It had been a protracted session.
Judge Ambrose Warren, corporation counsel for the Consolidated, leaned back in his chair and gazed at the ceiling over the peak of the skeleton structure he had erected in front of his nose with his fingers.
Colonel Dodd squinted first at his nephew and then at the bouquet on his desk.
The nephew had been attempting by all the methods known to the appealing male to win only one return glance from Kate Kilgour; but the young lady held her eyes on her note-book, poised her pencil above the page, and waited for more of that conversation and statement of which she had been the silent recorder.
“You think you have given us all the main points of what you overheard, do you, Mr. Dodd?” inquired the judge, turning sharp gaze on the young man.
“I can't remember any more.”
“You think you recognized voices sufficiently well to be sure that this person named Farr made that novel suggestion in regard to what was called a 'water district'?”
“There was no mistaking his voice,” said Dodd, with the malevolence of bitter recollection.
Another prolonged silence. Then the judge asked, his eyes again on the ceiling, “Just who is this Walker Farr?”
Richard Dodd, keeping jealous espionage on all the girl's emotions and movements saw a flush suffuse her cheeks; her hands trembled. She raised her eyes in a quick glance and he detected eager inquiry.
“I don't know who he is,” growled the colonel.
“You'd better find out,” advised the corporation counsel.
“Why?”
“Of course this thing has been put up to me very suddenly. I can give you only a snap judgment. But that scheme has possibilities.”
“As a lawyer you don't mean to tell me that a crazy idea like that can be put through in this state against the combination we control?”
“It will not be a case of combination and money and politics, Colonel, when it gets to the high court. It will be law. And I'm sorry you can't tell me any more about the man who has devised the plan. I'd like to know how he dug it out.”
“But a gang of pirates can't organize like that and confiscate our property! We're going to tap the lakes. We're going ahead right away. But can that fool's scheme scoop in the Consolidated Water Company?”
“That's to be found out. I am going to tell you now that I believe an organization of citizens into an independent water district can be made legally and be independent of other debts. Colonel Dodd, if that opposition gets control of the next legislature you can depend upon it that the necessary legislation will be passed. We may as well look facts in the face: they're getting mighty restive in this state; the people have been penned in by the Machine very effectually to date—but show 'em a place now where they can jump the fence and they're going to do it.”
“But what's the good of paying you twenty-five thousand dollars a year for law if you can't keep the bars up?” The tone was that of the impatient tyrant.
“You'll please remember that this thing is likely to go to the United States court. When you go in there you've got to leave your side-arms of politics—pull and pocket-book—at the door. I will say this: the Federal Constitution guarantees protection against any irregular, illegal, or confiscatory action under state authority. That is, no states shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Now, of course, a corporation is a person in the meaning of the law, and therefore we can carry the matter to the United States Supreme Court, but I want to tell you that if the next legislature enacts law permitting water districts, and the state authorities proceed to condemn your plants, you may as well get ready to step out from under. You are a shrewd man and you understand the spirit of these times in regard to giving to the people their full rights in public utilities. I say again, you'd better get a line on this Walker Farr, because it's either a case of ignorance inspired or else he's a deep one. He has started with a plan that can be defended by law—and the judges in these days are handing the people's rights and property back to them when there is a legal opportunity.”
“Why, this Farr is a nothing—nobody. Dug in our trenches for a while until he was discharged. Briggs looked him up for me. The only man in this city he has been at all intimate with is an old Canuck named Provancher who tends the rack down at Gamonic Mill. You can judge him by the company he keeps.”
“Well, he seems to be fraternizing with better men just now,” drawled the judge. “Archer Converse, for instance!”
“The thing to do,” suggested young Dodd, still watching the girl, “is get something on that hobo and boot him out of town or put him in jail. It ought to be easy enough.”
“And it will be attended to,” declared the colonel, with venom. “We'll kill that one crow and hang him up in full view of the rest of those croakers! I'll put something over on that fellow and have all the papers in the state print it—and high-and-mighty Converse will be so disgusted that he'll quit and the rest of the crowd will be ashamed to keep on. Disgrace a reformer! That's the surest play in politics! We must get Farr!”
He turned his scowling gaze away from the flowers and found Miss Kilgour looking at him with an expression in her eyes he had never seen there before. Reproach and scorn seemed to mingle in the stare she gave him. He blinked, and when he looked again she was examining the point of her pencil; he decided that his eyesight had played him a strange prank.
“By the way, Miss Kilgour,” he informed her, “you need not remain. Make two typewritten copies—the judge will need one.”
Richard Dodd arose when she left her chair, but she did not glance at him. He began to speak before she had reached the door, unable to restrain his jealous temper longer.
“Uncle Symonds, pass the word to that old Provancher, through the superintendent of the Gamonic, that unless he comes across with all the stuff he knows about that Farr he'll be fired. And I've got a hunter out on my own account. It will be easy enough to catch the skunk and strip off his pelt.”
Miss Kilgour closed the door behind her with a sharper click than she had ever given its latch before. She hurried to her typewriter in her little room and began to work with all her energy.
She was so busy and her machine clattered so viciously that she did not hear Richard Dodd when he entered. He leaned over her.
“Have you talked with your mother yet? Has she given you some advice?” he asked. His jealousy still fired him and his tone was not conciliatory.
The contempt in the glance she flung upward at him roused him to passion. In the state of mind in which he then was he made no allowances for her ignorance of conditions in her mother's case. He knew what he had done for Mrs. Kilgour's sake, and this attitude on the daughter's part pricked him like wilful ingratitude.
He put his hands on the keyboard of the typewriter and stopped her work. “I love you, Kate, and you have known it for a long time. I tried to show you how much I loved you. I know I did a foolish thing. But I loved you.” He almost sobbed the protestation. “I've been in hell's torment since it happened. I've been a fool all the way through, but I won't be a fool any more if you'll take pity on me.”
She did not speak. Her silent, utter contempt stung more deeply and surely than words.
“If you insist on being so high above, I'm going to bring you down a little,” he sneered. “I hate to do it, but you've got to be shown where your real friends are. I have given your mother a chance to say something to you, and say it right. But she hasn't done it, and I don't propose to be made the goat.” In his anger he was not choice in his language. “You go home and ask her whether or not she owes me five thousand dollars. Oh, you needn't open your eyes at me in that style! It's time we all got down to cases in this thing, Kate. I've waited for her long enough. She has simply fluffed me along. Now she has got to do her part.”
“Have you lost your mind?” she demanded.
“No! But I lost five thousand dollars when I loaned it to your mother. Kate, she told me she had a stock deal on—that she would be able to pay it back. Listen! I may as well go the limit with you. I took money that wasn't mine so that I could help your mother out—it was because I loved you. Now you realize how much I have loved you. I protected your mother. And now, by the gods, if you and she don't come to the scratch in this thing and do right by me I'll show up why she had to be protected, and after that you'll never draw a happy breath again in your life. I advised you to talk with your mother once before. This time you'd better to it.”
She leaned back in her chair, white and trembling, for his tones carried conviction.
“I have hated to open this thing up, Kate. I have waited a long time, hoping you'd understand that I would make a good husband—that I deserved to have you. I'm only speaking out now so that you'll wake up. You've got to stand by the man who has stood by you. Go talk with your mother!”
After he had hurried out she went back to her work, but her fingers could only fumble at the keys. By effort of will persons of strong character can compose themselves after disaster has been confirmed; but impending disaster that is hinted at—guessed at—is a menace which paralyzes. She was endeavoring to write down what Richard Dodd had revealed of the plans of Walker Farr. She understood that the mighty power of the state machine was now doubling its fist over the head of the stranger who had come into her life in such peculiar fashion. At the same moment she was cowering under the threat of something she did not fully understand.
And from the Dodds—uncle and nephew—came the menace which loomed over both of them.
Then to her came Peter Briggs, who had been summoned to a conference in the inner office; by direction of his chief he had been reading to Judge Warren certain entries penciled in the note-book which he guarded with the elastic band.
“The governor wants you to add these items to the record, so that the judge can have a copy,” said Mr. Briggs to the confidential secretary. “The subject isn't a very genteel one, Miss Kilgour, but orders are orders, and you'll have to excuse me.”
And Mr. Briggs kept snapping the elastic band nervously while he dictated, carefully looking away from the young woman.
In such manner Kate Kilgour learned of the existence of Zelie Dionne and of the child whom Walker Farr had protected; Mr. Briggs's zeal in the interest of his employer had made him a partisan in that affair, with easy conscience regarding the matter of the details. The bald record showed that Farr and the girl had cared for the child between them, had nursed it with grief and solicitude, had borne it to the plot of land where the little graves were crowded so closely. Mr. Briggs complacently avoided dates and age and the minuter details. He even pleaded the case, having caught a cue from Colonel Dodd; his record left the impression that Walker Farr, who had come from nowhere—nobody knew when—had lived in Marion unknown and unnoticed at the time when he had compassed the ruin of a confiding girl.
“A scalawag, and a bad one!” commented Mr. Briggs, closing his note-book. “And of course there's worse to come! Posing as a reformer—that's the way such renegades work the thing. A new game for every new place!”
And Kate Kilgour, remembering the vagrant on the broad highway, wrote down the arraignment of this person, trying to understand her emotions.
Her own eyes had seen him garbed as a tramp, plainly a homeless nomad.
Her ears had just listened to the story of his shame.
But after a time, in spite of what she had seen and heard, that strange instinct which dominates the feminine mind in spite of what the mere senses affirm took possession of her.
She had known from the first that Richard Dodd's garments, his attitude, his professions, his position did not make him what her woman's heart desired.
But, somehow, this other man, no matter what he seemed to be from outward appearance, stood forth for her from all the world. At times, in her ponderings, she had disgustedly termed her mood regarding him pure lunacy. Then she gave rein to the domination of her intuition; the man was not what he seemed to be!
She determined to put him out of her thoughts for ever.
Just then, however, writing out the story of his turpitude, she must needs have him in her mind.
She wondered whether he were honest in his attempts to help the poor people.
She had believed that he was when he had faced Colonel Dodd.
She determined that she would make some investigation of her own in regard to the mysterious person who had taken such possession of her thoughts since she had met him in the highway—whose personality had so pricked her curiosity. She comforted herself by calling her interest mere curiosity. That was it! If this man were what they claimed he was she might help in revealing him as an enemy of the poor folks.
And then to her came another thought.
She looked around the offices where she worked and bitter lines were etched in her forehead and about her mouth.
The place had become hateful. She was conscious of a passionate desire to be free from the atmosphere of that central web of the Great Spider.
She bent over her work and hurried.
What was the shadow over her home?
She realized that she was not thinking clearly in the matter. She knew that impulse was driving her. But it was impulse which was uncontrollable. For a long time she had understood the sinister influence which had radiated from that office in the First National block. But it had been rather the impersonal influence of partisan politics and she had had little knowledge of the persons concerned. But, now that the situation had been so sharply pointed by recent happenings, she understood better what had gone on in the past.
This stranger, whoever he was, seemed to be fighting for the good of the people. She had heard him declare his principles boldly; she knew the selfishness of the men who opposed him. She resolved to know more.
It was close upon six o'clock when she finished the transcription.
She had given much thought to her own affairs while she had been working. And now she allowed impulse to dominate. She resolved to leave that employment which brought her into contact with Richard Dodd and where her duties required her to prepare material for the ruin of a man who seemed to be doing an unselfish duty, no matter what they said. She did not try to analyze that quixotic impulse; she merely obeyed.
She tied up the packet of manuscript, addressed it to Colonel Dodd, and slipped under the string a sealed note. In that note she resigned her position, stating that a matter of personal honor demanded that she leave instantly. She did not qualify that statement by any explanation. But she knew in her own heart just what it meant. For when she left the office she did not hasten straight home as her anxious fears prompted her; she made a detour around by Gamonic Mill in search of one Provancher, who, she had learned, tended the rack of the canal.
The thought that dominated all other thoughts and comforted her was the reflection that she was no longer the confidential secretary of Colonel Symonds Dodd, and that now she might obey certain promptings of both curiosity and conscience.
The rumble of the big turbines was stilled when she came to the fence which surrounded the rack, and old Etienne was starting away with rake and pike-pole. But when she called he came to her—wondering, much abashed, for she was by far the prettiest lady he had ever seen.
“Are you the friend of Mr. Walker Farr?” she asked, and she was even more embarrassed than he.
“I am too poor mans to be call a friend, ma'm'selle. I can just say that he is grand mans that I love.”
“Then you are the one to give him this message. Tell him that men who are fighting him in politics intend to do him great harm and that he must be very careful. Tell him that he will understand who these men are.”
“Oui, ma'm'selle. But will he understand who tell me that thing?”
Her cheeks were crimson. “No, no! He mustn't know that.”
“Then he will tell me, 'Poh, old Etienne, you know nottings what you talk about.' He is very bold mans, and he not scare very easy.”
“But he must be cautious, for these men have power. He need not be afraid of them, but he must watch carefully. You tell him that they want to make out bad things about him so that they can print them in the papers and hurt the cause he is working for. Can you remember?”
“Oui, ma'm'selle! I never forget anything what may be for his good. I will tell him.”
She hesitated for a long time and stared wistfully at the old man. She started to go away and then returned to the fence, plainly mustering her courage.
“Do you know whether there is anything—about him—which wicked men can use to hurt him?” she stammered.
“I only know about him what I know, ma'm'selle,” he replied, with a gentle smile nestling in the wrinkles of his withered face.
“Could you tell me some of the things you know?” she asked, after much effort, striving to make her voice calmly inquiring.
Old Etienne set the rake and the pike-pole against the fence. “I will be quick in what I tell you, ma'm'selle, for I have no place to ask you to take the seat. But I'm sure you will listen very well to this what I say.”
And he told her the story of Rosemarie.
But he did not go back as far as the pitiful figure on the canal bank, he made no mention of the water-soaked wad of paper which bore a mother's appeal to the world, he did not mention the key to Block Ten. He told the story of Walker Farr's devotion to a child. He did not dare to reveal to this stranger the identity of that child, because the telltale letter had been hidden from the coroner, and old Etienne stood in awe of the curt and domineering men who enforced the laws. But with simple earnestness and in halting speech he revealed the tenderness of Farr's nature and gave further testimony to her woman's understanding that this man who had come into her life possessed depths which she longed to probe.
“But the child!” she ventured, after Etienne had finished the story of how the two of them, voices in the wilderness of careless greed, had faced the masters of the city in the hotel de ville; “it seems strange that a man—that anybody should take a child and—” She hesitated.
“Oui, ma'm'selle, it seemed strange,” agreed the old man, studying her with sharp glance of suspicion—a gaze so strange that she shifted her eyes uneasily.
Ah, Etienne told himself, the law sometimes sent queer emissaries to probe for it—and he feared the law very much.
He must be very careful how he told any of the secrets which might trouble his good friend, who was now such a friend of the mighty folks; as for himself—well, he would willingly be a martyr if the law demanded—but he did fear that law!
“But he loved the child very much,” she hinted.
“So much that he will fight them because they have poisoned her—he will fight them and not be scare.”
“It is strange!” she repeated.
“Oui, ma'm'selle,” he said, regarding her with still more suspicion.
“But before that morning—when you found them here under the tree! He told you—”
“He walk the street with her in his arm. I don't tell you some more about dat t'ing what I do not know!”
But she knew that he was withholding something from her. She mustered her courage.
“Mr. Provancher, the bad men are making threats that they will print stories about the child—and its mamma—to hurt your friend. And the stories will make the mamma very sad.”
“No stories can make her sad,” said old Etienne, solemnly. But he did not say that he had raked the mother from the canal. The law must not know!
“But I have heard about her,” she insisted.
The old man's mouth trembled; he was frightened. “What you hear?” he faltered.
“Only good things. That she was very tender and went with you to the grave.”
“Oui,” admitted Etienne, visibly relieved and grasping at this opportunity. “She's sweet and good. She's play-mamma.”
“And her name is Zelie Dionne?” she asked, her face growing white in the dusk.
“Oui, ma'm'selle—she live across in the little house where there are plant in the window—she live with the good Mother Maillet what I told you about.” He pointed to the cottage. “You go some time and talk with her—but not now,” he added, his fears flaming. He was anxious to be the first to talk to Zelie Dionne, in order that she might help him to protect their friend. “You shall talk with her—soon—p'raps. I will tell her so that she will not be afraid. Yes, you shall hear the play-mamma say good things of poor Rosemarie.”
She bowed and hurried away.
And before her tear-wet eyes the words “play-mamma” danced in letters of fire. It seemed to be only another sordid story.
But she remembered the face of Walker Farr, and in her heart she wondered why she still refused to condemn him.
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