"No, I will ask her, and in a way not to make her suspect. She will think I am hunting for one of my own people. It is wiser that she should not know yet what you have told me. I would rather wait for the time when this poor creature, whoever she is, needs a sister's tenderness.

She will get it there, for no finer woman lives than Kitty Cleary."

A sigh of intense relief escaped Felix. "And now tell me where you will begin your hunt?" he asked, one of his old search-light glances flashing from beneath his brows.

"Nowhere in particular. On the East Side, perhaps, where I have means of knowing what strangers come and go. Then among my own people here. I shall know within twenty-four hours whether she has been in the habit of attending evening service--that is, within the last six months. A woman of the poorer cla.s.s would be difficult to locate, but there should not be the slightest trouble in picking out one who, less than a year ago, occupied your wife's social position--no matter how badly she were dressed."

Felix stood musing. He had reached the limit of the help he had come for.

"And what can I do to a.s.sist?"

"Nothing. Go home, and when I need you I will send word. Good night."

Chapter XIII

Had Felix continued his visits to Stephen Carlin's shop, he might have escaped many sleepless hours and saved himself many weary steps.

Fate had doubtless dealt him one of those unlucky cards which we so often find in our hands when the game of life is being played. If, for instance, the book to the right, holding the lost will, had been opened instead of the book to the left; or if we had caught the wrecked train by a minute or less; or had our penny come up heads instead of coming up tails: how many of the ills of life would have been avoided? And so I say that had Felix continued his visits to Stephen as he should have done, he would, one December afternoon, have found the ship-chandler standing in the door, spectacles on his nose, checking off a wagon-load of manila rope which had just been discharged on his pavement, stopping only to nod to the postman who had brought him a letter. The delay in breaking the seal was due entirely to the fact that a coil of light cordage, used aboard the yachts he was accustomed to fit out, had just been reported as missing, and so the unopened letter was tossed on top a barrel of sperm-oil to await his convenience. But it was when Stephen caught sight of the small cramped writing scrawled over the cheap yellow envelope, the stamp askew, his own name and address crowded in the lower left-hand corner, that the supreme moment really arrived, for at that instant--had Felix been there--he would have seen Carlin slit the covering with his thumb-nail, lay aside his invoice, and drop on the first seat within reach, to steady himself.

Indeed, had Felix on this same December afternoon surprised him even an hour later, say at six o'clock, which he could very well have done, for Carlin did not close his shop until seven, he would have come upon him with the same letter in his hand, his whole mind absorbed in its contents, especially the last paragraph: "Be here at seven o'clock, sharp; don't ring the bell below, just rap twice and I shall know it is you. I have to be very careful who I let in."

It had been several weeks since Carlin had heard from his sister. She had called at the store on her return from Canada, where she had spent the summer, and he had helped her find a small suite of rooms on a side street off St. Mark's Place, which she subsequently occupied, but since then she had never crossed his threshold. At first she had kept him advised of her nursing engagements--the days when her work carried her out of town, or the addresses of those who needed her in the city.

These brief communications having entirely ceased, he had decided in his anxiety to look her up and, strange to say, on that very night. That his hand trembled and his rough, weather-browned face became tinged with color as he read her letter to the end, turning the page and reading the whole a second time, would have surprised anybody who knew the stern, silent old sailor. His clerk, a thin, long-necked young man wearing a paper collar and green necktie, noticed his agitation and guessed wrong--Carlin being a confirmed old bachelor. And so did the driver of the wagon, who had to wait for his receipt and who, wondering at Stephen's emotion, would have asked what the letter was all about had not the ship-chandler, after consulting his watch, crammed the envelope into his side pocket, jumped to his feet, and shouted to the Paper Collar to "roll the stuff off that sidewalk and get everything stowed away, as he was going up to St. Mark's Place."

Here and there in the whir of the great city a restful breathing-spot is found, its stretch of gra.s.s dotted with moss-covered tombs grouped around a low-pitched church. At certain hours the sound of bells is heard and the low rhythm of the organ throbbing through the aisles. Then lines of quietly dressed worshippers stroll along the bordered walks, the children's hands fast in their mothers' the arched vestibule-door closing upon them.

Most of these oases, like Trinity, St. Paul's, and St. Mark's, differ but little--the same low-pitched church, the same slender spire, the same stretch of green with its scattered gravestones. And, outside, the same old demon of hurry, defied and hurled back by a lifted hand armed with the cross.

Of these three breathing-s.p.a.ces, St. Mark's is, perhaps, a little greener in the early spring, less dusty in the summer heat, less bare and uninviting in the winter snow. It is more restful, too, than the others, a place in which to sit and muse--even to read. Out from its shade and sunshine run queer side streets, with still queerer houses, rising two stories and an attic, each with a dormer and huge chimney.

Dried-up old aristocrats, these, living on the smallest of pensions, taking toll of notaries public, shyster lawyers, peddlers of steel pens, die-cutters, and dismal real-estate agents in dismal offices boasting a desk, two chairs, and a map.

Stephen's course lay in the direction of one of these relics of better days--a wide-eyed house with a pieced-out roof, flattened like an old woman's wig over a sloping forehead, the eyebrows of eaves shading two blinking windows. A most respectable old dowager of a building, no doubt, in its time, with the best of Madeira and the choicest of cuts going down two steps into its welcoming bas.e.m.e.nt. That was before the iron railings were covered with rust and before the three brownstone steps leading to the front door were worn into scoops by heavy shoes; before the polished mahogany doors were replaced by pine and painted a dull, dirty green; before the banisters with their mahogany rail were as full of cavities as a garden fence with half its palings gone; and before--long before--some vulgar Paul Pry had cut a skylight in the hipped roof, through which he could peer, taking note of whatever went on inside the gloomy interior: each of these several calamities but so much additional testimony to its once grand estate, and every one of them but so many steps in its downward career.

For it had become anything but a happy house--this old dowager dwelling of the long ago. Indeed, it was a very mournful and most depressing house, and so were its tenants. In the bas.e.m.e.nt was a barber who spent half his time lounging about inside the small door, without his white jacket, waiting for customers. On the first-floor-back there was a music-teacher whose pupils were so few and far between that only the shortest of lessons at the longest of intervals were recited on her piano; on the second-floor-front was a wood-engraver who took to photography to pay his rent. On the second-floor-back was a dressmaker who could not collect her bills; while in the rear was a laundress who washed for the tenants. Lastly, there was Mrs. Martha Munger, Stephen Carlin's sister, who occupied the third floor both front and back, over the laundress's quarters, the one chimney serving them both.

While the evil eye of the skylight, despite its dishonorable calling, might have been put to some good use during the day, it can be safely said that it was of no earthly, and for that matter of no heavenly, use during the night. Nor did anything else in the way of illumination take its place. My Lady Dowager's patrons were too poor or too stingy to furnish even a single burner up and down the three flights. The excuse was that the rays of the arc-light, blazing away on the opposite side of the street, were not only powerful enough to shine through the weather-beaten hall door covering the entrance but, still further, to illuminate the rickety staircase--the very staircase up which Stephen Carlin was now groping in answer to Martha's letter.

She had heard his heavy tread on the creaky steps, and was watching for him with the door ajar--an inch at first, and then wide open, her kerosene lamp held over the railing to give him light.

"Oh, but I'm glad you've come, Stephen. I was getting worried. I was afraid maybe you didn't get the letter. It's black dark outside, isn't it?" and she glanced at the cheap clock on the mantel behind her. "Come in, the kettle was boiling over when I heard you. I'll talk to you in a minute."

He followed with only a pressure of her hand, and, without a word of greeting, seated himself near a table. In the same quiet, silent way he watched her as she busied herself about the apartment, lifting the kettle from the stove, adjusting the wick of the lamp which had begun to smoke from the draft of the open door, taking from a shelf two cups and saucers and from a tin bread box a loaf and some crackers.

When, in one of her journeys to and fro, she pa.s.sed where the light of the lamp fell full upon her round face, framed in its white cap and long strings, he gave a slight start. There were dark circles below her eyes and heavy lines near the corners of her mouth--signs he had not seen since the month she had spent in the Marine Hospital when the plague was stamped out. He noticed, too, that her robust figure, with its broad shoulders and capacious bosom, restful pillow to many a new-born baby, seemed shrunken--not in weight, but in its spring, as if all her alertness (she was under fifty) had oozed out. It was only when she had completed her labors and taken a chair beside him, her soft, nursing hand covering his own, that his mind reverted to the tragedy which had brought him to her side. Even then, although she sat with her face turned toward his, her eyes reading his own, some moments pa.s.sed before either of them spoke. At last, in a wondering, dazed way, she exclaimed: "Have you, in all your life, Stephen, ever heard anything like it?"

Carlin shook his head. The letter had given him the facts, and no additional details could alter the situation. It was as if a dead body were lying in the next room awaiting interment; when the time came he would step in and look at it, ask the hour of burial, and step out again.

"I came as soon as I'd read your letter," he said slowly examining one by one his rough fingers bunched together in his lap. "We got chuck-a-block on Second Avenue or I'd have been here before. Why didn't you let me know sooner?" As he spoke he shifted his gaze to the wrinkles in her throat--a new anxiety rising as he noticed how many more had gathered since he saw her last.

"She wouldn't have it, and I want to tell you that you've got to be careful, as it is. And mind you don't speak too sudden to her."

In answer he craned his head as if to see around the jamb of the door leading into the smaller room and, lowering his voice, whispered: "Is she here now?"

"No, but she will be in a few minutes; she's often late, she waits until it's dark."

"How long has she been here with you?"

"About two weeks."

"Two weeks! You didn't tell me that."

"She wouldn't let me. She is having trouble enough and I have to do pretty much as she wants."

He ruminated for a moment, this time scrutinizing the palms of his hands, seemingly interested in some callous spots near the thumb-joint, and then asked: "How did she find you?"

"By G.o.d's mercy and nothing else. I was sitting in a Third Avenue car and there she was opposite. I couldn't believe my eyes, she was that changed! She would have been off the dock, I believe, if she hadn't found me. She has run away from Dalton now, and is so scared of him she trembles every time some one comes up the stairs. That's why I wrote you not to ring. He has nothing left. He kept a-hounding her to write to her father and nigh drove her crazy; so she left him."

"Does she know Mr. Felix is here?" He had finished with the callous spots and was cracking every h.o.r.n.y knuckle in his fingers as he spoke, as if their loosening might help solve the problem that vexed him.

"No, I haven't dared tell her. She would be off the dock for sure then.

She is more afraid of him than she is of Dalton."

"Mr. Felix won't hurt her," he rejoined sharply.

"Yes, but she knows she'd hurt HIM if he finds out how bad she's off. She'd rather he'd think she's living like she used to do. Oh, Stephen--Stephen, but it's a bad, bad business! I'm beat out wondering what ought to be done."

She pushed back her chair, and began walking up and down the room like one whose suffering can find no other relief, pausing now and then to speak to him as she pa.s.sed. "I tried to get her to listen. I told her Mr. Felix might be coming over from London. I had to put it to her that way, but she nearly went out of her mind, stiffened up, and began to put on such a wild look that I had to stop. Have you heard from him lately?"

"No, I wrote and wrote and could get no answer. Then I went up to where he boarded, and the woman told me he'd been gone some months--she didn't know where. He left no word, and she forgot to get the name of the express that came for his trunk. He is down with sickness somewheres, or he'd have showed up. He was not himself at all when I last saw him--that's long before you got back from Canada. He's done nothing but walk the streets since he come ash.o.r.e."

Stephen stopped, as if it were too painful for him to continue, looked around the room, noting its bareness, and asked, with a break in his voice: "Where do you put her?"

"In the little room. She wouldn't take mine and she won't let me help her. She got work at first on 14th Street, in that big store near the Square, and worked there for a while, that was when she was with Dalton.

But Dalton drove her out. And when she was near dead, with nothing to eat, some people picked her up and she stayed with them all night--she never told me where. That was last spring. She stood it for some months living from hand to mouth, she working her fingers to the bone for him, until she was afraid of her life and left him again. She was going she didn't know where when I looked at her 'cross the car and she saw me.

"'Martha!' she cried, and was on the seat next me, my two arms about her. She was sobbing like a lost child who has found its mother again.

There were two other women in the car, and they wanted to help, but I told them it was only my baby back again. We were near 10th Street at the time and I got her out and brought her here and put her to bed--Listen! Keep still a moment! That's her step! Yes, thank G.o.d, she's alone! I'm always scared lest he should come with her. Get in there behind the curtain!"

Martha had lifted the lamp again as she spoke, and was holding it over the banister, one hand down-stretched toward a woman whose small white fingers were clutching the mahogany rail, pulling herself up one step at a time.

"Don't hurry, my child. It's a hard climb, I know. Give me the box. I began to get worried. Are you tired?"

"A little. It has been a long day." She sighed as she pa.s.sed into the room, the nurse following with a large pasteboard box.