Chapter VII: Part V (1)

For interminable weeks Haworth had no idea where they were. Edith had asked him not to try to find her, and he would do nothing against her wishes.

Most of the time he was sitting somewhere in the house—he didn’t notice where—staring before him with wide open eyes that saw nothing. Hulda brought him “just a taste” of this or that at meal times and he’d make an attempt to eat a little so she wouldn’t feel hurt. Sometimes he would start walking aimlessly about the house.

For quite a time he couldn’t bring himself to enter the room Edith had occupied—his own room. But the time came when, with a fearful sinking of the heart, he opened the door. After a while he ventured in a little way and stood looking at the dressing table with the chair before it. He could picture her there so well. His eyes slowly moved to other things—the bureau, the chairs, the bed with the soft rug at the side where her small white feet so often touched before she could find her bedroom slippers.

Very soon—on his first visit—he had to turn away and hasten gropingly out of the room. He was there again the next day, and on the floor of the great wardrobe he found the worn little shoes that were on her feet the day she came.

It was more than a fortnight after she left when he got a note from her. It had been mailed. For a while he was unable to open it, as he had been at first to enter her room. When he did, life came back to him. Sometime they could meet somewhere—but not now. And he must not try to find her. Would he please write and tell her if he still loved her? It would help her to stay alive if she could only be sure that he truly did. The best address would be the General Delivery, Boston. She would read the letter and destroy it there at the Post Office.

After this he was able to look at all the things that spoke to him of her, with painful delight instead of devastating despair.

But now financial troubles began to bear down on him. The greatly increased expenses from having the Findlays there, together with Augustus’s borrowings and Edith’s wardrobe, had more than made an end of the few thousands left him by old Mr. Cripps. He had adopted the plan long ago advised by Mr. Trescott, the attorney, of cutting down living expenses and apportioning so much and no more to each month. In this way the money could have been made to last nearly four years, and surely by that time, Mr. Trescott had said, he ought to be able to do something with his patents and mechanical work.

But this wise financial arrangement had been abandoned when the Findlays came; and now the funds that were to have carried him for some two years longer had entirely disappeared, and in addition to that a number of people were clamoring for various amounts which he appeared to owe them. Haworth turned in this emergency, as he had before, to Mrs. Temple, who muttered something about “cormorants,” and then did the best she could again, this time persuading some of the creditors to wait a little on the ground that Mr. Haworth had valuable patents and was on the point of selling one of them for thousands of dollars. In cases where further credit was refused she made arrangements with other (and more distant) firms. Of course there wasn’t the least use in going to the electric-light company—nobody ever heard of their doing anything except shut off the current—which they promptly did.

So far as light was concerned, Haworth minded it very little. The oil lamps and candles Mrs. Temple got hold of somewhere, answered well enough. But he did very much mind—though not so much at this time as later, when he tried to get back to his work again—losing the power for his machinery. He had only the haziest ideas as to creditors or electrical calamities or where his groceries were or were not coming from. Mrs. Temple was attending to it, and he let it rest at that. He could live in peace with his dreams and memories and imaginings—all of Edith and the exquisite pain of his longing for her. He wrote to her and had another precious letter in reply. She told of their having moved into a small house on Cherry Street, but said he must not come there. Perhaps sometime, but not then. If they could only meet somewhere, perhaps in town, before long, just for a few minutes. She loved him so! And if she could not see him soon it did not seem as if she could go on living.

It was a month after this before they finally met. He waited for her on a quiet old street on the hill back of the State House. When she finally came, neither could speak. They found a bench hidden by shrubbery near the north end of the pond in the Public Garden.

After a time, when they had whispered those first words of endearment after the long separation, and he could begin to realize things, he was greatly disturbed by her appearance, so worn and thin she was, with a hunted look in the eyes he loved beyond all measure. After much effort he discovered in a roundabout way, that for one thing she was half starved. It appeared that when Augustus earned anything he spent nearly the whole of it on himself or gambled it away. Very little came to her for household uses. Sometimes none. And now he wasn’t working at all. He’d lost his place at the freight yards.

She wouldn’t mind so much about the food part of it, she said, but when he came home late at night and there wasn’t anything to eat, he was so violent! He seemed to think that she was to blame for it. The trouble was he had a revolver again and flourished it about. He always seemed to want to do that when he’d been drinking. And though she felt sure he wouldn’t fire it, she couldn’t help being frightened.

After that, although they talked of other things in their brief time together, he never once escaped from the terrifying realization that she was starving,—actually starving, and he could do nothing. Until now he had never entertained a suspicion of the tremendous importance of having money. Even while they were there, with only those few precious moments to themselves after weeks of loneliness, he was desperately catching at straws of possibilities for obtaining some—in sufficient amount, that is, to relieve her distressing situation at home. By a lucky chance he had brought with him what little he had in the house, so he could at least keep her from starvation for to-day. It would hardly do more than that. But how to get more? How? How? How?

Then suddenly he thought of Mr. Trescott. He remembered one thing the lawyer had recommended was the sale of the place. There was a mortgage, but they could get a figure, he had said, that would cover it and leave something over. Haworth couldn’t bring himself to do it then. There was his shop and machinery and drafting room—all the things he needed. But what did that amount to now? Edith had come into his life; she _was_ his life. There was nothing else. He didn’t understand it, but it was so—there was nothing else.

He would go and see Mr. Trescott the next day and ask him to sell the place. That was settled. And for the rest of the time they were together he had no thought but of Edith, and of her presence close beside him. Most of it was spent in a restaurant, for as soon as it would do after discovering the state of things he claimed to be exceedingly hungry, and they went to one together. She was entirely frank and said she was hungry too, and he had the joy of seeing her present famishment relieved.

While they were there he told her, as a preparation for what would come from selling the mansion (for she might not like that), that he expected to dispose of one of his inventions and she was to go halves with him on whatever he got. She said, “Oh!” and her eyes were alight for a moment. But then she looked at him doubtfully.

“What is it, darling?” he asked.

“Oh—why, I’m thinking—I’m afraid you’ll not be taking care of _yourself_—your machinery and patents and—and all that you need to do about them.”

“There’ll be plenty for those things too.”

“Will there?”

And so at last she was satisfied, and they began to consider the way of getting her “share” to her—whether a little at a time or a lump sum. They finally decided on small and more frequent remittances, for if Findlay once got the idea that she had a considerable amount of money in the house he would resort to any violence to get it. And mailing seemed the best way of sending, for she could go to the Post Office without danger of discovery, if she was careful about it.

Soon after they had decided on this she left him, going out of the restaurant by herself and getting a car in the subway which would take her within a few blocks of Cherry Street.

* * * * *

On reaching the mansion Haworth found a letter waiting for him. The envelope bore the name of a prominent savings bank in Boston from which he vaguely remembered having heard before. Within was a formal notice to the effect that if the interest on the mortgage note was not paid by such and such a time (which was only five days away), foreclosure proceedings would at once be instituted. This explained why the name of the bank had seemed familiar, other communications on the same subject having come in before, though none so definite and alarming. These—as he had no idea what to do with them—he had turned over, with other bills and requests for payment, to Mrs. Temple; and although this estimable old woman quite well understood grocery and market accounts, foreclosure notices were as Greek to her. She had therefore done nothing about them, quite certain that this behavior would bring further explanation if there was any.

It looked serious to Haworth. If they foreclosed he wouldn’t be able to sell the place. Naturally he wasn’t able to sleep that night. Next morning he went to Mr. Trescott’s office.

The old lawyer said at once that he doubted if anything could be done, as the property was mortgaged to nearly the limit. A forced sale was out of the question. When he had advised selling some years before, prices were high; now they were normal again. A second mortgage would hardly be possible under the circumstances. The only chance he saw was the possibility that the holders of the first would be willing to make a new one for an increased amount, or that a new one for a larger amount could be negotiated elsewhere and the old one paid off with the proceeds, leaving him something after the transaction. He would take the matter up with the bank, and Mr. Haworth would hear from him in a day or two. He inquired how the inventions were selling and was sorry to hear that they hadn’t done better. He had sent a few people out there to see them and would try to do so again.

* * * * *

Four days later—four terrible days for Haworth—the letter he was waiting for came. Mr. Trescott requested him to call and attend to the execution of a new mortgage. It seemed the bank was willing to increase the amount of the loan to the extent of five thousand dollars—a consideration being, however, not alone the payment out of this of interest due, but interest on the new note for two years in advance.

Haworth, enormously relieved, went to the Trescott & Chamberlain offices and the business was transacted. Fifty dollars was at once mailed to Edith, and he sent her that amount weekly thereafter. Mrs. Temple was given what was necessary to pay current bills and, at her suggestion, the expenses of the establishment were reduced still further.

All thought of attention to the needs of the house, in the way of repairs, painting, and the like, was abandoned, as was also the keeping up of the grounds and gardens surrounding it. Even the shattered window in front on the second floor was still as Augustus’s hurtling revolver had left it. These various economies and others wouldn’t have occurred to Haworth, but his overwhelming desire to save enough out of the additional mortgage money to enable him to take Edith away, caused him to entreat Mrs. Temple to think of all possible ways to cut down expenditures. This she did.

In the course of the next few weeks Edith’s condition was much improved, though it couldn’t be said that she looked entirely well. The two met in town when they could—which wasn’t often, for Augustus, being out of a job, was hanging about. They’d thought of Franklin Park and other places nearer than the Public Garden, but Edith couldn’t lose herself before going to them as she could in the crowds in the city district. Besides this, she had managed to find a place where they’d give her needlework to take home—one of the “sweating” industries you read about—and this not only furnished her with an excuse for going to town occasionally, but had so far blocked Findlay’s suspicions as to where her housekeeping money came from.

Several times they went out Cambridge way and beyond to some woodsy place, and wandered among the trees. There were still warm Indian summer days for them, though November was close at hand.

It was on one of these trips, as they were sitting on soft green moss with their backs to the trunk of a great oak, that Haworth told her about going away—that he couldn’t live without her. They would take a steamer to South America or anywhere she wished. There would be money enough to pay the fares and keep them until he could find work. He would dig in the streets or do anything, it made no difference what, if he could only be with her.

She looked at him in a half-frightened way and shook her head a little.

“You—you don’t mean——I thought you’d come!” he said.

“There’s a—there’s something——” She couldn’t go on and her face went white.

He looked at her silently, desolated by the thought that she didn’t care enough for him to come. Finally he half whispered:

“I suppose you——You don’t love me—_really_.”

“There’s only you in the world, Michael—only you—_now_—but before long....”

He looked at her for the rest.

“Before long there’ll be some one else.”

It was a moment before he understood.

* * * * *

As weeks went by Haworth’s anxieties about Edith came to be unbearable—the thought of her having to live in that comfortless shanty and being subjected, at such a time, to the brutalities of her liquor-crazed husband. Finally, in desperation, he went to Mr. Trescott for advice, explaining that the Findlays were relatives of old Cripps and that he (Haworth) had taken them in at the mansion for a while, though they were now in a house of their own; that Mr. Findlay was brutal and loathsome in every respect, often drinking to excess and at such times abusing and browbeating his wife and frequently terrorizing her with a revolver; so that, now she was to be confined, he feared she’d not only have no care, but be seriously injured in some way.

“I suppose it wouldn’t do for her to have the trouble and anxiety of divorcing him—now?”

“I—I’m afraid not.”

“Can’t she go home to her mother or family?”

“No.” (Shaking his head). “She hasn’t any.”

“Alone in the world, eh?”

“Not so good as that. She’s with him.”

“I see.... Treats her badly, you say?”

“I don’t think that’s quite the word for it.”

“You said something about a revolver?”

Haworth nodded in affirmation.

“That he threatened her with it?”

“Yes.”

“Did anyone see him do that?”

The young man hesitated for an instant; then, “I did—once.”

“Then this threatening with a revolver took place in your presence?”

“Yes.”

“Did you interfere in any way?”

“Yes; I took it away from him.”

Mr. Trescott regarded Haworth with peculiar interest for an instant. Finally he said: “If the fellow’s slamming around, threatening his wife with firearms, we can get the patrolman on that beat to keep an eye on him. Write the address for me.”

“But it’s no place for her there, where he might come in crazy drunk any minute. Isn’t there some way so she can be kept away from him—so he can’t get to her?”

“I’m afraid not, Mr. Haworth, unless he——” Mr. Trescott broke off as a possibility occurred to him. “Has he any money?” he asked. “Enough, I mean, to have her well taken care of—private hospital and all that?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, he _has_! Well, do you think there’s any way to make him do it? It’s going to cost something, you know.”

“He’ll do it.”

“That’s the thing, then.”

Trescott wrote an address on a desk pad and scribbled a few words below. “See the doctor personally. Tell his secretary it’s from me.” He handed the address to Haworth. “He’ll see that she’s sent to the right place. And I rather think they can let her come along awhile before. She’ll have nurses, doctors, everything, and nobody’ll be allowed to see her that might have the least unfavorable effect—you understand. As I say, it’s going to be rather expensive. You feel quite positive the fellow can stand it?” He was watching the young man narrowly as he put the question.

“Yes.”

“All right then—Now, Mr. Haworth, what about you? I suppose, from what you’ve been telling me, that you’ve had some—er—interruptions and—and anxieties that may have seriously interfered with your work?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Well, we’ve got one distraction out of the way,” Trescott said, hopefully, indicating the note and address that Haworth was holding in his hand.

“Yes,” the young man said; and after thanking Mr. Trescott in his laconic way, he went to the address of the doctor.

* * * * *

They kept Edith at the hospital for some weeks after she could have gone home. For observation, it was said—but that didn’t get to Haworth. He knew only that all had gone well, that there was a very minute daughter in the world, and that the conditions might perhaps be better than they had been so far as Findlay was concerned, for a warning from the patrolman given before his wife was taken to the hospital had apparently accomplished its purpose. Augustus entertained a serious repugnance to jail from having once been compelled to sample it, and the patrolman’s words were seed sown in specially fertilized soil.

For some time he had kept on the safe side of the line which divided bestial drunkenness from mere gentlemanly intoxication. And when Edith, after an absence of some two months, returned to the cottage on Cherry Street with the baby and a nurse, the comparative decency of his conduct came near astounding her. Findlay, however, was controlling himself with the utmost difficulty. To the fear of the police was now added the presence of a nurse—and in a damned uniform, at that! How did he know but that she was sent there to report him? His mania to get even with Haworth increased till he was in a condition of chronic fury. He’d found out that Haworth had been meeting his wife, that the money she’d been using for household expenses came from him instead of being earned by her, that he had sent her to the hospital for her confinement and paid for it—though as to that, who should pay for it if not he?—and he hadn’t a doubt that it was Haworth who’d set the police on him. Haworth—Haworth—Haworth—whichever way he turned. And here she was, still wearing the clothes this fellow had given her—brazenly wearing them before his face! The getting of his money was nothing; it was what it meant—what it showed was going on.

He’d been told by some of his disreputable associates that he could bring suit for alienation and get all the rotter’s property away from him. He’d do it, too! He knew a lawyer who’d take it on spec. Cost nothing. But that wasn’t enough. Money was all very well, but satisfaction—that was what he wanted—satisfaction!

* * * * *

Haworth had been allowed to see Edith a few days after the child was born. She was very white and beautiful. When the nurse brought the little speck of humanity, sound asleep, and laid it beside her, he sat gazing at it for a long time. Edith lay looking at him with a shadow of a smile flitting about her face. Soon the nurse made a little sign and turned away. Haworth bent over and pressed his lips to Edith’s hands as they lay on the coverlet—first one and then the other, and then the first again and then the other again. Then he looked once more at the little one, and finally let his eyes meet Edith’s in a long embracing look that told her everything. After that he rose and tiptoed out of the room. Neither of them noticed that not a word had been said. They had spoken in a language not crippled by words.

I’ve always had the idea that those innocent and delightful people who are born without a trace of what might be referred to as economics, and who are unable to acquire enough of same for personal use, should have financial guardians appointed to help them through. Charles Michael Haworth, the inventor, should have had one.

Everything that he could lay his hands on was expended in providing the best possible care for Edith during the period of her maternity. No still small voice—indeed, no voice of any description—was heard by him in warning against overdoing in the matter of present expenditure, as future needs were likely to be still greater.

Haworth could not think of such things. He could think only of Edith. And not Edith in the future, but Edith now. One day, upon roughly figuring from his check-book stubs (which was the only figuring he ever did) he was amazed to find that he had very nearly expended the entire amount deposited from the new loan. Only a few hundred left, and he needed that for the nurse who was taking care of Edith! The doctor had advised keeping some one with her for a while, as she was still far from well.

After a tough night worrying about it, he got old Mrs. Temple in and told her that he had come to the place where there was no more money for his own use—none at all. All the servants must go—the cook and Hulda, even herself, for he would be unable to pay any more wages. He was sorry, but they must all go.

“What will you do, sir?” the old woman asked.

“Oh, that’s—that’s nothing. I’ll be all right.”

“You won’t be all right without your food, Mr. Haworth.”

“I can get it somewhere.” He had vague notions of things in tins and oatmeal and baked beans, that he could live on for a few cents a day. That money in the bank, every dollar of it, must go for the nurse—for the nurse and their food, too. Augustus was doing nothing.

Mrs. Temple went out in a blind sort of way. Soon Hulda appeared.

“She told me, sir.” She came just within the door, embarrassed.

“Oh yes—about going. I’m sorry.”

“I—I’d rather stay, Mr. Haworth.”

“You mustn’t.”

“If you please, it’s nothing to me about the paying—not till you can.”

“I don’t see how I ever can, Hulda. And there won’t be anything for you to eat—nothing you’d like at all. It’s too bad, isn’t it? You’ve been so good to me, Hulda.”

A strange convulsion twitched the honest Swedish face and a couple of large-sized tears went sliding down her cheeks, upon realizing which, she bolted out of the room.

Haworth went down into the shop. Not to work; that was impossible—impossible even if the power current hadn’t been shut off. He stood for half an hour gazing vacantly down the long room with the lathes and heavier machines lined along one side, the dead power shaft above them, and the bench with vises and tool racks and the lighter machines along the other.

Hulda and the cook left four days later, the former making spasmodic swipes across the upper part of her face with a bunched-up handkerchief as she stood near the taxi waiting for them to bring down her trunks. Nothing, however, would induce old Mrs. Temple to budge. Haworth’s earnest pleading (on her behalf) that not only would he have no money for her wages, but nothing wherewith to buy food for her, made no impression on the old woman. She announced that she was a-goin’ to come in an’ see to him an’ he might just as well make up his mind to it. Wages wasn’t no consequence; he could pay her later when he was doin’ well with his inventions. A compromise was finally reached. She was to come in once in a while to put things to rights, but you may as well know now that the said “once in a while” eventually developed into twice in a while and then to three times a week; later still, as you will see, to the old woman remaining in the house night and day as long as she was able to manage it.

* * * * *

Three months had passed since the baby was born, and Edith hadn’t regained her strength. It was absolutely necessary that she should have proper care and nourishment. The doctor continued to visit her at intervals and insisted on the importance of having the nurse remain with her. So far Haworth had been able to manage these things, but he was now close upon the end of his resources, and as time went on his anxiety became appalling.

He had been to a number of machine shops and manufacturing establishments and applied for work. At two places he got a chance to try, but in neither did he last more than three days. It wasn’t the trouble of earlier years—inability to hold his mind concentrated on work that was deadly and meaningless repetition. With the tremendous incentive he had and the absence of interfering inventive ideas, he could have done it. But with his marvelous mechanical knowledge he couldn’t compete in cheap rapidity with a boob they might pick up in the street. What he did he must do carefully and well. That lifelong habit was absolutely unbreakable, and it unfitted him for modern work. It took time. That wouldn’t do.

It came to be the day after to-morrow that he was expected to pay the monthly expenses for Edith, and he realized that he couldn’t do it. Mrs. Temple saw from the way he strode blindly about the house that he was in distress. She’d been watching him (without seeming to do so) for some hours. Finally she managed to get in his way so that he was compelled to stop before her. He hesitated and looked at her blankly.

“Oh, Mrs. Temple. Yes—yes.”

“I was just thinkin’, Mr. Haworth, there’s furniture in this house that you ain’t got any use fur that I c’n see.”

“Take anything you want, Mrs. Temple.” He turned to resume his feverish pacing.

“No, Mr. Haworth, it wasn’t that!” She was so emphatic that he stopped again and stood looking at her.

“There’s good furniture here, Mr. Haworth. Now that sideboard—I don’t see’s you really need it. Maybe I could find somebody that’d give a good price for it——”

“What?”

She repeated what she’d said.

“Could you find him now?”

“I’ll have to go in to Boston. There’s a man there——”

“Would—would it be enough to—to——”

“I dunno exactly, but that sideboard’s wuth consid’rable; and that walnut set in the East Room——”

“Anything—anything, Mrs. Temple. Please hurry. You might lose a chance!” And he almost pushed her out of the room. The enormous relief made him feel really faint and he sank into the nearest chair.

* * * * *

It was more than two months after the sale of the sideboard—during which interval many other articles of furniture and four paintings had been disposed of in one way or another, together with the largest of his two lathes and his shaper and drill press—that Edith heard what was going on. The information reached her via Augustus, who kept a close watch on Haworth, and observing the trucks of second-hand dealers taking these various articles from the mansion, took delight in taunting her with it.

At once she insisted that the nurse should not remain another day—that it was entirely unnecessary, as she was feeling very much better. She seemed so determined about this that the doctor thought best to give way, and told her the nurse could go at the end of the month.

In a letter to Haworth, Edith told him that she was so much better that the nurse was going, and that hereafter she could manage with very little help—perhaps none at all—as Augustus had got a job again and she was going to insist that he turn over half his pay to her for household expenses. She would miss the nurse, of course, she said, especially about getting his letters at the Post Office and taking hers there. But she would find some way.

This letter reached Haworth at a time when he was beginning again to be frightfully anxious as to where he could obtain money to go on with, for he had only a small amount left and everything they could find in the house that would sell had been disposed of. He was cutting off every possible expense, even to half starving himself, pretending to Mrs. Temple, when she came in on one of her “on” days and wanted to cook things for him, that he had just eaten a hearty meal and couldn’t possibly get down any more. He had an empty baked-bean can that he feloniously left where she would see it, in order to help with the deception.

Edith’s letter gave him relief. He sat on his bench in the workroom, thinking it over, and before going to bed he wrote one to her asking if he couldn’t call and see her before the nurse actually left as it was better for him to come while she was there. And so it was arranged.

And the nurse was discreet and left them to themselves. And he held the minute bundle of recently arrived humanity in his arms a few moments until it protested vigorously on account of his profound awkwardness. An exquisite hour it was for both of them. But Augustus was informed of what had occurred by the small boy he’d hired to keep a lookout, and on reaching home that evening was so violent and abusive that the nurse started out of the house to bring the police, but he called her back, thereafter subsiding into a scowling silence, and not long after leaving the house.

* * * * *

On the following day, along toward afternoon, a car came up the drive and the front-door buzzer sounded. Haworth opened the door to the physician in whose care Edith had been at the hospital and who’d been keeping an eye on her since she came back to the Cherry Street cottage.

“Mr. Haworth, good afternoon.”

“Oh—the doctor, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Markham. Met you two or three times at the hospital. Dropped around to have a little talk.”

Haworth stood, near to being paralyzed with a frightful dread—some sort of premonition concerning Edith—that stopped his heart.

He was aroused by the doctor’s gently turning him about and walking with him into the house. There was no furniture left in the vast dim hall, and Doctor Markham, seeing through the open door on the left that the room beyond had at least chairs and a table in it, guided him in there. Haworth managed to make a motion toward one of the chairs and Doctor Markham seated himself. Then Haworth slowly sat down, without once taking his eyes off the doctor. He heard a voice saying something about there being no cause for alarm and wishing to assure somebody that there was nothing that couldn’t be taken care of if the proper steps were taken without delay.

“We’ve had Mrs. Findlay under observation for some little time,” Doctor Markham went on. “I needn’t tell you that the important thing in these cases is to get them in time; and while there was no——”

“What cases?” broke in Haworth, who was on the rack.

“The situation is this, Mr. Haworth: During the time Mrs. Findlay was at the hospital we deemed it inadvisable to make a thorough examination, for she could hardly have failed to realize what we were looking for, and the effect on her might have been unfortunate. But we feared a tendency toward tubercular trouble. We could say nothing more at the time.”

The doctor paused.

Haworth heard himself repeating huskily, “At that time.”

“Yes.”

“But you—you can now?”

“We’ve made an examination, Mr. Haworth.”

Doctor Markham waited a moment and then continued: “Fortunately the infection is very slight—only a small tract at the top of the left lung. We’re in plenty of time, you see, and by sending her to the right locality and making sure that she has proper treatment and surroundings, there’s no occasion for anxiety. I came to see you about this because I don’t know of anyone else. Her husband is out of the question. Perhaps you know of some relatives or—or——”

Haworth shook his head a little and tried to say “no,” but accomplished no more than a movement of his lips.

“The only thing, then, is to leave it in your hands, Mr. Haworth,” the doctor went on, “and I’m very much hoping you’ll see your way—or—or find a way” (he could not help a glance about the poverty-stricken room) “to send her to one of the best high-altitude cures, where she’ll have a complete change in every respect:—air—food—sunlight—surroundings—even language if possible, for every little helps. Attitude of mind is an important element you know. Of course there are State and other institutions here—all admirable in their way. But I’m sure Mrs. Findlay needs something more than we can find near at hand. Moreover, there’s a child to be considered. That complicates matters a little.”

Haworth sat rigid, his eyes fixed on the physician.

“I’m going over the case carefully with Doctor Benjamin, our lung specialist, and I’ll have you fully informed of the steps to be taken. Mrs. Findlay is aware of her condition. Just as well, too. She’d have to know very soon in order to understand why certain things in the way of treatment are necessary.” Doctor Markham understood the situation pretty well and felt no resentment nor, indeed, surprise that Haworth failed to rise from his chair or even seemingly to be aware that he was going. He left the young man sitting motionless, staring before him.

* * * * *

Mrs. Temple came in next morning and found Haworth in the room on the left, sitting motionless, staring before him. He had the appearance of having been there for some time, though she had no idea it was so long as since the day before. For that matter, neither had he.

It wasn’t necessary to make an effort to rouse him; he looked up at her as she came near and answered her “good morning” absently. Later he took a cup of strong coffee she brought, and drank it in compliance with her request. Afterward she heard him murmuring faintly and mechanically, as from force of habit, that he had had all the breakfast he wanted and really couldn’t eat any more, so would she please not get it for him. She paid no attention to this, though, and cooked him an egg with two little ribbons of bacon which she had brought over from her own limited base of supplies. When she set the tray on a kitchen chair by his side he looked up at her gratefully but shook his head a little. But when she said, “Please eat it, Mr. Haworth,” he did so. Afterward, when she had gone back to the kitchen and was washing the dishes he came out and asked if she could take a note to Mrs. Findlay for him and bring back an answer. He explained how to get there, and she started at once, without waiting to finish the dishes. There was a strange and disquieting look in his eyes that she hadn’t seen in them before.

He had scribbled in pencil, “I must see you—I must—I must.” And the answer came back, “Darling—oh, my darling, please don’t be worried—it will be all right. Come to-morrow—three is the best time.”

* * * * *

When he was with her once more and she with him, there wasn’t much that could be said. It was mostly the two silent ones clinging to each other, feeling even then that the dread specter was standing over them, making ready to tear them eternally apart; yet each managed to find a few words of encouragement, Edith stopping his eyes with kisses when they turned that terrified look on her, and telling him there wasn’t any danger at all—that she felt so perfectly well; he muttering about a patent he might sell, and anyway there were other things he had in mind, so that she’d have every care and be sent to a place where cure was certain.

And then there was the little one—Mildred they were going to name her—sound asleep on the nearby couch! It was inconceivable that tragedy could come to such an innocent! He sat for a long time looking down at the child, with Edith’s hand, now so white and thin, pressed against his lips.

While he was there the maddening inability to do what would save her seemed not to burn into him so mercilessly. It was when he left her and was back in the vast and gloomy house with its shadowy candlelight and bareness of furniture that these things returned upon him and assaulted him with their full force. And something that made it still more terrible was lying on the table in the living room, awaiting his return—the large envelope from Doctor Markham’s office containing the specialist’s report. An agonizing thing to read, yet he did not hesitate.

Mrs. Findlay was in a serious condition. Though much of the detail was beyond his comprehension, he had no difficulty in understanding that. No time must be lost in getting her to one of the high-altitude cures. Switzerland was recommended as most desirable for one of her type. There were several that were held to be as beneficial in the United States, but for Mrs. Findlay they were not to be preferred if it were possible to send her abroad.

Haworth saw it all. To save her life she must be sent to one of those places—and little Mildred taken care of. And there was no one but himself to do it,—no one.

Mrs. Temple, pretending to be busy with an unusual amount of cleaning, managed to hover near, not annoying him as he sat distracted or moved blindly about the house, but ready at any time to do what she could—for she saw there was serious trouble. Along toward seven o’clock she made tea and cooked a small chop she’d bought while he was away. When she asked him to come and have his supper, he stared at her vacantly, seeming not to know what she meant; but it came to him after a little, and he seated himself at the table in the small breakfast room without further urging, drinking and eating, but plainly without an idea of what he was doing.

Afterward he wandered back into the living room, behaving somewhat as people probably do when they’re walking in their sleep—I never saw one.

The old woman glanced in occasionally while doing the dishes, and saw each time that he was sitting there staring into vacancy, the pallor of his face emphasizing the darkness of his deep-set eyes. She was greatly worried, and wasn’t going home _that_ night, no matter what! He might be taken ill or something. She would lie down on the old lounge she’d found in the loft of the barn and brought into the kitchen when all the good furniture was taken away. The last thing before doing this she stole quietly to the door and looked in again. Mr. Haworth hadn’t moved from the chair nor changed his position in any way. She went back to the kitchen and stretched herself on the ancient and moth-eaten sofa. It was a warm evening and she needed no covering. It seemed only a few moments after she fell asleep that she was suddenly awakened by the sound of violent knocking or pounding that apparently came from somewhere in the basement. She listened for a few seconds, alarmed, her old heart doing a corresponding pounding of its own. Haworth hadn’t worked down there for months, and it seemed incredible that he would suddenly go at it again at such an hour, and with the terrible thing, whatever it was, that seemed to be pressing on his mind.

But Mrs. Temple was game, if ever a woman was. It was hardly two ticks after the pounding began before she was feeling her way down the basement stairs.

It was Haworth at work, and not in his shop, but some distance beyond it. She could see him by the light of the lamp he’d placed near. He had a lot of weather-beaten boards or planks that had apparently been dragged in through one of the basement windows. She couldn’t think where he’d got them, unless it was from the old barn at the rear of the house. Out of these he was building a partition, so far as the old woman could make out, and he was evidently in a fever of haste about it, knocking and clawing out old nails, sawing boards in lengths, and then nailing them to upright timbers or studding set in a way so they would wall off a small-sized room.

Even Haworth’s furious activity which she now beheld, seemed better to her than having him sit rigid, staring at nothing, with some hidden anguish eating his heart out; and she thought best not to disturb him. So, after watching him a few moments she turned away and went back up the stairs, and as soon as she’d got herself quieted a little, lay down again on the old lounge. But not to sleep. She didn’t expect that. How could she while hearing this dearly beloved young man in his frenzied fit of work, to which he was driven by some desperation the cause of which she could not guess?

It was still going on when the morning sunlight struck in through one of the windows, and did not cease until she went down to him with coffee and toast on a tray. He stopped when she spoke, and stood an instant looking at her. Then he thanked her, but really he didn’t want anything. This behavior she considered much nearer to what was normal with him than the way he’d acted at supper the night before—eating everything without a word. Indeed, Mrs. Temple was so much encouraged by his refusal to take anything, that she went further and insisted. He must take it now while it was hot, and she set the tray on the plank he was just then sawing. On this the young fellow came to terms and drank the coffee and ate the toast—very hurriedly to be sure, and with eyes roving about the structure he was engaged upon; but he “got it down,” as Mrs. Temple said to herself, “and that’s the main thing!”

In three or four minutes he was working again, and with the same feverish haste—the same madness to have it finished.

It was late the previous night that the thing had occurred to him. He’d been sitting where Mrs. Temple last saw him, all hope gone, crushed, stunned, overcome. All at once, without warning, he found himself standing erect and with a plan or conception in his mind which promised, on its first occurring to him, to be something which would certainly turn defeat into victory. The central idea of the thing, with its most extraordinary possibilities for profit, came to him as a whole, and from that he began rapidly to develop it. For nearly an hour he stood there intensely occupied with this, feeling positive that he had something which would enable him to save the life of the one so dear to him. Toward the end of that time the vital necessity for secrecy began to dawn on him and then to rise rapidly into tremendous importance, until he suddenly came to the realization that it was at the basis of everything—that without it the invention would be valueless—so much junk. He decided at once to build a room in the basement where the device could be constructed without the slightest danger that knowledge of its purpose or mechanism would leak out. Bars and padlocks. Timbers from the old barn back of the house. Almost before he knew what he was doing he found himself out there with hammer and chisel and cross-cut saw. He took the lamp that Mrs. Temple had left lighted on the table, and drove at the business frantically. Time—time—time! The doctors said delay might turn the scales against her.

In a couple of hours he had enough timber ripped off and dragged to the basement to begin on, and at it he went, startling Mrs. Temple—of whose presence in the house he was unaware—out of a sound sleep.

Working with the same desperate drive all the next day and well into the succeeding night, he had the small room entirely planked-up by two in the morning, the partitions build up solid to the floor joists of the room above.

He was at it again the morning following, and Mrs. Temple knew from the muffling of the sound, as she heard it in the kitchen, that he had now closed himself into the new room and was working inside.

There isn’t a doubt in the world that Charles Michael Haworth would have starved himself to death at this time but for Mrs. Temple. Without a word of remonstrance or fault-finding she simply took things as they came and hustled about to do what she could. Sometimes she was able to induce a grocer or market man to give a little more credit. Failing that, she’d go home to her lodgings (a small room in a tenement building of forbidding aspect) and pull a battered old trunk from under the bed. After looking about to satisfy herself that no spectators were present, she’d reach in under the clothing which partly filled it, and bring up a cigar box, from which the old woman would surreptitiously and with a snatching motion, take out a dollar or two, quite in the manner of one engaged in a robbery of some kind. Very well she knew that this little hoard had been put by for a rainy day, and nearly always she’d mumble to herself, “Well if this ain’t one, what is it I’d like to know!” as she pilfered it. The money was quickly exchanged for groceries.

She brought his food to him in the basement, putting the dishes on an upturned barrel near the little room where he was working. Then she’d call to him that it was there and at once hurry away upstairs again. He wouldn’t open the door while she was in the basement. For sleep he took what little he got like a Chinese laundryman, dropping down where he was when exhausted and resuming his hectic labor the instant consciousness returned.

There was only one outside interruption during the time Haworth was driving to finish the apparatus or device he was working on, and that a brief one. Two young men came to the house one morning, and so impressed old Mrs. Temple (who answered the bell) with the importance of their errand—assuring her that instead of being after money they wanted to pay Mr. Haworth some—that she went down and talked to him through the partition about it. It resulted in his finally putting on his coat and going up to see what they wanted. He found them on the front portico. Although Mrs. Temple had asked them in, they seemed, for some reason, to prefer waiting outside.

Certainly the one who did the talking did it well. He was a reporter from one of the Boston papers and had in view a story for the Sunday supplement. This recluse inventor had become quite a subject of remark in his near neighborhood, and something of general interest might be got out of it. Realizing from what he’d heard that Haworth would be a ticklish proposition to handle, he said nothing about the real object of his visit, but pretended instead that he wanted to buy one of his inventions. His talk was so earnest, so glib, so voluble, that Haworth was led into answering quite a lot of questions about his life, habits of work, etc., before he realized what he was doing, and altogether failed to notice that during this time the other chap (who was a photographer) was dodging about in different places, carrying a peculiar box-like affair in his hands. It was this latter that brought an abrupt end to the interview, for Haworth’s ear, trained to a hair on mechanical sounds, suddenly caught the click of a camera, and turning on the instant, he got a fleeting glimpse of the thing focused on him before the young man had time to drop it down. After a second’s pause he turned on his heel and went into the house, closing the door firmly, though not violently, behind him. The reporter chap was disappointed, as he had it laid out to see the inside and look over the inventions after they had the photographs taken. But with the pictures they had there was enough stuff to go on with, and he could do a bit of imaginary work for the interior.

Three weeks—even working under forced draft as he did—was quick time in which to finish what Haworth had undertaken. He had one thing in his favor, though, which counted for not a little: the parts he had to get out were large and simple—heavy wooden shafts and levers, smooth-running pulleys with cords and weights, a great heavy pendulum with escapement device—parts like that, and all on a scale involving no complicated adjustments. Whatever lathe-work was necessary he managed on the small lathe—it was only the large one that had been sold. He had to rig it for foot power, but that was a comparatively simple matter.

On an evening which was near to the end of this period of drastic toil, Haworth sent Mrs. Temple on an errand so that he could test his mechanism out. He found that with some minor changes and readjustments that took him, notwithstanding the furious drive he put into it, a day and a half longer, the device operated with certainty and precision. Mad to complete it as he was, he realized that it must be unerring in its performance. The slightest thing amiss or out of adjustment would not only have spelled disaster, but pronounced it.

* * * * *