Scott Leroy
To Him That Hath

BOOK IV
THE SOUL OF WOMAN

CHAPTER I
HELEN CHAMBERS GETS A NEW VIEW OF HER FATHER

The morning light that sunk down the deep air-shaft and directed its dimmed gaze through the window, saw Rogers lying dressed on the couch and David sitting with sunken head at the window, a sleepless night on both their faces. There had been little talk during the crawling hours, save when the Mayor had dropped in near midnight and set walls and furniture trembling with his deep chest-notes of profanity. Even Tom, awed by the overwhelming disaster, moved noiselessly about and spoke only a few whispered monosyllables. The blow was too heavy to be talked of – too heavy for them to think of what should next be done.

Once, however, David, whose personal loss was almost forgotten in his sympathy for Rogers, had spoken of the future. "There is no future," Rogers had said. "In a few days the owners of my buildings will hear about me. They will take the agency from me. I have a few hundred dollars. That will soon go. And then – ?"

The dinginess in the light began to settle like the sediment of a clearing liquid, and the sense that the sun must be breakfast-high worked slowly to the seat of David's will. He rose, quietly set a few things in order, Rogers's eyes following him about, then put on his hat with the purpose of going to the Pan-American for his breakfast and to bring Rogers's.

As he started for the door Rogers reached forth his hand. "I'm glad you found out about me, Aldrich," he said. "I can never tell you how much you've meant to me during the last eight months, and how much you mean to me now."

David grasped the hand and looked down into the despairing eyes. "I'm glad," he said, simply.

After a moment Rogers's weak grip relaxed and he turned away his face with a sigh. David went softly out.

While David was at breakfast – his appetite shrunk from it – the Mayor sat down at his table, which had the privacy of an empty corner. "By the way," the Mayor whispered, "d'you have any idea yet how Chambers found out?"

"No more than yesterday. We told you of the call of that detective. He must have been from Chambers, and he must have made the discovery. But how, we don't know."

"Poor Rogers!" The Mayor shook his head sadly, thoughtfully. His face began slowly to redden and his eyes to flash. He thrust out a big fist. "Friend, I don't believe in fightin' – but say, I'd give five years to flatten the face that belongs to Mr. Chambers!"

David had to smile at the idea of the Mayor and Mr. Chambers engaged in fisticuffs. "It's sad, but men like Mr. Chambers are beyond the reach of justice."

The Mayor dropped his belligerent attitude. "Oh, I don't know. Mebbe they can't be reached with fists, or law – but there's other ways. And I'd like to jab him any old way. I've been thinkin' about that daughter o' his. Wouldn't I like to tell her a few things about her dad!"

The Mayor swayed away in response to a summons from the kitchen, and a few minutes later David entered his room bearing in a basket Rogers's prescribed milk and soft-boiled eggs. Rogers drank down the eggs, which David had stirred to a yellow liquid, and after them the milk, and then with a gasp of relief sank back upon the couch. As David was clearing up after the breakfast he heard some one – Kate he guessed – enter the office, and presently there was a rap on the door between the two rooms. David opened the door and found, as he had expected, Kate Morgan. She wore her coat and hat, just as she had come from the street. On her face was a strange, compressed look, and her eyes were red-lidded.

"Can I come in?" she asked with tremulous abruptness.

"Please do," said David.

She entered and moved to the foot of the couch where she could look down on Rogers. "I've come to say something – and to say good-bye," she announced.

"Say good-bye?" Rogers sat up. "Good-bye? Why? Oh, you have a new position?"

"No. I've no right to be here. You won't want me when you know. So I'm going."

Her face tightened with the effort of holding down sobs. The two men looked at her in wonderment, waiting.

"You know how broke up I was when you told me about yesterday afternoon," she went on, "and how mad I was at Mr. Chambers. And then to find out what I have!.. Here's what I've come to tell you. Yesterday afternoon and last night my father was drinking a great deal. I wondered where he got the money. This morning I went through his clothes while he was asleep; there were several dollars. I asked him about it. He lied to me, of course. But I got the truth out of him in the end.

"You remember that detective you told me about last night. When he left here yesterday about noon he happened to see my father sweeping off the sidewalk. He began to talk to my father, got my father to drinking, gave him some money. And after a while my father – he'd learned it somehow – he told the detective – he told him you were Red Thorpe."

The two men were silent a moment, looking at the strained face down which tears were now running.

"So that's how it happened!" Rogers breathed.

"Yes – my father told!" The tremor in her voice had grown to sharp sobs – of shame, agony, and wrath. "My father brought all this on you. And it's all because of me. If you both hadn't tried to be good to me, my father would not have been here and everything would have turned out right. It's all because of me! – all my fault! – don't you see? I know you'll both hate me now. I know you'll want me to go away. Well – I'm going. But I want to tell you how sorry I am – how sorry!.. Good-bye."

David wanted to speak to her, but this was Rogers's affair rather than his.

She swept them both with her brimming eyes. "Good-bye," she said again, and turned to the door.

"Miss Morgan!" called Rogers.

She paused and looked at him.

"Don't go yet."

He rose and came to her with outstretched hand. "It wasn't your fault."

She stared dazedly at him. "You're ruined – you told me so last night, and I did it. Yes, I did it."

"No. You couldn't help it. You mustn't go at all."

She took his hand slowly, in astonishment. "Oughtn't I to go?" she quavered.

"You must stay and help bear it," he said.

She looked steadfastly into his eyes. "You're mighty good to me," she breathed in a dry whisper. And then a sob broke from her, and turning abruptly she went into the office.

In the afternoon David walked over to St. Christopher's to meet Helen Chambers. Besides his bitterness, and his suspense over seeing her, David felt as he entered the door of the Mission (what he had felt on his three or four previous visits) a fear of meeting some wrathful, upbraiding body who would recognise him. But he met no one except a group of children coming with books from the library, and unescorted he followed the familiar way to the reception room, where Helen had written she would meet him. This, like the rest of the Mission's interior he had seen, was practically unchanged; and in this maintenance of old arrangements he read reverence for Morton. He wandered about the room, looking at the friendly, brown-framed prints that summoned back the far, ante-prison days. The past, flooding into him, and his sense of the nearness of Helen, crowded out for the time all his bitterness over Rogers's destruction.

When Helen appeared at the door, he was for an instant powerless to move, so thrilled was he with his love for her. She came across the room with a happy smile, her hand held out. He strode toward her, and as he caught her hand his blood swept through him in a warm wave.

"I'm so glad to see you again!" she cried, and a little laugh told him how sincere her joy was.

A sudden desire struggled to tell her, truly, how great was his gladness, and its kind, at seeing her again; and fighting the desire back made him dizzy. "And I to see you!" he said.

"It's been – let's see – five months since I've seen you, and – "

"Five months and four days," the desire within David corrected.

"And four days," she accepted, with a laugh. "And there've been so many things during that time I've wanted to talk with you about. But how are you?"

She moved near a window. She was full of spirits this day. The out-door life from which she had just come, the wind, the sun, the water, were blowing and shining and rippling within her. David, in analysing his love for her, had told himself he loved her because of her able mind, her nobility of soul, her feeling of responsibility toward life. Had he analysed further he would have found that her lighter qualities were equally responsible for his love – her sense of humour, the freshness of her spirits, her joy in the pleasures of life. She had never shown him this lighter side with more freedom than now – not even during the summer seven years before when for two weeks they had been comrades; – and David, yesterday forgotten, yielded to her mood.

He frankly looked her over. She wore a tailor-made suit of a rich brown, that had captured some of the warm glow of sun-lit autumn, and a little brown hat to match on which bloomed a single red rose. Her face had the clear fresh brown of six months' sun, and the sun's sparkle, stored in her deep eyes, beamed joyously from them. She was a long vacation epitomised, idealised.

"May I say," he remarked at length, with the daring of her own free spirit, "that you are looking very well?"

For her part, she had been making a like survey of him. His tall figure, which had regained its old erectness, was enveloped in clothes that fit and set it off; and his clean-lined face, whose wanness had been driven away by the life in hers, looked distinguished against the background of the dark-green window hangings.

"You may," she returned, "if you will permit me to say the same of you."

"Of me? Oh, no. I'm an old man," he said exultantly. "Do you know how old I am?" He touched his head. "See! The gray hairs!"

"Yes – at least a dozen," she said gravely. "Such an old man!"

"Thirty-one! Isn't it awful?"

"Twenty-eight – that's worse for a woman!"

They looked at each other solemnly for a moment. Then she broke into a laugh that had the music of summer, and he joined her.

Her face became more serious, but all the sparkle remained in it. "There are so many things I want to talk over with you. One is a check my father has just given me. Every autumn he gives me a sum to spend on philanthropic purposes just as I see fit – he never asks me about it. The check's for twenty thousand dollars. I thought you might have some suggestions as to what to do with it – something in line with what we have often talked about. But we'll speak of that and some other things later. First of all, have you heard anything from your book?"

"Not a word."

"You will – and favourably, I am sure. I want to say again what I've written – I think it's splendid as a piece of literary work and splendid as a work of serious significance. And Uncle Henry is just as enthusiastic as I am."

David reddened with pleasure, and his enthusiasm, dead for over a month now, began to warm with new life. Her eyes were looking straight into his own, and the love that had several times urged him beyond the limits of discretion, now pressed him again – and again all his strength was required to hold it silent.

"But come! – we were to walk, you know," she said, smiling lightly. "I'll prove that I'm the better walker."

During their silent passage through the halls to the Mission door, it returned to him that she was the daughter of the man who, by an even-toned word, had destroyed one of his hopes and utterly destroyed all of Rogers's. His high spirit, which had been but a weaker reflection of her own, faded from his face, leaving it tired and drawn; and she, looking up at him, saw the striking change.

"Why, have you been ill?" she exclaimed.

A grim little smile raised the corners of his mouth. "No."

"Then you've been working too hard. What have you been doing since you finished your book?"

He briefly told of his discharge and his acceptance of a position with Rogers – and while he spoke his refluent bitterness tempted him to go on and tell her father's act of yesterday.

"But this was over a month ago," she said when he had ended. "Have the expected developments in Mr. Rogers's business taken place?"

"Tell her all," Temptation ordered. He resisted this command, and then Temptation approached him more guilefully. "Tell her all, only give no names but yours and Rogers, and no clues that would enable her to identify her father." This appealed to David's bitterness, and instantly he began.

He told her Rogers's true story, which of course he had as yet not done – of Rogers's fight, so like his own – of Rogers's deception of the world for ten years that he might live honestly – of his loneliness during that time, his fears, his secret kindnesses – of the first stages of the real estate deal – of the vast meaning of success to Rogers, and of its meaning to himself – and finally of the happenings of the day before. "So you see," he ended, "this Mr. A. has utterly destroyed Mr. Rogers, in cold blood, merely that he might increase the profits of his company."

She had followed him with tensest interest, and indignation's flame in cheek and eye had grown higher and higher.

"Do you mean to say," she demanded, slowly, "that any man would do such a thing as that?"

"Yes – and a most respected citizen."

"It was heartless!" she burst out hotly. "That man would do anything!"

It filled David with grim joy to hear her pass such judgment upon her own father. At that moment he was untroubled by a single thought as to whether he had acted honourably to betray her into pronouncing judgment.

"That man should be exposed!" she went on. "Honourable business men should ostracise him. Won't you tell me his name? Perhaps my father can do something."

An ironic laugh leaped into David's throat. He checked it. "No, I cannot tell his name."

Her indignation against the destroyer gave way to sympathy for the destroyed. She saw Rogers defeated, despairing, utterly without chance. They came to David's street and her sympathy drew her into it.

"I'm so sorry for him!" she burst out. "So sorry! I wish I could do something. I'd like to go in and tell him what I feel – if you think he wouldn't mind that from a stranger."

"I'm afraid he would," said David, grimly.

They fell silent. As they drew to within a block of the house, David saw the Mayor of Avenue A, whom he had left with Rogers, come down the steps and start toward them, which was also toward the café. The Mayor recognised them instantly, and a smile began to shine on his pink face. He had long been wanting to meet Helen, and now the chance was his. He came up, his overcoat spread wide at the demand of his vest, and, pausing, took off his hat with his best ball-room flourish.

"I've heard a great deal about you through Mr. Aldrich," Helen said, when David had introduced them. "I'm very happy to meet you."

"And I'm happy to meet you, miss," he returned, bowing, making a graceful sweep with his hat, and vigorously shaking the hand she had given him. "And me, I've heard about you a lot – and that long before I saw Mr. Aldrich.

"From St. Christopher's, I suppose."

"Yes, there – and elsewhere," said the Mayor, smiling gallantly. "On the society pages. I've seen lots o' pieces about you, and seen your picture there among the beauties of society."

The Mayor expected to see her blush with gratification and ask for more – as women always did. But she quickly shifted to another subject.

"Mr. Aldrich has just been telling me of a business affair you, he and Mr. Rogers have been engaged in."

"Oh, has he!"

The Mayor, in the agreeable experience of meeting Helen, had forgotten there was such a person as her father. But he was the gallant no longer. His feet spread apart, his face grew stern, and he looked Helen squarely in the eyes.

"Well," he demanded, " – and what do you think o' your father now?"

"My father?" she said blankly.

David caught his arm. "Keep still, Hoffman!" he cried roughly.

The Mayor looked from one to the other in astonishment. "What," he cried, "d'you mean you hadn't told her it was her father?"

The colour of summer faded slowly from Helen's face, and a hand reached out and caught a stoop railing. Her eyes turned piercingly, appealingly, to David. After a moment she whispered, "My father – was that man?"

He nodded.

Her head sank slowly upon her breast, and for moment after moment she stood motionless, silent.

The Mayor when he had thought of her as an instrument to strike her father, had not thought the instrument itself might be pained. Filled with contrition, he stammered: "Please, Miss, I'm sorry – I didn't mean to hurt you."

She did not answer; she seemed not to have heard. A moment later she lifted a gray, drawn face to David.

"Mr. Aldrich," she said tremulously, "will you please put me in a cab?"

In the cab she sat with the same stricken look upon her face. She had, as David had once said to the Mayor, always regarded her father as a man of highest honour. She had never felt concern in his business affairs, or any business affairs, despite the fact that her interests overreached in so many directions the usual interests of women, and despite the fact that her heart was in various material conditions which business had created and which business could relieve.

Seen from the intimate view-point of the home, her father was generous and kind. She had heard of the reports that circulated in the distant land of business, and she had glanced at some of the articles that had appeared in years past in magazines and newspapers, and she knew that stories were at this time current. Her conception of her father had given the silent lie to all these reports. She believed they sprang from jealousy, or false information, or a distorted view. They had troubled her little, save to make her indignant that her father was so maligned; and even this indignation had been tempered with philosophic mildness, for she had remembered that it had ever been a common fate of men of superior purpose, or superior parts, or superior fortune, to be misunderstood and to be hated.

But, all of a sudden, her conception of her father was shattered. This thing he had indubitably done was certainly not without the legal law, and perhaps not wholly without the cold lines of the moral – but it was hard-hearted, brutal. "The man who would do that would do anything," she had said to David; and all the way home in the cab this thought kept ringing through her consciousness, and kept ringing for days afterwards. It led logically and immediately to the dread question: "After all, may not these other stories be true?"

Helen did not belong to that easy-conscienced class who can eliminate unpleasantness by closing their eyes against it. She had to face her question with open vision – learn what truth was in it. She secured all she could find in print about her father and read it behind the locked door of her room. There was case after case in which her father, by skilful breaking of the law, or skilful compliance with it, or complete disregard of moral rights, had moved relentlessly, irresistibly, to his ends over all who had opposed him. The picture these cases drew was of a man it sickened her daughter-love to look upon – a man who was truly, as the articles frequently called him, an "industrial brigand," and whose vast fortune was the "loot of a master bandit."

The articles seemed woven of fact, but she could not accept them unsubstantiated. She must know the truth – beyond a single doubt. At the same time, she, her father's daughter, could not go to the men he had wronged, demanding proof. At length she thought of her Uncle Henry, whom she loved and trusted, and whom she knew to be intimately acquainted with her father's career.

To him she went one night and opened her fears. "Are these things true?" she asked.

And he said: "They are true."

She went away, grief-burdened, feeling that the whole structure of her life was tottering. And two questions that before had been vaguely rising, became big, sharp, insistent: What should be her attitude toward her father, whom she loved? And what should be her attitude toward his fortune, which she shared?