The Way of the Strong

Monica was caught in the man's sudden excitement.

"Yes, yes, I will," she cried. "Oh, but it is a long story and – and a sordid one. It all happened when I was a young girl. I was only seventeen. Poor Elsie. She had been away a long time from home. Then she came home to me, her only relative. She came home to die, and dying gave birth to her son. You see, she was never married."

She paused, but went on at once at the man's prompt urging.

"She was never married, and the man left her in the hour of her direst need. Poor girl, even in her extremity she did not blame him. She loved him almost as much as she loved his little baby boy. She knew she was dying, nor did she seem to mind, except for her baby. He was her great anxiety. But even in that, her anxiety was chiefly that the child should never know of his mother's shame. So, almost with her last breath, she made me swear that I would bring him up as my own child. That I would keep her secret from him, and account for his father as being dead, with any story I chose to tell him. And I – I, a girl of seventeen, promised."

She paused. Then she hurried on as the questioning eyes of the man were again raised to her face.

"But what does it matter?" she cried suddenly. "She was my only sister and I loved her. From that day Frank became my own son, and, for nearly twenty years, I battled with the world for him. Nor in our worst trials did I feel anything but the greatest joy in our mutual love. Oh, yes, when he grew up, I had to lie to him. I have had to lie, lie, lie all through. And when you came into my life I had to lie harder than ever. It was either that, or betray my sister's secret. That I could not do – even for your love. I chose the easier path. I lied so that I should not have to give you up."

"It is not quite clear – the necessity?" The man again raised his eyes to her face, but, almost at once, they turned back to the carpet.

"It is simple enough," Monica went on dully. "If I married you, to keep my sister's secret I must keep Frank in the background. Otherwise I should have to give explanations. To keep him in the background I must tell him a story that made it necessary. I did so. So that he should know nothing of Elsie's shame, and as I had brought him up to call me 'mother,' I did the only thing that seemed to me possible. I took the whole responsibility upon myself. I told him that though he was my son I had never been married. You see, I knew his love for me. I knew his chivalrous spirit. He wanted me to be happy in my newly found love, so – he accepted the situation."

Hendrie shook his head.

"You kept the letter of your promise to your sister, and – betrayed the spirit of it."

Monica hung her head.

"I know. I did it because – I could not give you up."

Hendrie looked up with something like anguish in his eyes.

"Oh, woman, woman," he cried. "Why didn't you take me into your confidence? These lies could have been saved, and – and all these other, and even more, terrible consequences. Listen to me, and I will tell you all the rest. I can see it now. I can see it more clearly than you can tell me. He called himself Frank – Smith?"

Monica started.

"Yes. Whenever he visited me at Deep Willows. His real name was Frank Burton."

Hendrie's gaze wandered toward the window. The street lamps had just been lit. Never in his life had he known what it was to humble himself before another. Never had he known what it was to excuse himself for any act of his. Now he knew he must do both of these things.

Monica stepped eagerly forward from the shadow of the curtains.

"You – you know where he is?" she demanded.

Hendrie nodded. Then a strange thing happened. A harsh, mirthless laugh rang through the darkening room. Monica stared at the man's unsmiling face, horrified, and at a loss to understand.

"Then where is he?" she cried blankly.

"He is in the penitentiary, serving five years for breaking into Deep Willows, and robbing my safe of a bunch of money that belonged to you."

"Oh, God have mercy!"

The cry rang through the room. Monica reeled and would have fallen. In a moment her husband's arms were about her. But she flung him off, and her action was one of something like loathing. She stood up facing him, and pointing at him, while her agonized eyes challenged his.

"You – you!" she cried fiercely. Then: "Go on! Tell me – tell me quickly! It is you – you who have done this!"

Hendrie drew himself up. There was no hesitation about him, no shrinking before the story he had to tell.

"Yes, I did it," he said. "I – I! I have listened to your story. Now listen to mine, and when you blame me, you must blame yourself as well. I have loved you desperately. I love you now. God knows how I love you. If I did not I could never have endured what I have endured in the past and kept my reason. That is my excuse for what I have done.

"I saw that picture in your rooms and took the man to be an old lover. I hated him, and – I tore it up. I told you then there could only be one man in your life. I destroyed that pasteboard as I would destroy any one who came between us."

Monica remained silent while the man choked down his rising emotion.

"After we were married I became aware of the clandestine visits of a handsome man, to you, at Deep Willows. You were known to have embraced him."

"You – you spied!"

"I did not spy – then. I learned these things, nor does it matter how. I determined to crush this man I believed to be your lover. I determined to be rid of him once and for all. My love for you was so great that what I believed to be your guilt left me quite untouched. It was men I understood; men with whom I was accustomed to deal. I meant to deal with this man. So I set to work. I need not tell you how I tracked him down and kept him watched. It is sufficient that I knew of his visit to Deep Willows on the night in question. My plans were carefully laid. I left very little to chance. You were in the library with him, and Angus summoned you, to give you some important news he had received from me. I had arranged that. At the time the telephone bell rang I was beyond the window with the sheriff of Everton. The moment you left the room I entered it. I found this man with a bunch of money in his hand, and the safe open behind him. I had not hoped for such luck. I charged him then and there with the theft. Oh, I knew he had not stolen it. You had given it him, and it made me the more furious. I could have shot him where he stood. But it could not have been sufficient punishment. I meant to crush him.

"Then I did the crudest thing I could think of. I told him that I knew he had not stolen the money. I told him that he could clear himself of the charge by calling you into the witness box. In that way I knew that what I believed to be your shame would reach the whole world. But soon I was to see the stuff he was made of. He would not drag your name into the matter. He submitted to the charge with a simple declaration of his innocence, and I was well enough satisfied. The rest was sheriff's work. Within certain limits I knew I could buy the law, and I bought it. The case was kept out of the papers, and you were sent well away from any possibility of hearing of it. The name he was tried under, and which he clung to, helped further to disguise his identity. That night when you returned to the library, as I knew you would, you found the place in order, and the boy gone. You had no possible suspicion of what had occurred. You could have none. You remember I drove up later, as from Everton, in my automobile."

Hendrie ceased speaking. Monica remained silent. She stood quite still looking into his face as though she were striving to read all that lay behind it, trying to fathom to the very limits the primitive motives which had driven this man to the dreadful cruelty he had so readily inflicted. He had sent Frank, her boy, to a felon's prison. Sent him without one single scruple, without mercy. He had committed, besides, every base action he could have been guilty of to achieve his purpose, and all – for love of her.

She tried to think it all out clearly. She tried to see it through his eyes, but she could not. The hideousness of it all was too terrible. It was unforgivable.

At last she spoke. Her voice was hard and cold. In it Hendrie detected, he believed, the sentence her woman's heart had passed upon him.

"He must be released at once," she said, in a tone that warned him of all he had lost. "If you do not contrive this at once the world shall know the whole story – yours as well as mine."

The man made a slight movement. It was as though he had flinched before a blow in the face.

"He shall be released," he said.

"He must be released – at once." Monica's icy tone was final.

She turned away, moving toward the door. Then suddenly she paused, and a moan of despair broke from her.

"Oh, Alec," she cried, "how – how could you? How could you do it?"

The man was at her side in a moment.

"I love you, Mon," he cried, in deep tones. "You are more precious to me than all the world – than life itself. Can't you understand? Can't you see just something of what my eyes saw? Where you are concerned it is all so different. I could not, dared not lose you. I hated this man, who I believed had robbed me of your love."

Monica's agonized eyes were raised to his for a moment.

"But where was your faith? Where your trust?" she cried. "Why, why did you not openly accuse me?"

"Accuse you? Mon, you have yet to learn all that my love means. You think me, the world thinks me, a strong, even ruthless man. There is truth enough in the latter – God knows. But for the rest, where you are concerned, I am weak – so weak. I am more than that. I am an utter coward, too. While my heart might break at the knowledge of your infidelity, it would be incomparable to losing you out of my life. Why did I not accuse you openly? Because I was afraid to hear the truth from your lips. Do you know what would have happened had you confessed to me that you loved this man? It would have meant – murder. Oh, not your death," as Monica drew away horrified at the terrible sincerity of the threat. "That man would have died. Now can you understand? Won't you understand?"

There was a dreadful moment of doubt, of anxiety, while the man waited an answer to his appeal. No prisoner could have awaited sentence with more desperate hope. His eyes devoured the woman's averted face, while his heart hungered for the faintest gleam of hope it might hold out. And waiting he wondered. Was there anything in a woman's love at all, or was he to be condemned to a life with the doors of her soul closed and barred against him for ever?

It seemed an endless waiting. Then she gave a sign. She turned to him, and raised a pair of eyes, whose sadness and distress smote him to the heart, and looked up into his face. Then he knew, however undeserved, her love was still his.

"Perhaps I can understand, Alec, but – but give me time." Monica spoke in a deep, tender voice that was full of pain, full of suffering. "I am beginning to understand many things I did not comprehend before. You, perhaps, are not so much to blame as I thought. I have been so weak, too. A little candor and honesty on my part might have saved it all. We are both terribly to blame, and perhaps most of it lies at my door. Let us try to forget ourselves. Let us forget everything but that which we owe to Frank. We both owe him so much. Oh, when I think of the way I have fulfilled poor Elsie's trust I feel as though my heart would break."

"If ever a trust was carried out truly, yours has been, Mon."

The man's arms were about her, and he gently drew her to him. He gazed tenderly down upon her now tear-stained face.

"No woman could have done more than you have," he went on. "If things have gone awry it is no fault of yours." He smoothed her beautiful hair with one tender hand. "I give you my sacred word your Frank shall be released. I swear it by the memory of your poor dead sister. I can still undo the mischief which my mad jealousy has wrought, and your – Elsie will forgive."

He bent and kissed her upturned face, while she clung to him for support.

"Yes, yes, she will forgive. It was her nature to forgive," Monica said, in a wave of tender memory. "To the last she would not hear one word against the wretched father of her boy. Do you know, Alec, I sometimes wonder that Heaven allows such men to go about working their cruel mischief upon trusting women."

Hendrie stirred uneasily, and his arms gently released her.

"Tell me of her – of him," he said, his eyes turned upon the streaming light from the street lamps.

Monica became thoughtful.

"I know so little about him," she said, after a slight pause. "You see, I never saw him; and Elsie – she would say so little. It seems she met him in New York. I forgot to tell you Elsie was an actress. She acted under the name of Audie Thorne."

The man started. Then, slowly, his eyes came back to her face. Fortunately their expression was lost upon her, and, before she could turn in his direction, he was once more gazing out at the brilliant light which, somehow, he was no longer aware of. He was listening to his wife's voice, but her words conveyed little enough to him now. His mind was far back in a dim, almost forgotten past.

"I don't know how it all happened," Monica went on. "She was doing so well on the stage. Then she met this man, Leo. The next thing she was up in the Yukon with him. He was prospecting. Then they were traveling down country – overland – with an Indian scout. That's when he deserted her. She only managed to reach me, in San Sabatano, through the aid of the scout. He gave her money. Money paid him for the trip." Then a world of contempt crept into her voice. "I suppose it was the coming of Elsie's baby which frightened him – the cowardly brute."

Hendrie nodded, his face studiously averted.

"Perhaps," he murmured. "But one can never be sure of such a man's motives."

"Motives?" There was unutterable scorn in the woman's voice. "And while he goes free, she, poor soul, is left to suffer and die – in the – gutter!"

"But – you sheltered her? You cared for her?"

The man's voice was almost pleading.

"Thank God, I could at least do that – but it was not through any doing of his. Oh, if only I had the punishing of such – as he."

"Perhaps he will get his punishment, even as you could desire it. Perhaps he has got it."

"I pray God it may be so."

Quite suddenly Hendrie turned about and faced her. His face was thrown into the shadow by the light of the window, which was now behind him.

"These are past days, Mon," he said, in his decided fashion. "We have to do with errors, faults of the present. I must get to work at once to repair something of the damage I have done. You employed detectives. Who?"

"The Redtown Agency."

"Good. I will see them at once. You must dine alone tonight. I will report later."

The man moved suddenly across to his desk, and one hand fell heavily upon the carved mahogany of it. He looked across into the face of the woman he loved, and the fire of a great purpose shone in his eyes.

"Thank God I am the rich man I am!" he cried. "Thank God for the power of wealth. You shall see, Mon, you shall see! Leave me now, for I must – work. Hark!"

The deep note of the dinner gong rang out its opulent song in the hall.

"Dinner!" Hendrie remained standing. "You had better go – now."

Monica reluctantly moved toward the door and opened it.

"Very well, dear," she said. "You will tell me all you have done – later. Thank God, there is no more need for secrecy between us."

The brilliant light of the hall silhouetted her figure as she stood. But for once, though his eyes took in every detail of the picture she made, Alexander Hendrie remained wholly unappreciative.

His mind was already far away, moving swiftly over other, long past scenes. He was not even thinking of the innocent victim of his jealousy. He was traveling again the long, lean, cruel winter trail. He was once more toiling amid the snows of the bitter north.

"You are sure, sure – it can be done?"

The spell was broken.

"Sure," the man replied, with a heavy sigh.

The door closed. The darkened room was still and silent. For some moments the man remained standing where he was. Then he slowly moved over the soft rugs to the light switch on the wall, and his hand rested upon it. He hesitated. Then, with an impatient movement, he pressed the brass knob, and the room was flooded with light.

He stared out across the sumptuous furnishings, but did not attempt to move. His face was ghastly in the glare of light. His eyes were full of horror and straining.

Presently he moved a step toward the desk. It was only one step. He halted. Slowly his look of horror deepened. He raised one great hand and passed the fingers of it through his mane of tawny hair. It was the movement of a man half dazed. Then his lips moved.

"Audie!" he murmured, in a hoarse whisper. "Audie!"

CHAPTER III

TWO LETTERS

Number "Forty-nine" was standing just inside and clear of the door of his cell. It was dinner time in the Alston Penitentiary. On the gallery outside the faint hubbub of the distribution of food just reached him. He was hungry, even for prison fare.

"Forty-nine" heard the trolley stop at the door of the next cell. He heard the click of the lock as the door was opened. Then came the sodden sound of something moist emptied into a pannikin, and then the swish of liquid. The door clicked again, and he knew his turn was next.

The trolley stopped. His door opened. A man, in the hideous striped costume, like his own, of a fellow-convict, winked up into his face. It was the friendly wink of an evil eye. The man passed him in a loaf of black bread. Then, with a dexterity almost miraculous, a second loaf shot into "forty-nine's" hands, and was immediately secreted in the rolled hammock, which served for a bed.

The whole thing was done almost under the very eyes of a watchful warder. But he remained in ignorance of it. The double ration was a friendly act that was more than appreciated, however evil the eye that winked its sympathy. The prisoner's shining pannikin was filled, and a thin stream of cocoa was poured into his large tin cup. Then the trolley and its attendants passed on, and the door automatically closed.

"Forty-nine" glanced about him, and, finally, sat on the floor of his cell. He sniffed at the vegetable stew in his pannikin, and tasted it. Yes, he was too hungry to reject the watery slush. He took a loaf, tore it in shreds with his fingers and sopped it in the liquid. Then he devoured it as rapidly as the hard black crust would permit. After that his attention was turned to the cocoa. The same process was adopted here, and, by the time his meal was finished, and the process of cleaning his utensils was begun, his appetite was fully appeased.

It was a hideous place, this dreadful cell. It was bare from the ceiling above to the hard floor on which he was sitting. In one corner a hammock was rolled up to a universal pattern adopted throughout the prison. There was a small box in one corner in which cleaning materials were carefully packed, and close by were placed two books from the prison library. For the rest there was nothing but the bare walls, in which, high up, was set a grated aperture to admit light and air.

After cleaning up his utensils in orthodox fashion "forty-nine" went to his box and produced a lump of uneatable, half cured bacon fat, left from his breakfast. With this he calmly set to work on a process of massaging his hands. The work of the convict prison was cruel. In a short while hands would become a mere mockery of their original form. To obviate this, the fat bacon process had been adopted, and "forty-nine" had learned it from the fellow-convicts, more familiar with the ways and conditions of prison life.

"Forty-nine's" self-appointed task was just completed when, without warning, the door of his cell suddenly opened, and the burly form of a rubber-shod warder appeared.

"Forty-nine! For the governor. Right away!"

There was just a suspicion of softening from the warder's usual manner in the order.

"Forty-nine" looked up without interest. His eyes were hollow, his cheeks drawn. A deep, hopeless melancholy seemed to weigh upon his whole expression. A year of one of the hardest penitentiaries in the country, with the prospect of years of service yet to complete, left hope far beyond the reach of his crushed spirit. He stood up obediently. His manner was pathetically submissive. His great frame, little more than frame, towered over his guard.

The man stood aside from the doorway and the convict passed out.

The governor looked up from his desk in the center of a large, simply furnished hall. Behind a wrought iron cage at the far end of the apartment stood number "Forty-nine," with the warder close behind.

The governor turned to his secretary and spoke in an undertone. He was a youngish, baldheaded man who had acquired nothing of the hardness of visage to be found in his subordinates. Just now there was something almost like a kindly, sympathetic twinkle in his eyes as he opened out a sheaf of papers, evidently to do with the man just ushered into his presence.

The secretary rose from his seat and walked over to the iron cage. Unfastening a heavy lock he flung it open. To the prisoner, full of the bitterness of his lot, it almost seemed as though he were some wild beast being suddenly released from captivity.

The secretary signed to the warder to bring his charge into the room. This unusual proceeding left the astonished warder at a loss. And it required a sharp order from the governor himself to move him.

"Forty-nine" was conducted to the far side of the desk, and the governor looked him in the face.

"I am pleased to be able to inform you – er – a free pardon has been – er – extended to you."

The announcement was made in formal tones, but the look in the eyes of the speaker was the only human thing to be found in the notorious Alston Penitentiary. Even the worst criminals who were brought into contact with Governor Charles Raymond had, however grudgingly, to admit his humanity, which only left it the greater mystery that the methods of his prison were all so directly opposed to his nature.

"Forty-nine" started. For a moment the settled melancholy of his cadaverous face lightened. A hand went up to his head as though to ascertain that he was not dreaming. It came into contact with the bristles of his cropped hair, and dropped at once to his side.

"I'm to go – free, sir?"

"That's precisely what I'm telling you."

"Forty-nine's" eyes rolled. He looked from the governor to the secretary.

"Pardon?" he said. Then a hot light grew in his eyes at an inner sense of injustice in the method of his release. "But I've done nothing wrong, sir."

Charles Raymond smiled. But his smile was genuine and expressed none of the usual incredulity.

"That is a matter for yourself. I simply receive my orders from the usual authorities. Those orders are that a free pardon has been extended to you. I also have here a letter for you, which, since it is in a lady's handwriting, and you are to be released at once, I have waived the regulations and refrained from opening. You will receive your railroad fare to whatever place in the country you wish to go. Also the usual prison allowance in cash. That will do. The prison chaplain will visit you before you go out."

"I don't need to see him, sir. He tires me."

The secretary looked up sharply at the fiercely resentful tone of the prisoner's denial. But the governor only smiled.

"As you will," he said, and signed again to the warder. "Your letter will be handed to you at the outer gate – with the other things."

"Forty-nine" was marched off. He re-entered the iron cage and vanished amid the labyrinth of iron galleries beyond.

As he passed out of the office the governor turned to his secretary.

"I've looked up the record of that man's trial. Guess there's some mystery behind it. Poor devil. Only a youngster, too. I wonder." Then he turned to his papers again. "Well, they got him by the heels, and started him on the road to hell, anyway. Poor devil."

The secretary's murmured agreement with his chief's commiseration was non-committal. He had no sympathy. He took his salary and anything else that came his way. To him convicts were not human.