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"Come here." The voice was low, but the words were quite distinct. It was the first time she had spoken for more than twelve hours.
Monica passed swiftly back to her place at the bedside.
"Oh, Elsie, Elsie," she cried, "I'm so glad you have spoken. So, so glad."
A faint smile flickered gently over the sick woman's emaciated features.
"Are you?"
"Yes, yes. Oh, Elsie, you feel better, stronger, don't you? Say you feel better. I – I know you do."
Monica's last words came hesitatingly, for even while she was speaking a negative movement from the sick woman told her how vain were her hopes.
"It is no use, Mon. But I'm perfectly easy – now. That's why I called you. I want to talk about – him. You – you – love my little son, don't you?" There was pleading in the voice as the woman asked the question. "I saw you bending over him just now, and – and I thought – hoped you did."
"Oh, Elsie, he is yours. How could I help but love him?"
The words came impulsively, and Monica dropped a warm hand upon the transparent flesh of her sister's. Her action was promptly rewarded by a feeble pressure of acknowledgment.
"I – I knew you would."
After that neither spoke for some moments. Tears were softly falling down Monica's pretty cheeks. But her sister's eyes were closed again. It was almost as if she were gathering her strength and thoughts for a final effort.
Presently Monica grew alarmed. She dashed the tears from her eyes, and bent over the bed.
"Shall I fetch nurse? Is there anything I can do?" she asked eagerly.
The big eyes opened at once, and the light in them was a calm smile. The dying woman looked almost happy. To Monica's growing understanding of such things her happiness might have been the inspiration of one who sees beyond the narrow focus of human life; whose swiftly approaching end had revealed to her tired eyes a glimpse of the wonderful world she was approaching, that golden life awaiting all, be they saint or sinner.
"I don't want any one but you, dear – now." The voice was tired, but a sense of peace was conveyed in the gentle pressure of her thin fingers upon the soft warm flesh of her sister's hand. "I – I want to tell you of – things. And – and I want you to promise me something. Oh, Mon, as you love me, as you love my boy, I want you to give me your promise."
Monica seated herself on the edge of the bed and tearfully gave her promise with all the impulsiveness which her love inspired.
"You only have to tell me what it is. I could promise you anything, Elsie. I have only one desire in the world now; it is to – to help you."
Her sister's eyes closed for a moment. Then they opened again.
"Raise me up a little, dear. Put a pillow behind my shoulders. I want to – to – see the bed over there. I want to see my little son, his – his boy. That's better." She sighed contentedly as Monica raised her up, and her big eyes at once fixed themselves upon the other bed. There was nothing to be seen but the carefully arranged bed clothes, but, for the time at least, it was sufficient.
"I want to tell you the things I never told you before. I want to tell you about Leo; and I want to talk about my – my boy. Leo and I were not married."
A little gasp of horrified dismay escaped the young girl. She was so young that as yet her ideals of life were still intact. The thought of such a thing as her sister now spoke of had never entered her innocent head.
"Ah, that – that hurts you," the other went on. "I knew it would. I – I – that's why I lied to you before. I lied when I said Leo was my husband. Oh, Mon, don't let it make any difference to us now. The time is getting so short."
"Nothing could ever make any difference between us," Monica said, in a low voice. "I was startled. You see – "
"I know. Ah, my dear, my dear, you don't know what it is to love as I love. I met Leo a long time ago, when I was an actress. He knew me as Audrey Thorne, an actress, and I – I wanted to marry him. But – you see he had nothing on which to keep a wife – an extravagant woman as I was then. So, he went away, and – and I followed him. You must think me utterly, terribly bad – but I loved him. I followed him right up into the wilds of the Yukon, and – and I lived with him."
"Poor, poor Elsie." Monica's dismay had passed, and she gently squeezed the hand she was still holding. The pressure seemed to give the other courage to proceed.
"You mustn't pity me too much. I – I was very happy. I was very happy until I knew about – my little son. It was then that I realized the awful sin I had committed. It was then I knew the cruel wrong I had done to that unborn life. I – I think I was nearly distracted when it all came upon me." Her voice had risen. It was almost strident with emotion. "For weeks I thought and thought what I could do to remedy my wrong, and at last I took my courage in both hands. I told Leo, and – and asked him to marry me – for the child's sake."
"For the child's sake?"
The admission which the words implied filled the simple Monica with something like panic.
"You see, Leo never loved me as I loved him."
"Oh, Elsie, Elsie!"
"Yes, dear, I forced myself upon him."
The tragedy of her sister's life had almost overwhelmed the girl. The whole pitiful story wrung her heart with its pathos, its shame. Her sister. Her beautiful, clever sister. Oh, it was too, too dreadful.
After a while Elsie roused herself again. There was a lot yet to be said, and she knew her time was short.
"I am all to blame. You mustn't blame Leo," she said earnestly. "He was a good man to me. I know you think he has deserted me. But he hasn't. That is not him. He promised to marry me, and, had I lived, he would have kept that promise. We were coming down country for that purpose." She paused. "Then something happened which made it necessary for him to go on ahead. That's how I came to make the journey with the Indian. It – it couldn't be helped. You – you mustn't blame Leo. He will be looking for me. Is very likely looking for me now. But it is too late. That is why I want you to promise me something."
Monica waited. She could find nothing to say. She was learning another of the bitter lessons which life has to teach when the book is once opened. Presently the other went on —
"You see, neither of us can now remedy the wrong I have done my little son. As I said, it is too late. I shall be gone before Leo can marry me." The big eyes became eager. They looked up with piteous straining into the gentle face before them. "Do you see? Oh, Mon, do you understand? My boy – our boy has no father; and very, very soon will have no mother. Oh, Mon, what can I do, what can I say? Can – can you help me?"
But Monica was gazing helplessly before her. The warmth of her love for her erring sister was no less. But she was thinking, thinking, striving with all her might to seek a solution to the painful tangle of her poor sister's life.
"I – I – can't – Tell me, Elsie – tell me anything I can do for him. I don't seem able to think for myself," she cried hopelessly at last.
Something of Monica's difficulty seemed to communicate itself to the other. Her brows drew together in perplexity.
"It is so hard," she said suddenly. "I have thought and thought, and I can only see one possible hope – only one. That hope is – you."
"How? Oh, Elsie, tell me how. What can I do?"
With a sudden effort the mother propped herself up with her elbows behind her. Her dying eyes were burning bright with feverish light. All the hope of her poor dying soul looked up into her sister's face as her final appeal rushed to her lips.
"How? Why, why, by taking him as your own son. How? Oh, Mon, his own mother is taken from him. Then give him another. Make him your own child – whose father is dead. It would be easy for you. You married young, and your – your husband died – died at sea. He will never know differently. No one will question it. Oh, my dear, don't you see? Bring him up as your own child, born in wedlock, and never let him know his mother's shame. Promise me, your sacred promise to a dying woman, that he shall never know, through you, his mother's shame, and his own disgrace. Promise it to me, Mon, it is the only thing that can give me peace now. Forget everything I have told you. Forget the disgrace I have brought on you. Forget everything except – except only your promise. Promise! Promise!"
Her fingers tightened almost painfully upon Monica's hand. She was laboring under a fierce emotion, almost sufficient to bring on a collapse. The feverish eyes were bloodshot, and a hectic flush burned on her thin cheeks.
The impulse of the moment was upon Monica, and she leaned forward. Her other hand was tenderly raised to the woman's moist brow, in a loving, soothing manner.
"I promise, dear; I promise on my sacred word that what you ask me shall be done. Henceforth he shall be my son. Nor shall he ever know through me the cruel wrong the world has done to you. I promise you, Elsie, dear, freely, freely. And all my life I will strive to keep the real truth of his birth from him."
"Thank God!"
The reaction was terrible. The dying woman fell back on her pillows, and her features suddenly became so ghastly that Monica sprang from her seat in wild alarm. She ran to the door to summon the nurse. But the voice from the bed stayed her.
"No, Mon, not yet." Then the dying woman added with an irresistible appeal, "Give me my boy, for – for a few minutes. After that – "
Monica ran to obey with an only too thankful heart. But her instinct warned her that the end was not far off. She laid the sleeping child tenderly by its mother's side, and placed her thin arm gently under its shoulders. She felt maybe she was doing wrong, but – poor Elsie.
Elsie's eyes thanked her, but her voice remained silent. And for a long while there was an unbroken quiet in the room.
Monica moved to the window and stood with her back turned to the bed. Somehow she felt that these moments were too sacred for another's eyes to witness. Slowly fresh tears gathered in her eyes, tears of sympathy and love, and one by one they rolled unheeded, slowly down her cheeks. And as they fell the last moments of her sister's life ebbed peacefully away.
CHAPTER XI
TWO STRANGERS IN SAN SABATANO
Monica's life suddenly became filled to overflowing. She was no longer a child, but a woman of a maturity that was almost absurd in one so young. The happy, irresponsible girlhood she had so long enjoyed in her mother's modest uptown apartment had quite gone. Whatever the future might hold of happiness for her, certainly freedom from the more serious cares of life would never again be hers.
Five years ago she and her mother had bade Elsie good-bye in the same humble apartment, when the elder girl had left San Sabatano to go on the stage in New York. Monica was twelve then. Twelve; and her young eyes and younger mind were filled with a boundless envy and admiration for the beautiful sister who was to bask in the wonderful limelight of the stage, and wear clothes far beyond the beauty of all dreams; and jewels – jewels, whose splendor was incomparable to the beauty of her lovely, lovely Elsie. Had she only known it she was very near the truth when she thought of the jewels her sister would wear.
Her mother was one of those quietly good women who contrive to inspire their children with something of their own qualities by example rather than precept. Neither Elsie nor Monica ever knew what it was to receive one of those harsh reprimands so common among mothers of less understanding, of less ability. Her children must grow up guided rather than driven. All their lives this had been her method. Therefore it came as a terrible shock to her when the more wayward of the two, perhaps, in a sense, the bolder spirit of the two, suddenly announced her intention of leaving the sheltering dovecote, where money was never very plentiful, to earn her living in the flamboyant world of the stage.
True to her methods, and with, perhaps, a deeper understanding of her child, and the uselessness of refusal, the mother's permission was not long withheld. It was a reluctant enough permission, but given without any outward sign of the disapproval she really felt. Moreover, she was convinced of the rightness of her attitude. The girl, she knew, would live her life as she understood it. Her only duty remaining, therefore, was to equip her with all the knowledge of the world that lay within her simple range of understanding. For the rest the child's fate was in the lap of the gods.
But she never seemed to quite get over the parting. For a long time she bore up with great fortitude, and her devotion to Monica became a wonderful thing. It was almost as if she feared that she, too, her one remaining child, might be taken from her, and swallowed up by the hungry maw of the outside world.
She heard regularly from Elsie for some time. Elsie was getting on quite well. Then letters became less frequent. And, finally, about the time that Elsie met Leo, they ceased altogether. It was then that the signs of break-up began to show in the patient woman at home.
She had died quietly and quickly of heart failure just a year ago. Monica's grief was profound. But she was too young for any lasting effect to remain with her. She lived on in the apartment without any thought of leaving it. The whole thing seemed the most natural in the world to her. Her mother's solicitor wrote her, and offered her a home with his family, but, with prompt decision, she refused it. She told him that if her mother's affairs permitted it, she would rather remain in San Sabatano, where she had all her girlhood's friends, than break new ground among strangers. Her mother's affairs yielded her the barest living, so she remained, determined to make a way for herself in the world, her own world, as other girls of her acquaintance had done.
Now she had reached the second, and, in many ways, the greater change in her life. Where, before, only her childish affections had been bruised and crushed at her mother's death, now she realized that she had all too suddenly passed from the sunlit paths of innocent childhood, to the harsher road down which all the world was journeying; struggling, jostling, each striving to seize for themselves the easier, the pleasanter paths along which to make the journey of life.
But the change in her was subtle. There was no outward effect, there was no disturbing of the wholesome, happy nature that was the very essence of her being. The change was in an added knowledge, a quickening of naturally alert faculties. She realized that some strange force had suddenly plunged her into the midst of a life which demanded quick thought and swift action, so that her pulses might be kept beating in perfect time to the pace at which life sped on about her.
She realized that she had suddenly become one of life's workers, and that grave responsibility was already knocking at her door. From the very beginning she accepted the new conditions gladly. She felt an added zest to the fact of living. The old days of dreaming were gone. Every moment of her waking hours was filled with thought, keen, practical thought; and the demand thus made on her found her ready and able. There was no fluster, no confusion of any sort. Her healthy brain was quick and incisive, characteristics quite unsuspected even by herself. Not only was this so, but, with the added pressure, there came a quiet desire to test her newly discovered powers to the uttermost.
There were other changes, too, changes of almost equal importance. She found herself witnessing the progress of affairs about her with an entirely new understanding of them. All her understanding of the precepts of her youth received revision; a revision which was inspired by the story her sister had told her on her deathbed. The shock at first had been a little overwhelming, but, young as she was, her ready brain quickly assimilated the facts, and set itself to the task of readjusting its focus.
There was no bitterness, no horror at her discoveries. She simply realized that here was a small slice of life cut out by the same ruthless knife which no doubt served hundreds of similar purposes among the rest of mankind. Who was she to criticize, who was she to condemn? Her knowledge was all to come, and maybe, as she went on, she would discover that such tragedies were part of the real life which up to now had been entirely hidden from her.
She had no blame for her dead sister. Her memory was as sacred to her as if she had lived the most perfect life of purity under the social laws governing man's relationship to woman. Her love once given was not a thing to be promptly rescinded by the failure of its idol. The idol might fall, and become besmirched in the unsuspected mire, but her frank, kindly hands were ready to set it up again and again, and perhaps in time her broader knowledge would teach her how to secure it from further disaster.
Perhaps the first real warning of the change in her came at the moment she considered her sister's funeral. Here undoubtedly a shock was awaiting her, and, in a moment, there leaped into her focus a teeming picture of almost endless complications. Just for an instant all her nerves were set jangling, and an utter helplessness left her painfully distressed. Then the feeling as abruptly passed, her mind cleared, and, one by one, she found herself reviewing each detail of the situation, and marking out the course she must adopt.
First and foremost her sacred promise to the dying woman stood out in all its nakedness, entirely robbed of its cloak of impulse and affection, in which it had been clad at the time of its making. And from that promise, radiating in every direction, she saw boundless possibilities for more than unpleasant consequences.
She knew she must make up her mind swiftly, and she did so in an astonishing manner. A sleepless night found her in the morning ready with her plans all clear in her mind. She still had nearly three weeks before taking up her new position in the office of the Daily Citizen. This would be ample time to put everything in order. It was necessary to take the doctor into her confidence. He had been their doctor for as long as she could remember. He had attended her mother in her last illness, and knew their whole family history as well as she knew it herself. Therefore she did not anticipate any difficulty with him.
So the third morning after her sister's death she visited him at his house, and confided sufficient of her sister's story to him to enlist his sympathy, without any breach of the confidence reposed in her. She pointed out her own position, and begged his help in hushing the whole matter up.
Dr. Bernard Strong was a man of wide sympathy and understanding, and in giving his promise of help, pointed out the gravity of the position which her quixotic promise had placed her in.
"My dear," he said, "this is almost a terrible business for you. Here you are, bound to this town for at least a year, with a newly born infant in your care, which you cannot explain away, without breaking your promise to poor Elsie. You are known. You have many friends. What in the world are you going to do?"
It was then that Monica displayed the quick, incisive working of her suddenly aroused mental faculties. She told him in brief, pointed words the plans she had made during the long, wakeful night.
"It does not seem so – so very difficult," she said.
Then she plunged into the details of her schemes. She pointed out that her tenement was a weekly one, which she could get rid of as soon as Elsie was buried. This she would do. Then she would take rooms far out on the outskirts of the town. She would first find a house for the baby in the country, a few miles out, where he was not likely to be brought into contact with the townsfolk. That would be a start. After that she would meet any emergency as it arose. The help she wanted from him was to arrange the funeral, with all the secrecy possible, and see that the law was complied with in regard to the baby. His registration, etc.
The quick practical manner in which she detailed all the minor details to this man of experience filled him with a profound admiration, and he told her so.
"It is astounding to me, Monica," he said kindly, "that you, a girl of seventeen, can handle such a matter in the calm manner you are doing. Perfectly astounding. You certainly ought to do well in this business career you are about to begin. Really you have made things seem less – er – formidable. But, my dear child, I feel I must warn you. You see, I am so much older," he went on, with a smile. "I have seen so much of the world – the sadder side of the world, that I cannot let this moment pass without telling you of the rocks I can see ahead, waiting to break up your little boat. Your tale of an early marriage and all that, if the boy becomes associated with you in the minds of people in the town, will never do. At once they will think the worst, and then – what of your position on the Daily Citizen? Then when the time comes for you to marry? What then?"
"I shall never marry – now," was Monica's prompt and decided reply.
The doctor shook his head.
"It is so easy to say that. Believe me, my dear, you have tied a millstone about your neck that will take your utmost strength to bear. I even doubt if you will be able to bear it for long. You are about to embark on a career of falsehood which will find you out at almost every turn. It is quite terrible to think of. Poor Elsie did you the greatest wrong, the greatest injury, when she extracted that promise from you. And," he added, with a wry smile, "I fear, from my knowledge of you, you will carry it out to the bitter end – until it utterly overwhelms you."
Monica stepped off the veranda of the doctor's house with none of the lightness of gait with which she had mounted it. She realized the gravity of her position to the full now, and knew that, without breaking her sacred word to a dying woman, there was no means of remedying it. But she was quite determined, and walked away with her pretty lips tightly compressed, her blue eyes gazing out unflinchingly before her. Nothing should turn her from her purpose. It was Elsie's trust to her. It was the cross she had to bear. Come what might she would bear it to the end, even if at the last its weight were to crush the very life out of her.
The next three weeks passed rapidly. Monica had no time to look back upon the trouble which had so involved her, she had little enough time to gaze ahead into the wide vista of troublous rocks the doctor had promised her. In fact she had no time at all for anything but the crowding emergencies of the moment, and keeping the well-meaning friends and curious neighbors as far from the secrets of her inner life as possible.
Nor was it easy; and without Dr. Strong's help many of her difficulties would have been well-nigh insurmountable. But he was as good, and even better, than his word. The whole of the funeral was achieved without any unnecessary publicity, and Monica and the doctor were the only mourners. Then the latter found a home for the boy on a farm, three miles out of the town, where a newly born babe had just died, and so, in the end, everything was accomplished just as Monica had planned, without one unnecessary question being asked. Thus, by the time the winner of the special prize took up her duties in the office of the Daily Citizen, of all San Sabatano, Dr. Strong alone shared Monica Hanson's secret. A secret, it was her future object in life to keep entirely hidden from the world.
Monica entered upon her duties with a lighter heart than she had known for weeks. Everything was as she could wish it. All traces of her sister's shame had been carefully covered. Practically no sign was left to delight the prying eyes of the curious scandalmongers. Her future lay before her, wide, and, to her, illimitable.
Her aims and ambitions were fixed plainly in her mind. She must succeed; she must rise in the commercial world; she must make money. These things were not for herself. No, she required so little. They were for him, for the little life so cruelly wronged at its very outset. Henceforth her own life would be devoted to his. Her whole thought would be for him and his welfare, not only for the child's sake, but in memory of the love she had borne her dead sister.
How well the editor of the Daily Citizen had judged the competitors for the special prize was quickly demonstrated. Monica's zeal was backed by the suddenly aroused acuteness of an unusually clever brain, and, before a month had passed, the complacent individual in the editorial chair had excellent reason for again congratulating himself. He had intended from the outset that the winner of the princely prize and unusual salary should earn every cent of it, but he found in his new clerk an insatiable hunger for work, and a capacity for simple organization quite astounding, and far beyond any demand he could make on it.
In this beginner he quickly detected a highly developed germ of commercial instinct; that germ so coveted, so rare. He tried her in many ways, seeking in a more or less fumbling way for the direction in which her abilities most surely pointed. Stenography and typing, he quickly saw, were mere incidents to her. She had other and larger abilities. Frequently in dictating letters he found himself discussing matters pertaining to them with her, and she never failed to center her mental eye upon the point at issue, driving straight to the heart of the matter in hand. The man was frankly delighted with her, and, in the shortest possible time, she became a sort of confidential secretary, whose views on the organization of his paper were often more than useful to him.
It was about this time that the editor's sanctum was invaded by a stranger; a big stranger of quite uncommon appearance. The man was simply dressed in good store clothes, which covered a powerful, burly figure. But the chief interest lay in the man's face and head. It was a strong face. To use Mr. Meakin's own description of him to his young clerk some time later, he possessed a "tow head and a face like emery cloth."
He gave no name, in fact he refused his name. He came to insert an advertisement in the paper, and to consult the editor upon the matter.
His objects were so definite that, in spite of the refusal to give his name, Mr. Meakin decided to see him. Monica was away at dinner, or he would probably have turned him over to her. However, when the man finally appeared the editorial mind was pleased at the study his unusual personality offered him.
The stranger very nearly filled up the doorway as he entered the inner office.
"Guess you're the editor?" he began at once, dropping into the chair Mr. Meakin kicked towards him.
"Sure," Mr. Meakin was always sparing of words to strangers.
"Ah."
Then, so long did the man remain silent that the editor found it necessary to spur him on by a method he usually adopted in such cases. He pressed the button of his dummy telephone with his foot. The bell rang out, and he lifted the receiver to his ear.
"Hullo! Who is it? Oh, that you, Allards? Oh, is it important? Well, I'm engaged just now. I shan't be three minutes. Yes, I'll come right along then. Goo'-bye!"
He looked across at his visitor as he put the receiver up.
"Sorry to interrupt you. I didn't just get what you said."
