THE REINCARNATION OF SMITH
The extravagant supper party by which Mr. James Farendell celebrated thelast day of his bachelorhood was protracted so far into the night,that the last guest who parted from him at the door of the principalSacramento restaurant was for a moment impressed with the belief thata certain ruddy glow in the sky was already the dawn. But Mr. Farendellhad kept his head clear enough to recognize it as the light of someburning building in a remote business district, a not infrequentoccurrence in the dry season. When he had dismissed his guest he turnedaway in that direction for further information. His own counting-housewas not in that immediate neighborhood, but Sacramento had been oncebefore visited by a rapid and far-sweeping conflagration, and itbehooved him to be on the alert even on this night of festivity.
Perhaps also a certain anxiety arose out of the occasion. He was to bemarried to-morrow to the widow of his late partner, and themarriage, besides being an attractive one, would settle many businessdifficulties. He had been a fortunate man, but, like many more fortunatemen, was not blind to the possibilities of a change of luck. The deathof his partner in a successful business had at first seemed to betokenthat change, but his successful, though hasty, courtship of theinexperienced widow had restored his chances without greatly shockingthe decorum of a pioneer community. Nevertheless, he was not a contentedman, and hardly a determined--although an energetic one.
A walk of a few moments brought him to the levee of the river,--afavored district, where his counting-house, with many others, wasconveniently situated. In these early days only a few of these buildingscould be said to be permanent,--fire and flood perpetually threatenedthem. They were merely temporary structures of wood, or in the caseof Mr. Farendell's office, a shell of corrugated iron, sheathinga one-storied wooden frame, more or less elaborate in its interiordecorations. By the time he had reached it, the distant fire hadincreased. On his way he had met and recognized many of his businessacquaintances hurrying thither,--some to save their own property, orto assist the imperfectly equipped volunteer fire department in theirunselfish labors. It was probably Mr. Farendell's peculiar preoccupationon that particular night which had prevented his joining in theirbrotherly zeal.
He unlocked the iron door, and lit the hanging lamp that was used inall-night sittings on steamer days. It revealed a smartly furnishedoffice, with a high desk for his clerks, and a smaller one for himselfin one corner. In the centre of the wall stood a large safe. This healso unlocked and took out a few important books, as well as a smalldrawer containing gold coin and dust to the amount of about five hundreddollars, the large balance having been deposited in bank on the previousday. The act was only precautionary, as he did not exhibit any haste inremoving them to a place of safety, and remained meditatively absorbedin looking over a packet of papers taken from the same drawer. Theclosely shuttered building, almost hermetically sealed against light,and perhaps sound, prevented his observing the steadily increasing lightof the conflagration, or hearing the nearer tumult of the firemen, andthe invasion of his quiet district by other equally solicitous tenants.The papers seemed also to possess some importance, for, the stillnessbeing suddenly broken by the turning of the handle of the heavy door hehad just closed, and its opening with difficulty, his first act wasto hurriedly conceal them, without apparently paying a thought to theexposed gold before him. And his expression and attitude in facinground towards the door was quite as much of nervous secretiveness as ofindignation at the interruption.
Yet the intruder appeared, though singular, by no means formidable. Hewas a man slightly past the middle age, with a thin face, hollowed atthe cheeks and temples as if by illness or asceticism, and a grayishbeard that encircled his throat like a soiled worsted "comforter" belowhis clean-shaven chin and mouth. His manner was slow and methodical, andeven when he shot the bolt of the door behind him, the act did not seemaggressive. Nevertheless Mr. Farendell half rose with his hand onhis pistol-pocket, but the stranger merely lifted his own hand witha gesture of indifferent warning, and, drawing a chair towards him,dropped into it deliberately.
Mr. Farendell's angry stare changed suddenly to one of surprisedrecognition. "Josh Scranton," he said hesitatingly.
"I reckon," responded the stranger slowly. "That's the name I allusbore, and YOU called yourself Farendell. Well, we ain't seen each othersens the spring o' '50, when ye left me lying nigh petered out withchills and fever on the Stanislaus River, and sold the claim that me andDuffy worked under our very feet, and skedaddled for 'Frisco!"
"I only exercised my right as principal owner, and to secure myadvances," began the late Mr. Farendell sharply.
But again the thin hand was raised, this time with a slow, scornfulwaiving of any explanations. "It ain't that in partickler that I've kemto see ye for to-night," said the stranger slowly, "nor it ain't aboutyour takin' the name o' 'Farendell,' that friend o' yours who died onthe passage here with ye, and whose papers ye borrowed! Nor it ain'ton account o' that wife of yours ye left behind in Missouri, and whoseletters you never answered. It's them things all together--and suthin'else!"
"What the d---l do you want, then?" said Farendell, with a desperatedirectness that was, however, a tacit confession of the truth of theseaccusations.
"Yer allowin' that ye'll get married tomorrow?" said Scranton slowly.
"Yes, and be d----d to you," said Farendell fiercely.
"Yer NOT," returned Scranton. "Not if I knows it. Yer goin' to climbdown. Yer goin' to get up and get! Yer goin' to step down and out! Yergoin' to shut up your desk and your books and this hull consarn insideof an hour, and vamose the ranch. Arter an hour from now thar won't beany Mr. Farendell, and no weddin' to-morrow."
"If that's your game--perhaps you'd like to murder me at once?" saidFarendell with a shifting eye, as his hand again moved towards hisrevolver.
But again the thin hand of the stranger was also lifted. "We ain't inthe business o' murderin' or bein' murdered, or we might hev kem heretogether, me and Duffy. Now if anything happens to me Duffy will beleft, and HE'S got the proofs."
Farendell seemed to recognize the fact with the same directness. "That'sit, is it?" he said bluntly. "Well, how much do you want? Only, I warnyou that I haven't much to give."
"Wotever you've got, if it was millions, it ain't enough to buy us up,and ye ought to know that by this time," responded Scranton, witha momentary flash in his eyes. But the next moment his previouspassionless deliberation returned, and leaning his arm on the desk ofthe man before him he picked up a paperweight carelessly and turned itover as he said slowly, "The fact is, Mr. Farendell, you've been makingus, me and Duffy, tired. We've bin watchin' you and your doin's, lyin'low and sayin' nothin', till we concluded that it was about time youhanded in your checks and left the board. We ain't wanted nothin' ofye, we ain't begrudged ye nothin', but we've allowed that this yer thingmust stop."
"And what if I refuse?" said Farendell.
"Thar'll be some cussin' and a big row from YOU, I kalkilate--and maybesome fightin' all round," said Scranton dispassionately. "But it will beall the same in the end. The hull thing will come out, and you'll hevto slide just the same. T'otherwise, ef ye slide out NOW, it's without arow."
"And do you suppose a business man like me can disappear without a fussover it?" said Farendell angrily. "Are you mad?"
"I reckon the hole YOU'LL make kin be filled up," said Scranton dryly."But ef ye go NOW, you won't be bothered by the fuss, while if you stayyou'll have to face the music, and go too!"
Farendell was silent. Possibly the truth of this had long since beenborne upon him. No one but himself knew the incessant strain of theseyears of evasion and concealment, and how he often had been near tosome such desperate culmination. The sacrifice offered to him was not,therefore, so great as it might have seemed. The knowledge of thismight have given him a momentary superiority over his antagonist hadScranton's motive been a purely selfish or malignant one, but as it wasnot, and as he may have had some instinctive idea of Farendel
l's feelingalso, it made his ultimatum appear the more passionless and fateful.And it was this quality which perhaps caused Farendell to burst out withdesperate abruptness,--
"What in h-ll ever put you up to this!"
Scranton folded his arms upon Farendell's desk, and slowly wiping hisclean jaw with one hand, repeated deliberately, "Wall--I reckon I toldye that before! You've been making us--me and Duffy--tired!" He pausedfor a moment, and then, rising abruptly, with a careless gesture towardsthe uncovered tray of gold, said, "Come! ye kin take enuff o' that toget away with; the less ye take, though, the less likely you'll be to befollowed!"
He went to the door, unlocked and opened it. A strange light, as ofa lurid storm interspersed by sheet-like lightning, filled the outerdarkness, and the silence was now broken by dull crashes and nearercries and shouting. A few figures were also dimly flitting around theneighboring empty offices, some of which, like Farendell's, had beenentered by their now alarmed owners.
"You've got a good chance now," continued Scranton; "ye couldn't hev abetter. It's a big fire--a scorcher--and jest the time for a man to wipehimself out and not be missed. Make tracks where the crowd is thickestand whar ye're likely to be seen, ez ef ye were helpin'! Ther' 'll beother men missed tomorrow beside you," he added with grim significance;"but nobody'll know that you was one who really got away."
Where the imperturbable logic of the strange man might have failed,the noise, the tumult, the suggestion of swift-coming disaster, andthe necessity for some immediate action of any kind, was convincing.Farendell hastily stuffed his pockets with gold and the papers he hadfound, and moved to the door. Already he fancied he felt the hotbreath of the leaping conflagration beyond. "And you?" he said, turningsuspiciously to Scranton.
"When you're shut of this and clean off, I'll fix things and leavetoo--but not before. I reckon," he added grimly, with a glance at thesky, now streaming with sparks like a meteoric shower, "thar won't bemuch left here in the morning."
A few dull embers pattered on the iron roof of the low building andbounded off in ashes. Farendell cast a final glance around him, and thendarted from the building. The iron door clanged behind him--he was gone.
Evidently not too soon, for the other buildings were already deserted bytheir would-be salvors, who had filled the streets with piles of booksand valuables waiting to be carried away. Then occurred a terriblephenomenon, which had once before in such disasters paralyzed theefforts of the firemen. A large wooden warehouse in the centre ofthe block of offices, many hundred feet from the scene of activeconflagration--which had hitherto remained intact--suddenly becameenveloped in clouds of smoke, and without warning burst as suddenlyfrom roof and upper story into vivid flame. There were eye-witnesses whodeclared that a stream of living fire seemed to leap upon it from theburning district, and connected the space between them with an arch ofluminous heat. In another instant the whole district was involved ina whirlwind of smoke and flame, out of whose seething vortex thecorrugated iron buildings occasionally showed their shriveling orglowing outlines. And then the fire swept on and away.
When the sun again arose over the panic-stricken and devastated city,all personal incident and disaster was forgotten in the largercalamity. It was two or three days before the full particulars could begathered--even while the dominant and resistless energy of the peoplewas erecting new buildings upon the still-smoking ruins. It was only onthe third day afterwards that James Farendell, on the deck of a coastingsteamer, creeping out through the fogs of the Golden Gate, read thelatest news in a San Francisco paper brought by the pilot. As hehurriedly comprehended the magnitude of the loss, which was far beyondhis previous conception, he experienced a certain satisfaction infinding his position no worse materially than that of many of his fellowworkers. THEY were ruined like himself; THEY must begin their lifeafresh--but then! Ah! there was still that terrible difference. He drewhis breath quickly, and read on. Suddenly he stopped, transfixed bya later paragraph. For an instant he failed to grasp its fullsignificance. Then he read it again, the words imprinting themselves onhis senses with a slow deliberation that seemed to him as passionless asScranton's utterances on that fateful night.
"The loss of life, it is now feared, is much greater than at firstimagined. To the list that has been already published we must add thename of James Farendell, the energetic contractor so well known toour citizens, who was missing the morning after the fire. His calcinedremains were found this afternoon in the warped and twisted iron shellof his counting-house, the wooden frame having been reduced to charcoalin the intense heat. The unfortunate man seems to have gone there toremove his books and papers,--as was evidenced by the iron safe beingfound open,--but to have been caught and imprisoned in the buildingthrough the heat causing the metal sheathing to hermetically seal thedoors and windows. He was seen by some neighbors to enter the buildingwhile the fire was still distant, and his remains were identified by hiskeys, which were found beneath him. A poignant interest is added to hisuntimely fate by the circumstance that he was to have been married onthe following day to the widow of his late partner, and that he had,at the call of duty, that very evening left a dinner party given tocelebrate the last day of his bachelorhood--or, as it has indeed proved,of his earthly existence. Two families are thus placed in mourning, andit is a singular sequel that by this untoward calamity the well-knownfirm of Farendell & Cutler may be said to have ceased to exist."
Mr. Farendell started to his feet. But a lurch of the schooner as sherose on the long swell of the Pacific sent him staggering dizzily backto his seat, and checked his first wild impulse to return. He saw it allnow,--the fire had avenged him by wiping out his persecutor, Scranton,but in the eyes of his contemporaries it had only erased HIM! He mightreturn to refute the story in his own person, but the dead man's partnerstill lived with his secret, and his own rehabilitation could onlyrevive his former peril.
*****
Four years elapsed before the late Mr. Farendell again set foot in thelevee of Sacramento. The steamboat that brought him from San Franciscowas a marvel to him in size, elegance, and comfort; so different fromthe little, crowded, tri-weekly packet he remembered; and it might, in amanner, have prepared him for the greater change in the city. But he wasastounded to find nothing to remind him of the past,--no landmark, noreven ruin, of the place he had known. Blocks of brick buildings, withthoroughfares having strange titles, occupied the district where hiscounting-house had stood, and even obliterated its site; equally strangenames were upon the shops and warehouses. In his four years' wanderingshe had scarcely found a place as unfamiliar. He had trusted to thegreat change in his own appearance--the full beard that he wore and thetanning of a tropical sun--to prevent recognition; but the precautionwas unnecessary, there were none to recognize him in the new faces whichwere the only ones he saw in the transformed city. A cautious allusionto the past which he had made on the boat to a fellow passenger hadbrought only the surprised rejoinder, "Oh, that must have been beforethe big fire," as if it was an historic epoch. There was something ofpain even in this assured security of his loneliness. His obliterationwas complete.
For the late Mr. Farendell had suffered some change of mind with hisother mutations. He had been singularly lucky. The schooner in which hehad escaped brought him to Acapulco, where, as a returning Californian,and a presumably successful one, his services and experience wereeagerly sought by an English party engaged in developing certain disusedMexican mines. As the post, however, was perilously near the routeof regular emigration, as soon as he had gained a sufficient sum heembarked with some goods to Callao, where he presently establishedhimself in business, resuming his REAL name--the unambitious butindistinctive one of "Smith." It is highly probable that this prudentialact was also his first step towards rectitude. For whether the changewas a question of moral ethics, or merely a superstitious essay in luck,he was thereafter strictly honest in business. He became prosperous.He had been sustained in his flight by the intention that, if hewere successful elsewh
ere, he would endeavor to communicate with hisabandoned fiancee, and ask her to join him, and share not his name butfortune in exile. But as he grew rich, the difficulties of carrying outthis intention became more apparent; he was by no means certain of herloyalty surviving the deceit he had practiced and the revelation hewould have to make; he was doubtful of the success of any story whichat other times he would have glibly invented to take the place of truth.Already several months had elapsed since his supposed death; could heexpect her to be less accessible to premature advances now than whenshe had been a widow? Perhaps this made him think of the wife he haddeserted so long ago. He had been quite content to live without regretor affection, forgetting and forgotten, but in his present prosperityhe felt there was some need of putting his domestic affairs into a moresecure and legitimate shape, to avert any catastrophe like the last.HERE at least would be no difficulty; husbands had deserted their wivesbefore this in Californian emigration, and had been heard of only afterthey had made their fortune. Any plausible story would be accepted byHER in the joy of his reappearance; or if, indeed, as he reflectedwith equal complacency, she was dead or divorced from him through hisdesertion--a sufficient cause in her own State--and re-married, hewould at least be more secure. He began, without committing himself,by inquiry and anonymous correspondence. His wife, he learnt, had leftMissouri for Sacramento only a month or two after his own disappearancefrom that place, and her address was unknown!
A complication so unlooked for disquieted him, and yet whetted hiscuriosity. The only person she might meet in California who couldpossibly identify him with the late Mr. Farendell was Duffy; he hadoften wondered if that mysterious partner of Scranton's had beendeceived with the others, or had ever suspected that the body discoveredin the counting-house was Scranton's. If not, he must have accepted thestrange coincidence that Scranton had disappeared also the same night.In the first six months of his exile he had searched the Californianpapers thoroughly, but had found no record of any doubt having beenthrown on the accepted belief. It was these circumstances, and perhapsa vague fascination not unlike that which impels the malefactor to hauntthe scene of his crime, that, at the end of four years, had brought him,a man of middle age and assured occupation and fortune, back to the cityhe had fled from.
A few days at one of the new hotels convinced him thoroughly that he wasin no danger of recognition, and gave him the assurance to take roomsmore in keeping with his circumstances and his own franklyavowed position as the head of a South American house. A cautiousacquaintance--through the agency of his banker--with a few business mengave him some occupation, and the fact of his South American lettersbeing addressed to Don Diego Smith gave a foreign flavor to hisindividuality, which his tanned face and dark beard had materiallyhelped. A stronger test convinced him how complete was the obliterationof his former identity. One day at the bank he was startled at beingintroduced by the manager to a man whom he at once recognized as aformer business acquaintance. But the shock was his alone; the formalapproach and unfamiliar manner of the man showed that he had failed torecognize even a resemblance. But would he equally escape detection byhis wife if he met her as accidentally,--an encounter not to be thoughtof until he knew something more of her? He became more cautious in goingto public places, but luckily for him the proportion of women to men wasstill small in California, and they were more observed than observing.
A month elapsed; in that time he had thoroughly exhausted the localDirectories in his cautious researches among the "Smiths," for in hisfear of precipitating a premature disclosure he had given up his formeranonymous advertising. And there was a certain occupation in thispersonal quest that filled his business time. He was in no hurry. He hada singular faith that he would eventually discover her whereabouts, beable to make all necessary inquiries into her conduct and habits, andperhaps even enjoy a brief season of unsuspected personal observationbefore revealing himself. And this faith was as singularly rewarded.
Having occasion to get his watch repaired one day he entered a largejeweler's shop, and while waiting its examination his attention wasattracted by an ordinary old-fashioned daguerreotype case in the form ofa heart-shaped locket lying on the counter with other articles left forrepairs. Something in its appearance touched a chord in his memory; helifted the half-opened case and saw a much faded daguerreotypeportrait of himself taken in Missouri before he left in the Californianemigration. He recognized it at once as one he had given to his wife;the faded likeness was so little like his present self that he boldlyexamined it and asked the jeweler one or two questions. The man wascommunicative. Yes, it was an old-fashioned affair which had been leftfor repairs a few days ago by a lady whose name and address, written byherself, were on the card tied to it.
Mr. James Smith had by this time fully controlled the emotion he felt ashe recognized his wife's name and handwriting, and knew that at lastthe clue was found! He laid down the case carelessly, gave the finaldirections for the repairs of his watch, and left the shop. The address,of which he had taken a mental note, was, to his surprise, very nearhis own lodgings; but he went straight home. Here a few inquiries ofhis janitor elicited the information that the building indicated in theaddress was a large one of furnished apartments and offices like hisown, and that the "Mrs. Smith" must be simply the housekeeper of thelandlord, whose name appeared in the Directory, but not her own. Yethe waited until evening before he ventured to reconnoitre the premises;with the possession of his clue came a slight cooling of his ardor andextreme caution in his further proceedings. The house--a reconstructedwooden building--offered no external indication of the rooms sheoccupied in the uniformly curtained windows that front the street.Yet he felt an odd and pleasurable excitement in passing once or twicebefore those walls that hid the goal of his quest. As yet he had notseen her, and there was naturally the added zest of expectation. Henoticed that there was a new building opposite, with vacant offices tolet. A project suddenly occurred to him, which by morning he had fullymatured. He hired a front room in the first floor of the new building,had it hurriedly furnished as a private office, and on the secondmorning of his discovery was installed behind his desk at the windowcommanding a full view of the opposite house. There was nothing strangein the South American capitalist selecting a private office in sopopular a locality.
Two or three days elapsed without any result from his espionage. He cameto know by sight the various tenants, the two Chinese servants, and thesolitary Irish housemaid, but as yet had no glimpse of the housekeeper.She evidently led a secluded life among her duties; it occurred to himthat perhaps she went out, possibly to market, earlier than he came,or later, after he had left the office. In this belief he arrived onemorning after an early walk in a smart spring shower, the lingeringstraggler of the winter rains. There were few people astir, yet he hadbeen preceded for two or three blocks by a tall woman whose umbrellapartly concealed her head and shoulders from view. He had noticed,however, even in his abstraction, that she walked well, and managed thelifting of her skirt over her trim ankles and well-booted feet with somegrace and cleverness. Yet it was only on her unexpectedly turning thecorner of his own street that he became interested. She continued onuntil within a few doors of his office, when she stopped to give anorder to a tradesman, who was just taking down his shutters. He heardher voice distinctly; in the quick emotion it gave him he brushedhurriedly past her without lifting his eyes. Gaining his own doorwayhe rushed upstairs to his office, hastily unlocked it, and ran to thewindow. The lady was already crossing the street. He saw her pausebefore the door of the opposite house, open it with a latchkey, andcaught a full view of her profile in the single moment that she turnedto furl her umbrella and enter. It was his wife's voice he had heard; itwas his wife's face that he had seen in profile.
Yet she was changed from the lanky young schoolgirl he had wedded tenyears ago, or, at least, compared to what his recollection of her hadbeen. Had he ever seen her as she really was? Surely somewhere in thattimid, freckled, half-grown bride he had k
nown in the first year oftheir marriage the germ of this self-possessed, matured woman washidden. There was the tone of her voice; he had never recalled it beforeas a lover might, yet now it touched him; her profile he certainlyremembered, but not with the feeling it now produced in him. Would hehave ever abandoned her had she been like that? Or had HE changed, andwas this no longer his old self?--perhaps even a self SHE would neverrecognize again? James Smith had the superstitions of a gambler, andthat vague idea of fate that comes to weak men; a sudden fright seizedhim, and he half withdrew from the window lest she should observe him,recognize him, and by some act precipitate that fate.
By lingering beyond the usual hour for his departure he saw her again,and had even a full view of her face as she crossed the street. Theyears had certainly improved her; he wondered with a certain nervousnessif she would think they had done the same for him. The complacency withwhich he had at first contemplated her probable joy at recovering himhad become seriously shaken since he had seen her; a woman as wellpreserved and good-looking as that, holding a certain responsibleand, no doubt, lucrative position, must have many admirers and beindependent. He longed to tell her now of his fortune, and yet shrankfrom the test its exposure implied. He waited for her return untildarkness had gathered, and then went back to his lodgings a littlechagrined and ill at ease. It was rather late for her to be out alone!After all, what did he know of her habits or associations? He recalledthe freedom of Californian life, and the old scandals relating to thelapses of many women who had previously led blameless lives in theAtlantic States. Clearly it behooved him to be cautious. Yet hewalked late that night before the house again, eager to see if she hadreturned, and with WHOM? He was restricted in his eagerness by thefear of detection, but he gathered very little knowledge of her habits;singularly enough nobody seemed to care. A little piqued at this, hebegan to wonder if he were not thinking too much of this woman to whomhe still hesitated to reveal himself. Nevertheless, he found himselfthat night again wandering around the house, and even watching with someanxiety the shadow which he believed to be hers on the window-blindof the room where he had by discreet inquiry located her. Whether hismemory was stimulated by his quest he never knew, but presently he wasable to recall step by step and incident by incident his early courtshipof her and the brief days of their married life. He even remembered theday she accepted him, and even dwelt upon it with a sentimental thrillthat he probably never felt at the time, and it was a distinct featureof his extraordinary state of mind and its concentration upon thisparticular subject that he presently began to look upon HIMSELF as theabandoned and deserted conjugal partner, and to nurse a feeling of deepinjury at her hands! The fact that he was thinking of her, and she,probably, contented with her lot, was undisturbed by any memory of him,seemed to him a logical deduction of his superior affection.
It was, therefore, quite as much in the attitude of a reproachful andavenging husband as of a merely curious one that, one afternoon, seeingher issue from her house at an early hour, he slipped down the stairsand began to follow her at a secure distance. She turned into theprincipal thoroughfare, and presently made one of the crowd who wereentering a popular place of amusement where there was an afternoonperformance. So complete was his selfish hallucination, that he smiledbitterly at this proof of heartless indifference, and even so farovercame his previous caution as to actually brush by her somewhatrudely as he entered the building at the same moment. He was consciousthat she lifted her eyes a little impatiently to the face of the awkwardstranger; he was equally, but more bitterly, conscious that she had notrecognized him! He dropped into a seat behind her; she did not look athim again with even a sense of disturbance; the momentary contact hadevidently left no impression upon her. She glanced casually ather neighbors on either side, and presently became absorbed in theperformance. When it was over she rose, and on her way out recognizedand exchanged a few words with one or two acquaintances. Again heheard her familiar voice, almost at his elbow, raised with no moreconsciousness of her contiguity to him than if he were a mere ghost.The thought struck him for the first time with a hideous and appallingsignificance. What was he but a ghost to her--to every one! A man dead,buried, and forgotten! His vanity and self-complacency vanished beforethis crushing realization of the hopelessness of his existence. Dazedand bewildered, he mingled blindly and blunderingly with the departingcrowd, tossed here and there as if he were an invisible presence,stumbling over the impeding skirts of women with a vague apology theyheeded not, and which seemed in his frightened ears as hollow as a voicefrom the grave.
When he at last reached the street he did not look back, but wanderedabstractedly through by-streets in the falling rain, scarcely realizingwhere he was, until he found himself drenched through, with his closedumbrella in his tremulous hand, standing at the half-submerged leveebeside the overflowed river. Here again he realized how completely hehad been absorbed and concentrated in his search for his wife during thelast three weeks; he had never been on the levee since his arrival. Hehad taken no note of the excitement of the citizens over the alarmingreports of terrible floods in the mountains, and the daily and hourlyfear that they experienced of disastrous inundation from the surchargedriver. He had never thought of it, yet he had read of it, and eventalked, and yet now for the first time in his selfish, blind absorptionwas certain of it. He stood still for some time, watching doggedly theenormous yellow stream laboring with its burden and drift from manya mountain town and camp, moving steadily and fatefully towards thedistant bay, and still more distant and inevitable ocean. For a fewmoments it vaguely fascinated and diverted him; then it as vaguely lentitself to his one dominant, haunting thought. Yes, it was pointing himthe only way out,--the path to the distant ocean and utter forgetfulnessagain!
The chill of his saturated clothing brought him to himself once more,he turned and hurried home. He went tiredly to his bedroom, and whilechanging his garments there came a knock at the door. It was theporter to say that a lady had called, and was waiting for him in thesitting-room. She had not given her name.
The closed door prevented the servant from seeing the extraordinaryeffect produced by this simple announcement upon the tenant. Forone instant James Smith remained spellbound in his chair. It wascharacteristic of his weak nature and singular prepossession thathe passed in an instant from the extreme of doubt to the extreme ofcertainty and conviction. It was his wife! She had recognized him inthat moment of encounter at the entertainment; had found his address,and had followed him here! He dressed himself with feverish haste, not,however, without a certain care of his appearance and some selection ofapparel, and quickly forecast the forthcoming interview in his mind.For the pendulum had swung back; Mr. James Smith was once more theself-satisfied, self-complacent, and discreetly cautious husband that hehad been at the beginning of his quest, perhaps with a certain senseof grievance superadded. He should require the fullest explanations andguarantees before committing himself,--indeed, her present call might bean advance that it would be necessary for him to check. He even picturedher pleading at his feet; a very little stronger effort of his Alnascharimagination would have made him reject her like the fatuous Persianglass peddler.
He opened the door of the sitting-room deliberately, and walked in witha certain formal precision. But the figure of a woman arose from thesofa, and with a slight outcry, half playful, half hysterical, threwherself upon his breast with the single exclamation, "Jim!" He startedback from the double shock. For the woman was NOT his wife! A womanextravagantly dressed, still young, but bearing, even through herartificially heightened color, a face worn with excitement, excess, andpremature age. Yet a face that as he disengaged himself from her armsgrew upon him with a terrible recognition, a face that he had oncethought pretty, inexperienced, and innocent,--the face of the widow ofhis former partner, Cutler, the woman he was to have married on the dayhe fled. The bitter revulsion of feeling and astonishment was evidentlyvisible in his face, for she, too, drew back for a moment as theyseparated. But s
he had evidently been prepared, if not patheticallyinured to such experiences. She dropped into a chair again with a drylaugh, and a hard metallic voice, as she said,--
"Well, it's YOU, anyway--and you can't get out of it."
As he still stared at her, in her inconsistent finery, draggled andwet by the storm, at her limp ribbons and ostentatious jewelry, shecontinued, in the same hard voice,--
"I thought I spotted you once or twice before; but you took no notice ofme, and I reckoned I was mistaken. But this afternoon at the Temple ofMusic"--
"Where?" said James Smith harshly.
"At the Temple--the San Francisco Troupe performance--where you brushedby me, and I heard your voice saying, 'Beg pardon!' I says, 'That's JimFarendell.'"
"Farendell!" burst out James Smith, half in simulated astonishment, halfin real alarm.
"Well! Smith, then, if you like better," said the woman impatiently;"though it's about the sickest and most played-out dodge of a name youcould have pitched upon. James Smith, Don Diego Smith!" she repeated,with a hysteric laugh. "Why, it beats the nigger minstrels all hollow!Well, when I saw you there, I said, 'That's Jim Farendell, or his twinbrother;' I didn't say 'his ghost,' mind you; for, from the beginning,even before I knew it all, I never took any stock in that fool yarnabout your burnt bones being found in your office."
"Knew all, knew what?" demanded the man, with a bravado which henevertheless felt was hopeless.
She rose, crossed the room, and, standing before him, placed one handupon her hip as she looked at him with half-pitying effrontery.
"Look here, Jim," she began slowly, "do you know what you're doing?Well, you're making me tired!" In spite of himself, a half-superstitiousthrill went through him as her words and attitude recalled the deadScranton. "Do you suppose that I don't know that you ran away the nightof the fire? Do you suppose that I don't know that you were next toruined that night, and that you took that opportunity of skedaddlingout of the country with all the money you had left, and leaving folksto imagine you were burnt up with the books you had falsified and theaccounts you had doctored! It was a mean thing for you to do to me, Jim,for I loved you then, and would have been fool enough to run off withyou if you'd told me all, and not left me to find out that you had lostMY money--every cent Cutler had left me in the business--with the rest."
With the fatuousness of a weak man cornered, he clung to unimportantdetails. "But the body was believed to be mine by every one," hestammered angrily. "My papers and books were burnt,--there was noevidence."
"And why was there not?" she said witheringly, staring doggedly in hisface. "Because I stopped it! Because when I knew those bones and ragsshut up in that office weren't yours, and was beginning to make a rowabout it, a strange man came to me and said they were the remains of afriend of his who knew your bankruptcy and had come that night to warnyou,--a man whom you had half ruined once, a man who had probably losthis life in helping you away. He said if I went on making a fuss he'dcome out with the whole truth--how you were a thief and a forger,and"--she stopped.
"And what else?" he asked desperately, dreading to hear his wife's namenext fall from her lips.
"And that--as it could be proved that his friend knew your secrets,"she went on in a frightened, embarrassed voice, "you might be accused ofmaking away with him."
For a moment James Smith was appalled; he had never thought of this. Asin all his past villainy he was too cowardly to contemplate murder,he was frightened at the mere accusation of it. "But," he stammered,forgetful of all save this new terror, "he KNEW I wouldn't be such afool, for the man himself told me Duffy had the papers, and killing himwouldn't have helped me."
Mrs. Cutler stared at him a moment searchingly, and then turned wearilyaway. "Well," she said, sinking into her chair again, "he said if I'dshut my mouth he'd shut his--and--I did. And this," she added,throwing her hands from her lap, a gesture half of reproach and half ofcontempt,--"this is what I get for it."
More frightened than touched by the woman's desperation, James Smithstammered a vague apologetic disclaimer, even while he was loathing witha revulsion new to him her draggled finery, her still more faded beauty,and the half-distinct consciousness of guilt that linked her to him. Butshe waved it away, a weary gesture that again reminded him of the deadScranton.
"Of course I ain't what I was, but who's to blame for it? When you leftme alone without a cent, face to face with a lie, I had to do something.I wasn't brought up to work; I like good clothes, and you know itbetter than anybody. I ain't one of your stage heroines that go out asdependants and governesses and die of consumption, but I thought," shewent on with a shrill, hysterical laugh, more painful than the wearinesswhich inevitably followed it, "I thought I might train myself to do it,ON THE STAGE! and I joined Barker's Company. They said I had a faceand figure for the stage; that face and figure wore out before I hadanything more to show, and I wasn't big enough to make better terms withthe manager. They kept me nearly a year doing chambermaids and fairyqueens the other side of the footlights, where I saw you today. Then Ikicked! I suppose I might have married some fool for his money, but Iwas soft enough to think you might be sending for me when you were safe.You seem to be mighty comfortable here," she continued, with a bitterglance around his handsomely furnished room, "as 'Don Diego Smith.' Ireckon skedaddling pays better than staying behind."
"I have only been here a few weeks," he said hurriedly. "I never knewwhat had become of you, or that you were still here"--
"Or you wouldn't have come," she interrupted, with a bitter laugh."Speak out, Jim."
"If there--is anything--I can do--for you," he stammered, "I'm sure"--
"Anything you can do?" she repeated, slowly and scornfully. "Anythingyou can do NOW? Yes!" she screamed, suddenly rising, crossing theroom, and grasping his arms convulsively. "Yes! Take me away fromhere--anywhere--at once! Look, Jim," she went on feverishly, "letbygones be bygones--I won't peach! I won't tell on you--though I had itin my heart when you gave me the go-by just now! I'll do anything yousay--go to your farthest hiding-place--work for you--only take me out ofthis cursed place."
Her passionate pleading stung even through his selfishness and loathing.He thought of his wife's indifference! Yes, he might be driven tothis, and at least he must secure the only witness against his previousmisconduct. "We will see," he said soothingly, gently loosening herhands. "We must talk it over." He stopped as his old suspiciousnessreturned. "But you must have some friends," he said searchingly, "someone who has helped you."
"None! Only one--he helped me at first," she hesitated--"Duffy."
"Duffy!" said James Smith, recoiling.
"Yes, when he had to tell me all," she said in half-frightened tones,"he was sorry for me. Listen, Jim! He was a square man, for all he wasdevoted to his partner--and you can't blame him for that. I think hehelped me because I was alone; for nothing else, Jim. I swear it! Hehelped me from time to time. Maybe he might have wanted to marry me ifhe had not been waiting for another woman that he loved, a married womanthat had been deserted years ago by her husband, just as you might havedeserted me if we'd been married that day. He helped her and paid forher journey here to seek her husband, and set her up in business."
"What are you talking about--what woman?" stammered James Smith, with astrange presentiment creeping over him.
"A Mrs. Smith. Yes," she said quickly, as he started, "not a sham namelike yours, but really and truly SMITH--that was her husband's name!I'm not lying, Jim," she went on, evidently mistaking the cause of thesudden contraction of the man's face. "I didn't invent her nor her name;there IS such a woman, and Duffy loves her--and HER only, and he never,NEVER was anything more than a friend to me. I swear it!"
The room seemed to swim around him. She was staring at him, but he couldsee in her vacant eyes that she had no conception of his secret, norknew the extent of her revelation. Duffy had not dared to tell all! Heburst into a coarse laugh. "What matters Duffy or the silly woman he'dtry to steal away from other men.
"
"But he didn't try to steal her, and she's only silly because she wantsto be true to her husband while he lives. She told Duffy she'd nevermarry him until she saw her husband's dead face. More fool she," sheadded bitterly.
"Until she saw her husband's dead face," was all that James Smith heardof this speech. His wife's faithfulness through years of desertion, herlong waiting and truthfulness, even the bitter commentary of the equallyinjured woman before him, were to him as nothing to what that singlesentence conjured up. He laughed again, but this time strangely andvacantly. "Enough of this Duffy and his intrusion in my affairs untilI'm able to settle my account with him. Come," he added brusquely, "ifwe are going to cut out of this at once I've got much to do. Come hereagain to-morrow, early. This Duffy--does he live here?"
"No. In Marysville."
"Good! Come early to-morrow."
As she seemed to hesitate, he opened a drawer of his table and took outa handful of gold, and handed it to her. She glanced at it for a momentwith a strange expression, put it mechanically in her pocket, and thenlooking up at him said, with a forced laugh, "I suppose that means I amto clear out?"
"Until to-morrow," he said shortly.
"If the Sacramento don't sweep us away before then," she interrupted,with a reckless laugh; "the river's broken through the levee--a clearsweep in two places. Where I live the water's up to the doorstep. Theysay it's going to be the biggest flood yet. You're all right here;you're on higher ground."
She seemed to utter these sentences abstractedly, disconnectedly, as ifto gain time. He made an impatient gesture.
"All right, I'm going," she said, compressing her lips slowly to keepthem from trembling. "You haven't forgotten anything?" As he turned halfangrily towards her she added, hurriedly and bitterly, "Anything--forto-morrow?"
"No!"
She opened the door and passed out. He listened until the trail ofher wet skirt had descended the stairs, and the street door had closedbehind her. Then he went back to his table and began collecting hispapers and putting them away in his trunks, which he packed feverishly,yet with a set and determined face. He wrote one or two letters, whichhe sealed and left upon his table. He then went to his bedroom anddeliberately shaved off his disguising beard. Had he not been sopreoccupied in one thought, he might have been conscious of loud voicesin the street and a hurrying of feet on the wet sidewalk. But he waspossessed by only one idea. He must see his wife that evening! How, heknew not yet, but the way would appear when he had reached his officein the building opposite hers. Three hours had elapsed before he hadfinished his preparations. On going downstairs he stopped to give somedirections to the porter, but his room was empty; passing into thestreet he was surprised to find it quite deserted, and the shops closed;even a drinking saloon at the corner was quite empty. He turned thecorner of the street, and began the slight descent towards his office.To his amazement the lower end of the street, which was crossed bythe thoroughfare which was his destination, was blocked by a crowd ofpeople. As he hurried forward to join them he suddenly saw, movingdown that thoroughfare, what appeared to his startled eyes to be thesmokestacks of some small, flat-bottomed steamer. He rubbed his eyes; itwas no illusion, for the next moment he had reached the crowd, who werestanding half a block away from the thoroughfare, and on the edge of alagoon of yellow water, whose main current was the thoroughfare he wasseeking, and between whose houses, submerged to their first stories, asteamboat was really paddling. Other boats and rafts were adrift onits sluggish waters, and a boatman had just landed a passenger in thebackwater of the lower half of the street on which he stood with thecrowd.
Possessed of his one idea, he fought his way desperately to the wateredge and the boat, and demanded a passage to his office. The boatmanhesitated, but James Smith promptly offered him double the value of hiscraft. The act was not deemed singular in that extravagant epoch, andthe sympathizing crowd cheered his solitary departure, as he declinedeven the services of the boatman. The next moment he was off inmid-stream of the thoroughfare, paddling his boat with a desperate butinexperienced hand until he reached his office, which he entered by thewindow. The building, which was new and of brick, showed very littledamage from the flood, but in far different case was the one opposite,on which his eyes were eagerly bent, and whose cheap and insecurefoundations he could see the flood was already undermining. There wereboats around the house, and men hurriedly removing trunks and valuables,but the one figure he expected to see was not there. He tied his ownboat to the window; there was evidently no chance of an interview now,but if she were leaving there would be still the chance of followingher and knowing her destination. As he gazed she suddenly appeared ata window, and was helped by a boatman into a flat-bottomed bargecontaining trunks and furniture. She was evidently the last to leave.The other boats put off at once, and none too soon; for there was awarning cry, a quick swerving of the barge, and the end of the dwellingslowly dropped into the flood, seeming to sink on its knees like astricken ox. A great undulation of yellow water swept across the street,inundating his office through the open window and half swamping his boatbeside it. At the same time he could see that the current had changedand increased in volume and velocity, and, from the cries and warningof the boatmen, he knew that the river had burst its banks at its upperbend. He had barely time to leap into his boat and cast it off beforethere was a foot of water on his floor.
But the new current was carrying the boats away from the higher level,which they had been eagerly seeking, and towards the channel of theswollen river. The barge was first to feel its influence, and washurried towards the river against the strongest efforts of its boatmen.One by one the other and smaller boats contrived to get into the slackwater of crossing streets, and one was swamped before his eyes. ButJames Smith kept only the barge in view. His difficulty in following itwas increased by his inexperience in managing a boat, and the quantityof drift which now charged the current. Trees torn by their roots fromsome upland bank; sheds, logs, timber, and the bloated carcasses ofcattle choked the stream. All the ruin worked by the flood seemed to becompressed in this disastrous current. Once or twice he narrowly escapedcollision with a heavy beam or the bed of some farmer's wagon. Once hewas swamped by a tree, and righted his frail boat while clinging to itsbranches.
And then those who watched him from the barge and shore said afterwardsthat a great apathy seemed to fall upon him. He no longer attempted toguide the boat or struggle with the drift, but sat in the stern withintent forward gaze and motionless paddles. Once they strove to warnhim, called to him to make an effort to reach the barge, and did whatthey could, in spite of their own peril, to alter their course and helphim. But he neither answered nor heeded them. And then suddenly a greatlog that they had just escaped seemed to rise up under the keel of hisboat, and it was gone. After a moment his face and head appeared abovethe current, and so close to the stern of the barge that there was aslight cry from the woman in it, but the next moment, and before theboatman could reach him, he was drawn under it and disappeared. They layon their oars eagerly watching, but the body of James Smith was suckedunder the barge, and, in the mid-channel of the great river, was carriedout towards the distant sea.
*****
There was a strange meeting that night on the deck of a relief boat,which had been sent out in search of the missing barge, between Mrs.Smith and a grave and anxious passenger who had chartered it. Whenhe had comforted her, and pointed out, as, indeed, he had many timesbefore, the loneliness and insecurity of her unprotected life, sheyielded to his arguments. But it was not until many months after theirmarriage that she confessed to him on that eventful night she thoughtshe had seen in a moment of great peril the vision of the dead face ofher husband uplifted to her through the water.