary for me now, in order to present myself as Ephraim
Earle, to lose my old identity before I assumed my new,—or rather, I
should say, my real one. How I did this would not interest you, so I
will pass on to the day when, with my beard grown a foot, I ventured
into this town and began to look around to see whether there was any
place left for me in the hearts of my old friends or in the
affections of my child. I found, as I thought—was it rightly?—that I
would receive a decent welcome if I returned, and so after a proper
length of time I re-entered Hamilton, this time shaven and shorn,
and boldly announced my claims and relations to yourself.

The results of this action I am reaping to-day, but while I am happy
and cared for, I do not find myself in a position to enjoy the full
benefits of my position from the facts, now to be explained, that
the police of New York are sharper than I thought, and when I went
to Boston, after my first trip to this town, I found myself
confronted by an agent of Brown, Shepherd, & Co. They had discovered
my theft and threatened me with a term in state prison. My dear, I
knew that no daughter with a fortune of twenty thousand dollars
would wish to see her father suffer from such disgrace, so I made a
clean breast of it and told him all my hopes, and promised if the
firm I had robbed would give me three months of freedom I would
restore them every penny I had taken from them. As they could hope
for nothing if they landed me in jail, they readily acceded to my
request, and I came to Hamilton followed by a detective, and with
the task before me of obtaining fifteen thousand dollars from you in
three months. Ten of these you have cheerfully given me, but you
cavil at the last five.

Will you cavil any longer when you realize that by denying them to
me you will land me in prison and brand your future children with
the disgrace of a convict grandfather? I would say more, but the
time allotted me for writing this letter is about up. Answer it as
you will, but remember that however you may writhe under the yoke,
you are blood of my blood and your honor can never be disassociated
from mine in this world or the next.

Your loving father,

EPHRAIM EARLE.

P. S. I have Brown, Shepherd, & Co.’s written promise that with the
payment of this last five thousand, all proceedings against me shall
be entirely stopped, and that neither as a firm nor as individuals
will they remember that Ephraim Earle and Simeon Halleck are one.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

XVII.

MIDNIGHT AT THE OLD IZARD PLACE.

CLARKE knew when he began to read this letter what effect it was likely to have on his own prospects, but he was little prepared for the change it was destined to make in Polly. She, who at its commencement had been merely an apprehensive child, became a wan and stricken woman before the final words were reached; her girlish face, with its irresistible dimples, altering under her emotions till little of her old expression was left. Her words, when she could speak, showed what the recoil of her whole nature had been from the depths of depravity thus heartlessly revealed to her.

“Oh, what wickedness!” she cried. “I did not know that such things could be! Certainly I never heard anything like it before. Do you wonder that I have always felt stifled in his presence?”

Mrs. Unwin and Clarke tried to comfort her, but she seemed to be possessed of but one idea. “Take me home!” she cried; “let me think it out alone. I am a disgrace to you here; he is a thief and I am the daughter of a thief. Until every cent that he has taken is returned, I am a participator in his crime and not worthy to look you in the face.”

They tried to prove to her the fallacy of this reasoning, but she would not be convinced. “Take me home!” she again repeated; and Clarke out of pure consideration complied with her request. She was still living with the Fishers, but when they reached the humble doorstep which had been witness to many a tender parting and loving embrace, Polly gave her lover a strange look, and hardly lingered long enough to hear his final words of encouragement and hope.

“I will see you to-morrow,” she murmured, “but I can say no more to-night—no, not one word”; and with something of the childish petulance of her earlier years she partially closed the door upon him, and then was half sorry for it, when she heard the deep sigh that escaped him as he plunged back into the snow that lay piled up between the house and the gate.

“I am wicked,” she muttered, half to herself, half to him; “come back!” but the words were lost in the chilly wind, and in another moment he had reached the street and was gone. Had he looked back he would not have disappeared so suddenly, for Polly, as soon as she thought herself alone, suddenly pushed open the door, peered out and, with a momentary hesitation, slipped out again into the street.

The snow had ceased falling, the moon had come out and was lighting up the great trees that lined either side of the road. Polly cast one look down the splendid but deserted vista, and then with the thoughtless daring which had always signalized her, began running down the street towards that end of the town where the road turns up towards the churchyard. She was guided by but one thought, the necessity of seeing Dr. Izard before she slept. The thickness of the snow beneath her feet impeded her steps and made the journey seem long to her panting eagerness. She met nobody, but she thought nothing of that, nor did she note that the lights were out in the various houses she passed. Her mind was so full of her purpose that the only fear of which she was conscious was that she would find the doctor away or deaf to her summons. When the tavern was passed and the shadow of the church reached, she drew a deep breath. Only a few steps more and she would be passing the gateposts in front of the Izard mansion. But how still everything was! She seemed to realize it now, and was struck by the temerity of her action, as the desolate waste of the churchyard opened up before her and she heard, pealing loud above her head, the notes of the great church-clock striking eleven!

But she knew that the doctor never retired before twelve, and the need she felt of an immediate consultation with one who had known her father in his youth, buoyed her up, and dashing on with a shudder, she turned the corner and came abreast with the house she was bound for. But here something which she saw, first dazed, then confounded her. The house was lighted! The Izard house, which had been vacated for years! Had the doctor found a tenant then without her knowledge, or, led by some incomprehensible freak, had he lighted it up himself?

While she was gazing and wondering, almost forgetting her own purpose in her astonishment at this unwonted sight, there rose a sudden wild halloo behind her, followed by the shouts of drunken voices and the sound of advancing footsteps. The visitors at her father’s cottage had reached the main street, and, seeing the lighted mansion, were as much struck by its unwonted appearance as she had been, and were coming down the road for a nearer inspection.

Alarmed now in good earnest, and by a more natural fear than that which had first agitated her, she looked around for a spot to hide in, and, finding none, plunged towards the house itself. What she expected to gain by this move she hardly knew; but once on the porch, and in the shadows of the great pillars supporting it, she felt easier; and, though she knew this laughing, careless crowd would soon be upon her, she felt the nearness of the life within to be a safeguard, and, stretching out her hand toward the front door, she was amazed to find it yield to her touch.

Under most circumstances this would have frightened her away, or, at least, would have awakened in her the instinct of alarm; but now the illuminated hall, dimly to be seen through the crack she had made, seemed to offer her a refuge, and she rushed in, closing and locking the door behind her. Instantly the desolation of these long disused rooms settled upon her, and she peered down the hall in terror, dreading and half hoping to see some one, she did not care whom, stalk from some of the several rooms on either side. But no one came, and the seeming lack of life in the spaces about her soon grew more terrifying than any appearance of man or woman would have been. The light which lured her into this desolate structure came from a lamp standing on a small table at the rear of the hall, and presently she found herself insensibly approaching it, having recognized it as one she had often seen in the doctor’s study.

But when she had stepped as far as the circular landing opening under the stairs, and noted the little winding staircase leading down from it into the space below, some faint recognition of the fact that this was the way to the doctor’s study came over her, and, advancing breathlessly on tiptoe to the railing which guarded this spot, she looked down into the well beneath, and was startled at the gust of wind which met her there, with all the chill of the outside air in it. Was the famous green door below open, and did this wind come from the graveyard?

She was conscious that she had no right to advance a step farther, and yet she knew that she must find the doctor, if only to throw herself upon his protection. So, with many a qualm and sinking of the heart, she caught up the lamp from the table near by and descended the short spiral, rightfully thinking that it would be wiser to thus flash upon the doctor in a blaze of light rather than to take him by surprise in the darkness. Finding the green door open, as she had expected, she tried to raise her voice and utter the doctor’s name, but articulation failed her. There was something so weird in her position that her usual recklessness failed to support her, and she had hardly the courage to glance into the room before which she stood, though instinct had already told her it was empty.

The wind which had met her at the top of the staircase increased as she descended, and while she was drawing in her breath before it, the light went out in her hand and she was left standing half in and half out of the doctor’s study in a condition of helplessness and terror. But this misfortune, while it abashed her, was of decided benefit in the end. For no sooner was this light out than she was met with the glimmering rays of a lantern, shining in from the graveyard without, and knowing this to be an indication of the doctor’s whereabouts, she set down the lamp and was advancing with some trepidation toward the door when her ears caught a sound—the most dreadful that could be heard in that place—that of a spade being forced into the icy ground.

Instantly her heart became the prey of a thousand sickening emotions. What was the doctor doing? Digging a grave? Impossible. And yet what else would make a sound like this? Even her usually bold spirit was startled and she shrank at the thought, wishing for Clarke, for her father, for any one to support her and take her out of the horrible, moonlighted spot where homes were being made for the dead in the dark of night.

She could not retreat and she dared not advance, yet she felt that she must settle her doubts by one glimpse of what was going on. Approaching the window she peeped out and saw—Merciful heavens, was that the doctor?—that wild figure clad in a long wool garment which swept to his heels, and digging with such frenzy and purpose that the snow flew from his spade in clouds? She was so absorbed in the sight that it was a moment before she saw that it was her mother’s grave he was unearthing and that he was doing this in his sleep. But when she fully realized the awful fact she uttered a low cry of irrepressible dismay, and no longer fearing anything but this unearthly figure she had chanced upon in the moonlight, she dashed from the spot and fled up the highway, never resting foot or stopping to breathe till she found herself in her own room at home.

Dr. Izard was mad and she alone knew the frightful secret.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

XVIII.

A DECISION.

WHEN Dr. Izard rose the next morning it was with a feeling of lassitude and oppression that surprised him. He had received no calls from patients the evening before, nor had he retired any later than usual. Then why this strained and nervous feeling, as if he had not slept? The snow that had fallen so heavily the day before had cleared the air, and the dazzle of sunshine finding its way into his unusually darkened den prepared him for the brilliant scene without. It was not in that direction, however, he first looked, for he was no sooner on his feet than he noticed that the green door which he always kept shut and padlocked was open, and that in the hall beyond a spade was standing, from the lower edge of which a small stream of water had run, staining the floor where it rested.

What did it mean, and what was the explanation of the dark stains like wet mould on the skirt of the long wool garment that he wore? He looked from one to the other, and the hair rose on his forehead. Summoning up all his courage he staggered to the window and drawing the curtain back with icy fingers, glanced out. Some vandal had been in the graveyard; one of the graves had been desecrated and the snow and mould lay scattered about. As he saw it he realized who the vandal had been, and though no cry left his lips, his whole body stiffened till it seemed akin to the one he had so nearly disinterred in the night. When life and feeling again pervaded his frame he sank into a chair near the window and these words fell from his lips: “My doom is upon me. I cannot escape it. The will of God be done.”