THE CAVE MAN

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIX, Issue 8, 24 August 1907, Page 17

THE CAVE MAN

By

JOHN CORBIN

XXXIV. FOR two years Andrews had been living in ease and in enjoyment of the variegated activities of his unstrung emotional nature. But, as the quotations of American Motor fell and tumbled, the deadline of his margin was increasingly in danger. Native shrewdness, eked out by his partial knowledge of the inner workings of the company, was not long in putting him in touch with the situation. His first impulse was to curse Penrhyn for his greed and stupidity in pushing Wistar too far, and he yielded to it eloquently. But before long he turned the torrents of invective upon himself. He was possessor of information fatal to the fortunes and good name of two men of wealth and position, and he had used it to no better purpose than to gain a monthly stipend and a few thousand dollars, both of which, if the worst came to the worst, were now in danger. Clearly he nad lacked decision and initiative. Now, if ever, was the time to redeem himself. Waylaying Penrhyn at his office door he dogged him to his train at the Grand Central. Before he could engage him in conversation, however, the young financier had ensconced himself in one of the colonial arm-chairs in the baggagecar, supplied to card-playing commuters by an indulgent baggage-master, and was beginning a game of bridge. Penrhyn got off at the station of his country club; but Wistar also, Andrews found,' was in the knot of men that alighted from the train. There was something in the man that always brought Andrews as much of shame as he was capable of feeling, and in his brief moment of irresolution Penrhyn chartered the one land-faring hack at the station and drove away up the slope past the club.

Andrews started after it on foot, and, when he readied the highway that skirts the club grounds, saw the vehicle in the distance turning up a road that led to the heights commanding a view of the majestic Hudson. He followed to the turning, and sat down by the roadside, ft is the adage of children of the nursery and of Wall Street that what goes up must come down, and when the landfaring hack came down Andrews gave the driver a quarter with an easy air and in return learned whither he had driven Penrhyn.

Half an hour later he laboured up a flight of stone steps that led from the road to the grounds of a little summer cottage, which from its lordly altitude commanded the full sweep of the river, shimmering in the late afternoon sunlight beneath its high green palisades thirtv miles and more to the statue of Liberty attempting to enlighten New York. ' Mounting the ivied verandah, he pressed the button at the door, and, as he waited, turned and encompassed the view with an eloquent sweep of his hand. In the ancient serving-woman who answered his ring he recognised Mrs. Boyser. “Tell Mr. Penrhyn,” he said with admirable poise, “that a gentleman here wants to see him on business. “Begging your pardon,” the old woman answered with a no less admirable circumspection, “is the gentleman you?” Andrews clouded. "I won’t stand for none of your guff,” he said. “No offence intended. May I ask what is your business?” “Say it’s his ice bill.

The old woman hesitated, and then went in. Andrews turned, and, ms eye lighting on a rustic seat that encircled an old elm on the lawn, he sat down with a determined air. “Blast your impudence!” said Penrhyn, coming down the steps with resolute strides. He was in dinner-dress, and the sight of his broad shirt-front awed Andrews for a moment. But it was only for a moment. “Same to you,” he vouchsafed without rising. “What I want to know is what’s all this monkey tricks on the Street?” Penrhyn paused the fraction of a second, and then, “Only a little flurry,” he ventured. “Flurry? Less than a week ago my shares was worth big dollars. Three days more o’ the same and they won’t be worth doughnuts.” “Well, suppose you do get it in the neck?” Andrews surveyed him coolly. “No danger to my neck! Two years ago Wistar asked me who bribed me to crack his safe. Suppose I go and tell him, heigh ?” Penrhyn smiled carelessly. “I would not take the trouble.” “’Cause why?” “He knows.” Andrews gave a start of surprise, more convincing perhaps than if it had been genuine. “Wistar was on it, was you?” Penrhyn’s smile broadened, though not with geniality. “Your blackmailing graft is played out.” Then he took on a threatening tone. “If you don’t get out of here, and Stay out, I give you fair warning, it’s off the ice-waggon for you, and on to the water-waggon. Are you on ?” Andrews relapsed against the tree with thoughtful satisfaction. “Just what I wanted to make sure of—what raised such a row.” Then he leaned forward, held out his open palm, and with a few telling strokes outlined the course of recent events. Penrhyn looked ugly. It was not a pleasant way to be reminded of his past blunder and his present plight. “Who did you say got it in the neck?” Andrews triumphed. “Clever stock juggler, Wistar, spite of all his chesty nonsense about trusts.” It took but a moment for Penrhyn to regain control of himself. “You're off,” he said nonehantly, “way, way off!” “Am I? Then, why is it worth your while to interrupt your supper and pass the time o’ day with a poor working man ? Why is Wistar selling out ? ’Cause he’s bolting to join Minot and the rest of the independents to smash the trust.” As he spoke he watched Penrhyn’s face narrowly. “Between Mr. Wistar and this here Eu-ro-pean combine, they’ll sock it to youse, both goin’ and cornin’!” He took from his pocket the certificate of his stock. “In six weeks this here won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on to. I’m on—way, way on! I’v. got the reason why!” Penrhyn answered with jocular indulgence. “Then you know what you could get cold thousands for on the Street. All you’ve got is cold feet. If you’re afraid the slump is going any further, I’ll advance you a few hundred on your ice bill to tide you over.” “So, after all, my graft isn’t quite played out, heigh?” Andrews laughed. “You want me to wait till you’ve busted Wistar. And where’ll I be if he busts you ? Work all the week, and preaching in Madison Square to drown the hot coppers in my gullet! T guess nit! I

know both o' you, and me man gives me cold feet is Wistar. It’s up to you to give me the cold thousands for thes> here shares.” He paused a moment, am then concluded with resolution: “Unless you fork over, here and now, I tell what I know to my broker. See?” “Believe you—a gaol-bird!” Penrhyn’s tone was still jocular and indulgent; but the striped suit is not a jest to those who have been inside it. None o’ your insults!” Andrews cried. "Suppose I agree to sell that story to the newspapers? You and the old man traitors and thieves! My broker could go short and make thousands! Your game and the old man’s reputation knocked higher than a kite, heigh?” His resentment spent, he paused, and watched Penrhyn’s face with intense cunning. “The mere price o’ the shares is a song. Give me five thousand dollars for ’em, or I peach to-morrow!” Penrhyn did not speak. Andrews saw his opportunity. Thrusting the certificate into his pocket, he strode toward the gate. “Good-bye,” he saiu, over his shoulder. “I hate' to do you dirt, Penrhyn, but you’ve had your chanct.” “Wait a minute!” Penrhyn called after him, alarm overcoming his inward rage. “I haven’t the money here. What do you want me to give you ? A cheque ?” “Why- not? You’re in the mud as deep as me. Only, not to be promiscuous with my signature, you’ll have to cash it for me in the morning, and let me tear it up.” Glancing about to make sure they were alone, Penrhyn took out a pen and a cheque-book and'wrote. “That’s the ticket for soup!” Andrew’s applauded. “Wait a minute!” Penrhyn said. “I’m getting tired of that little matter of the ice bill. He held out the cheque to the other’s view. “I’ve made it for six thousand. I’ll give it to you and cash it in the morning if you’ll sign some little papers that will close the books between us.” Andrews thought a moment. At the outset he had been amazed at Penrhyn’s amateurish neglect in failing to protect mmself again blackmail. Now that Wistar had learned the truth his secret was clearly of value only in a crisis like the present. “Sure, Mike!” he concluded. As he pocketed the cheque he smiled complacently. “The trouble with you, Penrhyn,” he said, “is that you haven’t .quite got your hand in at this sort of thing. What’s that the poet says? ‘Oh, ’tis a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.’ But when we’ve done it onct or twice, we learn the trick that cuts the ice.” As Andrews was turning to go, Boyser came out and announced that coffee was served in the library. Seeing her, Andrews dug his heel in the turf and swung about. “I ain’t had my supper yet,” he said in a low voice to Penrhyn. “Her nibs here wanted to know just now if I was a gentleman. When this sort of thing passes between gentlemen, they gen'lly wet it, don’t they ?” In another minute the entire party would be sitting behind the open windows on the porch, if they were not already there. It was not the time to stand between a dog and his bone, and Penrhyn could not hustle the man away without attracting notice. “Oh. Boyser,” he said, “here's a man who has brought me a message from

town. Give him a bite in the kitehen. and let him out the back gate.” He offered her a bill, but she turned her eyes from it, and, coming out on the lawn, led Andrews about the house to the back door. As he disappeared in the shrubbery, Judith came out on the verandah, with a dubious glance at Penrhyn. •• \ndrews!” she said. “Here—with you?” It was a matter of months since he promised her an account of the situation that had led Wistar to rise up from his sick bed in protest; and. though he had since been wu.. her constantly he had not offered it. Nor had she' asked it. At first he had assured himself that her silence was a piece of good fortune, but he was too astute to continue long in self-deception. Hers was a nature of rare dignity; and, their relations being what they were, she disdained an aet that implied a lack of faith in him. But the code that restrained her to silence commanded him to speak. From day- to day he had intended to make what explanation he could. He had it on the tip of his tongue. But no one was more conscious of its inadequacy than he, and there was something in the clear rectitude of her mind that had kept the worus unspoken. Now a thing had happened which put him almost hopelessly on the defensive. "The bad penny,” he said. "You know the proverb.” The proverb is somewhat musty,’ ” she quoted, looking him gently in the eyes. “You have asked me to give up for ever the hope of love,” she added, laying her two hands on his shoulders. “Be sure what you offer is true comradeship.” As for Andrews,” he’s been speculating in our stock in a small way, and his margin is in danger. He followed mr up here to get a tip.” She was silent “Of course, I couldn't advise him; but he’s a poor devil, and I gave him enough money to buy him a meal and a bed till he can get work again.” Still she was silent, and he felt impelled to go on : “As for Wistar, what he wants is you It was to please you he came in with us, giving up his principles, about which he talked so loudly. And now that has failed, he has made this grandstand play to save Minot, in the hope of impressing you and discrediting me.” “That is not like him. Are you quite fair? How can it be right to ruin Mr. Minot in cold blood ?” “Ah, that’s the question I’ve feared! The question that I’ve hesitated, all these weeks, to take up with you! You know something of evolution in biology. The same laws operate in society and business. Minot is one of the unfit.” As they were talking she had passed to a bed of roses that lay along an old stone wall by the roadside, and was now plucking a cluster to carry into the house. “When these first began to bud.” he said. “I saw you cutting off the small early- buds—to make these larger and more beautiful.” “It's a very pretty simile for a very ugly thing. And Mr. Wistar—is he also one of lae unfit?*’ She smiled at him. at once subtly and frankly. “When he takes sides with Minot he becomes so! It lies in our power to develop this industry like the American Beauty rose—to meet our foreign rivals.

even to beat them. Progress by the death of the unlit—if any man had invented it. it would be called murder and greed! But it was ordained by a power as much greater than our own as it is unknowable. All we can be sure of is that it is the only means by which the wise and strong survive. These are your father's ideas, and I count it an honour to be associated with him in realising them.” She glancef at him ruefully and shrugged her shoulders. “But there's always the question—just who are the unfit? I (.on t think you feel as tit as you did a month ago. The old look has come back into father's eyes. For myself, 1 feel as if 1 had hung up for weeks, like a suit of clothes in a Bowery misfit-shop. What does it all mean?” Penrhyn's face became hard and set. but when he spoke it was with courage and conviction. “It looks now as if \\ istar intended to join Minot in his tight against us. It will be a hard tight and a long one. But we are right, and we are stronger. In the end we shall win! ” “For father’s sake. 1 hope so. But 1 am sorry, very sorry that you waited to tell me all tnis until matters had come to such a pass.*’ She started toward the house with the Howers, and was met at the door by Boyser. • -That man. in the kitchen,” the old woman said, “he's drinking up the whole bottle and insultin' of Mary.” Bv this time Penrhyn was not in a pleasant mood. “I’ll settle him!” he said, between his teeth, striding toward tin' back door. •■Wait. Stanley!” Judith cried after him. Penrhyn stopped short. "Is it quite the place for you?” "I am the mistress of the house,” she said. “In this matter you might at least consult me.” Then, as if to soften the rebuke, she added. “Don’t you think it win be easier for me to shame him into behaving? If not. then you can use stronger measures.” It was the evening of the wedding rehearsal ; but as Mr. Sears sat in the library sipping his coffee it became evident. even to the eager and light-hearted May. that he was in no cheerful mood. With the imperfect sympathy of girlhood. she endeavoured to gladden him by talking of the event that to her was all-important and all-joyful: but his response. she found, was not all the subject deserved. Even Onderdonk was glum. Slipping her arm into his. she led him out of doors. “What is it all about?” she demanded. “If 1 had stayed in there another second 1 should have been stifled!” “A little business worry.” he said evas»vely. fingering his unlighted cigar. She looked at him reproachfully. “Remember! We're to share everything, troubles as well as happiness, little and big!” in their long engagement Billy had learned to play a good husband-like hand at affectionate dissimulation. “Stocks are down.” he said, as if imparting a "But aren’t they always going up and down? Isn’t that what they’re made "You’re right there!” said Billy. "Wen. then, you might be just a little cheerful for my wedding rehearsal!” He laid his arm about her shoulder, and. with his head well above hers, risked a smile. She slipped away from him. and. with an enraptured glance at the heavens, exclaimed. "What a perfectly lovely night for it! 1 do hope it’ll be like this next month! ” Beyond the distant palisades the sun had set in clear splendour. Upon the verdure-covered crags beneath the western heavens a crimson mantle had fallen. like the bloom of a damask plum. "It certainly is a corker!” said Billy, sitting on the Iwnch beneath the tree. May Mapped a mosquito on her delicately modelled and athletic forearm. "Come along.” Billy said, starting town rd an ailiour on a knoll out beyond, "in smoke up and drive away the mosquitoes.*’ But May <*.4 not go. for just then the silken purr of a motor stole up through the gathering dusk from the sunken road l»eneath them, and presently Wistar mounted the stone steps. He wore a dinner-jacket and straw hat. and held a eream-white motor coat over his arm. May blew him a delighted kiss. “Now

we're all ready!” she exclaimed, and ran into the house. ‘Any news from the Street?'’ asked Buiy. Even when he had left the office to catch an early train everybody was talking Motor, and he had run a gauntlet of reporters. The same, only more so. And they’re buying no end of trouble with that plunge in rubber It looks now as if it were off.” According to Wistar’s reports from South America. Ryan and his associates were throwing down their hands in disgust. It is one thing to buy a LatinAmerican republic, and another to make it stay bought. Wistar had done his best to noise abroad the rumour of the proposed monopoly, and the effect was what he had planned. Already in two cases the very men who had profited by the sale of a concession had headed a revolution against their own government for the purpose of capturing it and selling the concession again. The great rivers of the rubber countries were bordered with quicksands for the sinking of American millions. “If we keep to our plan,” W istar concluded. "we shall have to come out in the open to-:..orrow and sell to bust

them. Are you still game?” “rstill game. And you?’’ "1 should like to put it up to Mr. Sears once more.” The door opened, and May came out. leading her father by the hand. “W here do you think Juoy is?’’ she cried. "In the kitchen, arguing and persuading with a tipsy tramp. Wait just a minutu till I get her!” And she vanished into the house. “Can you leave* us just a minute?” W istar said in a low voice to Billy. Billy started to follow May. but with a glance at his cigar he lighted it. and. thrusting his hands in the pockets of his dinner-jacket, turned on his heel toward the arbour. The two men faced each other in silence. The lines about the old man’s clear-cut and delicate lips were drawn and haggard. The soft wrinkle that once had pleasantly framed his refined and pointed chin had become a furrow, and his mild blue eyes were without expression. But t was he who >poke first. “Your promise not to tell Judith.” he said, in a dry. metallic voice—"you have kept it. and I thank you. You have fought hard, but you nave fought fair.” "Did I promise?” Wistar asked. “I’d forgotten.” The fact that Mr. Sears had trea-ured Midi a promise would have seemed contemptible if it had not l>een

pitiable. Two years ago he would have known that there was no need of such a pledge. “Ail the more.” Sears said, “I thank you for sparing her.” “Sparing her?” W istar cried. “Do you realise what it is costing her—what life wi.i mean to such a woman, married to such a man!” A look of surprise came into the pale old face, and with it a look of terror. “She can’t care for him!’’ “She has told me that she does! I have no right to warn her. But you have. More than that, if you will permit me to say so, it is your duty!” The old face became tense with pain, but at the same time set with obstinacy. For a moment W istar regarded him with unniingled scorn. Then he commanded himself, and delivered his ultimatum and Billy's. Another day would see the ruin of all Mr. Sears had hoped for. striven for. “Billy would do that?” "He insists on it. Once your sole aid was all we needed. 1 asked you for it, and you refused it.” In lue pause that followed. May led Judith an Penrhyn out to join them. From time to time the old man had

been mechanically brushing the mosquitoes from their attacks on his delicate skin—a gesture which, to W istar’s mind, had lent a not inappropriate touch of triviality to his figure. Now he made an excuse of the pests to go indoors, and with a low-spoken word hade Penrhyn to follow. Wistar could not help . oping that his words had had weight. "Poor father!” said Judith, as she gave W istar her hand. “He’s got all the people in the country round to combine in a trust against the mosquitoes. But there's one obstinate farmer won’t let us put a drop of kerosene on his marsh. Our neighbours over on the Poeantico Hills—standard Oil. you know!—they’ve tried to bully him into selling his land, and he’s using the mosquitoes from his marsh to get even. Another of father’s poor syndicates bust!” They laughed, with wnat gaiety they could command. "It’s worse than pigs in clover,” May complained, “to get you all together. Now. where’s the Bishop to stand?” She took up a garden rake, and stuck it upright in the bed of roses. “There,” she said, "that's the Bishop!” “That!” laughed Wistar. “The good Bishop a rake! You slander the lawn sleeves!” Taking his overcoat from the bench, he draped it over the head of the rake, and then paused, a smile beaming in the hollows of his cheeks. Yet we

need just a soupeon of the rake!” He spread the collar so that the teeth were visible. “There!” he said. “No! Wait!” He picked up a flower-pot and perched it on top. There you have the Bishop to the life! Now we shall be married!” hirst, said Judith, looking mysteriously at a card in her hand, “I think we <1 better be invited! The engravers have just sent this back to know if it’s all right.” May looked at the card with a critical eye. “Stupid!” she said. “Of course its all right. I wrote it out myself! ‘The wedding of his daughter. May Honoria Rhinelander, at Suncliff, Ardsley-on-Hudson’—l think it reads beautifully!” Judith looked over her shoulder. “Is it your idea that at a wedding a groom is superfluous?” A look of horror came into the girl’s face. “I clean forgot to put Billy in! That’s why they sent it back!”' She took a pencil Wistar offered her and scribbled in. “to William Van Rensselaer Onderdonk.” Then she cried. “Well, now everything’s ready!” She ran up the steps and called, “Come, father! Come, Mr. Penrhyn!” “Is everything ready ?” asked W istar. "Except the cup, and Boyser is mixing that!” “And the music—l brought it from town with me; it will be here in a minute. And is that everything?’’ “Music?” she cried. “How sweet of you! Its more than J dreamed! You regular lambkin pie!” She leaped lightly up on her toes and kissed him on the lips. Wini his two bauds on her shoulders, he held her on tijitoe a moment. ‘‘Now I agree with you,” he said. "At a wedding a groom is superfluous!” She sank to the ground in consternation. "Billy? Isn't he here? 1 know Donkey will spoil my wedding! W here did he go!” “He seems to be aware how superfluous he is.” Wistar laughed. “Perhaps you’ll find him out in the arbour, smokShe stood still, half afraid to leave them. "Until I come back, don’t you dare stir from this spot!” Then, with her lithe, girlish stride, she fled toward the arbour. “We’ll call you.” Wistar cried after her. “when the music comes!” Then he turned to Judith, and in the moment his mask of gay spirits fell from him. XXXVI. Judith smiled at him a little sadly. "It pleases my lord to be merry. Very soon. now. they say, you will stand alone again, your own master, and fighting against us. as you were before we came meci-.ing by. Don’t you expect to win?” “Unfortunately. I do!” "Unfortunately?” “Times have changed—and I with them. Oh. 1 have learned something. The things I have been able to do, and the vastly greater things 1 have come to hope for—they make my old ambitions seem petty enough. I have known the strength and security of well-regulated industry, and I have to go back to the old. haphazard conditions. Worse than that. 1 am driven to violence—to slaughter! Day and night I think of you—in poverty! —of myself, when I have brought you there.” The crimson of the sunset had deepened to purple, and now the twilight was rising from the valleys like a mist, dim and mysterious, in the increasing effulgence of the moon. From the road below them came low, guttural voices, and presently the musicians panted up the steps toward them, carrying their instillments beneath their arms. “A lidtie mooseek, poss?” asked the leader, puffing. Wistar distrusted German bands. “Yes.” he said, "but don’t make a racket.” “Racket! And sooch an effening! He disposed his men at a distance in the shrubbery, and struck up an old, soft evening song— so poetically, so exquisitely attuned to the moment that it seemed like the very atmosphere transmuted to sound. Judith had passed to the bed of roses, and her long, agile fingers were busy among them. The. perfume from them seemed to Wistar the perfect attar of the hour, and of her. “W hat would you think.” he said, “if to spare you I were to join them in ruining Minot?”

She glanced up at him archly, yet sadly. “What do you suppose?” “I am a man, and I am striking at those you love best—at you! ” “And 1 am a woman! If I ehoosa not to say what I think ?” She did not cease plying her fingers. “That you cared for me very much,” she said. “ And now you think ” “You told me once—the eave man, brutal and merciless!” She looked at him, wavering between her old fear and a new audacity. Audacity conquered. She plucked a rose and, standing straight beneath his chin, guided the stem through the loop in his lapel, her draperies brushing his coat. But in s’, moment her coquetry vanished in an outburst of comradely goodwill. “No! Not brutal, not merciless! Poor father—l have always loved him above everything else in the world. But to save him by making you false to what you hold right—by making you ruin your friend, my friend . . . you have not offered to do that for me, and 1 thank you! Blow after blow, as it falls—it will be terrible—terrible to feel your hand in it all! Yet I shall not blame you.” She gave him both hands impulsively. The passion of the blood faded before the mightier passion of the spirit. Hi' took her hands, and looked down into her eyes, shining with moonlight and with tears. “You are a woman!” he said, his voice vibrating like a viol. “How you make me love you! For your justice and your honour, for your grace, your beauty, for your loyal heart! Always I shall love you! Miserable as I am, more miserable as I shall be, it means much that with every thought, every feeling—l don’t use the word lightly—l worship you!” His voice choked, but he presently managed to say, “You forgive me for telling you this?— It is our last hour!” “If you are so determined to say goodbye ” “Can I bear io see you happy—happy with Penrhyn ?” “It seems I'm not to be happy!” “Then Heaven help me—if my path crosses yours!” “What I meant was that—since you are determined to say good-bye —you’ll have to let go niy hands!” He looked down at her palms which he held as a child might hold them. Then he blushed like a child, and let them fall. “Bugaboo!” she laughed. “To think I ever was afraid of you! You great big bear! You huge boy! Hasn’t anyone ever called you Jim?” He shook his head. “I once told you —l’m a very serious person.” “If it will make you any less serious I’ll call you Jim.” “Then it is goodbye —Judith!” Somehow he had got hold of her hands again. Mockingly she lifted their united palms between them, and held them up to his gaze. He loosened his grasp, and her hands slipped gently out of his. She stood a moment, as if not quite knowing what to do with them. Then, with a sudden impulse, she caught the tips of his ears and drew down his head until his cheek lay upon hers. “Good-bye, Jim,” she said. Then she laughed and added the rest of the poetical line: “Take keer of yourself.” What she might mean by this she did not make known, but fled from him, and paused only when she had passed out beyond the musicians toward the arbour. Then, “May! May!” she called, and her voice rang clear and gay through the twilight. “Don’t you hear? —The music!” Sears and Penrhyn came out and joined her. “They don’t hear!” she cried, still on the wing of wilding gaiety. “Look at them! Or rather, don’t look at them!” She took first Penrhyn and then Wistar by the shouluer and swung them about. “Daddy! Will you get them? In such cases, I believe,' it is always the stern parent who intrudes.” “Why intrude?” said Wistar. “Isn’t that the most important rehearsal of all? Let them be happy in it—music, moonlight, love!” “Right you are!” said Penrhyn. “Come, everybody; we’ll do the rehearsing for them!” He took Judith by the arm. “You are the bride," he said, and led her up to the rakish Bishop. Turning to Wistar: "The best man, I believe,” he said. “Mr. Sears, you give Judith a wav!” Then he hade the musicians play the "Wedding March.” The measured strains rose softly on the evening air. Penrhyn took his stand

beside Wistar, and Judith, taking her father’s arm, stepped lightly toward them, mocking the conscious demureness of a bride. Then she joined Penrhyn, and stood with him as if before the altar. Wistar fixed his eyes upon Sears, and then on the bridal pair. "There you see it!” he said, with vehemence suppressed: “the end of your unholy alliance! She has a sense of honour like a man. You can’t make her suffer what she will suffer with that ’ He fell silent; but his fingers, clenched behind his back, contorted with agony. “Don’t!” pleaded Sears, his face haggard and ashen. “There is one way to prevent it!” The old man shook his head and turned away. A ghostlike form sped toward them from the arbour. “Stop, stop!” May cried. “How horrid of you! This is my wedding!” Peals of musical laughter fell upon the spacious evening air, and Penrhyn shouted for a waltz. With the first measure he seized Judith, and together they glided over the even turf. As they passed Wistar she swung free and held out her arms to him. He caught her, but, as he did so, he stopped short. Over the wall by the roadside Andrews hail raised his pale face, spiritual in the moonlight. Even his brick-red sidewhiskers shone with the mellower hues of stained glass. Slowly and unsteadily he clambered up. until he stood on" the wall. With one arm he clutched a maple sapling, and swept the other before him to command silence. The little party stood dumb. “Ladies ’n’ genulums,” lie said, in a voice which, though husky with drink, was all the more ghostlike and awful. “I’m not the handwriting on the wall. I’m a voice up a tree! You’re all weighted in the balances, and all found wanting.” XXXVII. It was Penrhyn who first found words. “Down out of that! ” he cried, at once alarmed and angry. “Get down, or I’ll throw you down!” He strode towaid the wall to make good his threat. Wistar caught his wrist in a grip of steel. “You can’t bully him.” he said. “I know the man. Y ou’ve got to humour him or he’ll be violent.” Then: “Come down out of that!” he commanded. Andrews turned his eyes upon him in hazy re-ognition. “Old Wistar, is it? Y’ou a honest man? You make me tired! Y’ou a trustbuster? ’Long came the trust, and gobbled you up like a pop fly at short-stop. In two shakes. Janies Wistar, trustbuster, was the ablest trust manager in these United States. Then what happened? You want to be the whole shebang! Penrhyn won’t let you, so now you’re crying baby. Going home to slide on your own cellar door, heigh? ; _.ame on yon, Wistar!” Penrhyn. at first relieved, now became jubilant. “ Hear, hear!” he cried. Andrews swept the company with a watery eye. “Trusts is all right, genulums. Us labouring men got our trusts —that’s the unions. Why shouldn’t youse have yourn? Fair play ’n’ no favours, I’say!” “You’re quite right,” Wistar said, “but that’ll be enough from you, Andrews.” “No! No!” cried Penrhvn. "Mo. e! More!” Andrews warmed to his audience. “Wistar is a good man,” he said. “Trouble with his goodness is that it’s the kind that don’t pay. Now. there’s our neighbour on the other hill there. Wistar ought to go to Sunday-school to Rockefeller. There’s the boy that understands the blessings of the trust! Trust eats up its rivals? No matter! ’Mur’can Beauty rose never could ’a’ been so big and beautiful if they hadn t cut off the little buds to make the big ones grow bigger.” At this citation of the author of the elegant simile Judith’s eyes opened. and she looked inquiringly at Penrhyn. “See. genulums! Never could ’a’ been so beautiful, and not half so ’Mur’ean. ’Mur’ean Beauty rose—that's the trusts. Little buds—that’s the independent makers. Snip ’em off! Snip ’em off!" A glanee from Judith hail taught Penrhyn caution. Andrews knew that Mistar was undeceived; but he could not know that there was another whom it was even more important to keep in the dark. “Cut it out!” Penrhvn cried. again

savagely domineering. "Cut it out, 1 “You can’t turn him off,” W istar said. “The quickest way is to let him run down. Highly instructive, 1 find him.” “Wistar ought ’a’ gone to Sundayschool. Then he would ’a’ learned that the man who tries to do good to hisself without doin’ the trade as a whole You know what 1 mean. Penrhyn. You’re the man to do the trade, and do it good!’* This time Penrhyn strode past W istar and reached the wall. Andrews clasped the tree in both arms. “What you got to say about it? You’re a slick one! Wanted to get W istar into the trust. How did you go to work?” Penrhyn caught hold of him, but was not able to budge him from the tree. Andrews burst into injured tears. “You bribed a poor, weak working man to crack W’istar’s safe and steal his papers! Was that right to me, I ask? Make me rob him as was alius my friend! ’’ Penrhvn desisted, as if struck by a blow. For a moment there was silence —a silence so deep that the chirping of crickets was heard. “Is this true?” Judith said, looking from Penrhyn to her father, and then to Wistar. The only answer was from the crickets, querulous and accusing. Perceiving the consternation, Andrews came to Penrhyn’s defence. “But I don’t blame him! It’s all been for the good of the industry. When his’try of aut’mobile is written, it’ll be un’versally ’knowl’g’t Stanley Penrhyn an’ Livingston Sears put the world on wheels! The old one has the ideas, and looks so tony they think him good as pie, and he smiles in his sleeve while the young un does the crooked business. W’istar’s voice rose with the tones of authority: “Andrews!” he thundered. “Come down!” The man limply obeyed. “I’m coinin’!” he said. “I don’t want to be no skeleton at no feast! Here they are, marryin’ an’ givin’ in marriage.” His eyes fell on the effigy of the Bishop, and he focussed them with a quizzical leer, half-abashed in fear, half-humorous in comprehension, as a wise old crow might regard a straw man. He took an empty sleeve in his hand. “But it’s a bad job, your riverence. If you’ll pan ion a plain man. sne’s too good for Penrhyn, she is. It should ’a’ been the other one!” He shook his head solemnly. “Them two have been friends—real friends o’ mine!” By this time W’istar had him by the wrist. Andrews laid his head on his shoulder and sobbed with emotion uncontrollable. “Only two friends I have in iiiis world are Miss W’ears an’ Mr. Sister!” “Come!” said W’istar, “I’ll take you to the train.” “Leave me go home alone!” Andrews protested. He freed himself, and commanding the idiosyncrasies of his legs, walked erect and firm toward the gate. Half-way down the steps he turned. “Good-bye, Penrhyn,” he said. “You went to Sunday-school! ” Wistar. leaning over the wall, saw him walk down the road, still erect and firm. The thing which, from all motives, Wistar had so long and so passionately desired to have Judith know was now an open secret. Judith’s loyalty to Penrhyn. if she remained loyal, would not be blind. A sudden blight had fallen on the

company, in which, above everything, \\ istar felt an old man's disgrace before his children, a young woman's disillusionment in those she loved. XXXVIII. Wistar broke the spell which had fallen on the eonipany at Andrews’ revelations. “I believe we owe you a rehearsal,” he said to May and Billy. “Shall we begin ?” "No,” Sears cried. “Not now!” W istar dismissed the musicians, mys tiffed spectators of the scene, bidding them keep an eye on Andrews. Boyser came out from the house with the cup she had been mixing, poured out a glass, and offered it to each of the party in turn. One after another they refused it in silence. "Is this the truth?” Judith asked Penryhn. “Yes,” he said, sullenly. Then he turned to Boyser. “Kindly pack my bag. I’ll send for it from the club.” ' He started toward the gate. As he passed Wistar his sullen humour lighted with a flash of anger. "You’ve got me down here,” he said. “But I’m not out—not by a long shot. There’s many a turn in Wall Street!” ■ L is, I am aware, a very crooked street!” Wistar turned away. Penrhyn raised his chin defiantly. But as he did so his glanee met Judith’s, and his eyes fell. She gave him her hand. “I’m not angry,” she said. “I don’t know why, but lam not. I’m very, very sorry for you. W hat you have threatened—you won't do it! Y’ou will keep your promise to him —our promise!” As Penrhyn gazed at her, and heard the clear, kind cadence of her voice, a look came into his face which W’istar had never seen there before, and in which, in a flash, he read the secret of Judith’s regard for the men. “If I promised to keep my word,” Penrhyn said, and there was a real contrition in his voice, “I should not be believed, nor deserve to be. But I will keep your promise.” He turned again to Wistar. “I don’t ask you to believe even that. I may point out, however, that I have the same reason as always to want to hold you together with the rest of us. Once I thought I was clever enough to get the best of you—clever enough, and strong enough, and mean enough. I've done things I never dreamed I could: but I’ve reached the limit of my dirty work, and I guess I’ve reached the limit of my power. If you still wish to honour me as an associate, I shall stand with you and by you!” Without waiting for an answer he left them. Judith turned an accusing glance upon Sears. “Father!” she said, “you have lied tn mo!” When Sears had heard the words in which his young associate renounced him he had hung his head. Now he lifted a face that was, in fact, too painful to be seen. “It was for you, dearie!—to save you for - want! I couldn't believe you cared for him!” “For me? To lie!” “Your pardon,” said Wistar. “Goodnight!” It was clearly not a scene for any one to witness. And Judith’s manner toward Sears, so strangely in con-

trust with her leniency to Penrhyn, m ide him sick at heart. “No, no!” Judith cried. “Wait!” She turned to Sears. “What Mr. Wistar has done has been just and right from the start! Own up. Daddy ...ear. It has!” A hunted look came into the gentle, aging eyes. “What must he think of us! What must we think of ourselves!” The old man’s hands shook, and he sank upon the bench, abashed, crushed. “1 know! You loathe me! And I loathe myself! I wronged him. I ask his pardon. One more dream, and it is all over. But before, at the awakening, I stiff had my honour —and your love.” Tears came into Judith’s eyes and into her voice. “Oh, Daddy! How you must have suffered! I do love you. I shall always love you! How I love you!” May, who had stood amazed, though uncomprehending, by Onderdonk’s side, now knelt and caught the old man in her arms. He struggled to his feet, leaned over and kissed her. “Good-night, child! Billy is the best fellow in the world. You will be happy.” He said no more, and presently Onderdonk led May away. “Good-night. Judith. Believe me, sweetheart, you will learn to thank God you know what Penrhyn is, though it breaks your heart. That is my greatest sin, that I ever let you care for him!” He’ spoke like one on the verge of the grave. “We shall still be happy!” Judith pleaded. “For you as well as for me, everything is so much better as it is!” “1 am an old man. Kiss me goodnight.” Impulsively she threw her arms about him. He smiled a faint, wan smile. “The eyes!” he said. Joy lighted her faee. “Bless you. dearest ! Now I know I can make you happy.” She kissed him on the drooping lids. "Your mother—she is with us now! Yes. I shall be happy!” In sudden alarm she stood back from him. “Father! What are you thinking of !” With an instinctive movement he thrust his hand into the pocket of his dinner-jacket. But her hand was as quick. She gripped his wrist and held it firm. Wistar clutched the revolver and wrenched it away. The old man winced with pain. “You hurt my shoulder.” he complained. “Your shoulder!” Judith cried. “Again. Daddy, again!” He turned upon Wistar. “You have taken everything else.” he said. “Give me that! Aly life is still my own!” “Father!” cried Judith tenderly. “If a poor cur on the street were sick, sii k to death, you would kill him—kill him in mercy': Yet your father you condemn to live—to live in poverty, defeat. disgraced in the eyes of those he loves!” “Father!” she repeated, her voice melting with love. “You are right, dear.” he said. “I must be brave. I will be brave!” Then he turned from them and went indoors. Judith started after, but Wistar caught and held her. “Believe me!” he said “It is not as it seems. It was my fault. If I had known what I know now. it never would have happened. I want you to tell him so, from me—tell him tliat 1 see my fault, and stand ready to join him—under the terras Penrhyn has offered.” “You can do this—without violating viiur sense of what is right! Alay I tell him that! Do be quick! My place is there, with him!” “Once when I promised this it was against my conscience. In the old days 1 was the cave man. blind to the new ideas. Your father understood them. Little by little 1 have learned from experience what no argument could conx inee me of—his largeness and his wisdom. What we have accomplished, his genius foresaw it all! He may be weak —Penrhyn was masterful, and played on every foible. But in his mind and his heart he is right!” Already she had left him. With a single flash his darkest hour had turned to the most glorious dawn. The suddenness and the vastness of the prospect before him dazed him. even while it filled him with confidence and joy. Then, from within the house, a loud cry fell upon his ears, a wail of anguish and horror that stabbed him like a knife in his heart. When it was repeated he had gained the door and was mounting

the stairs within. In another second a sight burst upon him which he was destined never to forget. Judith lay prostrate and convulsed upon the form of her father, still writhing in a pool of blood. Through the window the full moon shone, and upon her hair, faintly golden, was a crimson blot. XXXIX. Wistar gathered her in his arms, and, heedless of tears and protestations, carried her downstairs and into the open air. When he released her she looked at him once, then shrank away in horror and loathing. The handkerchief with which he had cleansed tier hair was still crumpled in his hand. “Let me go back to him!” she commanded harshly. “Never let me see you again!” lie reeoiled, yet still blocked the way. Out of toe shadows May hurried toward them, and Onderdonk with them. “Father—is it father!” she cried. A new horror fell upon Judith. W istar bowed his head. “He is dead!” The young girl scanned each faee in turn. Judith was mute, and Wistar still bowed his head. “Did vou sav dead! Oh. Billv!” But

even as sue cried out, her voice was of one who did not understand. “Dead!” she asked blankly. "Aly daddy!” Then she sprang toward the verandah. It was Judith who caught her. “No. no! Not vet! It is too terrible!” For a moment the sisters stood sobbing in each other's arms. Then Alay freed herself, and with incoherent cries, turned from Judith and sank upon Onderdonk’s shoulder. The young man held her a moment, ana then he led her away, dazed and unresisting. Judith stood alone. Again she tried to pass Wistar. yet shrank from him as she did so. Again he barred the way. “I can only protect you." he said, "as you protected her.” “I must go! 1 can't stay alone—alone!” Then again she looked at him, shuddering. “Leave me with him!” she sobbed. “Lot me never see you again!” He desired nothing more than to go; but he stood to his post, and Airs. Boyser allotted him, bringing rugs and cushions and wraps. She spread them on ihe grass, and forced Judith to lie down on them. Then she disappeared, and Wistar heard her at the telephone, summoning tne needful aid. Judith turned her face from him and lay on the ground, outbursts of grief followed bv still more agonised moments

of grief, silent and restrained. And so a night began, the horror of which left a lifelong mark on all of them. A breeze came, and with it coolness and the freshness of the sea. The moon floated above with a serene, unsentient beauty that fell upon Wistar’s heart like a blight. By-and-bye something made him look at the window above. All his efforts to resist it failed, and he raised his eyes. The shade had been decently drawn; yet nothing would banish from his mind the vision of what was there, or stay the recurrent waves of horror that it brought him. With Judith the silences became longer, but always there followed the convulsion of grief that would not be repressed, yet eouid find no utterance. Then came the bitterest hours of Wistar’s vigil, in which, little by little, in the intervals of grief, his heart spoke to him. at first in vague intimations, formless and uncomprehended, and then in self-accusations, definite and overpowering. When he had said to Judith, such a little while ago as time is measured, that he also had been to blame, he had only indulged in the luxury of magnanimous self-accusation. He did not. even now. convict nimself of any conscious wrong. He had been ignorant of the world

about him. of the world of which he was a part, and. when he had been forced to re ognise tliat world, he had still disdained it. At the outset, the situation had lain in his hands. But he had turned his back on those whose outlook was wider than his own. And so it had come to this—a wise and amiable father in the room above, and a daughter here, shielded from the too passionate promptings of filial love by the hand red with destruction. A few hours, and then Judith must never see nim again. And all the time—-beneath, beyond, within his pity for her and his own remorse—was sometmng vague and uncomprehended. yet insistent and overpowering. It brushed upon his cheek, tingled ecstatically in his fingers, fluttered caressingly about the tips of his ears. It was in the first gray light of dawn that he i>new it for what it was. She had held her hands in his with lighthearted endearment: she had put her cheek against his own in mockery; she had flouted him with a soft little tug on his ear. She was a girl who could be comrades with a man. and she had taken him to her frank, brave heart. Never, never could he forget that. And always as he rememliered it. he must remember also this hour. He rose to his feet in anguish, and

gazed upon her face, turned away from him. She had fallen asleep at last, he saw, every sense extinguished by the excess of what she had endured. ’ In any young face the outline of cheek and chin is a line of beauty, though often void of expression. In hers it had all the softness, all the sweet opulence of full-blooded health, and, besides, the little, individual crinkle of her eye, at once grave and caressing, the wreathing of her mouth, mocking and also tender. For as the daylight strengthened, he saw that in her sleep she was smiling. He would not have supposed that there was anything left for him to suffer; but that smile, joyous, serene, beatific, and the thought of what she must wake to, had a pang more poignant still. His knees bent beneath him, and he fell to the ground beside her, his chest heaving, tears streaming from his eyes. With a little start she awoke. The smile vanished, and she turned a questioning glance upon him. “Is it true’” she asked, in a sudden fear. “Just now I dreamed—that it had all been only a dream!” For a moment more she looked at him, questioning, unconvinced. Then all the intimate, varied lines of her face contracted to one note of woe. Again she cried out as she had cried in the first awful moment of her discovery. In obedience to an impulse that was stronger than reverence for her. stronger than remorse, he took her in his arms. “You poor child!” was all he could say, and he said it again and again. In a passion of grief and tenderness she threw her arms about him, and strained him to her breast. “Jim. Jim!” she sobbed, repeating her new name for him over and over. She hid her face and sobbed afresh. And now. for the first time, the utterance of her grief was full, and brought relief. For a moment she endured it. Then, gently, he put her from him. In another instant she must remember even him. It would have been braver, perhaps, to grant her this moment of solace to the full. But he did not deem if so: and. crushed as he was, there was one depth of injury of which he did not wish her to believe him capable. Yet still she clung to his hands. “What is it!” she said, by and bye. reading pain in his eyes. “You forget—what I am. I wouldn’t have stayed by you—l couldn't—except that you needed me!” She remembered now, and the horror of it came back into her eyes. But the measure she took to banish the sight of him was to bury her face again on his shoulder, and with a more convulsive tenderness. “You tried—tried in all ways to save him! Let me love you! You are all I have!” Again her grief returned, and she shook violently beneath it. But she held him closer in her arms. By and bye she was calmer, and in a brief interval of silence they heard the birds singing. The liquid notes soothed and caressed them; and, little by little, brought the strength of life and its courage. She released him, her face brave and compose.,. “I am ready now,” she said. He understood, and, rising, lifted her to her feet. Supporting each other, they went indoors. The thing that had haunted them both all through the night lay in the bed, still and pale. But the face was composed, resigned. She lain the weight of her arm upon his shoulder, and he knelt with her, hand in hand, while she uttered a brief prayer —a prayer to God and to her father. Then she arose, and, for the first time, she kissed him. Then, for the first time, he kissed her. “We can bear it now,” she said—“we two, together.” XL. Wistar’s return to affairs was made easier by the feeling that he had a duty of piety toward tne thing which the dead man had held so dear. In the eyes of the business world, he found, it had needed only the news of the old man’s despair to change an uneasy conjecture into certainty. It was soon the general belief that the successful career of the combination had come to an end. In the sudden panic, which resulted from this, the stock tumbled. M istar came to the rescue with as full a statement of the case as the circumstances permitted, and backed up his

hopeful augury by buying largely of the floods of stock that poured upon the market. But the memory of his recent Operation was too fresh to allow his jvord, or even what he did, to pass at its face value. It took time and persistent and enormous buying to put a check upon the panic, which Wistar had first to meet. His former sales of the stock on a rising market had, grotesquely enough, left him much richer, and at the present low quotations his holdings swelled until it was now clearly possible for him to buy a majority, or at least enough to make him master of the situation. At last the public awoke to it. One day the reporters came to him and plied him with questions as to the events leading up to Mr. Sears’ death. He paused a moment before answering, as his custom was, and another moment, and another. Presently he realised in horror that there was nothing he could say; he saw what he had done as the world was beginning to see it. He had wrecked the company, and out of the wreckage he had built it up again, with himself in supreme control, and possessed of the millions of his enemies and of the speculative publie. He took the discovery to Judith, fearful of wbat she might think of him. She said nothing, but burst into laughter—the first since she had worn black. In the early months of their married life it was a never-failing source of delight to her to call him a companywrecker, and she learned to make the word a climax to a series of horrid epithets. So she continued to mock and distress him with her concoctions till their son was born. Then, when she had found the name for his latest achievement, “Is it true,” he pleaded, “that the father of James .Wistar, Jr., is a speculator, a marketrigger, a company-wrecker ?” “No, Jim,” she said, and only those who have the love of useful invective ban value her sacrifice, “you are only a poor, but honest, eave man.” ‘•You can’t make me mad with that name,” he retorted, "when you are the cave maiden.” She looked a while into the round, staring eyes of James Wistar, Jr. Then, with an inscrutable, happy smile, she Baid, “Am I?” (THE ENO.)