"Trouble?" she demanded. "You mean he's done wrong? What d'you mean?

What sort of--trouble?"

The man shook his head.

"No. It's not that. It's--your mother. You know, Nancy, he loved your mother in a way that leaves a good man broken to pieces when he loses the object of his love. Every good thought he ever had was bound up in your mother. And your mother was his strong support, and literally his guiding star. You've lost your mother. You know how you felt. Well, I can't tell you, but think, try and think what it would be if you'd lost just every hope in life, too--the same as he has."

"I'd--I'd want to die," the girl cried impulsively.

"Yes. So would anyone. So does he. Just as far as the world's concerned he's dead now. You'll never see him, or hear from him. Nor will anyone else--except me. He'll never come into your life after this. He'll never claim his legal guardianship of you, beyond that doc.u.ment. To you he's dead, leaving you heir to what is contained in that deed. He's just a poor devil of a man hunted and haunted through the rest of his existence by the memory of a love that was more than life to him. Try and think better of him, Nancy, my dear. He's got enough to bear. I think he deserves far better than he's ever likely to get handed to him. I tell you solemnly, my dear, whatever sins he may have committed, and most of us have committed plenty," he added, with a gentle smile, "he's done you no real hurt. And now he's only doing that good by you I would expect from him."

Nancy sighed deeply, and it needed no words of hers to tell the man of law how well he had fought his friend's battle. A deep wave of childish pity had swept away the last of a resentment which had seemed so bitter, so implacable. It was the generous heart of the child, shorn, for the moment, of its inheritance from her father. Her even brows had puckered, and the man knew that tears, real tears of sympathy, were not far off.

"Tell me," she said, in a low voice. "Tell me some more."

But the man shook his head. "I can't tell you more," he said gently.

"Where your stepfather is, or where he will be to-morrow, I may not tell you. Even when your mother was alive you were not permitted to know these things. That was due to the 'circ.u.mstances' I told you of. It just remains for me to tell you the contents of that doc.u.ment. They're as generous as only your stepfather knows how to make them. He's appointed me your trustee. And he's settled on you a life annuity of $10,000.

There are a few simple conditions. You will remain at college till your education is complete, and, until you are twenty-one I shall have control of your income. That is," he explained, "I shall see that you don't handle it recklessly. During that time, subject to my approval, you can make your home with whom you like. After you've pa.s.sed your twenty-first birthday you are as free as air to go or come, to live where you choose, and how you choose. And your income will be forthcoming from this office--every quarter. Do you understand all that, my dear? It's so very simple. Your stepfather has gone to the limit to show you how well he desires for you, and how free of his authority he wants you to be. There is another generous act of his that will be made clear to you when the time comes. But that is for the future--not now.

His last word to me," he went on, picking up a letter, "when he sent me the deed duly signed, was: 'Tell this little girl when you hand her these things, it isn't my wish to trouble her with an authority which can have little enough appeal for her. Tell her that her mother was my whole world, and it is my earnest desire that her daughter should have all the good and comfort this world can bestow. If ever she needs further help she can have it without question, and that she only has to appeal to my friend and adviser, Charles Nisson, for anything she requires.'"

The man laid the letter aside and looked up.

"That's the last paragraph of the last communication I had from him. And they're not the words of a monstrous tyrant who is utterly heartless, eh?"

The girl made no answer. Her emotion was too strong for her. Two great tears rolled slowly down her beautiful cheeks.

The lawyer rose from his chair. He came round the desk and laid a gentle hand on the heaving shoulder, while Nancy strove to wipe her tears away with a wholly inadequate handkerchief.

"That's right, my dear," he said very gently. "Wipe them away. There's no need to cry. Leslie's done all a man in his peculiar position can do for you. You've got the whole wide world before you, and everything you can need for comfort--thanks to him. Now let's forget about it all. Just take that paper back to school with you. And maybe you'll write, or come and let me know what you think about it. If you feel like making your home with us, why, that way you'll just complete our happiness. If you feel like going to your mother's sister, Anna Scholes, I shan't refuse you. Anyway, think about it all. That's my big talk and it's finished.

Just get your overcoat on, and we'll get right along home to food."

CHAPTER VI

NATHANIEL h.e.l.lBEAM

The room was furnished with extreme modern luxury. The man standing over against the window with his broad back turned, somehow looked to be in perfect keeping with the setting his personal tastes had inspired. He was broad, squat, fat. His head and neck were set low upon his shoulders, and the hair oil was obvious on the longish dark hair which seemed to grow low down under his shirt collar.

The other man, seated in one of the many easy chairs, was in strong contrast. His was the familiar face of the agent, Idepski, dark, keen, watchful. He was smoking the cigarette to which he had helped himself from the gold box standing near him on the ornate desk.

"You seem to have made a bad mess of things."

Nathaniel h.e.l.lbeam turned from the window and came back to his desk with quick, short, energetic strides.

He presented a picture of inflamed wrath. His fleshy, square face was flushed and almost purple. His small eyes were hot with anger. They snapped as he launched his harshly spoken verdict. His whole manner bristled with merciless intolerance.

He was enormously fat, and breathed heavily through clean shaven lips that protruded sensually. His age was doubtful, but suggested something under middle life. It was the gross bulk of the man that made it almost impossible to estimate closely. The only real youth about him was his dark, well oiled hair which possessed not a sign of greying in it.

He flung himself into the wide chair which gaped to receive him, and glared at the dark face of his visitor.

"What in the h.e.l.l do I pay you for?" he cried brutally, lapsing, in his anger, into that gutteral Teutonic accent which it was his life's object to avoid. "A wild cat's scheme it was I tell you from the first. You go to this Sachigo with your men. You think to get this 'sharp' asleep, or what? You find him wide awake waiting for you to arrive. What then? He jumps quick. So quick you can't think. You a prisoner are. You go where he sends you. You live like a swine in the woods. You are made to work for your food. And a year is gone. A year! Serve you darn right. Oh, yes. Bah! You quit. You understand? I pay you no more. You are a fool, a blundering fool. I wash my hands with you."

Idepski sat still, patient, as once before he had sat under the whip lash of a man's tongue. And he continued smoking till the great banker's last word was spoken.

Then he stirred, and removed his cigarette from his thin lips.

"That's all right, Mr. h.e.l.lbeam," he said coldly. "It seems like you've a right to all you've said. It seems, I said. But the 'fool' talk." He shook his head. "My best enemies don't reckon me that--generally. The game I'm playing has room enough for things that look like blunders. I allow that. It doesn't matter. You see, I know more of this feller Martin maybe than you do. I guess he's a mighty big coward, except when he's got the drop on a feller. I've given him the scare of a lifetime, and I've unshipped him from his safe anchorage on that darn Labrador coast. Do you know what's happened? I'll tell you. He's quit Sachigo.

From what I can learn he's sold out his mill to that uncouth hoodlum, Harker, who was sort of his partner, and quit. Where? I don't know yet.

Why has he quit? Why, because he knows we've located his hiding, and will get him if he remains. You reckon I've mussed things up." He shook his head. "He was well-nigh safe up there on Labrador--and I knew it. We had to get him out of it. Well, I've got him out. He's bolted like a gopher, and it's up to me to locate him. I shall locate him. I'm glad he's quit that h.e.l.lish country. I've had a year of it, and it's put the fear of G.o.d into me. You needn't worry. I'm quite ready to quit your pay. But I'm going on with this thing, sure. You see, I owe him quite a piece for myself--now. I've been through the h.e.l.l he intended me to go through when he sent me along up to be held prisoner by that skunk, Ole Porson. I'm going to pay him for that--good. I don't want your pay--now.

One day I'll hand that feller over to you--and when you've doped him plenty--you'll have paid me." He rose leisurely from his comfortable chair. "May I take another of your good cigarettes?" he went on, with a half smile in his cold eyes. "You see, I won't get another, seeing I'm quitting you."

He deliberately helped himself without waiting for permission, while his eyes dwelt on the gold box containing them.

But the financier's mood had changed. The keen mind was busy behind his narrow eyes. Perhaps Idepski understood the man. Perhaps the coolness of the agent appealed to the implacable nature of the Swede. Whatever it was the hot eyes had cooled, and the fleshy cheeks had returned to their normal pasty hue. He raised a hand pointing.

"Sit down and smoke all you need," he said, in the sharp, autocratic fashion that was his habit. "We aren't through yet." Then, for a few moments, he regarded the slim figure as it lay back once more in the armchair. "Say," he began, abruptly, "you reckon to go on for--yourself?

Yes? You're a good hater."

He went on as the other inclined his head.

"I like a good hater. Yes. Well, just cut out all I said. We'll go on. I guess you'll need to blunder some before we get this swine. You're bound to. But I want him. I want him bad. If it's good for you to go on for yourself, that's good for me. There's a lifetime ahead yet, and I don't care so I see him down--right down where I need him. Maybe I won't get the money, but we'll get him, and that'll do. Yes, cut out what I said, and go ahead. Tell me about it."

Idepski displayed neither enthusiasm nor added interest. He accepted the position with seeming indifference. h.e.l.lbeam to him was just an employer. A means to those ends which he had in view. If h.e.l.lbeam turned him down it would mean a setback, but not a disaster, and Idepski appraised setbacks at their simple value, without exaggeration. Besides, he knew that this Swede, powerful, wealthy as he was, could not afford to do without him in this matter. His intolerant, hectic temper mattered nothing at all. He paid for the privilege of its display, and he paid well. So--

"There's nothing much to tell," the agent returned, with a shrug. "I'm going to get him--that's all. See here, Mr. h.e.l.lbeam," he went on after a pause, with a sudden change to keen energy, "you're a mighty big power in the financial world, and to be that I guess you've had to be some judge of the other feller. That's so. You most generally know when he's beat before you begin. And when he squeals it don't come as a surprise.

Well, that's how it is with me, only it's a bigger thing to me because it sometimes happens to mean the difference between life and death. Say, when you put up your bluff at a feller, and watch him square in the eyes, and you see 'em flicker and shift, do you reckon you've lit on the 'yellow streak,' that lies somewhere in most folk? I guess so. Well, that's how I know my man. I've seen it in this b.u.m, Leslie Standing as he calls himself now. And when I saw it I knew he was beat, for all he'd the drop on me. Since then my notion's proved itself. He's lit out. He's cut from his gopher hole at Sachigo. An' when a gopher gets away from his hole, the man with the gun has him dead set. But say, that muss up you reckon I made doesn't look that way when you know the things it's taught me. While I was way up at that penitentiary camp on the Beaver River I kept all my ears and eyes wide, and I learned most of the things a feller's liable to learn in this world when he acts that way. I learned something of the notions lying back of this feller's work up there. Say, he hadn't finished with you when he took that ten millions out of you." An ironical smile lit the man's dark eyes as he thrust home his retaliation for the financier's insults. "Not by a lot," he went on, with a smiling display of teeth that conveyed nothing pleasant. "They've a slogan up there that means a whole heap, and it comes from him, and runs through the whole work going on, right down to the c.h.i.n.k camp cooks. Guess that mill is only beginning. It's the ground work of a mighty big notion. And the notion is to drive the Skandinavians out of Canada's pulp trade, and very particularly the Swedes, as represented by the interests of Nathaniel h.e.l.lbeam. Guess you sit right here in New York, but up there they've got you measured up to the last pant's b.u.t.ton."

"They that think?"

The financier's bloated cheeks purpled as he put his clumsy interrogation.

"Oh, yes. This feller Standing reckons he's made a big start, and there are mighty big plans out. When he and that clownish partner of his, Harker, are through, Sachigo'll be the biggest proposition in the way of groundwood pulp in the world. They've forests such as you in Skandinavia dream about when your digestion's feeling good. They've a water power that leaves Niagara a summer trickle. They've got it all with a sea journey of less than eighteen hundred miles to Europe. But there's more than that. When Sachigo's complete it's to be the parent company of a mighty combine that's going to take in all the mills of Canada outside Nathaniel h.e.l.lbeam's group. And then--then, sir, the squeeze'll start right in. And it isn't going to stop till the sponge--that's Nathaniel h.e.l.lbeam--is wrung dry."

"You heard all this--when you were held prisoner and working like a swine in Martin's forests?"

The smile in h.e.l.lbeam's eyes was no less ironical than the agent's.

"When I was working like a swine."

"These lumber-jacks. They knew all that in Standing's mind is?"

"No. But I learned it all."

"How?"

The demand was instant, and a surge of force lay behind it.