The Way of the Strong

CHAPTER XV

PHYLLIS GOES IN SEARCH OF FRANK

Hendrie's return home became something like an epoch in the life of Phyllis Raysun. It was the moment of her passing from girlhood to the full maturity of a woman. She began to see with eyes more widely open, and a mind whitted to the keenest understanding of the actions and motives of those about her.

Ever since her first coming to Deep Willows, Hendrie, with all her reason for abhorrence of him, had never failed to interest her. Nor was it long before this interest begat forgiveness, and even liking. His colossal powers for dealing with affairs excited her youthful imagination and impelled admiration. But more than all else, his evident passionate devotion to Monica appealed to her.

When he had first learned that Monica was to yield him her woman's pledge of love and devotion, he had displayed a side of character she had deemed impossible in one of his obvious characteristics. His boisterous, almost youthful joy was quite unrestrained. She had never dreamed of such a display in anybody, much less in Hendrie, the hard, stern financier. It became painful and even pathetic in such a man.

But now, since the latest scene in Angus's office, she had read the real truth of his personality. She had always watched and studied him closely, she had detected many almost unaccountable weaknesses, but when the climax in her observations was reached in his insane outburst, she felt she held the key to the driving force which hurled him so frequently blundering down the path of life.

To her he appeared a complex mechanism tremendously organized in one definite direction, which left all other directions utterly uncontrolled. All his life, it seemed to her, he had concentrated his mind and energies upon the process of accumulating wealth, and the power of wealth. Nothing else had been permitted to appeal to him. He had rigorously torn every other inclination up by the roots and flung them aside, to be left behind him in the race to win his ambitions. He had treated himself like a mere thinking machine, a machine to be driven in the only direction in which he desired to think. He had utterly forgotten that he was a human being, created with a hundred and one feelings, all of which must be duly cared for, and used, and controlled. The only control over his more human passions he had ever attempted to use must have been of a nature which endeavored to crush them out of existence.

Now the result was manifest. Human nature had rebelled. Human nature was fighting for its existence. The human nature in him all uncontrolled by careful, studied training, drove him whithersoever it listed. All his great, machine-made brain broke down before its tremendous flood-tide, and he was swept along upon its bosom toward the brink of disaster. His passions once stirred, there was no telling where they might bring him up. She believed that under their influence he would stop at nothing.

Fortunately it seemed that all his passions were wrapped up in Monica. She was certainly their guiding star, and from this thought she drew comfort and hope. She felt that if Monica could only be saved, all would be well with him. While, on the other hand, her loss suggested to her imagination possibilities all too dreadful to contemplate.

Thus was her fevered anxiety stirred to its limits during the rest of the day, and the following morning, Doctor Fraser was to make his final examination of his patient, and give his definite verdict to the husband. Phyllis dreaded that verdict. Whatever it might mean for Monica, it was the man for whom she most feared.

Her mind was kept fully alert for all that was passing during the time of waiting. She knew that Hendrie kept himself tremendously busy. She knew that the wires were speeding messages from the house at Deep Willows, and it required little trouble to find out that Professor Hinkling, of Winnipeg, was in direct communication with the master of Deep Willows. She ascertained, too, that he was the greatest surgeon in the country for all matters to do with Monica's condition.

Then Angus had disappeared, and Hendrie was left at the head of affairs at the farm. Here, too, she soon learned that he had been speeded to Calford in the automobile to endeavor, by every means known to the power of money, to arrange for a special train to be allowed to run from Winnipeg to Calford, and bring the great surgeon to Monica's aid.

All these things left an atmosphere of suppressed excitement and anxiety pervading the whole place, and, coupled with the strike of farm hands, which, as promised, began at sundown, a chaotic state seemed to reign everywhere.

The real crisis arrived with the hour of the noonday meal. The entire household was aware that Doctor Fraser's report was due at any moment. Phyllis and the millionaire sat down to their meal together. Neither required anything to eat, and only Phyllis made any pretense. Hendrie sat at the head of the great table, surrounded by all the luxury he had heaped upon his wife, wrapped in morose silence. His attitude was such that even Phyllis feared to arouse the storm she felt to be brooding behind his sullen eyes.

It was in the midst of the final course that Doctor Fraser made his appearance. Phyllis felt her head whirl at sight of his pale, grave face. Then, with an effort, she pulled herself together, and covertly watched the millionaire.

A strange light had crept into his eyes, as the thin, clever face appeared in the doorway. It was a light of desperate hope, of a heart yearning for some trifling encouragement where conviction made all hope impossible. She pitied this man of millions from the bottom of her heart.

But Fraser was speaking in slow, deliberate tones. He was reciting the medical aspect of the case, and, though only understanding half of what he said, the girl listened acutely. Finally he summed up the situation.

"It means this, Mr. Hendrie," he said, with a gesture, the significance of which was quite unmistakable. "Nominally, I suppose, there are two lives at stake. I contend there is only one. I think we can put the child's life out of the question. The complications are such that there is little doubt the child would be still-born. Everything points that way. Anyway, in my opinion, the complications are such that it would be absolutely fatal to allow Mrs. Hendrie to face the labors of child-birth. In a younger woman there might have been a shadow of hope. In her case I am convinced there is none. In my opinion – mind it is but one man's opinion – you have only one alternative. The child must be sacrificed by operation."

Phyllis's eyes were upon Alexander Hendrie's set face. She beheld the strong, drawn mouth twitch nervously. She also noted that one great fist was clenched tightly as it rested upon the white cloth of the table.

She sighed as she awaited his reply.

Suddenly he raised his head, and his passionate eyes shot a swift inquiry into the doctor's face.

"And the time limit – for the operation?" he asked.

He was thinking only of his wife. Phyllis understood.

The doctor deliberated.

"A week. Perhaps less."

Phyllis caught her breath.

"How much less?"

The exactness of Hendrie's mind demanded satisfying.

"Safety in five days. Risk in seven. That's the utmost limit."

Again the girl caught her breath. Hendrie did not move a muscle. Presently he spoke again.

"Failing – all else – will – you undertake the operation?"

Doctor Fraser cleared his throat.

"It is my duty," he said slowly.

Then he passed one hand quickly across his forehead as though striving to remove a weight from his mind.

"For God's sake, don't let it come to that, Mr. Hendrie," he cried. "I am an ordinary practitioner. This is a desperate case for a specialist. If you offered me a fee of one hundred thousand dollars I'd gladly refuse it. Surely you can get Hinkling here in time."

Suddenly Hendrie's fist lifted and crashed down upon the table.

"Yes, by God, yes!" he cried.

Then he sat quite still. A moment later he ran his fingers through his hair, and they remained there while he spoke very quietly.

"I'd pay you half a million," he said, in a low, deep voice, "if I thought you could do this – successfully. As it is I wouldn't offer you ten cents. I'm sorry – Doc – but – "

He rose from the table and walked heavily out of the room.

Phyllis followed his example. As she passed the doctor she paused.

"Is there no – hope?" she asked pleadingly.

The man shook his head.

"None – unless Hinkling can be got here – in time."

She passed on out of the room without a word. There was nothing more to be said. Anyway she was quite beyond words.

Phyllis went straight to her bedroom. She could not go to Monica yet, with the knowledge of what she had just heard. It was dreadful. It seemed utterly, utterly hopeless. Five days. Seven at the most. Seven – and the railroad completely shut down. Monica's life must be sacrificed because some wretched workman was not satisfied, or some equally absurd thing. It was too awful to contemplate.

In the extremity of her grief her thoughts strayed to Frank. It was the natural womanly impulse causing her to turn to the man she loved. As the boy's image rose before her distraught mind she remembered that he belonged to those who had brought this desperate state of things about. And in her moment of realization she cried out her bitterness —

"Oh, Frank, Frank, how could you?"

The words echoed through the silent room, and came back to her with startling effect. She shivered at their sound, and flung herself upon her bed in a passion of grief. She remained there sobbing for many minutes. The strain had been too much for her, and now the hopelessness of it all wrung her heart.

But after a while the storm passed, and she sat up. Then, once more, she abandoned herself to thought. Curiously enough, Frank was still uppermost in her mind. A wild longing, quite impossible to resist, to see him, and tell him of all that had happened, possessed her, and she tried to think where he might be found.

She did not know. She could not think. He was in the neighborhood. That was certain. But where, where? She paced the room puzzling her brains as to how she might find him. Then, quite without realizing her actions, she opened a drawer in her bureau and drew out the riding suit Monica had given her. She had only worn it a few times before Monica had been taken seriously ill. She looked it over. It had been her great pride – once. Its divided skirt and beautiful long coat had been a positive joy.

Suddenly an irresistible impulse made her lay it out on her bed. The next moment she began to remove her own costume.

Far out on the outskirts of those wheat lands which acknowledged the direct control of the master of Deep Willows, at a point where the cultivated land yielded to the wood-lined slopes of the river valley, a great crowd of men, made to look almost insignificant by comparison with their wide surroundings, were listening eagerly to a speaker, perched upon the prostrate form of a huge tree trunk.

It was evening, and the westering sun lolled heavily upon the skyline, cradled in a cauldron of fiery cloud rising to bear it upon its long night journey. Everywhere was the profound peace when Nature composes itself for repose at the close of day. The air was sweet with the perfume of ripening foliage, blended with the dank which rose from the racing waters below. It was a moment for peace and good-will; it was a moment when all life should yield its thanks for blessings bestowed by the unseen hand of Nature; it was a moment when the heart of man should bow before the Creator of a beneficent life.

Yet neither peace nor good-will reigned. The arrogant heart of man was stirred by passions of discontent, and even evil. Life and all its benefits and blessings they possessed, and possessing them they cared nothing for such possession. These things were forgotten in a craving for more. This crowd was foregathered that it might learn how best to satisfy its discontent, which had been stirred by mischievous tongues in hearts hitherto contented.

The man on the tree trunk was no mere flamboyant orator preaching a doctrine of profound socialism. He was not talking "principle," so beloved of the tub-thumper. He was there with a mind packed full of venom against one man, a venom he was spitting into the ears of these workers for that one man's undoing.

This man had traveled far to satisfy his hatred. He had put himself at enormous inconvenience to address this meeting. His coming, too, had been heralded by other talkers, who were his satellites. His audience had been promised the joy of listening to the words of the greatest labor leader in the country; the privilege of hearing what the most powerful figure in the country's labor movement had to promise them; what he could do to wrest from their employer a bettering of their lot.