Chapter IV: Prologue (3)

One morning, long after sunrise, Westbrook entered the outskirts of the city and allowed his tired beast to slow to a walk. In one of the poorest streets of the tenement district he saw a white-faced woman, a group of half a dozen puny children and a forlorn heap of clothing and furniture. He was off his horse in a moment, and a few kindly questions brought out the information that they had been evicted for arrears in rent amounting to thirty dollars because the woman had been too ill to work. He straightway paid the sleek little agent not only the amount due, but also a year’s rent in advance and rode away, followed by a volley of thanks and blessings from the woman. He did not know that Martin was the landlord and that he came out of the tenement in time to hear the details of the incident fresh from his agent.

As Westbrook turned the corner of the dingy street a curious elation took possession of him. How the sun shone—how exhilarating the air was! How his heart beat in tune with it all! What was this new joy that seemed almost to choke and suffocate him? Was this the shadow of peace at last?

He threw the reins to the groom with so beaming a smile that the man scratched his head meditatively for a full half-minute.

“Faith, an’ what’s got into the master?” he muttered as he led the horse to the stable.

In the days that followed society was treated to a new sensation—the Mystery turned into a Philanthropist. A school, a library and a hospital were under way in a wonderfully short time. Did Westbrook hear of anyone wanting anything—from a toy to a piano or a dinner to an education—he promptly bought and presented it. The result was disastrous. There came a constant stream of beggars to his door, varying from those in rags asking a nickel to bank presidents demanding a million—for “investment,” of course; furthermore, he was obliged to hire two private secretaries to attend to his mail.

In August came a cordial note from Mr. Barrington inviting him to The Maples for a two weeks’ visit. The stiffly worded refusal which Westbrook despatched by return mail threw John Barrington into a state of puzzled dissatisfaction, and John Barrington’s daughter into a feeling of unreasoning anger against the world in general and Joseph Westbrook in particular. The anger was not less when, two months later, Westbrook called on the Barringtons just four weeks after they had come up to their town residence in Dalton.

It was not a pleasant call. Westbrook was stilted, Mr. Barrington plainly ill at ease, and Ethel the personification of chill politeness; yet she became cordiality itself when Martin appeared a little later. She chatted and laughed with the lawyer and sent merry shafts of wit across the room to Westbrook and her father. But when Westbrook had gone she lapsed into bored indifference and monosyllables.

Mr. Barrington was called from the room after a time, leaving his daughter and Martin alone. The lawyer broached subject after subject with unvarying ill success, even music itself failing to awaken more than a passing interest. At last he said abruptly:

“Queer chap—that Westbrook!”

“Queer? Why?” almost snapped Miss Barrington.

Martin raised his eyebrows.

“How can you ask?” he returned. “You’ve seen him—you know him!”

Miss Barrington gave the lawyer a swift glance. Just what did he mean? Had he noticed the change in Westbrook’s manner—his indifference—his coldness? Did he think that she——?

Miss Barrington laughed softly.

“Indeed, yes, Mr. Martin, I do know him—slightly, perhaps; but ‘queer’ is not the adjective I would have applied to him.”

The lawyer leaned forward.

“Miss Barrington, _what_ do you know of him? Did it ever occur to you how very little any of us know of this man?”

The lady stirred uneasily.

“Really, Mr. Martin, I know him for a gentleman, as you do—I might also add that he is quite a noted philanthropist, of late,” she added teasingly.

“‘Philanthropist!’” scorned the lawyer.

Miss Barrington’s manner instantly changed.

“Mr. Westbrook is doing a world of good with his money; I admire him for it,” she said with decision.

“Oh, of course,” returned the man smoothly. “Still, I wonder why—this sudden generosity!”

“Sudden? It’s a long time since I first heard of Mr. Westbrook’s good deeds, Mr. Martin,” replied Miss Barrington, a vision of Pedler Jim and his hospital rising before her eyes.

“H’m-m,” murmured the lawyer, his level gaze on her face, “you knew him before, perhaps—this man they—er—call ‘Westbrook.’”

The lady sprang to her feet and crossed the room to the piano.

“Oh, fie, Mr. Lawyer!” she laughed nervously. “I’m no poor victim on the witness stand. Come—let’s try this duet.”

The man followed her and leaned his elbow on the piano, but he did not pick up the music nor take his eyes from her face.

“You have known him before, then—under his other name, of course,” he hazarded.

A swift red came into Ethel’s cheeks.

“Perhaps—perhaps not! I really do not care to discuss it.” And she wheeled around upon the piano-stool and dashed into the prelude of the duet.

Martin waited until her hands glided into the soft ripple of the accompaniment.

“Then you, of all people, Miss Barrington,” he began again, “should know that this philanthropic mummery is nothing but a salve for his conscience. Admirable, I’m sure!”

The music stopped with a crash.

“What do you mean?” she demanded. “I don’t know what you are talking about, with your miserable innuendoes.”

Martin’s face paled.

“Innuendoes!” he burst out, losing his temper; “then I’ll speak plainly, since you demand it! Since when, Miss Barrington, have you made a practice of shielding—murderers?”

He regretted the word the instant it had left his lips, but he forced himself to meet Miss Barrington’s horrified gaze unflinchingly.

“Murderer!” she gasped. “Hustler Joe was no murderer!”

At that moment Mr. Barrington re-entered the room and Martin turned to him in relief. Five minutes later he had made his adieus and left the house.

XV

Murderer!

Ethel fled to her room and locked the door, but the word laughed at bolts and bars. It looked from the walls and the pictures and peeped at her from the pages of the book she tried to read. She opened the window and gazed up at the stars, but they, too, knew the hated word and spelled it out in twinkling points of light.

Murderer?

Ah, no, it could not be—and yet——

Away back in Ethel’s memory was a picture of the Deerfield woods that skirted the lawn at The Maples. She saw the tall, grave-faced miner and the imperious girl, and even now the words rang in her ears—“I’m not the good man you think, Miss Barrington!” Half-forgotten tales of “Hustler Joe’s queerness” came to her, too, and assumed an appearance of evil.

And was this to be the explanation of that ride—that ride on which she had almost betrayed herself only to be met by stern words of conventionality? Was this the meaning of the infrequent calls, the averted face, the eyes so misery-laden if by chance they met her own?

A murderer?

Ah, no, no! He was so good—so kind—so brave! There were Pedler Jim, the miners whose lives he had saved, and the multitudes of the city’s poor to give the lie to so base a charge; and yet—Martin had said that these very benefactions were but a lullaby to a guilty conscience.

The night brought Ethel no relief. The dark was peopled with horrid shapes; and sleep, when it came, was dream-haunted and unrefreshing. In the morning, weary and heavy-eyed, she awoke to a day of restless wandering from room to room. Twenty-four hours later her trunk was packed and she was on her way to The Maples.

It was at about this time that Westbrook’s philanthropy took a new turn. He began to spend long hours in the city prison while society looked on and shrugged disdainful shoulders. The striped-garbed creatures behind the bars seemed to possess a peculiar fascination for him. He haunted their habitation daily, yet he never failed to shudder at every clang of the iron doors.

Particularly was he kind to those outcasts from human sympathy—the murderers. So far did he carry this branch of his charity that the authorities ventured to remonstrate with the great man one day, telling him that he was putting a premium on the horrible crime. They never forgot the look that came over the beneficent Mr. Joseph Westbrook’s face as he turned and walked away.

It was on that night that the servants said he sat up until morning in his library, raging around the room like some mad creature, so that they were all afraid, and one came and listened at the door. There he heard his master cry out:

“My God—is it not enough? Is there no atonement—no peace?” Then there was a long, quivering sigh, and a noise as of a clinched hand striking the desk, and a low muttered, “Oh, the pitiless God of Justice!”

In the morning Westbrook left the house before breakfast and boarded the eight o’clock train for Skinner Valley.

XVI

Westbrook had gone back to Skinner Valley for a talk with Pedler Joe, having it in his mind to tell the little hunchback his life story as that of a friend of his and so get the benefit of sound advice without quite betraying his secret. But the door opened suddenly and Bill Somers burst into the store.

“There’s another blow-up at the mine!” he gasped thickly. “An’ the old man’s daughter—she——”

“What old man’s daughter?” demanded Westbrook, his lips white.

“She—Barrington’s girl—is down there in that hell! She went in with her friends at two o’clock. They——”

“Which entrance?” thundered Westbrook, with his hand on the door.

“Beachmont! They——”

Westbrook dashed down the steps and across the sidewalk, whipped out his knife and cut loose a horse from the shafts of a wagon in front of the store. The next moment he had mounted the animal and was urging it into a mad run toward the Beachmont entrance of the Candria mine.

Again did he face a crowd of weeping women and children crazed with terror; but this time there stood among them the bowed form of the great mine-king himself. John Barrington’s lips were stern and set, and only his eyes spoke as he grasped Westbrook’s hand.

Once more did a band of heroic men work their way bit by bit into the mine, fighting the damp at every turn under Westbrook’s directions.

Barrington had looked at the preparations in amazement.

“How comes it that this Westbrook, this millionaire, knows the mine so well?” he stammered.

A woman standing near—Bill Somers’s wife—answered him.

“That’s Hustler Joe, sir,” she said softly.

Hustler Joe! John Barrington drew a deep breath as the memories of the Bonanza catastrophe came to him.

“Thank God for Hustler Joe!” he breathed fervently. “If anyone can save my little girl, ’tis he!”

“You’re right, sir—an’ he’ll do it, too,” returned the little woman, her eyes full of unshed tears.

XVII

Slowly, so slowly, the rescuers worked their way into the mine. One by one the unconscious forms of the miners were borne back to fresh air and safety. But no trace could be found of Miss Barrington and her band of sightseers.

At last, far down a gallery, Westbrook heard a faint cry. With an answering shout of reassurance he dashed ahead of the others and came face to face with Ethel Barrington.

“You!” she cried.

“Yes, yes; you’re not hurt?”

She shook her head and leaned heavily against the wall. The reaction was making her head swim.

“And your friends?”

“Here”—she pointed to the ground almost at her feet. “They’re not hurt—they fainted.”

Stalwart miners poured into the narrow chamber and lifted the prostrate forms, leaving Westbrook to follow with Miss Barrington. That young lady still leaned against the wall.

“I—we should be going; can you—let me help you,” stammered Westbrook.

“Oh, I can walk,” she laughed nervously, making a vain attempt to steady her limbs as she moved slowly away from her support.

Westbrook caught her outstretched hand and passed his disengaged arm around her waist.

“Miss Barrington, you’re quite unnerved,” he said, his voice suddenly firm. “Pardon me, but you must accept my assistance.” And he half carried, half led her down the long gallery, at the end of which they could hear the steps and voices of their companions.

All the misery of the last few days fled from Ethel’s mind. She was conscious only of the strength and bravery and tenderness of the man at her side. Martin’s hated words became as phantoms of a past existence.

“You—you haven’t told me how you came to be here today, Mr. Westbrook,” she began again, a little hysterically. “I thought you were in Dalton.”

“I came down this morning,” he said. Then added softly, “Thank God!”

Ethel was silent for a moment. When she spoke again her voice shook.

“As usual, Mr. Westbrook—you are near when I need you! If I am ever in danger again, I shall promptly look for you. Now see that you do not disappoint me!” she added with assumed playfulness, trying to hide her depth of feeling.

They had almost reached the turn when a distant rumble and vibrating crash shook the walls about them, throwing Westbrook and Miss Barrington to the ground. It was some time before the man could stagger to his feet and help his companion to stand upright.

“What—what was it?” she gasped.

Westbrook advanced two steps only to come sharply against a wall of earth and timbers.

“My God—the roof is fallen!” he cried.

She came close to his side.

“Then there was another explosion?”

“Yes.”

“But they will find us?”

“That wall may be—” he stopped abruptly.

“Many feet in thickness, I know,” she supplied.

“And the damp—if it should enter the gallery from the rear—” his voice choked into silence.

“I know—I understand. But—we are together!” She laid her hand on his arm.

He caught the hand and held it in both his own, then slowly raised it and laid the soft palm against his lips.

“Ethel—Ethel—may God forgive me!” he whispered brokenly.

She swayed dizzily, and he caught and held her close.

“I—I think I am going to faint,” she murmured. “I——”

His arms tightened their clasp and her head drooped until it lay in the hollow of his shoulder.

“Ethel, darling—only one little word! Ah, sweetheart—I’ve loved you so!”

She raised her hand and just touched his cheek with her fingers, then let her arm fall about his neck. His head bent low and his lips closed over hers as she drew a long, quivering sigh.

“May God forgive me,” he breathed, “but ’tis the end—the end!”

XVIII

When Ethel Barrington regained consciousness she was in her own bed at The Maples, but it was a full two days after that before they let her ask the questions that so often came to her lips. It was her father who finally answered her.

“Yes, dear, you were unconscious when the miners found you. Westbrook could barely speak. Why, girlie, when that second crash came and the miners realized that Hustler Joe—as they insist upon calling that remarkable man—was himself imprisoned, they swarmed into that mine like ants and attacked the fallen wall like madmen! Those that had no pickaxe clawed at the dirt and stones with their naked fingers.”

“And—Mr. Westbrook?”

“Is all right and has been here every day to inquire for you and to bring you these,” replied Mr. Barrington, with a wave of his hand toward the sumptuous red roses on the table.

The girl’s eyes lingered on the flowers and her cheeks suddenly glowed with a reflection of their vivid color.

“He is very kind,” she murmured as she turned her face away.

For a week Westbrook and his roses made daily calls. At the end of that time it was reported to him that Miss Barrington was feeling quite like herself. The next morning Westbrook did not appear, but his roses came in charge of a boy together with a note for Miss Barrington.

The missive bore no date, no salutation, but plunged at once into its message.

That I should address you at all is an insult, but my
cowardly weakness when we were last together makes it a
greater insult for me to keep silence now. I have waited
until you were quite recovered before giving you this, for
I know that it will give you pain—and that it _will_ give
you pain is at once my greatest curse and my greatest joy.
That I should have dared to love you is despicable, but
that I should have allowed you to give me even one tender
thought in return is dastardly—and yet, nothing in heaven
or hell can take from me the ecstasy of that one moment
when your dear lips met mine!

Forgive me—think kindly of me if you can, for—God help
me—I am going away, never to look on your face again.
I was a boy of twenty when I committed the sin against
God and man that has made my life a thing of horror. For
years I have sought for peace; adventure, work, wealth,
philanthropy—each alike has failed to bring it. I am going
now to my boyhood’s home to receive my just punishment.

Ah, Ethel, Ethel, my lost love—what can I say to you? I
have but words—words—empty words! I can see the horror in
your dear eyes. I am not worthy of even the thought of you,
and yet, my darling, oh, my darling, were it not for this
dread shadow on my life, I swear I would win you for my
darling in very truth!

But now—God help me—farewell!

There was no name signed, but this Ethel did not notice until she had read the note three times with her tear-dimmed eyes; then she whispered:

“Poor fellow! He could not sign ‘Westbrook’ and he would not sign—the other.”

Much to John Barrington’s amazement, his daughter insisted upon going to town on the noon train that day. In response to his persistent objections she assured him that she felt “perfectly well and quite equal to a journey around the world, if necessary.”

At four o’clock Lawyer Martin was surprised by an urgent note summoning him to the Barringtons’ Dalton residence on Howard Avenue. Half an hour afterward he was ushered into the presence of Miss Barrington herself.

The interview was short, sharp and straight to the point. A few hours later Miss Barrington and her maid boarded the eight o’clock express for the East.

XIX

Twenty-four hours passed after Westbrook had sent his letter to Miss Barrington before he could so arrange his affairs as to start for the little New England village of his boyhood. All day and all night he had worked with feverish haste, and the time had flown on wings of the wind; now, when he was at last on the morning “Limited,” the hours seemed to drag as though weighted with lead.

He could see it all—the proud new name he had made for himself dragged low in the dust. He knew just how society would wonder and surmise; just how the maneuvering mamas would shake their skirts in virtuous indignation and how the doting papas would nod their heads in congratulation over a miraculous escape.

He knew how the poor and friendless in the great city would first deny the charge, then weep over the truth. He knew, too, the look that would come to the faces of the miners, and he winced at even the thought of this—Hustler Joe had prized his place in the hearts of his miner friends.

There was one on whom he dared not let his thoughts rest for a moment; yet it was that one’s face which seemed ever before his eyes, and it was that one’s voice which constantly rang in his ears.

* * * * *

Again the sun had set and it was twilight in the little New England village. The street had not changed much—the houses were grayer and the trees taller, perhaps.

As he neared the familiar gate, he saw in the window the face of a silver-haired woman. Was that his mother—his dearly beloved mother of long ago? She turned her head and he was answered.

After all, would it not be better to pass on and away again, rather than to bow that gray head once more in grief and shame?

His steps lagged and he almost passed the gate. Then he drew a long breath, turned sharply, strode up the path and pulled the bell.

The sweet-faced woman opened the door. The man’s dry lips parted, but no sound came, for from an inner room advanced Ethel Barrington with a gray-haired man whose kindly face wore a strangely familiar smile.

“What is it, wife? Is it—Paul?” he asked in tremulous tones.