"Sefiorita, they say he is better. Tell me, does it mean much to you?"

"Oh, sefior, he has been noble and good and honourable. If he lives I shall always hold these weeks with him in absolute reverence."

"Then she does not understand?"

"She? What is there for her to understand? She loves him and he loves her. That is enough."

"She says she will not marry him. There must be a reason."

The girl's face darkened instantly and her breath came quickly.

"You—you think that I am the reason? Is it so? Because I am here in these hateful clothes? You would say that to me? How dare you!"

She burst out with tears of rage and shame and fled from his sight.

Jane came rapidly through the church door, out of the gloom and odour into the warm sunshine and the green glow of the world, her face bright, her eyes gleaming.

"He is conscious!" she cried. "He knows me!"



CHAPTER XXVI

THE SEPARATION OF HEARTS



When Graydon Bansemer opened his eyes upon the world for the second time—it was as if he had been born again—he looked up into the eager, wistful face of Jane Cable. It was too much for her to expect that he could see and understand at once; he would not know what had gone before, nor why she was there. His feeble glance took in her face with lifeless interest. Perhaps it was because he had seen her in that death-like dream; perhaps his weakness kept him from true realisation. In any event, he did no more than to allow the flicker of a smile to come into his eyes before he closed them again. Breathlessly, she waited for the lids to lift once more. She uttered his name softly, tenderly, time and again. As if hearing someone calling from a great distance, he moved and again looked upward, the consciousness of pain in his grey eyes. This time he stared hard at her; his eyes grew brighter and then darkened with wonder. At last she saw the look of surprise and joy and relief that she had been hungering for; he knew her and he was beginning to understand.

If he heard her while she knelt and thanked Ged for this first great ray of hope, he gave forth no sign. When she turned her eyes to his face again he was asleep. But she went forth into the day with a song in her heart.

She looked about for Teresa. The girl was gone, no one knew whither. Bray alone could say that she had started toward the thicket. He pointed out the direction, but did not offer to accompany Jane when she hurried away to carry the good news to the Spanish girl who had been her staunch helper during the long vigil. Bray shook his puzzled head as he followed her with his gaze. It had come to him suddenly that the Spanish girl was not the solution to the puzzle, after all.

Jane found the slim boyish figure lying on the ground, deep in the wood. She had been crying and made no attempt to subdue her emotions when the American girl came up to her; instead, she bitterly poured out her woe into the ears of the other. She told her of Bray's insult—as she termed his unfortunate speculation—and she told how it came about.

"I am a good girl, Miss Cable," she cried. "I am of a noble family-not of the canaille. You do not believe it of me? No! He had no right to accuse me. I was a prisoner; Senor Bansemer was my rescuer. I loved him for it. See, I cannot help it, I cannot hide it from you. But he is yours. I have no claim. I do not ask it. Oh!" and here her voice rose to a wail of anguish, "can you not procure something else for me to wear? These rags are intolerable. I hate them! I cannot go back there unless I have—-"

"We can give you a few garments, dear," said Jane. "Come! You shall wear the nurse's uniform. We are to start on the long march to the coast to-morrow. They say that ALL of the wounded can be moved by that time."

It was three days, however, before the little company left the village and began its slow, irksome march across the country toward the coast where the ship was to pick up the wounded men and convey them to Manila, Native carriers, cheerful amigos since the disaster to Pilar, went forward with the stretchers, the hospitall wagons and guard following. Travelling was necessarily slow and the halts were frequent. There were occasional shots from hidden riflemen, but there were no casualties. Food had been scarce; the commissary was thinly supplied for the hard trip. Lieutenant Bray grew strangely morose and indifferent. He was taciturn, almost unfriendly in his attitude toward everyone.

The little company stopped to rest in a beautiful; valley, beside the banks of a swift stream. He watched Jane as she moved away from the stretcher which held Bansemer, following her to the edge of the stream where she had come to gaze pensively into the future.

"How is he?" he asked. She started and a warm glow came into her cheek.

"He is doing nicely. If he can bear up until we reach Manila, he will surely live. Are we going as rapidly as we should, Lieutenant Bray?"

"Quite, Miss Cable. It isn't an easy march, you must: remember." After a long silence, he suddenly remarked: "Miss Cable, I've got a rather shameful confession to make. I've had some very base thoughts to contend with. You may have guessed it or not, but I care a great deal for you—more than for anyone else I've ever known. You say he is to get well. For days I wished that he might die. Don't look like that, please. I couldn't help it. I went so far, at one stage, as to contemplate a delay in marching that might have proved fatal to him. I thought of that way and others of which I can't tell you. Thank God, I was man enough to put them away from me! Wait, please! Let me finish. You have said you will not marry him. I don't ask why you will not. I love you. Will you be my wife?"

She stared at him with consternation in her eyes. He had gone on so rapidly that she could not check his rapid speech. Her hand went to her brow and a piteous smile tried to force itself to her lips.

"I am sorry," she said at last. "I am sorry you have spoken to me of it. I have felt for some time that you—you cared for me. No, Lieutenant Bray, I cannot be your wife."

"I know you love him," he said.

"Yes, it is plain. I have not tried to hide it."

"You must understand why I asked you to be my wife, knowing that you love him. It was to hear it from your own lips, so that I would not go through life with the feeling, after all, that it might have been. Will you tell me the reason why you cannot marry him? He must love you."

"Lieutenant Bray, he would marry me to-morrow, I think, if I were to consent. It isn't that. It would not be right for me to consent. You profess to love me. I have seen it in your eyes—oh, I have learned much of men in the past few months—and I determined, if you ever asked me to marry you, to ask a question in return. Do you really know who I am?"

He looked his surprise. "Why, the daughter of David Cable, of course."

"No, I am not his daughter."

"His stepdaughter?"

"Not even that. You come from a proud Southern family. I do not know who my parents were."

"Good Heaven, you-you don't mean you were waif?"

"A waif without a name, Lieutenant Bray. This is not self-abasement; it is not the parading of misfortune. It is because you have made the mistake of loving me. If you care less for me now than you did before, you will spread this information throughout the army."

"Believe me, I am not that sort."

"Thank you. Knowing what you now do, could you ask me to be your wife?"

"Don't put it just that way," he stammered.

"Ah, I see. It was a cruel question. And yet it proves that you do not love as Graydon Bansemer loves."

"Some day you may find out all about your parents and be happy. You may have been abducted and—-" he was saying, his face white and wet. Somehow he felt that he was chastening himself.

"Perhaps," she said quietly. "I might not have told you this had not the story been printed in every newspaper in the States just before I left. You see, I did not know it until just a few months ago. I thought you might have read of me. I—I am so notorious."

"Jane, dear Jane, you must not feel that way!" he cried, as she started quickly away. "It's—-" But she turned and motioned for him to cease. There were tears in her eyes. He stood stock still. "She's wonderful!" he said to himself, as she walked away. "Even now, I believe I could—Pshaw! It ought not to make any difference! If it wasn't for my family—What's in a name, anyway? A name—-" He started to answer his own question, but halted abruptly, squared his shoulders and then with true Southern, military bearing strode away, murmuring:

"A name is something; yes, family is everything."

Jane went at once to Graydon. His great grey eyes smiled a glad welcome. She took his hand in hers and sat upon the ground beside him, watching his face until they were ready to resume the journey.

"Would it not be better if he were to die?" she found herself wondering, with strange inconstancy to her purpose. "Why could it not have been I instead of he? How hard it will be for us to live after this. Dear, dear Graydon, if—if I only were different from what I am."

Not a word of his father's conduct toward her, not a word of blame for the blow his father had struck. She held him to no account for the baseness of that father; only did she hold herself unfit to be his wife. All of the ignominy and shame fell to her lot, none to the well-born son of the traducer.

Fortune and strength went hand in hand for the uext two days and the famished, worn-out company came to the coast. The wounded men were half-delirious once more for lack of proper attention, and the hardships of travel. But the ill-wind had spent its force. Bray's instructions were to place his charges on board ship at San Fernando de Union, and then await further orders in the little coast town. It meant good-bye to Jane, and that meant more to him than, he was willing to admit, despite all that she had said to him. He went to her when the ship was ready to leave port.

"Good-bye!" he said. "I'm more grieved than I can tell you, because I believe you think I am a cad."

"Lieutenant Bray, a cad never would have helped me as you have helped me, in spite of yourself. Good-bye!"

He went out of her life in that moment.

There were vexatious delays, however, before sailings Almost at the last moment Jane was approached by Teresa Velasquez, now partly dressed as a Red Cross nurse. The Spanish girl was nervous and uneasy. Her dark eyes held two ever changing lights—one sombre, the other bright and piercing.

"I have decided to wait for the next ship," she announced briefly.

"You are not going with us?" cried Jane in surprise and distress. "What has happened?"

"It is impossible; I cannot go with you. Pray do not ask for my reason. Good-bye. Will you say good-bye to—to him for me?"

Jane was silent for a long time, studying the eyes of the Spanish girl.

"I think I understand," she said at last, taking Teresa's hands in hers.

"It is better that it be ended here," said Teresa, "I have endured it as long as I can. You have been good to me, and I want to say good-bye while there is love for you in my heart. I am afraid to stay near you—and him. Don't you see? I cannot go on in this way."

"Oh, Teresa!"

"Yes, yes, I know it is wrong, but how can I help it? I've loved him ever since I first saw him—saved his life." Jane was astounded. The thrust pierced her to the quick.

"Saved his life?"

"Yes, though he does not know it. It was when we were prisoners of the Filipinos. My poor brother was dying. From the convent Aguinaldo and his men were watching and directing the fight on the plaza. They paid no attention to me—a girl. The noise of the fighting men was terrible, and I climbed up to a window where I could see. Sudrenly, below me, I saw two men fighting apart from the struggling mass. In an instant it flashed through my mind that the Filipino was overpowering the other—was going to kill him. Although I hated them equally, there was something in the young soldier's face—I could not see him murdered. I seized a pistol that was lying near me and fired; the Filipino fell. In terror of the deed and fear of discovery, I ran to my brother. In a moment the Americans broke into the convent. You know the rest."

Jane was suffering the keenest pangs of jealousy, and asked, excitedly:

"You—you did that?"

"And finally, when I had learned to care for him and he was wounded, to have been denied the right of nursing him back to life—my place usurped by you. Surely, I have as much to be proud of as you and I love him a great deal more!"

"As much to be proud of—-" Jane was saying, for the moment all the warmth gone from her voice, the flame from her cheeks; but her meaning could not have been understood by the other who proudly, defiantly tossed back her head. Beautiful indeed was this brown-skinned, black-eyed girl, as she stood there pleading her rights to an unrequited love—a heart already tenanted by another, and that other, the womam before her.

"Now, can you imagine," the girl went on, "how it has hurt me to see you caring for him, to see his eyes forever searching for you? No?" They were silent a moment. A wistful look was in her eyes now, and her voice unmistakably reconcilable when she resumed: "Ah, he was so good and true when I was alone with them—before you came! I pray God, now, that he may be well and that you may make him happy."

"Alas, I am afraid that can never be! You cannot understand, and I cannot explain."

"Your family objects because he is poor and a common soldier? Yes?" She laughed bitterly, a green light in her eyes. "If it were I, no one could keep me from belonging to him—I would—-"

"Don't! Don't say it! You don't understand!" Jane reiterated.

"Dios, how I loved him! I would have gone through my whole life with him! He must have known it, too."

"He was true to me," said Jane, her figure straightening involuntarily, a new gleam in her eyes.

"Ah, you are lucky, senorita! I love you, and I could hate you so easily! Go! Go! Take him with you and give him life! Forget me as I shall forget you both!" And impulsively taking from round her neck an Agnus Dei which she was wearing, she placed it in Jane's hands, and added: "Give this to him, please, and do not forget to tell him that I sent good-bye and good luck."

Jane would have kissed her had not the blazing eyes of the other forbade. They merely clasped hands, and Teresa turned away.

"My uncle lives in Manila. He will take me to Maclrid. We cannot live here with these pigs of Americans about us," she said shortly. A moment later she was lost in the crowd.

Jane's heart was heavy when the ship moved away. Her eyes searched through the throng for the slight figure of the girl who had abandoned a lost cause.



CHAPTER XXVII

"IF THEY DON'T KILL YOU"



Jane had been a nurse in the Red Cross society for a little more than six weeks. She was inexperienced but willing and there was such urgent need for nurses that the army accepted any and all who seemed capable of development under the training of experts. There had been tremendous opposition on the part of the Harbins, but in the end, finding her unalterably determined, the colonel permitted her to go out in the service. She was sent forth on the special expedition in the wake of Major March's forces, her secret desire being to be near Graydon Bansemer in event of his injury. She gave no heed to their protest that the name of Bansemer should be hateful to her; she ignored the ugly remarks of her aunt and the angry reproaches of the colonel. It was more the spirit of spite than any other motive which at last compelled him to accept the situation; he even went so far as to growl to his wife: "Cursed good riddance, that's what I say. I didn't want her to come in the first place."

But when, after a month, she brought Bansemer back to the city, wounded almost to death, the heart, of the soldier was touched. It was Colonel Harbin who wrestled with the hospital authorities and, after two or three days, had her installed regularly as a nurse for Bansemer, a concession not willingly granted. Those days were like years to her. She was thin and worn when she came down from the north, but she was haggard with anxiety and despair when the two days of suspense were ended.

Ethel Harbin was her ablest ally. This rather lawless young person laid aside the hearts with which she was toying and bent her every endeavour to the cause of romance. It was not long before every young officer in the city was more or less interested in the welfare of Graydon Bansemer. She threw a fine cloak of mystery about the "millionaire's son" and the great devotion of her cousin, The youth of the army followed Ethel to and from the hospital for days and days; without Ethel it is quite doubtful if anybody could have known what a monstrous important personage Private Bansemer really was.

At the end of a fortnight he was able to sit up and converse with his nurse and the occasional Ethel, Dr. G—-, chief of the ward, remarked to Colonel Harbin:

"He'll get well, of course. He can't help it. I never knew before what society could do for a fellow. He's got a society nurse and he is visited by a society despot. It beats Christian Science all to pieces."

"Do you think he will be able to do any more fighting? Will he be strong enough?"

"I don't see why. The government won't let him do it, that's all. He can claim a pension and get out of service with an honourable discharge—and maybe a medal. He'll be strong enough, however. That fellow could go on a hike inside of a month."

"I suppose we'll all be going home before long. This war is about over," growled Harbin.

"No sirree! We'll be fighting these fellows for ten years. Ah, there's your daughter, Colonel. Good-day."

With the first returning strength, freed from lassitude and stupor, Graydon began whispering joyous words of love to Jane. His eyes were bright with the gladness that his pain had brought. She checked his weak outbursts at first, but before many days had passed she was obliged to resort to a firmness that shocked him into a resentful silence. She was even harsh in her command. It cut her to the quick to hurt him, but she was steeling herself against the future.

When he was able to walk out in the grounds, she withdrew farther into the background of their daily life. He hungered for her, but she began to avoid him with a strange aloofness that brought starvation to his heart. While she was ever attentive to his wants, her smile lacked the tenderness he had known in the days of danger, and her face was strangely sombre and white.

"Jane," he said to her one day as he came in from his walk and laid down his crutches, "this can't go on any longer. What is the matter? Don't you love me—not at all?"

She stood straight and serious before him, white to the lips, her heart as cold as ice.

"I love you, Graydon, with all my soul. I shall always love you. Please, please, don't ask any more of me. You understand, don't you? We cannot be as we once were—never. That is ended. But, you—you must know that I love you."

"It is sheer madness, dearest, to take that attitude. What else in the world matters so long as we love one another? I felt at first that I could not ask you to be my wife after what my father did that night. That was as silly of me as this is of you. I did not contend long against my love. You have never been out of my mind, night or day. I was tempted more than once to desert-but that was impossible, you know. It was the terrible eagerness to go back to you and compel you to be mine. My father did you a grave wrong. He—-"

"But my father did me a graver wrong, Graydon. I have thought it all out. I have no right to be alive, so what right have I to be any man's wife?"

"Nonsense, dearest. You are alive, and you live for me, as I do for you. You have saved my life; you must save my love. These last few weeks have knit our lives together so completely that neither of us has the right to change God's evident purpose. I love you for yourself, Jane. That is enough. There has not been an instant in which I have felt that any circumstance could alter my hope to marry you. You say; you have no name. You forget that you may have mine, dearest—and it is not much to be proud of, I fear, in the light of certain things. You must be my wife, Jane."

"I cannot, Graydon. That is final. Don't! Don't plead, dear. It will not avail. Look into my eyes. Don't you see that I mean it, Graydon?"

"By Heaven, Jane, your eyes are lying to me. You can't mean what is back of them. It's cruel—it's wrong"

"Hush! you must not become excited. You are far from strong, and I am still your nurse. Be—-"

"You are my life—you are everything. I can't give you up It's ridiculous to take this stand. Be sensible. Look at it from my point of view."

"There is only one point of view and love has nothing to do with it. Come, let us talk of something else. Have you heard from your—your father? Does he know you've been injured?"

He looked long into her tense face and then muttered, with the sullen despair of the sick: "I don't know. I've had no word from anyone."

"The despatches have doubtless given your name. One of the Chicago correspondents was talking about you recently. Your father will surely write to you now."

"Are you eager to have him do so? I should think you'd hate his name. I can't help caring for dad, Jane. I tried to curse him one time, but he really has been good to me. I don't see how he can have done the things they say he's done."

"There may be a mistake."

That's good of you, dear, but you forget your mother's statements and all that Rigby says—all that. Oh, I've gone over all of it, and I am convinced. I wonder what has become of him. He was afraid of—of—well, there was talk of an arrest before I left. I have not looked at a newspaper since I saw the headlines that awful morning. God, how they must have hurt you!"

"I, too, have not looked at a newspaper since then, Graydon," she said simply. He smiled wearily and there was response in her eyes.

He took her hand in his and they sat silently side by side on the bench for half an hour, their thoughts far away but of one another.

"Graydon," she said at last, "are you going to remain in the army?"

"No, I am through with it. My discharge is to be recommended. I'm disabled."

"You will be as strong as ever, dear."

"Do you want me to stick to the army? I am only a private."

"You can do greater things out in the world, I know. You will be a great man if you don't lose heart, Graydon."

"I can't be a soldier, dear, and support a wife on the pay I get," he said with a smile.

"You shouldn't marry,"

"But I am going to marry," he said.

"I have decided to become a nurse. It is my intention to give my whole life to—-"

"The Red Cross?"

"No. The hospitals at home—the hospitals for the poor and homeless."

Ethel Harbin was coming through the grounds toward them. Her face was clouded by a dark frown and she was visibly excited.

"It's all off," she announced as she came up.

"Where is the usual hero?" asked Graydon.

"I'm through with the real army. They've dismissed me. That is father and mother have. They are driving me into the Salvation Army," she exclaimed, seating herself beside Graydon. "I wish I were Jane and my own mistress."

"Dear me, Ethel, what an ambition!" said Jane. "What has happened to upset you so?"

"Father has."

"I should have asked who, not what."

"I suppose they expect me to marry a Salvation Army man. They say Harry isn't good enough. I think he is a very moral young man."

"Harry? Who is Harry?"

"Why, haven't you heard? Harry Soper. I'm engaged to him."

"The lieutenant?"

"Certainly. He's going to be promoted, though, if he ever gets on the firing line. It's not his fault that he has to do duty in the walled city. He's aching to get out and fight. But father—-" Here she paused, her lips coming together with a firmness that boded ill.

"Colonel Harbin doesn't approve?"

"No—he says Harry is a 'little pup.' It's outrageous, Jane."

"Don't cry, dear. The world is full of men."

"Not for me," said Ethel dolefully. "I've picked Harry out of a hundred or more and I think my discrimination ought to be considered. I'm the one to be satisfied. Father has no—-"

"But how about that young fellow back in New York? You used to say he was the only one."

"He is the only one in New York. But look how far off he is! It takes weeks for his letters to get to me."

"But he writes every day."

"Harry telephones every day. I tell you, Jane, the voice has a good deal to do with it. You like to HEAR a fellow say nice things. It beats ink all to pieces. It will go hard with him, perhaps, but he's young. He'll get over it."

"You are young, too. That is why you have gotten over George."

"I'm not as young as I was. But I've decided on Harry. If father doesn't let us get married right away, I'm liable to get over him, too. It's silly doing that all the time; one might never get married, you know. But father is firm. He says I can't, and he says he'll kick Harry into the middle of next summer. Father says I shall not marry into the regular army. He says they don't make good husbands. I've got the joke on him, though. He appealed to mother, and she forgot herself and said the same thing. They were quarrelling about it when I left the hotel. It was an awful jar to father. For two cents I'd elope with Harry."

"It would be pretty difficult for an officer on duty to elope, don't you think?" asked Graydon, amused.

"Not if he loved the girl. He does, too. But I haven't told you the worst. Mother says I am being absolutely spoiled out here in Manila, and she says flatly, that she's going to take me back to the States. Isn't it awful?"

"Back to the fellow in New York?" smiled Jane encouragingly.

Ethel thought for a moment and a dear little smile came into her troubled eyes.

"I hope he hasn't gone and fallen in love with some other girl," she said.

It was true, as Jane soon learned, that Mrs. Harbin had concluded to return to the United States with Ethel. Jane's aunt had grown immeasurably tired of Manila—and perhaps a little more tired of the Colonel. It was she who aroused the Colonel's antipathy to little Lieutenant Soper. She dwelt upon the dire misfortune that was possible if Ethel continued to bask in the society of "those young ninnies." The Colonel developed a towering rage and a great fear that Ethel might become fatally contaminated before she could be whisked off of the island. It was decided that Mrs. Harbin and Ethel should return to the United States soon after the first of March, to take up their residence in New York City.

"Mother wants to be a soldier's widow—on parole," sniffed Ethel, almost audibly enough for her father's ears.

Mrs. Harbin at once informed Jane that she was expected to return with them. She demurred at first, purely for the sake of appearances, but in the end agreed to tender her resignation to the Red Cross society. The knowledge that Graydon Bansemer's discharge was soon forthcoming and that he intended to return to America in the spring had more to do with this decision than she was willing to admit. She therefore announced her ambition to become a trained nurse and gave no heed to Mrs. Harbin's insinuating smile.

Letters, of late, from Mrs. Cable, had been urging her to return to Chicago; David Cable was far from well—breaking fast—and he was wearing out his heart in silent longing for her return. He wrote to her himself that he expected to retire from active business early in the year, and that his time and fortune from that day on would be devoted to his family. He held out attractive visions of travel, of residence abroad, of endless pleasure which they could enjoy together.

Jane had written to them that she would not live in Chicago—any place else in the world, she said—and they understood. There was no word of James Bansemer in all these letters. She was always daughter to them and they were father and mother.

Graydon Bansemer one day received three letters—all from Chicago. He knew the handwriting on the envelope of each. Three men had written to him, his father, Elias Droom, and Rigby. A dark scowl came over his face as he looked at the Rigby envelope. It was the first letter that he opened and read. Jane was sitting near by watching the expression on his face.

"It's from Rigby," he said as he finished.

"What does he say?" she asked anxiously.

"He says he is my devoted friend for life," replied Graydon bitterly. "I can't forget, though, Jane. He is not the sort of friend I want."

"He thought it was for the best, Graydon."

"Yes, and he may have thought he was my friend, too. This letter says as much. But I like an enemy better, dear. You know what to expect of an enemy at all times. Here's one from Elias Droom—old Elias." Droom scrawled a few words of cheer to the young soldier, urging him not to re-enlist, but to come home, at the end of his two years. He enclosed a letter from Mr. Clegg, in which that gentleman promised to put Graydon in charge of their New York office, if he would take the place. This news sent his spirits bounding. Tears of a gratefulness he never expected to feel sprang to his eyes. Jane's happiness was a reflection of his own.

James Bansemer's letter was not read aloud to Jane. When he had finished the perusal of the long epistle he folded it and stuck it away in his pocket. His eyes seemed a bit wistful and his face drawn, but there was no word to let her know what had been written by the man who had denounced her.

"He is well," was all he said. He did not tell her that his father had urged him to go into business in the Philippines, saying that he would provide ample means with which to begin and carry on any enterprise he cared to exploit. One paragraph cut Graydon to the quick:

"I'd advise you to steer clear of Chicago. If they don't kill you in the Philippines, you're better off there. They hate us here."



CHAPTER XXVIII

HOMEWARD BOUND



Early in March a great transport sailed from Manila Bay, laden with sick and disabled soldiers—the lame, the healthless and the mad. It was not a merry shipload, although hundreds were rejoicing in the escape from the hardships of life in the islands. Graydon Bansemer was among them, weak and distrustful of his own future—albeit a medal of honour and the prospect of an excellent position were ahead of him. His discharge was assured. He had served his country briefly, but well, and he was not loath to rest on his insignificant laurels and to respect the memory of the impulse which had driven him into service. In his heart he felt that time would make him as strong as ever, despite the ugly scar in his side. It was a question with him, however, whether time could revive the ambition that had been smothered during the first days of despair. He looked ahead with keen inquiry, speculating on the uncertain whirl of fortune's wheel.

Jane was obduracy itself in respect to his pleadings. A certain light in her eyes had, at last, brought conviction to his soul. He began to fear—with a mighty pain—that she would not retreat from the stand she had taken.

She went on board with Mrs. Harbin and Ethel. There were other wives on board who had found temporary release from irksome but voluntary enlistment. Jane's resignation from the Red Cross society deprived her of the privileges which would have permitted her to see much of Graydon. They were kept separated by the transport's regulations; he was a common soldier, she of the officer's mess. The restrictions were cruel and relentless. They saw but little of one another during the thirty days; but their thoughts were busy with the days to come. Graydon grew stronger and more confident as the ship forged nearer to the Golden Gate; Jane more wistful and resigned to the new purpose which was to give life another colouring, if possible. They were but one day out from San Francisco when he found the opportunity to converse with her as she passed through the quarters of the luckless ones.

"Jane, I won't take no for an answer this time," he whispered eagerly; "you must consent. Do you want to ruin both of our lives?"

"Why will you persist, Graydon? You know I cannot—"

"You can. Consider me as well as yourself. I want you. Isn't that enough? You can't ask for more love than I will give. To-morrow we'll be on shore. I have many things to do before I am at liberty to go my way. Won't you wait for me? It won't be long. We can be married in San Francisco. Mr. and Mrs. Cable are to meet you. Tell them, dearest, that you want to go home with me. The home won't be in Chicago; but it will be home just the same."

"Dear Graydon, I am sorry—I am heartsick. But I cannot—I dare not."

Graydon Bansemer was a man as well as a lover. He gave utterance to a perfectly man-like expression, coming from the bottom of his tried soul:

"It's damned nonsense, Jane!" He said it so feelingly that she smiled even as she shook her head and moved away. "I'll see you to-morrow on shore?" he called, repentant and anxious.

"Yes!"

The next day they landed. Graydon waved an anxious farewell to her as he was hurried off with the lame, the halt, and the blind. He saw David Cable and his wife on the pier and, in spite of himself, he could not repel an eager, half-fearful glance through the crowd of faces. Although he did not expect his father to meet him, he dreaded the thought that he might be there, after all. To his surprise, as he stood waiting with his comrades, he saw David Cable turn suddenly, and, after a moment's hesitation, wave his hand to him, the utmost friendship in his now haggard face. His heart thumped joyously at this sign of amity.

As the soldiers moved away, Cable paused and looked after him, a grim though compassionate expression in his eyes. He and Jane were ready to confront the customs officers.

"I wonder if he knows about his father," mused he. Jane caught her breath and looked at him with something like terror in her eyes. He abruptly changed the subject, deploring his lapse into the past from which they were trying to shield her.

The following morning Graydon received a note from Cable, a frank but carefully worded message, in which he was invited to take the trip East in the private car of the President of the Pacific, Lakes & Atlantic. Mrs. Cable joined her husband in the invitation; one of the sore spots in Graydon's conscience was healed by this exhibition of kindness. Moreover, Cable stated that his party would delay departure until Graydon's papers were passed upon and he was free from red tape restrictions.

The young man, on landing, sent telegrams to his father and Elias Droom, the latter having asked him to notify him as soon as he reached San Francisco. Graydon was not a little puzzled by the fact that the old clerk seemed strangely at variance with his father, in respect to the future. In both telegrams, he announced that he would start East as soon as possible.

There was a letter from Droom awaiting him at headquarters. It was brief, but it specifically urged him to accept the place proposed by Mr. Clegg, and reiterated his pressing command to the young man to stop for a few days in Chicago. In broad and characteristically uncouth sentences, he assured him that while the city held no grudge against him, and that the young men would welcome him with open arms—his groundless fears to the contrary—he would advise him to choose New York. There was one rather sentimental allusion to "old Broadway" and another to "Grennitch," as he wrote it. In conclusion, he asked him to come to the office, which was still in the U——Building, adding that if he wished to avoid the newspaper men he could find seclusion at the old rooms in Wells Street. "Your father," he said, "has given up his apartment and has taken lodgings. I doubt very much if he will be willing to share them with you, in view of the position he has assumed in regard to your future; although he says you may always call upon him for pecuniary assistance." A draft for five hundred dollars was enclosed with the letter.

Graydon was relieved to find that there would be no irksome delay attending his official discharge. When he walked out a "free man," as he called it, a gentlemanly pension attorney locked arms with him, and hung on like a leech, until the irritated soldier shook him off with less consideration than vigour.

He went directly to the Palace Hotel, where he knew the Cables were stopping. David Cable came down in response to his card. The two men shook hands, each eyeing the other inquiringly for an instant.

"I want you to understand, Graydon, that I am your friend. Nothing has altered my esteem for you."

"Thank you, Mr. Cable. I hardly expected it."

"I don't see why, my boy. But, we'll let all that pass. Mrs. Cable wants to see you."

"Before we go any farther I want to make myself clear to you. I still hope to marry Jane. She says she cannot become my wife. You understand why, sir. I only want to tell you that her objections are not objections to me. She is Jane and I love her, sir, because she is."

"I hope you can win her over, Graydon. She seems determined, however, and she is unhappy. You can't blame her, either. If there were base or common blood in her, it wouldn't make much difference to her pride. But she's made of other material. She's serious about it and I am sensible enough to get her point of view. She wouldn't want to marry you with the prospect of an eternal shadow that neither of you could get off of your minds. I sometimes wish that I knew who were her parents."

"It doesn't matter, so far as I am concerned."

"I know, my boy, but she is thinking of the heritage that comes down from her mother to her. You'll never know how it hurt me to find that I had no daughter. It hurts her worse a thousandfold to learn that she has no mother. I trust it may not happen that you will lose her as a wife."

"If I really thought I couldn't win her, sir, it would ruin my ambition in life. She loves me, I'm sure."

"By the way, Clegg tells me he has offered you the New York office. It is a splendid chance for you. You will take it, of course."

"I expect to talk it over with Mr. Clegg when I get to Chicago."

"Come up to our apartments. Oh, pardon me, Graydon, I want to ask you if you have sufficient money to carry you through? I know the pay of a private is not great—"

"Thank you. I have saved nearly all of it. My father has sent me a draft for five hundred. I don't expect to use it, of course."

"Your father?" asked Cable, with a quick, searching look.

"And then I did save something in Chicago, strange as it may seem," said Bansemer, with a smile. "I have a few of your five per cents. I trust the road is all right?"

The Cables left San Francisco on the following day, accompanied by the Harbins and Graydon Bansemer. There was no mistaking the joy which lay under restraint in the faces and attitude of the Cables. David Cable had grown younger and less grey, it seemed, and his wife was glowing with a new and subdued happiness. Graydon, sitting with the excited Ethel—who was rejoicing in the prospect of New York and the other young man—studied the faces of the three people who sat at the other end of the coach.

Time had wrought its penalties. Cable was thin and his face had lost its virility, but not its power. His eyes never left the face of Jane, who was talking in an earnest, impassioned manner, as was her wont in these days. Frances Cable's face was a study in transition. She had lost the colour and vivacity of a year ago, although the change was not apparent to the casual observer. Graydon could see that she had suffered in many ways. The keen, eager appeal for appreciation was gone from her eyes; in its stead was the appeal for love and contentedness. Happiness, now struggling against the smarting of a sober pain, was giving a sweetness to her eyes that had been lost in the ambitious glitter of other days. Ethel bored him—a most unusual condition. He longed to be under the tender, quieting influences at the opposite end of the car. He even resented his temporary exile.

"Jane," Cable was saying with gentle insistence; "it is not just to him. He loves you and you are not doing the right thing by him."

"You'll find I am right in the end," she said stubbornly.

"I can't bear the thought of your going out as a trained nurse, dear," protested Frances Cable. "There is no necessity. You can have the best of homes and in any place you like. Why waste your life in—"

"Waste, mother? It would be wasting my life if I did not find an occupation for it. I can't be idle. I can't exist forever in your love and devotion."

"Good Lord, child, don't be foolish," exclaimed Cable. "That hurts me more than you think. Everything we have is yours."

"I'm sorry I said it, daddy. I did not mean it in that way. It isn't the money, you know, and it isn't the home, either. No, you must let me choose my own way of living the rest of my life. I came from a foundling hospital. A good and tender nurse found me there and gave me the happiest years of my life. I shall go back there and give the rest of my years to children who are less fortunate than I was. I want to help them, mother, just as you did—only it is different with me."

"You'll see it differently some day," said Mrs. Cable earnestly.

"I don't object to your helping the foundlings, Jane," said Cable, "but I don't see why you have to be a nurse to do it. Other women support such causes and not as nurses, either. It's—"

"It's my way, daddy, that's all," she said firmly.

"Then why, in the name of Heaven, were you so unkind as to keep that poor boy over there alive when he might have died and ended his misery? You nursed him back to life only to give him a wound that cannot be healed. You would ruin his life, Jane. Is it fair? Damn me, I'm uncouth and hard in many ways—I had a hard, unkind beginning—but I really believe I've got more heart in me than you have."

"David!" exclaimed his wife. Jane looked at the exasperated man in surprise.

"Now here's what I intend you to do: you owe me something for the love that I give to you; you owe Graydon something for keeping him from dying. If you want to go into the nursing business, all right. But I'm going to demand some of your devotion for my own sake before that time comes. I've loved you all of your life—"

"And I've loved you, daddy," she gasped.

"And I'm going to ask you to begin your nursing career by attending to me. I'm sick for want of your love. I'm giving up business for the sake of enjoying it unrestrained. Your mother and I expect it. We are going abroad for our health and we are going to take you with us. Right now is where you begin your career as a nurse. You've got to begin by taking care of the love that is sick and miserable. We want it to live, my dear. Now, I want a direct decision—at once: will you take charge of two patients on a long-contemplated trip in search of love and rest—wages paid in advance?"

She looked at him, white-faced and stunned. He was putting it before her fluently and in a new light. She saw what it was that he considered that she owed them—the love of a daughter, after all.

An hour later she stood with Graydon on the rear platform of the car. He was trying to talk calmly of the country through which they were rushing and she was looking pensively down the rails that slipped out behind them.

"We'll be in Chicago in three days," he remarked.

"Graydon, I have decided to go abroad for five or six months before starting upon my work. They want me so much, you see," she said, her voice a trifle uncertain.

"I wish I could have some power to persuade you," he said. Changing his tone to one of brisk interest, he went on. "It is right, dear. It will do you great good and it will be a joy to them. I'll miss you."

"And I shall miss you, Graydon," she said, her eyes very solemn and wistful.

"Won't you—won't you give me the promise I want, Jane?" he asked eagerly. She placed her hand upon his and shook her head.

"Won't you be good to me, Graydon? Don't make it so hard for me. Please, please don't tell me again that you love me."



CHAPTER XXIX

THE WRECKAGE



The spring floods delayed the Eastern Express, bringing the party to Chicago nearly a day late. The Cables and the Harbins went at once to the Annex, where David Cable had taken rooms. They had given up their North Side home some months before, both he and his wife retiring into the seclusion that a great hotel can afford when necessary.

Graydon hurried off to his father's office, eager, yet half fearing to meet the man who was responsible for the broken link in his life—this odd year. He recalled, as he drove across town, that a full year had elapsed since he spent that unforgettable night in Elias Droom's uncanny home. Was he never to forget that night—that night when his soul seemed even more squalid than the home of the recluse?

All of his baggage, except a suit case, had been left at the station. He did not know what had become of his belongings in the former home of his father. Nor, for that matter, did he care.

At the U—— Building he ventured a diffident greeting to the elevator boy, whom he remembered. The boy looked at him quizzically and nodded with customary aloofness. Graydon found himself hoping that he would not meet Bobby Rigby. He also wondered, as the car shot up, how his father had managed to escape from the meshes that were drawn about him on the eve of his departure. His chances had looked black and hopeless enough then; yet, he still maintained the same old offices in the building. His name was on the directory board downstairs. Graydon's heart gave a quick bound with the thought that his father had proved the charges false after all.

Elias Droom was busy directing the labours of two able-bodied men and a charwoman, all of whom were toiling as they had never toiled before. The woman was dusting law books and the men were packing them away in boxes. The front room of the suite was in a state of devastation. A dozen boxes stood about the floor; rugs and furniture were huddled in the most remote corner awaiting the arrival of the "second-hand man"; the floor was littered with paper. Droom was directing operations with a broken umbrella. It seemed like a lash to the toilers.

"Now, let's get through with this room," he was saying in his most impelling way. "The men will be here for the boxes at four. I don't want 'em to wait. This back room stuff we'll put in the trunks. Look out there! Don't you see that nail?"

Eddie Deever, with his usual indolence, was seated upon the edge of the writing table in the corner, smoking his cigarette, and commenting with rash freedom upon the efforts of the perspiring slaves.

"How long are you going to keep these things in the warehouse?" he asked of Droom.

"I'm not going to keep them there at all. They belong to Mr. Bansemer. He'll take them out when he has the time."

"He's getting all the time he wants now, I guess." commented Eddie. "Say, talking about time, I'll be twenty-one next Tuesday."

"Old enough to marry."

"I don't know about that. I'm getting pretty wise. Do you know, I've just found out how old Rosie Keating is? She's twenty-nine. Gee, it's funny how a fellow always gets stuck on a girl older than himself! Still, she's all right. I'm not saying a word against her. She wouldn't be twenty-nine if she could help it."

"I suppose it's off between you, then."

"I don't know about that, either. We lunched at Rector's to-day. That don't look like it's off, does it? Four sixty-five, including the tip. She don't look twenty-nine, does she?"

"I've never noticed her."

"Never—well, holy mackerel! You must be blind then. She says she's seen you in the elevator a thousand times. Never noticed HER? Gee!"

"I mean, I've never noticed anyone who looked less than twenty-nine. By the way, do you ever see Mr. Rigby? I believe she is in his office."

"I don't go to Rigby's any more," said Eddie, with sudden stiffness. "He's a cheap skate."

"I HEARD he threw you out of the office one day," with a dry cackle.

"He did not! We couldn't agree in certain things regarding the Bansemer affair, that's all. I told him to go to the devil, or words to that effect."

"Something loose about your testimony, I believe, wasn't there?"

"Oh, the whole thing doesn't amount to a whoop. I'm trying to get Rosie another job. She oughtn't to write in there with that guy."

"Well, you're twenty-one. Why don't you open an office of your own? Your mother's got plenty of money. She can buy you a library and a sign, and that is all a young lawyer needs in Chicago."

"Mother wants me to run for alderman in our ward, next spring. I'll be able to vote at that election."

"You've got as much right in the council as some others, I suppose."

"Sure, mother owns property. The West Side ought to be as well represented as the North Side. Property interests is what we need in the council. That's—"

"I don't care to hear a political speech, boy. Are you busy this afternoon?"

"No. I wouldn't be here if I was."

"Then get up there and hand those books down to me. Nobody loafs in this office to-day."

"Well, doggone, if that isn't the limit! All right. Don't get mad. I'll do it." The young gentleman leisurely ascended to the top of the stepladder and fell into line under the lash.

"Young Mr. Graydon Bansemer will be here this afternoon," said Droom. "I want to get things cleaned up a bit beforehand."

"How does he feel about his father?"

"He doesn't know about him, I'm afraid."

"Gee! Well, it'll jar him a bit, won't it?"

The office door was opened suddenly and a tall young man strode into the room, only to stop aghast at the sight before him. Droom's lank figure swayed uncertainly and his eyes wavered.

"What's all this?" cried Graydon, dropping his bag and coming toward the old man, his hand outstretched. Droom's clammy fingers rested lifelessly in the warm clasp.

"How are you, Graydon? I'm—I'm very glad to see you. You are looking well. Oh, this? We—we are moving," said the old man. The helpers looked on with interest. "Come into the back office. It isn't so torn up. I didn't expect you so soon. They said it was twenty-four hours late. Well, well, how are you, my boy?"

"I'm quite well again, Elias. Hard siege of it, I tell you. Moving, eh? What's that for?"

"Never mind those books, Eddie. Thank you for helping me. Come in some other time. You fellows—I mean you—pack the rest of these and then I'll tell you what to do next. Come in, Graydon."

Eddie Deever took his departure, deeply insulted because he had not been introduced to the newcomer. Graydon, somewhat bewildered, followed Droom into his father's consultation room. He looked around inquiringly.

"Where is father? I telegraphed to him."

An incomprehensible grin came into Droom's face. He twirled the umbrella in his fingers a moment before replying. His glance at the closed door was no more significant than his lowered tones.

"It didn't go very well with him, Graydon. He isn't here any more."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean the trial. There was a trial, you see. Haven't you heard anything?"

"Trial? He—he was arrested?" came numbly from the young man's lips.

"I can't mince matters, Graydon. I'll get it over as quickly as possible. Your father was tried for blackmail and was convicted. He is in—he's in the penitentiary."

The son's face became absolutely bloodless; his eyes were full of comprehension and horror, and his body stiffened as if he were turning to stone. The word penitentiary fell slowly, mechanically from his lips. He looked into Droom's eyes, hoping it might be a joke of the calloused old clerk.

"You—it—it can't be true," he murmured, his trembling hands going to his temples.

"Yes, my boy, it is true. I didn't write to you about it, because I wanted to put it off as long as I could. It's for five years."

"God!" burst from the wretched son. A wave of shame and grief sent the tears flooding to his eyes. "Poor old dad!" He turned and walked to the window, his shoulders heaving. Droom stood silent for a long time, watching Bansemer's son, pity and triumph in his face.

"Do you want to hear about it?" he asked at last. Graydon's head was bent in assent.

"It came the day after you left Chicago with the recruits. I knew you would not read the newspapers. So did he. Harbert swore out the papers and he was arrested here in this office. I believe he would have killed himself if he had been given time. His revolver was—er—not loaded. Before the officers came he discharged me. I was at liberty to go or to testify against him. I did neither. Of course, I was arrested, but they could only prove that I was a clerk who knew absolutely nothing about the inside workings of the office. I offered to go on his bond but he would not have me. He made some arrangement, through his attorney, and bail was secured. In spite of the fact that he was charged with crime, he insisted on keeping these offices and trying to do business. It wasn't because he needed money, Graydon, but because he wanted to lead an honest life, he said. He has a great deal of money, let me tell you. The grand jury indicted him last spring but the trial did not come up until last month—nearly a year later—so swift is justice in this city. In the meantime, I saw but little of him. I was working on an invention and, besides, there were detectives watching every movement I made. I stuck close to my rooms. By the way, I want to show you a couple of models I have perfected. Don't let me forget it. They—"

"Yes, yes—but father? Go on!"

"Well, the trial came up at last. That man Harbert is a devil. He had twenty witnesses, any one of whom could have convicted your father. How he got onto them, I can't imagine. He uncovered every deal we've—er—he had in Chicago and—"

"Then he really was guilty!" groaned Graydon.

"Yes, my boy, I knew it, of course. They could not force me to testify against him, however. I was too smart for them. Well, to make it short, he was sentenced five weeks ago. The motion for a new trial was overruled. He went to Joliet. If he had been a popular alderman or ward boss he would have been out yet on continuances, spending most of his sentence in some fasionable hotel, to say the least."

"Is he—wearing stripes?"

"Yes, it's the fashion there."

"For God's sake, don't jest. For five years!" The young man sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands.

"There'll be something off for good behaviour, my boy. He wanted to behave well before he went there, so I suppose he'll keep it up. The whole town was against him. He didn't have a friend."

"How did you escape?" demanded Graydon, looking up suddenly. "State's evidence?"

"No, not even after he tried to put most of the blame upon me. He tried that, my boy. I just let him talk. It saved me from prison. Usually the case with the man who keeps his mouth closed."

"But, Elias—Elias, why have I been kept in the dark? Why did he not tell me about it? Why has—"

"You forget, Graydon, that you turned from him first. You were really the first to condemn him. He wanted you to stay away from this country until he is free. That was his plan. He didn't want to see you. Now he wants you to come to him. He wants you to bring Jane Cable to see him."

"What!"

"Yes, that's it. I believe he intends to tell her the names of her father and mother. I think he wants her to forgive him and he wants to hear both of you say it to him."

Graydon stared blankly from the window. The old clerk was smiling to himself, an evil, gloating smile that would have shocked Bansemer had he turned suddenly.

"He wants both of us to—to come to the penitentiary?" muttered the son.

"Yes, as soon as possible. Do you think she'll go?" demanded Droom anxiously.

"I don't know. I'm afraid not."

"Not even to learn who her parents are?"

"It might tempt her. But she hates father."

"Well, she can gloat over him, can't she? That ought to be some satisfaction. Talk it over with her. She's here, isn't she?"

"Elias, do you know who her parents were?" asked Graydon quickly. "I've thought you knew as much about it as father."

The old man's eyes shifted.

"It's a silly question to ask of me. I was not a member of the Four Hundred, my boy."

"Nor was my father. Yet you think he knows."

"He's a much smarter man than I, Graydon. You'll go with me to see him?"

"Yes. I can't speak for Miss Cable."

"See her to-morrow. Come out to my place to-night, where the reporters can't find you. Maybe you won't care to sleep with me—I've but one bed, you see—but you can go to a quiet hotel downtown. I'm packing these things to store them for your father. Then I'm going back to New York to live on my income. It's honest money, too."

"Who sent me the draft for five hundred?"

"I did, Graydon. Forgive me. It was just a loan, you know. I thought you'd need something—"

"I haven't touched it, Elias. Here it is. Thank you. No, I won't accept it."

"I'm sorry," muttered the old man, taking the slip of paper.

Graydon resumed his seat near the window and watched Droom with leaden eyes as he turned suddenly to resume charge of the packing. "We'll soon be through," he said shortly.

For an hour the work went on, and then Droom dismissed the workers with their pay. The storage van men were there to carry the boxes away. Graydon sat still and saw the offices divested. Secondhand dealers hurried off with the furniture, the pictures and the rugs; an expressman came in for the things that belonged to Elias Droom.

"There," said the clerk, tossing the umbrella into a corner. "It's finished. There's nothing left to do but remove ourselves."

"Elias, did Mr. Clegg know about father's conviction when he offered me the place in New York?" asked Graydon as they started away.

"Yes, that's the beauty of it. He admires you. You'll take the place?"

"Not until I've talked it all over with him—to-morrow."

Droom called a cab and the two drove over to the Wells Street rooms, Graydon relinquishing himself completely to the will of the old man. During the supper, which Droom prepared with elaborate care, and far into the night, the young man sat and listened without interest to the garrulous talk of his host, who explained the mechanism and purpose of two models.

One was in the nature of a guillotine by which a person could chop his own head off neatly without chance of failure, and the other had to do with the improvement of science in respect to shoelaces.



CHAPTER XXX

THE DRINK OF GALL



Mr. Clegg was not long in convincing Graydon that his proposition to him was sincere and not the outgrowth of sentiment. A dozen men in the office greeted Graydon with a warmth that had an uplifting effect. He went away with a heart lighter than he had once imagined it could ever be again. In two weeks he was to be in absolute control of the New York branch; he assured the firm that his physical condition was such that he could go to work at once, if necessary.

As he hastened to the Annex, misgivings again entered into his soul. The newspapers had heralded his return and had hinted broadly at romantic developments in connection with Miss Cable, "who is at the Annex with Mr. and Mrs. Cable." There were brief references to the causes which sent both of them to the Philippines, find that was all.

Without hesitation, he came to the point by asking if she knew what had befallen his father. Jane had heard the news the night before. He thereupon put the whole situation before her just as it had been suggested in Droom's ironical remark. It was not until after the question had been passed upon by Mr. and Mrs. Cable that she reluctantly consented to visit Graydon's father—solely for the purpose of gleaning what information she could regarding her parentage.

They left the next day with Elias Droom, depressed, nervous, dreading the hour ahead of them. Neither was in the mood to respond to the eager, excited remarks of the old clerk. The short railroad trip was one never to be forgotten; impressions were left in their lives that could not be effaced.

James Bansemer, shorn and striped, was not expecting visitors. He was surprised and angry when he was told that visitors were waiting to see him. For four weeks he had laboured clumsily and sourly in the shoe factory of the great prison, a hauler and carrier. His tall figure was bent with unusual toil, his hands were sore and his heart was full of the canker of rebellion. Already, in that short time, his face had taken on the look of the convict. All the viciousness in his nature had gone to his face and settled there. He had the sullen, dogged, patient look of the man who has a number but no name.

The once dignified, aggressive walk had degenerated into a slouch; he shuffled as he came to the bars where he was to meet his first visitors. He was not pleased but he was curious. Down in his heart he found a hope that his attorney had come with good news. It was not until he was almost face to face with his son that he realised who it was; not until then that he felt the full force of shame, ignominy, loathing for himself.

He started back with an involuntary oath and would have slunk away had not Graydon called out to him—called out in a voice full of pain and misery. The convict's face was ashen and his jaw hung loose with the paralysis of dismay; his heart dropped like a chunk of ice, his feet were as leaden weights. A look of utter despair came into his hard eyes as he slowly advanced to the bars.

"My God, Graydon, why did you come? Why did you come here?" he muttered. Then he caught sight of Jane and Elias Droom. His eyes dropped and his fingers twitched; to save his life he could not have kept his lower lip from trembling nor the burning tears from his eyes. His humiliation was complete.

A malevolent grin was on Droom's face; his staring blue eyes looked with a great joy upon the shamed, beaten man in the stripes. The one thing that he had longed for and cherished had come to pass; he had lived to see James Bansemer utterly destroyed even in his own eyes.

"Father, I can't believe it. I can't tell you how it hurts me. I would willingly take your place if it were possible. Forgive me for deserting you—" Graydon was saying incoherently when his father lifted his face suddenly, a fierce, horrified look of understanding in the eyes that flashed upon Elias Droom. Even as he clasped his son's hand in the bitterness of small joy, his lips curled into a snarl of fury. Droom's eyes shifted instantly, his uneasy gaze directing itself as usual above the head of its victim.

"You did this, curse you!" came from the convict's livid lips. "And this girl, too! Good God, you knew I would rather have died than to meet Graydon as I am now. You knew it and you brought him here. I hope you will rot in hell for this, Elias Droom. She comes here, too, to gloat—to rejoice—to see how I look before my son in prison stripes!" He went on violently for a long stretch, ending with a sob of rage. "I suppose you are satisfied," he said hoarsely to Droom.

Graydon and Jane looked on in surprise and distress. Droom's gaze did not swerve nor his expression change.

"Father, didn't you expect me to come?" asked Graydon. "Don't you want to see me?"

"Not here. Why should I have tried to keep you from returning to this country? God knows how I hoped and prayed that you'd not see me here. Elias Droom knew it. That's why he brought you here. Don't lie to me, Droom. I know it!"

"What could you expect?" mumbled Droom. "Down in your heart you wanted to see him. I've done you a kindness."

"For which I'll repay you some day," cried the prisoner, a steady look in his eyes. "Now go away, all of you! I'm through with you. You've seen me. The girl is satisfied. Go—"

"Nonsense, father," cried Graydon, visibly distressed by his father's anguish. "Elias said that you wanted to see us. Jane did not come out of curiosity. She is here to ask justice of you; she's not seeking vengeance."

"I'll talk to you alone," said the prisoner shortly. "Send her away. I've nothing to say to her or Droom."

Jane turned and walked swiftly away, followed by Droom, who rubbed his long fingers together and tried to look sympathetic. The interview that ensued between father and son was never to be forgotten by either. Graydon heard his father's bitter story in awed silence; heard him curse deeply and vindictively; heard all this and marvelled at the new and heretofore unexposed side of his nature.

There was something pathetic in the haggard face and the expressions of impotent rage. His heart softened when his father bared his shame to him and cried out against the fate which had brought them together on this day.

"It doesn't matter, father," said Graydon hoarsely. "I deserted you and I'm sorry. No matter what you've done to bring you here, I'm glad I've come to see you. I don't blame Elias. For a while I'm afraid I rather held out against coming. Now, I am glad for my own sake. I won't desert you now. I am going to work for a pardon, if your appeal does not go through."

"Don't! I won't have it!" exclaimed the other. "I'm going to stay it out. It will give me time to forget, so that I can be a better man. If they let me out now I'd do something I'd always regret. I want to serve my time and start all over again. Don't worry about me. I won't hamper you. I'll go away—abroad, as Harbert suggested. Damn him, his advice was good, after all. Understand, Graydon, I do not want parole or pardon. You must not undertake it. I am guilty and I ought to be punished the same as these other fellows in here. Don't shudder. It's true. I'm no better than they."

"I hate to think of you in this awful place—" began Graydon.

"Don't think of me."

"But, my God, I've seen you here, father," cried the son.

"A pretty spectacle for a son," laughed the father bitterly. "Why did you bring that girl here? That was cruel—heartless."

Graydon tried to convince him that Jane had not come to gloat but to ask a favour of him.

"A favour, eh? She expects me to tell all I know about her, eh? That's good!" laughed Bansemer.

"Father, she has done you no wrong. Why are you so bitter against her? It's not right—it's not like you."

Bansemer looked steadily at him for a full minute.

"Is she going to marry you, Graydon?"

"She refuses, absolutely."

"Then, she's better than I thought. Perhaps I'm wrong in hating her as I do. It's because she took you away from me. Give me time, Graydon. Some day I may tell you all I know. Don't urge me now; I can't do it now. I don't want to see her again. Don't think I'm a fool about it, boy, and don't speak of it again. Give me time."

"She is the gentlest woman in the world."

"You love her?"

"Better than my life."

"Graydon, I—I hope she will change her mind and become your wife."

"You do? I don't understand."

"That's why I'd rather she never could know who her parents are. The shadow is invisible now; it wouldn't help matters for her if it were visible. She's better off by not knowing. Has Droom intimated that he knows?"

"He says he does not."

"He lies, but at the same time he won't tell her. It's not in him to do it. God, he has served me ill to-day. He has always hated me, but he was always true to me. He did me a vile trick when he changed the cartridges in my revolver. By God, I discharged him for that. I told him to appear against me if he would. He was free to do so. But, curse him, he would not give me the satisfaction of knowing that he was a traitor. He knew I'd go over the road, anyhow. He's been waiting for this day to come. He has finally given me the unhappiest hour in my life."

After a few moments he quieted down and asked Graydon what his plans were for the future. In a strained uncertain way the two talked of the young man's prospects and the advantages they promised.

"Go ahead, Graydon, and don't let the shadow of your father haunt you. Don't forget me, boy, because I love you better than all the world. These are strange words for a man who has fallen as I have fallen, but they are true. Listen to this: you will be a rich man some day; I have a fortune to give you, my boy. They can't take my money from me, you know. It's all to be yours—every cent of it. You see—"

"Father—I—let us not talk about it now," said Graydon hastily, a shadow of repugnance in his eyes. Bansemer studied his face for a moment and a deep red mounted to his brow.

"You mean, Graydon," he stammered, "that you—you do not want my money?"

"Why should we talk about it now?"

"Because it suggests my death?"

"No, no, father. I—"

"You need not say it. I understand. It's enough. You feel that my money was not honestly made. Well, we won't discuss it. I'll not offer it to you again."

"It won't make any difference, dad. I love you. I don't love your money."

"Or the way I earned it. Some day, my boy, you'll learn that very few make money by dealing squarely with their fellow men. It's not the custom. My methods were a little broader than common, that's all. I now notify you that I intend to leave all I have to sweet charity. I earned most of my ill-gotten wealth in New York and Chicago, and I'm going to give it back to these cities. Charity will take anything that is offered, but it doesn't always give in return."

At the expiration of the time allotted to the visitor, Graydon took his departure.

"Graydon, ask her to think kindly of me if she can."

"I'll come down again, father before I go East."

"No!" almost shouted James Bansemer. "I won't have it! For my sake, Graydon, don't ever come here again. Don't shame me more than you have to-day. I'll never forget this hour. Stay away and you'll be doing me the greatest kindness in the world. Promise me, boy!"

"I can't promise that, dad. It isn't a sane request. I am your son—"

"My God, boy, don't you see that I can't bear to look at you through these bars? Go! Please go! Good-bye! Write to me, but don't come here again. Don't! It's only a few years."

He turned away abruptly, his shoulder drawn upward as if in pain, and Graydon left the place, weakened and sick at heart.

Jane and Droom were awaiting him in an outer office. The former looked into his eyes searchingly, tenderly.

"I'm so sorry, Graydon," she said as she took his hand in hers.

All the way back to Chicago Elias Droom sat and watched them from under lowered brows, wondering why it was that he felt so much lonelier than he ever had felt before,—wondering, too, in a vague sort of way, why he was not able to exult, after all.



CHAPTER XXXI

THE TRANSFORMING OF DROOM



Jane was ill and did not leave her room during the two days following the visit to the penitentiary. She was haunted by the face of James Bansemer, the convict. It was beyond her powers of imagination to recall him as the well-groomed, distinguished man she once had known. Graydon was deeply distressed over the pain and humiliation he had subjected her to through Droom's unfortunate efforts. The fact that she could not or would not see him for two days hurt him more than he could express, even to himself. The day before he left for New York, however, she saw him in their parlour. She was pale and very quiet.

Neither mentioned the visit to the prison; there was nothing to say.

"You will be in New York next week?" he asked as he arose to leave. His spirit was sore. She again had told him that he must not hope. With an hysterical attempt to lead him on to other topics, she repeated her conversations with Teresa Valesquez, urging him with a hopeless attempt at bravado, to seek out the Spanish girl and marry her. He laughed lifelessly at the jest.

"We will leave Chicago on Monday. Father will have his business affairs arranged by that time. I would not let him resign the presidency. It would seem as if I were taking it away from him. We expect to be in Europe for six or eight months. Then, I am coming back to New York, where I was born, Graydon—to work!"

He went away with the feeling in his heart that he was not to see her again. A single atom of determination lingered in his soul, however, and he tried to build upon it for the future. Rigby's wedding invitation had come to him that morning—almost as a mockery. He tore it to pieces with a scowl of recollection.

Droom's effects were on the way to New York. He hung back, humbly waiting for Graydon to suggest that they should travel East on the same train. His grim, friendless old heart gave a bound of pure joy—the first he had known—when the young man made the suggestion that night.

Together they travelled eastward and homeward, leaving behind them the grey man in stripes.

Jane's six months in Europe grew into a year—and longer. It was a long but a profitable year for Graydon Bansemer; he had been enriched not only in wealth but in the hope of ultimate happiness. Not that Jane encouraged him. Far from it, she was more obdurate than ever with an ocean between them. But his atom of determination had grown to a purpose. His face was thinner and his eyes were of a deeper, more wistful grey; they were full of longing for the girl across the sea, and of pity and yearning for the man back there in the West.

He had toiled hard and well; he had won. The shadow of '99 was still over him, but the year and a new ambition had lessened its blackness. Friends were legion in the great metropolis; he won his way into the hearts and confidence of new associates and renewed fellowship with the old. Invitations came thickly upon him, but he resolutely turned his back upon most of them. He was not socially hungry in these days.

Once a week he wrote to his father, but there never was a reply. He did not expect one, for James Bansemer, in asking him to write, had vowed that his son should never hear from him again until he could speak as a free man and a chastened one. True to his promise, Graydon instituted no movement to secure a pardon. He did, by a strong personal appeal, persuade Denis Harbert to drop further prosecution. There were enough indictments against his father to have kept him behind the bars for life.

Elias Droom had rooms in Eighth Avenue not a great distance from Herald Square. He was quite proud of his new quarters. They had many of the unpleasant features of the old ones in Wells Street, but they were less garish in their affront to an aesthetic eye. The incongruous pictures were there and the oddly assorted books, but the new geraniums had a chance for life in the broader windows; the cook stove was in the rear and there was a venerable Chinaman in charge of it; the bedroom was kept so neat and clean that Droom quite feared to upset it with his person. But, most strange of all, was the change in Droom himself.

"I've retired from active work," he informed Graydon one day, when that young man stared in astonishment at him. "What's the use, my boy, in Elias Droom dressing like a dog of a workingman, when he is a gentleman of leisure and affluence? It surprises you to see me in an evening suit, eh? Well, by Jove, my boy, I've got a dinner jacket, a Prince Albert and a silk hat. There are four new suits of clothes hanging up in that closet," he said, adding, with a sarcastic laugh," That ought to make a perfect gentleman of me, oughtn't it? What are you laughing at?"

"I can't help it, Elias. Who would have dreamed that you'd go in for good clothes!"

"I used to dream about it, long ago. I swore if I ever got back to New York I'd dress as New Yorkers dress—even if I was a hundred years old. I've got a servant, too. What d'ye think of that? He can't understand a word I say, nor can I understand him. That's why he stays on with me. He doesn't know when I'm discharging him, and I don't know when he's threatening to leave. What do you think of my rooms?"

It was Graydon's first visit to the place, weeks after their return to New York. He had not felt friendly to Droom since the day at the prison; but now he was forgetting his resentment, in the determination to wrest from him the names of Jane's father and mother. He was confident that the old man knew.

"Better than Wells Street, eh? Well, you see, I was in trade then. Different now. I'm getting to be quite a fop. Do you notice that I say 'By Jove' occasionally?" He gave his raucous laugh of derision. "Dined at Sherry's the other night, old chap," he went on with raw mimicry. "They thought I was a Christian and let me in. I used to look like the devil, you know."

"By the Lord Harry, Elias," cried Graydon, "you look like the devil now."

"I've got these carpet slippers on because my shoes hurt my feet," explained Droom sourly. "My collar rubbed my neck, so I took it off. Otherwise, I'm just as I was when I got in at Sherry's. Funny what a difference a little thing like a collar makes, isn't it?"

"I should say so. I never gave it a thought until now. But, Elias, I want to ask a great favour of you. You can—"

"My boy, if your father wouldn't tell you who her parents are, don't expect me to do so. He knows; I only suspect."

"You must be a mind reader," gasped Graydon.

"It isn't hard to read your mind these days. What do you hear from her?" Graydon went back to the subject after a few moments. "I am morally certain that I know who her father and mother were, but it won't do any good to tell her. It didn't make me any better to learn who my father was. It made me wiser, that's all. How's your father?"

After this night Graydon saw the old man often. They dined together occasionally in the small cafes on the West Side. Droom could not, for some reason known only to himself, be induced to go to Sherry's again.

"When Jane comes back, I'll give you both a quiet little supper there after the play maybe. It'll be my treat, my boy."

The old man worked patiently and fruitlessly over his "inventions." They came to naught, but they lightened his otherwise barren existence. There was not a day or night in which his mind was wholly free from thoughts of James Bansemer.

He counted the weeks and days until the man would be free, and his eyes narrowed with these furtive glances into the future. He felt in his heart that James Bansemer would come to him at once, and that the reckoning for his single hour of triumph would be a heavy one to pay. Sometimes he would sit for hours with his eyes staring at the Napoleon above the bookcase, something like dread in their depths. Then again he would laugh with glee, pound the table with his bony hand—much to the consternation of Chang—and exclaim as if addressing a multitude:

"I hope I'll be dead when he gets out of there! I hope I won't live to see him, free again. That would spoil everything. Let me see, I'm seventy-one now; I surely can't live much longer. I want to die seeing him as I saw him that day. The last thing I think of on earth must be James Bansemer's face behind the bars. Ha, ha, ha! It was worth all the years, that one hour! It was even worth while being his slave. I'm not afraid of him! No! That's ridiculous. Of course, I'm not afraid of him. I only want to know he's lying in a cell when I die out here in the great, free world! By my soul, he'll know that a handsome face isn't always the best. He laughed at my face, curse him. His face won her—his good looks! Well, well, well, I only hope she's where she can see his face now!"

He would work himself into a frenzy of torment and glee combined, usually collapsing at the end of his harangue. It disgusted him to think that his health was so good that he might be expected to live beyond the limit of James Bansemer's imprisonment.

At the end of eighteen months, Jane was coming home. She had written to Graydon from London, and the newspapers announced the sailing of the Cables on one of the White Star steamers.

"I am coming home to end all of this idleness," she wrote to him. "I mean to find pleasure in toil, in doing good, in lifting the burdens of those who are helpless. You will see how I can work, Graydon. You will love me more than ever when you see how I can do so much good for my fellow creatures. I want you to love me more and more, because I shall love you to the end of my life."

The night before the ship was to arrive Graydon was dining with the Jack Percivals. There were a dozen in the party—a blase, bored collection of human beings who had dined out so incessantly that eating was a punishment. They had come to look upon food as a foe to comfort and a grievous obstacle in the path of pleasure. Bridge was just beginning to take hold of them; its grip was tightening with new coils as each night went by. Nobody thought of dinner; the thought was of the delay in getting at the game; an instinct that was not even a thought urged them to abhor the food that had come into their lives so abundantly.

Night after night they dined out; night after night they toyed with their forks, ate nothing, drank to hide their yawns, took black coffee and said they enjoyed the food tremendously.

Graydon Bansemer was new to this attitude. He was vigorous and he was not surfeited with food; he had an appetite. Just before six o'clock his host called him up by 'phone, and, in a most genial way, advised him to eat a hearty meal before coming up to dinner. Graydon made the mistake of not following this surprising bit of advice.

He sat next to Mrs. Percival. She appeared agitated and uncertain. Servants came in with the dishes and almost immediately took them away again. No one touched a mouthful of the food; no one except Graydon noticed the celerity with which the plates and their contents were removed; no one felt that he was expected to eat. Graydon, after his first attempt to really eat of the third course, subsided with a look of amazement at his hostess. She smiled and whispered something into his ear. He grew very red and choked with—was it confusion or mirth?

Everybody gulped black coffee and everybody puffed violently at cigars and cigarettes and then everybody bolted for the card tables.

Jack Percival grasped Graydon's arm and drew him back into the dining-room. He was grinning like an ape.

"It worked, by George—worked like a charm. Great Scott, what a money and time saver! I was a little worried about you, Bansemer, but I knew the others wouldn't catch on. Great, wasn't it?"

"What the dickens does it mean?" demanded Graydon. "Mean! Why, good Lord, man, nobody ever eats at these damned dinners. They CAN'T eat. They're sick of dinners. That crowd out there takes tea and things at five or six o'clock. They wouldn't any more think of eating anything at a dinner after the caviar and oysters than you'd think of flying. It's a waste of time and money to give 'em real food. This is the second time I've tried my scheme and it's worked both times. I can serve this same dinner twenty times. Everything's made of wax and papier mache. See what I mean? And I'll leave it to you that there isn't a soul out there who is any the wiser. By George, it's a great invention. I'm going to patent it. Come on; let's get in there. They're howling for us to begin."

Graydon, his mind full of Jane, played at a table with Colonel Sedgwick, a blase old Knickerbocker whose sole occupation in life was saying rude things about other people. To-night he was particularly attentive to his profession. He kept Graydon and the two women sitting straight and uncomfortable in their chairs between hands and positively chilled while the game went on.

Graydon's game was a poor one at best, but he was playing abominably on this occasion. He could not tear his thoughts from the ship that was drawing nearer and nearer to New York harbour with each succeeding minute. In his mind's eye he could look far out over the black waters and see the lonely vessel as it rushed on through the night. He wondered if Jane were asleep or awake and thinking of him.