The Gilders, both father and son, endured much sufferingthroughout the night and day that followed the scene in MaryTurner's apartment, when she had made known the accomplishment ofher revenge on the older man by her ensnaring of the younger.
Dick had followed the others out of her presence at her command,emphasized by her leaving him alone when he would have pleadedfurther with her. Since then, he had striven to obtain anotherinterview with his bride, but she had refused him. He was deniedadmission to the apartment. Only the maid answered the ringingof the telephone, and his notes were seemingly unheeded.
Distraught by this violent interjection of torment into a lifethat hitherto had known no important suffering, Dick Gildershowed what mettle of man lay beneath his debonair appearance.
And that mettle was of a kind worth while. In these hours ofgrief, the soul of him put out its strength. He learned beyondperadventure of doubt that the woman whom he had married was intruth an ex-convict, even as Burke and Demarest had declared.
Nevertheless, he did not for an instant believe that she wasguilty of the crime with which she had been originally chargedand for which she had served a sentence in prison. For the rest,he could understand in some degree how the venom of the wronginflicted on her had poisoned her nature through the years, tillshe had worked out its evil through the scheme of which he wasthe innocent victim. He cared little for the fact that recentlyshe had devoted herself to devious devices for making money, toingenious schemes for legal plunder. In his summing of her, heset as more than an offset to her unrighteousness in this regardthe desperate struggle she had made after leaving prison to keepstraight, which, as he learned, had ended in her attempt atsuicide. He knew the intelligence of this woman whom he loved,and in his heart was no thought of her faults as vital flaws. Itseemed to him rather that circumstances had compelled her, andthat through all the suffering of her life she had retained themore beautiful qualities of her womanliness, for which hereverenced her. In the closeness of their association, short asit had been, he had learned to know something of the tendererdepths within her, the kindliness of her, the wholesomeness.
Swayed as he was by the loveliness of her, he was yet moreenthralled by those inner qualities of which the outer beauty wasonly the fitting symbol.
So, in the face of this catastrophe, where a less love must havebeen destroyed utterly, Dick remained loyal. His passionateregard did not falter for a moment. It never even occurred tohim that he might cast her off, might yield to his father'sprayers, and abandon her. On the contrary, his only purpose wasto gain her for himself, to cherish and guard her against everyill, to protect with his love from every attack of shame orinjury. He would not believe that the girl did not care for him.
Whatever had been her first purpose of using him only as aninstrument through which to strike against his father, whatevermight be her present plan of eliminating him from her life in thefuture, he still was sure that she had grown to know a real andlasting affection for himself. He remembered startled glancesfrom the violet eyes, caught unawares, and the music of her voicein rare instants, and these told him that love for him stirred,even though it might as yet be but faintly, in her heart.
Out of that fact, he drew an immediate comfort in this period ofhis misery. Nevertheless, his anguish was a racking one. Hegrew older visibly in the night and the day. There creptsuddenly lines of new feeling into his face, and, too, lines ofnew strength. The boy died in that time; the man was born, cameforth in the full of his steadfastness and his courage, and hislove.
The father suffered with the son. He was a proud man, intenselygratified over the commanding position to which he had achievedin the commercial world, proud of his business integrity, of hisstanding in the community as a leader, proud of his socialposition, proud most of all of the son whom he so loved. Now,this hideous disaster threatened his pride at every turn--worse,it threatened the one person in the world whom he really loved.
Most fathers would have stormed at the boy when pleading failed,would have given commands with harshness, would have menaced therecalcitrant with disinheritance. Edward Gilder did none ofthese things, though his heart was sorely wounded. He loved hisson too much to contemplate making more evil for the lad by anyestrangement between them. Yet he felt that the matter could notsafely be left in the hands of Dick himself. He realized thathis son loved the woman--nor could he wonder much at that. Hiskeen eyes had perceived Mary Turner's graces of form, herloveliness of face. He had apprehended, too, in some measure atleast, the fineness of her mental fiber and the capacities of herheart. Deep within him, denied any outlet, he knew there lurkeda curious, subtle sympathy for the girl in her scheme of revengeagainst himself. Her persistent striving toward the object ofher ambition was something he could understand, since the likething in different guise had been back of his own businesssuccess. He would not let the idea rise to the surface ofconsciousness, for he still refused to believe that Mary Turnerhad suffered at his hand unjustly. He would think of her asnothing else than a vile creature, who had caught his son in thetoils of her beauty and charm, for the purpose of eventuallymaking money out of the intrigue.
Gilder, in his library this night, was pacing impatiently to andfro, eagerly listening for the sound of his son's return to thehouse. He had been the guest of honor that night at an importantmeeting of the Civic Committee, and he had spoken with his usualclarity and earnestness in spite of the trouble that beset him.
Now, however, the regeneration of the city was far from histhought, and his sole concern was with the regeneration of alife, that of his son, which bade fair to be ruined by the wilesof a wicked woman. He was anxious for the coming of Dick, towhom he would make one more appeal. If that should fail--well,he must use the influences at his command to secure the forcibleparting of the adventuress from his son.
The room in which he paced to and fro was of a solid dignity,well fitted to serve as an environment for its owner. It wasvery large, and lofty. There was massiveness in the desk thatstood opposite the hall door, near a window. This particularwindow itself was huge, high, jutting in octagonal, with leadedpanes. In addition, there was a great fireplace set with tiles,around which was woodwork elaborately carved, the fruit ofpatient questing abroad. On the walls were hung some pieces oftapestry, where there were not bookcases. Over the octagonalwindow, too, such draperies fell in stately lines. Now, as themagnate paced back and forth, there was only a gentle light inthe room, from a reading-lamp on his desk. The huge chandelierwas unlighted.... It was even as Gilder, in an increasingirritation over the delay, had thrown himself down on a couchwhich stood just a little way within an alcove, that he heard theouter door open and shut. He sprang up with an ejaculation ofsatisfaction.
"Dick, at last!" he muttered.
It was, in truth, the son. A moment later, he entered the room,and went at once to his father, who was standing waiting, facingthe door.
"I'm awfully sorry I'm so late, Dad," he said simply.
"Where have you been?" the father demanded gravely. But therewas great affection in the flash of his gray eyes as he scannedthe young man's face, and the touch of the hand that he put onDick's shoulder was very tender. "With that woman again?"The boy's voice was disconsolate as he replied:
"No, father, not with her. She won't see me."The older man snorted a wrathful appreciation.
"Naturally!" he exclaimed with exceeding bitterness in the heavyvoice. "She's got all she wanted from you --my name!" Herepeated the words with a grimace of exasperation: "My name!"There was a novel dignity in the son's tone as he spoke.
"It's mine, too, you know, sir," he said quietly.
The father was impressed of a sudden with the fact that, whilethis affair was of supreme import to himself, it was, after all,of still greater significance to his son. To himself, the chiefconcerns were of the worldly kind. To this boy, the vital thingwas something deeper, something of the heart: for, however absurdhis feeling, the truth remained that he loved the woman. Yes, itwas the son's name th............