CHAPTER III
HELEN'S CONSCIENCE
When David reached home he found the Mayor had just brought overRogers's lunch and Kate, with the help of Tom, was arranging it on thetable. He threw his happiness among them in a score of words.
The Mayor stepped forward, his face ruddied with a smile. "Friend, put'er there!" invited his gruff diaphragm, and David put his hand to bedin the big, mattress-soft palm. "Well, sir, I'm certainly happy--that'sme! On the level, when I first heard you were tryin' to write a book,said I to myself, private-like, 'he'd better be makin' tidies.' Butyou're the goods, friend! Every man and woman on the Avenue has got tobuy one o' your books, you bet!"
"Say, pard, you're certainly it!" cried Tom, who had seized him from theother side. "Dat puts you on top--way up where you belongs. An' no moreworryin' about de coin!"
"I'm glad too,--you know that, Aldrich!" said Rogers, grasping David'shand. Rogers's face was drawn; David's success had freshened,emphasised, his own failure. "I wish both of us could have pulled out.But if only one of us could, it's best that that one is you. I'm glad,Aldrich!"
David felt the pain behind Rogers's words, felt their pathos, and hesuddenly was ashamed of his success. "It's because I was doing somethingwhere the world did not have to trust me," he said apologetically.
"It's because you are the exceptional man, doing the exceptional thing.They have a chance. The others have not."
Kate had not moved since David had announced his good fortune. She stoodwith her hands on the table and leaning slightly against it, her white,strained face fastened on David. "I'm glad, too," she now said, in avoice that had a trace of tremolo; and, turning abruptly, she went intothe office.
In there, alone, she sat at her desk with her cheeks in her hands. Soon,with a little burst of despair, she cried out: "Why did this have tohappen!" And she added, with a moan: "Oh, David, this puts you such along ways off!"
That afternoon and evening David could settle to nothing; and that nighthe slept not a minute for sweeping joy, for flashing ideas for stories,for swift, vivid visions of the future.
The next morning he had a note from Helen asking him to call in theafternoon. "You remember my speaking to you about the check for twentythousand dollars my father gave me," she said, when he had come. Herface was pale and she spoke with an effort. "I've decided what to dowith it. I want you to help me."
"If I can," he said.
"I've been thinking a great deal about Mr. Rogers." She paused, thenwent on, her voice more strained. "He should not have lost that money. Ihave cashed the check. I want to give the money to Mr. Rogers--not as agift, but as property that belongs to him."
He looked wonderingly into her pained eyes. "You're in earnest?" he saidslowly.
"I am--I must do it. And I want you to take the money to him, from"--sheobeyed a sudden instinct of blood-loyalty--"from my father."
His anger against her father suddenly flamed up. "From your father? Iknow how much your father knows of this plan!"
She went on as if she had not heard him, though she had quivered at hiswords. "I want you to take the money to Mr. Rogers. You will know whatto say."
The full significance of what she had said was just dawning upon him. Hegazed at her, wondering what must have been passing in her mind theselast few days.
"Mr. Rogers is very proud," he said. "He'll not take the money--at leastnot from me."
"You're certain?"
"From me--never."
"Then I must take it to him myself." She rose. "I'll be ready in a fewminutes. You must go with me."
He rose also. Her white face, that met his so squarely, told him howdeeply she felt, how strong her determination was.
"Yes, I'll go with you," he said.
When she re-entered the library she was dressed in the suit of autumnbrown and the brown hat with its single rose, which she had worn the daythey had met at St. Christopher's. He knew she felt the matter of hererrand too keenly to speak of it, and too absorbingly to speak ofanything else; and so, in silence, they went out into the street.
Half an hour later they entered Rogers's office. "Just wait a minute,while I tell him you're here," whispered David, and went into the livingroom where Rogers was. Presently he brought her in, introduced her toRogers, and withdrew.
Helen had never seen Rogers. Her picture of him was purely of theimagination, and imagination had put in its vague portrait the hardlines, the hang-dog look, the surly bearing that might well remain witha reformed criminal. So she was totally unprepared for the slight figurewith the wasted, intellectual face that rose from an easy-chair by theair-shaft window, and for the easy gesture and even voice with which heasked her to be seated. She recognised instantly that to make him acceptthe money would prove a harder task than she had counted.
"Thank you," she said, and sitting down she studied Rogers's face forthe moment she was adjusting her faculties to the new difficulty. "DidMr. Aldrich tell you why I wished to see you?"
"No." He would be courteous to her for the sake of the request David hadmade to him, but his hatred of her father allowed him only amonosyllabic reply.
To speak words that would show warm sympathy for him and no disloyaltyto her father, this was her problem. "Mr. Aldrich has told me of yourland enterprise and how--it failed," she said with a great effort,feeling that her words were cold and ineffective. "He told me how youlost a large sum that you had practically gained. He told me that itwas--my father--who made you lose it."
Her first effort would carry her no further. He nodded.
She clutched the arms of her chair, breathed deeply, and drove herselfon. "You should not have lost it. I have come to bring you--to ask youto let me return to you"--a brown-gloved hand drew a roll of bills fromthe bag in her lap "this money that belongs to you."
She held the elastic-bound roll out to him. His interlocked hands didnot move from his lap.
"I don't just understand," he said slowly. "You mean that this money isthe equivalent of what I should have made in the land deal?"
"Yes."
His face tinged faintly with red, his bright eyes (he had discardedglasses, now that a disguise no longer served him) darted quick flames,and he leaned toward her.
"Do you think I can take as a gift that which I honestly earned?" hedemanded in a low, fierce voice.
"But it is not offered as a gift. It is restitution."
"Restitution! So you want to make restitution? Can you restore thestrength despair has taken from me? My good name was built on deception,but I had worked hard for it and it was dear to me. Can you restore mygood name? I've lost everything! Can you restore everything?"
The ringing bitterness of his voice, the wasted face working with thepassion of despair, the utter hopelessness of the future which herquick vision showed her--all these stirred a great emotion which swepther father from her mind. Before, she had sympathised with Rogersabstractly; now her sympathy was for a hopeless soul, bare and agonisingbeneath her eyes.
Her words rushed from her, in them the throb of her heart. "No! No! Ican't give them back--no one can. Oh, what a wrong it was!"
He stared at her. The wrath and bitterness on his face slowly gave placeto surprise.
"Oh, but it was a shame!" she cried, her face aflame, her voice aquiver.And then a sense of the irretrievableness of this wreck laid hold uponher and a quick sob broke forth. She felt a sympathetic agony forRogers, and an agony that she, through her blood, was the cause of hiswrecked life.
"Oh, it was terrible, terrible! You are right! Restitution cannot bemade--only the pitiful restitution of money. But you must let me makethat--you must!"
He felt that he was speaking to a friend, and it was as to a friend thathe said quietly: "I can't."
"But you _must_!" She was now thinking of but one thing, how to forcehim to take the bills. "I'm not doing you a favour. I'm asking a favourfrom you. I come to you in humility, contrition. The money I bring isnot my money--it is your money. My father entered your hous
e and tookit; I bring it back to you. You merely accept your own. You see that,don't you? Surely you see that!"
Rogers did not answer at once. He was so dazed by the rush of herwords--words that sprang from complete sympathy and understanding,words that might have come from his own heart--that he could not.
She had risen and now stood above him. "You understand, don't you?" shewent on imploringly. "My father has done wrong; I feel it just as thoughI had done it. I must repair the wrong as far as I can. You must takethis money for my sake, don't you see?"
He rose and started to speak, but she cut him off. "I know what is inyour heart; your pride wants you to refuse. If you refuse, you do onlyone thing: you deny me the relief of partially correcting a wrong. Thatis all. Is it right for you to deny me that? Will you yourself not bedoing a wrong?"
He was trembling; she had taken the only road to his consent. But hemade no motion toward the money in her outstretched hand.
"For my sake--I beg you--I implore you." She spoke tremulously, simply.
He held out a thin hand, and she laid the money in it. "For your sake,"he breathed.
"Thank you," she said.
Helen felt herself growing weak and dizzy. The reaction was setting in."I must go. I can't ask you to forgive me--but won't you let me, as onethat would like to be regarded as a friend, wish that there may bebrightness ahead which you don't see."
She held out her hand, timidly. He grasped it. He could not speak.
"Thank you," she whispered, and slowly turned away. At the door shepaused, and looked back. "My best wishes are with you," she said, andwent out.