Harriet watched him with keen joy, and deep in her heart a secret hope began to slowly grow.
The day she sailed he refused to go with her to the pier.
"Why Jim, you must come with me!" she protested.
"No, I can\'t, little pal. Sit down at your piano now and sing my favourite song and I\'ll say goodbye here."
"But why?" she pleaded.
"I\'m not quite sure how I would behave in public."
Without a word she took off her gloves, sat down at the piano and sung in low tones of melting tenderness. When the last note died away, he rose quietly, came to her side, and took her hand.
"I never knew, little girl, how my life has grown into yours until I\'m about to lose you."
"But you\'re not going to lose me. Remember I\'m coming back to sing for you before thousands. And I\'m going to make you proud of me."
"I couldn\'t know how deeply and tenderly I love you, child, until this moment when I\'m about to say goodbye."
The little figure was very still. Her eyes drooped and her lips trembled pathetically. She knew that he had said too much to mean a great deal. He had spoken of his love for her as a "child," when long ago the child had grown into the tragic figure of a woman who had learned to wait and suffer in silence.
She tried to speak and her voice failed. Her hand began to tremble in his.
She turned and faced him with a smile, pressing his hand. The cab was at the door and her father calling from below.
"Goodbye, Jim," she said tenderly.
"Goodbye to the dearest little chum God ever sent to cheer a lonely unhappy man\'s soul."
A sob stilled his voice and she turned her face away to hide her tears.
He still clung to her hand.
"It\'s been a long time," he said hesitatingly, "since you\'ve kissed me, girlie; just one for remembrance!"
With a quick movement she drew her hand away and started with a laugh toward the door.
"No, Jim, I\'m afraid I\'m getting too old for that now."
He made no reply but stepped to her side and grasped her hand.
"Then again, goodbye."
"Goodbye."
He pressed her hand to his lips.
The slender body quivered and her face flushed scarlet. She hurried down the steps to the cab, turned and threw him a kiss.
He watched the cab roll down Fourth Street toward the pier while a great wave of loneliness overwhelmed him.
He slowly climbed the stairs toward his room, and passed the door of Harriet\'s on the way. It was open and he looked in expecting her to appear suddenly before him with a smile on her serene little face. He noted how neat and tidy she had left her nest; not a sign of confusion, the floor swept clean, everything in its place and the bed made with scrupulous care. The whole place breathed the perfume of her sunny character.
On the mantel he saw a love letter she had written to her father.
"How thoughtful of the little darling," he exclaimed. "God knows he\'ll need it to-night."
He hurried to his own room with the hope that she might have left one for him. He searched his mantel and bureau in vain and had just given up with a sigh when his eye rested on a card fastened over the old-fashioned grate in the fire place. His hand trembled as he read it:
"Dear Jim:
"I shall miss you dreadfully, in the strange world beyond the seas. When you sit here and look into your fire I hope you\'ll see the face of your little pal in the picture sometimes.
"Harriet."
He kissed the card and placed it in his pocket-book.
At night the doctor was not at home. He rapped on his door next morning and got no answer.
The girl said he had spent the night out—she didn\'t know where.
As Stuart was about to leave for his office the doctor entered. His bloodshot eyes were sunken deep behind his brows, his face haggard and his shoulders drooped. Stuart knew he had tramped the streets all night in a stupor of hopeless misery.
He stared at the young lawyer as if he didn\'t recognize him and then said feebly:
"Don\'t go yet, my boy, wait a few moments. I just want to know that you\'re here."
Stuart took his outstretched hand, and led him into the library. "I know why you tramped the streets; the old house is very lonely."
The father placed his hand on his head, exclaiming:
"I never knew what loneliness meant before!" The big hand fell in a gesture of despair. "It\'s dark and cold, I\'m slipping down into a bottomless pit. There\'s not a soul in heaven or earth or hell to whom I can cry for help or pity."
Stuart pressed his hand.
"I understand. I\'m younger than you, Doctor, but I, too, have walked that way, the via dolorosa alone."
The older man glared at him with a wild look in his eyes.
"But you don\'t understand; that\'s what\'s the matter, and I can\'t tell you. I\'m alone, I tell you, alone in a world of cold and darkness."
"No, no," Stuart interrupted soothingly. "You\'re just all in; you must go to bed and sleep. Go at once, and you\'ll find something to cheer you in the little girl\'s room, a love letter for you."
"Yes," he asked, the light slowly returning to his eyes, "a love letter from my baby?"
"I saw it there after she left. Read it and go to sleep. I\'ll see you to-night."
"Yes, yes, of course, my boy, that\'s what\'s the matter with me. I\'m just all in for the lack of sleep. I\'ve been raving half the time, I think. I\'ll go to bed at once."
When Stuart returned early from his work in the afternoon he found a group of forlorn women and children standing beside the stoop. A pale, elfish-looking boy of ten, whose face appeared to be five years older, sat on the lower step crying.
"What\'s the matter, kiddie?" he asked kindly.
"I wants de doctor—me mudder\'s sick. She\'ll croak before mornin\' ef he don\'t come—dey all want him." He waved his little dirty hand toward the others. "He ain\'t come around no more for a week. The goil says we can\'t see him, he\'s asleep."
"I\'ll tell him you\'re here. The doctor\'s been ill himself."
The boy rose quickly and doffed his ragged cap.
"Tank ye, boss."
He urged the doctor to go at once to see his patients. The work he loved would restore his spirits. He was dumfounded at the answer he received.
"Tell them to go away," he said with a frown. "I can\'t see them to-day. I may never be able to see them again."
"Come, come, Doctor, pull yourself together and go. I\'ll go with you. It\'s the best medicine you can take."
He answered angrily:
"No, no! I\'m in no mood to work. I couldn\'t help them. I\'d poison and kill them all, feeling as I do to-day. A physician can\'t heal the sick unless there\'s healing in his own soul. I\'d bring death not life into their homes. Tell them to go away!"
Stuart emptied his pockets of all the money he had in a desperate effort to break their disappointment.
"The doctor\'s too ill to see you, now," he explained. "He sent this money for you and hopes it will help you over the worst until he can come."
He divided the money among them and they looked at it with dull disappointment. They were glad to get it, but what they needed more than the money was the hope and strength of their friend\'s presence. They left with dragging feet and Stuart returned to the doctor\'s room determined not to leave until he knew the secret of his collapse.
From the haggard face and feverish eyes he knew he hadn\'t slept yet. He had gotten up at one o\'clock and dressed. The lunch which the maid had brought to his room was on the table by his bed, untouched.
The young lawyer softly closed the door and sat down. The older man gazed at him in a dull stupor.
"Doctor," Stuart began gently. "I\'ve known you for about fifteen years. You\'re the only father I\'ve had in this big town, and you\'ve been a good one. You\'ve been acting strangely for the past two weeks. You\'re in trouble."
"The greatest trouble that can come to any human soul," was the bitter answer.
"Haven\'t I won the right to your confidence and friendship in such an hour?"
"My trouble, boy, is beyond the help of friends."
"Nonsense," Stuart answered cheerfully. "Shake off the blues. What\'s wrong? Do you need money?"
The doctor broke into a discordant laugh.
"No. I\'ve just sent Harriet abroad. I\'ve some money laid away that will last a year or two until she is earning a good salary. What gave you the idea?"
The last question he asked with sudden sharp energy.
"Actions that indicate a strain greater than you can bear."
"No, you\'re mistaken," he answered roughly. "I can bear it all right." He paused and his eyes stared at the ceiling as he groaned: "I\'ve got to bear it; what\'s the use to whine?"
Stuart stepped close and slipped his arm about the stalwart figure. His voice was tender with a man\'s deep feeling.
"Come, Doctor, you\'re not fooling me. I\'ve known you too long. There\'s only one man on earth for whom I\'d do as much as I would for you—my own gray-haired father down South. You\'ve been everything to me one man could be to another during the past fifteen years. You have given me a home, the love of a big tender heart, and the wise counsel of tried friendship. If there\'s anything that I have and you need, it\'s yours before you ask it, to the last dollar I possess. Come now—tell me what\'s the trouble?"
Stuart could feel the big form sway and tremble under the stress of overwhelming emotion, and his arm pressed a little closer. And then the tension suddenly broke.
The doctor sank into a chair and looked up with a helpless stare.
"Yes, Jim, I will—I\'ll—tell—you."
He gasped and choked, paused, pulled himself together and cried:
"I must tell somebody or jump out of that window and dash my brains out!"
When the paroxysm of emotion had spent itself, he drew a deep sigh and began to speak in broken accents.
"I was in trouble for money, my boy, in the deepest trouble."
"And you didn\'t let me know!" Stuart interrupted reproachfully.
"How could I? I was proud and sensitive. I had taught you high ideals. How could the teacher come to his pupil and say, \'I\'ve failed.\' My theories were beautiful, but they don\'t work in life. And so I struggled on until I waked one day to find that I was getting old, that I had gone to war to fight other men\'s battles and had left my loved one at home to perish. The first hideous sense of failure crept over me and paralyzed soul and body with fear. I was becoming a pauper. You see I had always believed that a man who poured out his life for others could not fail. And then I—who had given, given, given, always given my time, my money, my soul, and body—waked to find that I was sucked dry, that I was played out, that I was bankrupt in money, bankrupt in life! The great love I had borne the world suddenly grew faint under the sense of loneliness and failure. And I gave up. I withdrew my suit and determined to throw myself on the generosity of the man who owed his wealth and power to the start I had given him, the man who destroyed my business and wrecked my fortune. He had made me two offers that seemed generous when I recalled them. I judged his character by my own and I went to his house the night of that ball without invitation."
The doctor\'s voice broke and he paused. And then with the tears streaming down his cheeks unchecked, his accents broken with unrestrained sobs he told the story of his meeting with Bivens, of his abject pleading when he had thrown pride to the winds, of the cruel and brutal taunts, and the last beastly insult when the millionaire boasted of his squandering of millions and rejoiced that he could flaunt this in the face of his suffering and humiliation.
"And then, boy," the broken man moaned, "he left me with a sneer and told me to stroll over his palace and enjoy the evening. That I would find his wife wearing a pearl necklace which cost a half million and jewelled slippers worth enough to finish my baby\'s education, but that he would see us both to the bottom of hell before I could have one penny."
Again the doctor\'s voice sank into a strangling sob. When he lifted his head his eyes were glittering with a strange light.
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CHAPTER XIX THE LAST ILLUSION
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CHAPTER XXI A PLEA FOR JUSTICE
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