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It was some ten minutes later that he was roused by the ringing of the door-bell. He rose, crossed to the door, and opened it, to admit Mrs. Pope and Alice.
Mrs. Pope advanced into the room with her accustomed air of ruffled dignity. “Donald – what does all this foolishness mean?” she inquired.
“I don’t understand you,” he answered shortly. “What do you want here?”
“Can you have the audacity to ask me that? I am here to protect my daughter’s rights.”
“Did she send you?” he asked quietly.
“I do not need anyone to send me when my child’s happiness is at stake. What does this outrageous conduct mean?”
“Mother! For goodness sake, be a little more polite,” interjected Alice.
“Alice, be quiet!” Her mother regarded her with stern disapproval. “This is no time for mincing matters.” She turned angrily to her son-in-law. “Do you intend to answer my question?”
Donald regarded her with a dislike he took no pains to hide. “I owe no explanation of my conduct to you,” he said.
“Sir, do you think a mother has no rights?”
Again Alice interrupted. “Mother – wait – please.” She stepped between them. “Edith is suffering very much, Donald.”
“So am I,” he remarked grimly.
“Then why don’t you stop it?” Mrs. Pope was not to be put off. “What do you mean by dashing out of the house like a madman, kidnaping your child, and disgracing us all before a stranger? It’s outrageous!”
“Disgracing you! What about my disgrace?” Donald turned from her and addressed himself to Alice. “Alice,” he asked, “does your mother know why I left New London? Do you?”
“Yes – I – know what Emerson said.”
Again Mrs. Pope interrupted. “I know that you accuse my daughter of carrying on a love-affair with Mr. West,” she cried. “I don’t believe it – but what of it? What if she did? You did precious little for her, goodness knows. Now that she has a little happiness, you want to take it away from her, just because you didn’t give it to her. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
“I’ll settle this matter with my wife – not with you.” Donald’s voice showed his irritation at her interference.
“Poor child! My poor child! Why will you not listen to reason?”
“I don’t care to discuss the matter any further. Our ideas are too different on some subjects.” He went over toward the desk, turning his back upon the others.
Mrs. Pope, however, refused to be turned aside. “I should hope they were,” she asserted doggedly. “I didn’t come here to discuss the matter, either. I came to ask you to come back to New London with Bobbie at once.”
“What you ask is impossible,” said Donald, without turning. “I shall never go back there again.”
“What! After taking the house for the summer? What will everyone think?”
“It makes no difference to me what they think. It is what I think that concerns me now.”
“You always did think of no one but yourself. Do you expect my daughter to spend the summer there alone? Can’t you see that it is out of the question?” Mrs. Pope was shaking with rage.
“No,” cried Donald, turning on her angrily. “I do not expect her to spend the summer there alone. I expect her to return here to me.”
“To return here!” exclaimed Mrs. Pope, aghast. “To spend the summer in this place! Are you mad?”
“No – I am not. Sometimes I think money has made you so.”
Mrs. Pope paid no attention to his words. She was too busy trying to grasp the full purport of what she had just heard. “What can you be thinking of?” she cried. “Spend the summer here – in this tenement – with thirty thousand dollars a year?”
Donald regarded her coldly. “My wife will not have thirty thousand dollars a year if she returns here,” he said. “She will have what I am able to give her, and no more.”
“Then what on earth will she do with her money?”
“I intend that she shall give it to charity.”
“Charity! Doesn’t charity begin at home? If you are mad enough to deprive her of it, she must give it to Alice and to me.”
“Never – with my consent. That would be the same as if she had it herself.”
“Half a million dollars! To charity! I shall use every effort to prevent her from making such a fool of herself. I insist that she give the money to Alice and me.”
“Count me out, mother,” exclaimed Alice, with a short laugh. “Emerson wouldn’t let me touch a cent of it. He told me so.”
“Does Mr. Hall know about this?” asked Donald suddenly.
“Of course he does. How could he help it? Do you suppose I could keep it from him, after what you did last night? Edith in hysterics – you and Bobbie gone – mother carrying on like a chicken with its head off. What could you expect?”
“And he refuses to let you have any share in this money?”
“I don’t believe he’d marry me, if I had. Emerson’s mighty independent. He says he has enough for both of us, and what he hasn’t we’ll do without.”
“God bless him!” said Donald earnestly. “He’s a man!”
“He’s a fool,” Mrs. Pope exclaimed angrily; “as big a one as you are.”
Her words, her manner since entering the room, had slowly been causing Donald to lose his temper.
“No!” he blazed out, facing her. “You are the one who is a fool. What have you been drumming into your daughters’ heads for years? Money! Money! Nothing but money! You would put up your children at auction, and sell them to the highest bidder, just for money. You come here and blame me for all this trouble, and you haven’t sense enough to see that it is all your fault, and yours alone. Ever since Edith and I were married you have talked to her of nothing but my poverty, my shortcomings, my failures. You have preached discontent to her until she was ready to fall in love with the first man who came along with a little more money than I had. You are the cause of all this trouble – you, and nobody else. Don’t come here and talk to me about my conduct. Try to be a little more careful of your own.”
Mrs. Pope took out her handkerchief and applied it gently to her eyes. “And is this the thanks I get, after all these years?” she said tearfully. Then she turned to Alice: “Are you against your poor sister, too?”
“No, I’m not. I want to see Edith happy, and I don’t think she ever will be as long as she keeps a cent of this money. I know I advised her to keep it in the first place. I thought she could do lots of good with it. So she could, if Emerson hadn’t put his foot in it. As it is, I don’t see anything for her to do but give it up.”
“You’ve changed a good deal, it seems to me,” remarked her mother stiffly.
“I have. I’ve talked it over with Emerson.”
“Emerson! Pooh!” Mrs. Pope gave an indignant snort.
“Never you mind about Emerson,” said Alice with spirit. “He and I are going to find happiness in Chicago, in our own way. I know you don’t like him, so perhaps it’s just as well we are going to live a thousand miles off.”
Mrs. Pope began to weep audibly. “Of all the thankless tasks,” she groaned, “a mother’s is the worst. Here I’ve spent twenty-five years in raising you girls, living for you, waiting on you, slaving for you; and, now, you turn on me like this. It’s a shame – that’s what it is – a shame! When my poor, dear J. B. was alive – ”
“Never mind about that now, mother. We didn’t come up here to have a family row. Let’s see if we can’t fix up this trouble between Donald and Edith.” She turned to her brother-in-law with a look of deep concern. “Mother insisted upon this interview, Donald. I told her it would do no good.”
“Not if Donald insists upon making beggars of us all,” Mrs. Pope interrupted tearfully.
Alice took no notice of her interruption. “You got Edith’s note?” she continued.
“Yes.”
“Are you going to her?”
“No. She must come to me. You can tell her so. But I insist upon seeing her alone.” He glanced significantly at Mrs. Pope.
“I shall not inflict my company upon you any longer, Mr. Rogers,” exclaimed the latter indignantly. “Good-night!” She swept toward the door. Alice followed her.
“Good-night, Donald,” Alice said, as she left the room. “I hope you and Edith will come to some sort of an agreement. Remember Bobbie.”
Left alone, Donald went slowly over to the chair in which he had been sitting, and, stooping, gathered up Bobbie’s little shoes and stockings, and placed them gently within the bedroom. Then he began to pace endlessly up and down the floor.
CHAPTER XIX
On the following morning Donald Rogers determined to go down to Mr. Brennan’s office and have a talk with him. As the executor of West’s estate, as well as Mrs. Rogers’ attorney, he felt that the lawyer might be able to suggest a basis for an understanding of some sort between Edith and himself. Bobbie he took to his own office and left in the care of his draughtsman. The child was delighted, and spent the morning drawing ships and dogs and many other things upon a great sheet of cardboard with which the latter provided him.
Mr. Brennan was luckily in. Perhaps he suspected the object of Donald’s visit – at any rate he received him at once, dismissed the stenographer who had been taking notes at his side, and waved his caller to a chair.
“Glad to see you, Mr. Rogers,” he began. “How is Mrs. Rogers? I trust she is enjoying her stay at the seashore.”
“Mrs. Rogers is very well.” Donald nervously began to light a cigar, fumbling with the matches awkwardly in his agitation. Now that he was with Mr. Brennan, he felt at a loss to know how to begin.
“Let me see. You are at New London, are you not? Beautiful old place. I spent a summer there, once. You go down for the week ends, I presume.”
Donald ceased his efforts to light the cigar, threw the box of matches, which Mr. Brennan had handed him, upon the desk, and looked up.
“Yes. I was there on Saturday. I left Saturday night. I had a disagreement with Mrs. Rogers. That’s what I came to see you about.”
Mr. Brennan raised his eyebrows, put on his glasses slowly, and inspected his caller with deliberate care. “I’m very sorry to hear it, Mr. Rogers,” he said. “Nothing serious, I trust?”
“I’m afraid it is – very.”
“Hm-m. Dear me! And what can I do in the matter?”
“You are a friend of both Mrs. Rogers and myself. I want your advice. I want you to see her – to talk to her.”
“What’s the trouble?” Brennan sat back in his chair, prepared to listen, with a grave suspicion in his mind as to the cause of Donald’s heavy eyes and careworn face.
“Before I can discuss the matter with you, Mr. Brennan, I want to ask you one question.”
“Yes? What is it?”
“Do you know why West left his money to my wife?”
“My dear sir. That is a very peculiar question. How should I know?”
“You were the executor of his will.”
“Undoubtedly. Yet I fail to see what that has to do with it.”
“You must have seen his papers – his letters.” Donald looked at the lawyer intently. “Answer me frankly, Mr. Brennan. Do you know?”
“Surely, Mr. Rogers, you can hardly expect me to answer such a question, even granting that I could do so.”
“Why not?”
“As executor of Mr. West’s will, it is certainly not my business to discuss the reasons which may have prompted him to make it.”
Donald rose and went over to the lawyer. “Mr. Brennan,” he cried, “don’t try to quibble with me. I have asked you a plain, blunt question. You are under no obligation to answer it, of course, but, until you do so, we can proceed no further.”
“I always supposed it was because he was very fond of her,” ventured the lawyer uneasily.
“Fond of her! Yes! But how, Mr. Brennan? How?”
“They were very old friends, were they not?”
“Were they nothing more?” Donald leaned over the desk and fixed his eyes keenly upon those of the man opposite him. He felt the blood surging to his temples. “Why don’t you answer me, Mr. Brennan?” he went on, as the lawyer dropped his eyes. “Were they nothing more?”
His searching questions began to annoy the lawyer. “Why do you ask me such a question, Mr. Rogers?” he snapped.
“Only to find out how much you know. Mrs. Rogers has confessed everything to me. You can do her no harm by telling me the truth, and you will make it much easier for us to go ahead. Do you know?”
“Yes,” Brennan answered at length, in a low voice.
“How?”
“All the letters your wife wrote to West came to me along with his other papers.”
Donald recoiled in bitterness of spirit. However certain he had been of Edith’s guilt, he still hoped that Mr. Brennan, in some way, might disclose mitigating circumstances, facts of which he himself was not cognizant, whereby her affair with West might present an appearance less damning.
“My God!” he muttered. “And you read them?”
“Yes. I considered it my duty to examine all his papers.”
“How did you know they were from my wife?”
“By her initials, signed to them – by the handwriting.”
“And you have known this all these months, and said nothing?” Donald strode to the window and looked out. The North River, quivering in the hot sunlight, was a clutter of barges, tugs and ferry-boats, but his eyes, blurred with tears, saw nothing. Presently he turned. “Where are those letters now?” he asked.
“I do not know. I gave them to Mrs. Rogers. I advised her to destroy them. I presume she has done so.”
An angry light crept into Donald’s eyes. “You had no right – ” he began hotly.
Mr. Brennan raised his hand. “You are in error, Mr. Rogers. I had every right. The letters belonged to your wife, by law. Mr. West left her everything he possessed.”
“What did she say to him?” He strode excitedly toward the desk. “Tell me, man. Can’t you see what it means to me?”
“They were the letters of a weak, foolish woman, Mr. Rogers – not a bad one – of that I am sure.”
“Not a bad one? You mean – ?”
“I mean, Mr. Rogers, that whatever your wife may have intended to do – however far she may have intended to go – West’s death saved her from the one step which the world considers unforgivable.”
“I hope you are right – God knows I hope you are right.”
“I am sure that I am. Now tell me what has happened.”
“I have left my wife. I have left her, and taken my boy.”
“Well – now that you have taken that step, what do you propose to do next?”
“I don’t know. That is what I want to discuss with you. It is a terrible situation. I scarcely know which way to turn. She has sent me a letter, asking me to see her. I have agreed to do so – to-day. What I shall say to her I do not know. Within the past forty-eight hours I have had every good and kind and generous impulse within me shattered and destroyed. The friend that I loved and trusted has betrayed me. The wife for whom I would have given my life has proven disloyal – false. My self-respect is gone. My home is a wreck. The money that keeps it up comes from a man who did his best to ruin me.” He began to walk about, distracted, his voice choking with feeling. “Is it any wonder that I feel bitter? Is it any wonder that I do not know what to do?”
The lawyer removed his glasses and considered them carefully for a long time. The problem was indeed a serious one.
Presently he spoke. “The first consideration, of course, is your child.”
“I know it. I have taken him from his mother. He wants her – needs her. Have I the right to deprive him of her love?”
“Not unless she has proven herself unworthy of it.”
“Hasn’t she? Is a woman who is unfaithful to her husband – who is willing to live on the money given her by the man who made her so – is such a woman fit to bring up a child – to teach him to be straightforward, and honest, and good?”
“You use strong terms, Mr. Rogers. As I said before, I do not believe your wife has been unfaithful to you.”
“I do not refer to any specific act. Unfaithfulness is not alone a physical thing. She has fallen in love with another man. She has agreed to abandon her husband, and run away with him. She was willing to sacrifice even her child, by robbing him of his father. In one week more, but for this man’s death, she would have done all these things. Is not such a woman unfaithful? Is not that enough? Could any one act have made her more so? If your wife were to do these things, would you not call her unfaithful?”
“You refuse to forgive her, then?”
“No. I do not refuse to forgive her. I have told her that I am ready to do so, on one condition.”
“What is that condition, Mr. Rogers?”
“That she give up this man’s money.”
“Has she agreed?”
“No. She has refused.”
“Why do you insist on that?”
“Is it possible that you do not understand? What else can I do? If she returns to me, it must be with clean hands.”
“You ask a great deal, Mr. Rogers. It seems to me that your chances for happiness would be a great deal better, if you were to let her keep this money.”
“Man – do you realize what you are saying? Isn’t there a greater question at stake than just my happiness? Isn’t it right? Isn’t it her duty? Isn’t it necessary to her own self-respect? I cannot see how she could hesitate for a moment.”
“Then you do not understand women. There are not many of them, situated as she is, who could resist the temptation of thirty thousand dollars a year.”
“Then you defend her, Mr. Brennan. I did not expect it from you. I had hoped you would see her – talk to her – show her what a terrible mistake she is making.”
The lawyer rose, and began to walk up and down in deep thought. All his life, he had been concerned with the one idea, the one duty – that of preserving for his clients every dollar that the law allowed them. Money in a way had become almost sacred to him. Other points of view seemed foolish, quixotic. “I’m a cold-blooded, practical man, Mr. Rogers. Life as I have seen it has not made me sentimental. Lawyers rarely are. Half a million dollars is a large sum of money. It means freedom from all the wretched, grinding cares of existence, that fret out one’s soul. Few things in life make much difference, after all, if one has a comfortable bank-balance. You ask your wife to give up all that this money means, and come back to poverty – comparatively speaking at least. It is a hard question for any woman to decide – a mighty hard question.”
“You are wrong. You judge from the cynical, money-getting standpoint of Broadway. There are bigger and finer and nobler things in the world than money. It’s the right of the thing that counts.”
“Perhaps it is, Mr. Rogers, but most women don’t look at things that way. They are creatures of impulse. Logic is not their strong point. You expect too much of your wife. I have known a great many women – in my time – and my experience is that the best of them have their price.” He noticed Donald’s dissenting gesture, but waved his interruption aside. “Don’t misunderstand me. I do not necessarily mean in a wrong way. It may be a title, or a million, with some – with others the price of a meal, or a lodging for the night. The man who expects too much of women is bound to be disappointed. Let your wife keep this money. With it she will be happy – contented. Without it, she will be miserable. She has tasted the pleasures of wealth – now – and her old life will seem doubly distasteful to her. Don’t be unreasonable. Remember that after all, she is, like most women, a good deal of a child.”
Donald took up his hat, and his face showed the disappointment he felt. “Mr. Brennan,” he said, “I’m sorry I can’t think as you do. I was brought up to know the difference between right and wrong, and I haven’t forgotten it. It would be impossible – absolutely impossible – for me to share in any way in this money, or to let my boy do so. On that point I am determined.”
Brennan looked grave, and regarded Donald with cynical compassion. “I’m sorry to hear it, Mr. Rogers. In that case I do not see that I can be of any service to you.”
“Then you won’t undertake to see Mrs. Rogers, and convince her of her mistake?”
“I do not think it will have any result. You are very young yet, Mr. Rogers. You look at this thing entirely too seriously.”
Donald turned away with a great sense of bitterness, of injustice, in his heart. “My God!” he cried. “How can you say such a thing? There is only one way to look at it, and that is the right way. In your heart, you know it. Don’t you suppose it would be the easiest way, for me to take this money? Isn’t there every reason why I should? My wife – my child – my business interests, all urge me to accept it – to make of myself that most contemptible thing in the world – a man who is willing to live on a woman – to share with her what she has got from her lover. You know what they call such creatures. You know that no decent, self-respecting man could do what you have advised me to do. I value my wife – my home, more than most men do – I have given them the best I had in me – but one thing I value even more than them, and that is my self-respect. I have not made a great success in life, in a material way, but what I have made, I have made honestly. I have always been able to look the world squarely in the face, without feeling ashamed, and I propose to keep on doing so. Advise my wife as you please. Her mother and sister are with you. But I want you to understand – the whole lot of you – that she need not expect me to forgive her, and take her back, so long as she keeps a dollar of this man’s money, for I won’t do it – by God, I won’t do it!” He flung angrily toward the door.
Mr. Brennan stared at him for a moment, then reached out his hand. “Mr. Rogers,” he said, “your views may not be practical, and they may not bring you happiness, but, by God, sir, I respect you for them. Good-day.”
Donald went back to his office like a man who has met a crushing blow, but met it undaunted. He found Bobbie, tired of his pencil and paper, looking out of the window at the boats on the river, and wailing for his mother.
The father disposed of his mail while the boy played about his desk, gave his assistant a few instructions, and, with Bobbie holding his hand, once more started up-town. On the way, he bought the child some little chocolate cigars, thereby lulling him into temporary forgetfulness of his mother’s absence. Life seemed all of a sudden to have become very gray and bitter.
One ray of light, however, pierced the overshadowing gloom. Forbes, his partner in the glass-plant venture, had wired Donald from Parkersburg that he had succeeded in securing from some bankers there the necessary money to tide over the crisis in the company’s affairs. Several large orders had come in also. It appeared certain that they would be able to weather the storm. The good news seemed trifling, somehow, in his present state of mind, but it was something, and for the moment he felt grateful.
CHAPTER XX
Edith Rogers came to see her husband, probably less inclined toward the sacrifice upon which he insisted than she had been when he left her the Saturday before. Her heart had ached to see her boy, but she felt a growing resentment toward Donald, for what she felt was his hard-heartedness. Her feelings in this direction had been fanned to a flame by the arguments of her mother, who had succeeded in persuading her that what Donald asked was unreasonable and wrong. She knew that the affair between West and herself had not gone to the ultimate lengths that Donald evidently suspected – she did not stop to consider that in all else but this one thing she had been utterly faithless, and that even this step she would have taken, had not death intervened and saved her. Being a woman, she could not put herself in Donald’s place, and understand the brutal way in which his feelings had been outraged by the treachery of the two persons on earth whom he had most loved and trusted – his wife and his friend. Hence it was in no spirit of repentance that she entered the little room in which she had spent so many weary hours, but rather as one who came to demand her rights.
Her mother had returned from New York furious with Donald, and determined to use every means in her power to prevent a reconciliation between him and Edith. Her carefully detailed description of the reception which her son-in-law had given her, a description which lost nothing by reason of the fury into which Mrs. Pope had succeeded in working herself, made Edith realize fully that Donald was very much in earnest, and not at all likely to return to her, however long she might wait for him to do so.
There was clearly but one thing to do: she must go to him, and endeavor to show him the cruelty, the unreasonableness, of his attitude. Something in the firm stand which he had taken compelled her admiration; even while it dealt a blow to her pride. She had never known Donald to be like this before – he had always humored her, always been apologetic, regretful because he was unable to gratify her every desire. She longed for the moment to come, when she might see him and Bobbie again, and determined to use every power of attraction she possessed to bring him to her way of thinking. It had been easy in the past – her tears, her reproaches, had usually brought him contritely to her feet.