The Forbidden Way

  *CHAPTER XXVII*

  *GENERAL BENT*

  The room at the hotel into which Cortland showed them was a part ofGeneral Bent's own suite. Curtis Janney and a doctor consulted near thewindow, and a nurse from the hospital, in her white linen uniform andcap, hovered near. Jeff's questioning gaze sought the crack of the doorof the darkened room adjoining.

  "I think you may go in, Mr. Bent," said the doctor to Cortland. "He'sconscious at longer intervals now. It looks very much more hopeful,sir. He still asks for Mr. Wray."

  Cortland followed the doctor into the sick room, while Janney joinedJeff and Camilla and waited.

  "Will he--get over it, Mr. Janney?" Camilla asked softly.

  "Oh, I think so now--we didn't at first. Only one side is affected. Hecan even move the hand a little. Of course, it may be a long time."

  Jeff listened in a daze. The baby stare had come into his eyes again,and it moved from one object in the room to another--always returning tothe door of the darkened room into which Cortland had vanished. Therewas an odor of medicine, the sound of crackling ice, and now the murmurof voices. A moment later one of the nurses appeared in the doorway.

  "Mr. Wray," she said, "you may come in."

  And Jeff entered, passing Cortland, who stood with bowed head at thedoor. In the darkness he could just make out the white figure of theold man propped up against the pillows. He breathed with difficulty,and Jeff, unused to scenes of sickness, felt all his heart go out inpity for the helpless old man who was calling for him.

  "Is he here?" the General murmured. "Is he here?"

  Jeff moved quietly around the bed to the chair which the nurse hadplaced for him, "Yes, sir," he said huskily. "It's Jeff."

  The General's right hand groped feebly along the covers, and Jeff tookit in both of his own. "Cort told me you wanted me, sir."

  "I'm glad--very glad." He turned his head and tried to smile. "Itwas--so--so sudden--the news," he said with an effort, "to find out----"

  "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't want you to know."

  "I'm glad to know. It makes me--happy. I've been trying for so manyyears to find you."

  "You tried?" in astonishment.

  "Yes, I didn't know anything about--about having a son--until it was toolate. One of my associates--in the West--told me later. I tried tofind out--where they had taken you, but the nurse in the hospital--hadgone--and there was no record of her--or of--of you." He spoke with agreat effort, striving against the drowsiness which from time to timeattacked him. "They did things--differently in those days. She--yourmother--never mentioned my name. We had had a quarrel--a seriousquarrel--just after we were married----"

  "Married?" Jeff leaned forward over the white coverlid toward the oldman's distorted face. "You were married?" he whispered, awe-stricken.

  "Yes, married, Jeff--married--I--I have the papers--at home--I'll showthem to you----"

  Jeff bent his head suddenly over the old man's lean fingers and kissedthem impulsively.

  "Married!" he murmured, "Thank God! Thank God for that."

  The General's eyes followed him plaintively, while he struggled forbreath. "Yes, it's true. In Topeka--Kansas. That's what I wanted totell you. I couldn't go--I couldn't die without letting you know that.It didn't matter to her--she could forget. I did her a wrong, but not agreat wrong, as I did you. I've thought about you all these years,Jeff. It's my secret--I've kept it a long time----"

  He sank back into his pillows, exhausted, breathing heavily again, andthe doctor who had stood in the doorway came forward. "I think you hadbetter rest, General. Mr. Wray can come in later." But the Generalresolutely waved him aside with a movement that suggested his oldauthority.

  "No, not yet--I'm better--I'll sleep again in a moment." And, as thedoctor withdrew, the old man's grasp on Jeff's hand grew tighter. "Theytook you away from the hospital--without even giving you a name."

  "Yes, sir--I had no name but the one they gave me." Jeff tried to makehim stop talking, but he went on, striving desperately:

  "I had men working--to try and find you. I've their reports athome--you shall see them. I want you to know that I did all I could.We got the name of the nurse."

  "Mrs. Nixon?"

  "I think--no," he said confusedly. "I can't remember--shedisappeared----"

  "Yes, sir. She married again and went to Texas. She took me with her."

  Bent's eyes searched Jeff's piteously. "That was it," he whispered,"that was it. That's my excuse--I tried, you know I tried, don't you?It has been my burden for years--more even lately--than when I wasyounger--the wrong I had done you. Say that you understand--won'tyou--my--my--son?"

  The tears had come into Jeff's eyes, welled forth like the gush of waterin a dry fountain, and fell upon the old wrinkled fingers.

  "I do, sir--I do."

  The General's hand left the coverlid and rested for a moment on Jeff'sshoulder.

  "I hoped you would. I've always hoped you'd forgive me when you knew."

  Jeff straightened and brushed his eyes. "There's nothing to forgive.I--I only want you to get well--you will, sir. They say you're better."

  "Yes, Jeff, better--better already--but I'm very tired. I think--Ithink--I can sleep now--but don't go away--don't go," and he sank backin a state of coma.

  General Bent recovered. The stroke was a slight one, and he gainedstrength and the use of his faculties rapidly. But Time had served itsnotice of dispossession, and they all knew that the hour had come whenthe management of Bent's great business interests must pass to youngerhands. Within a few weeks he was permitted to sit up for an hour eachday, and with Cortland's help took up the loose ends of the most urgentbusiness. But he tired easily, and it was evident to them all that thedays of his activity were ended.

  In spite of it all, a great calm had fallen over the General's spirit.The quick decision, the incisive judgment, were still his--for onedoesn't forget in a moment the habits of a lifetime of command--but histones were softer, his manner more gentle, and in his eyes there haddawned a soft light of toleration and benignity which became himstrangely.

  Gladys, who had come on from Lakewood, was with him constantly andwatched these changes in her father with timid wonder. He had neverbeen one to confide in his children, and it required some readjustmentof her relations with him to accept the quiet appeal of his eyes and thesympathy and appreciation which she found in his newly begottentenderness. In Cortland, too, she saw a great change, and it surprisedher to discover the resolute, unobtrusive way in which he met hisresponsibilities, both functional and moral. Jeff and Camilla, aware oftheir anomalous position, had decided to leave the hotel and go back toMesa City as soon as General Bent grew better. It was Cortland whoprevailed on them to stay.

  "We're all one family now, Jeff," he said firmly, "one and indivisible.Gladys and I are of a mind on that, and father wishes it so. Your claimon him comes before ours--we don't forget that--we don't want to forgetit."

  Jeff, unable to reply, only grasped him by the hand. And then, withLarry's help, the two of them plunged into the business of straighteningout the tangle in the General's affairs and Jeff's. It was a matter ofmoment with Cortland to give the Saguache Short Line a proper scheduleat once, and so by his dispensation on the twenty-fifth of May, as Jeffhad boasted (he thought of it now), trains were running from Pueblo toSaguache. The Denver and Western, too, restored its old schedule fromKinney, and the Saguache Mountain Development Company resumed itsbusiness by really developing.

  In the absence of his two sons, Camilla and Gladys sat with the old man,reading or talking to him as the fancy seized him to have them do. Heliked to lie on a couch at the window and look out toward the mountainsbeyond which Jeff's interests lay, while Camilla told him of herhusband's early struggles in the Valley. He questioned her eagerly,often repeating himself, while she told him of the "Watch Us Grow" sign,of the failure of Mesa City, and of its
rejuvenescence.

  "Perhaps, after all," the old man would sigh, "perhaps it did him noharm. It makes me very happy, child." He didn't say what made himhappy, but Camilla knew.

  Then there came a day when the General was pronounced out of all dangerand capable of resuming a small share of his old responsibilities. Onthat day new articles of partnership were drawn for the firm of Bent &Company, into which Jeff Wray was now admitted. The "Lone Tree" mineand the Saguache Smelter figured in the transaction. Mrs. Cheyne, whohad a wise corner in her pretty head, refused to accept the money whichhad been advanced to Jeff Wray, and now insisted on bonds of theDevelopment Company and stock in the Short Line. Lawrence Berkely,whose peace had been made with Curtis Janney, now became the Westernrepresentative of the Amalgamated Reduction Company, with Pete Mulrennanas actual head of the Mesa City plant. It was from General Bent thatall of the plans emanated, and Curtis Janney without difficultysucceeded in arranging matters in New York. He took a sardonic pleasurein reminding the General that he had once suggested the advisability ofusing Jeff's talents for the benefit of their company--and acceptedthese plans as a slight tribute to his own wisdom.

  General Bent wanted to go up to Mesa City to see the mine, but it wasthought best by the doctors to send him East to a lower altitude, andso, about the middle of June, Cortland took him to New York, leavingJeff and Camilla to stay for a while at Mesa City, where Camilla couldwatch the building of "Glen Irwin." She could not find it in her heartto give up the West--not altogether. Later on they would spend theirsummers there--up in the mountains--Jeff's mountains.