"How will you explain her mother's shame?"

"Ah!" Von Barwig glared at him in silence. "You will shield yourself behind the mother, eh?" he asked.

"How will you explain her mother's shame?" again asked Stanton.

"I don't explain it! You talked her mother's name away--now talk it back! You're a clever man with words. You'll find a way out of it, Ahlmann."

Stanton was now almost beside himself with fear and anger.

"What can you do for the girl after you have disgraced her? Think what I have done for her," pleaded Stanton. "She is honoured, respected, cultured, refined, a lady of social distinction. Are you going to drag her down to Houston Street, to the Bowery, to the Dime Museum?"

Von Barwig felt the force of this argument, and he knew there was no reply to be made. His anger was gone--he was thoughtful now.

Stanton saw that he was gaining ground. "For her sake, Von Barwig," he pleaded; "for her sake! Just think!"

Von Barwig interrupted him with a gesture, motioning him to silence.

"Look here, Ahlmann," his voice was strangely quiet now. "I knew! I knew an hour ago who you were, whose house I was in. As she sat at the piano near me I could have touched her with my hand. My heart cried out, 'I am her father; I am her father!' For sixteen years I wait for that moment and then I get it; I get it! It's mine; but I pa.s.s it! I put it aside; I would not tell her."

"You knew," interrupted Stanton, "and you did not speak!"

"I would have come here, to this house," went on Von Barwig, his voice quivering with excitement and emotion; "I would have come and gone as a friend, an old friend, if you had kept silent. But no, two fathers cannot live so with a child between them. One of them is bound to speak out and that one is you, you! You spoke. 'Twas you who said to your servants, 'Take this man and throw him into the streets like a dog.' 'Twas you who destroyed my letters; 'twas you who destroyed my child's letters--letters to me. 'Twas you who told my own flesh and blood to treat me as a dog--a dog! You made me plead and beg; you made me suffer for sixteen long and weary years. Now I take what is mine,"

screamed Von Barwig. "You hear! I take what is mine!" and he strode over to the bell and deliberately rang it.

"Don't, don't for heaven's sake!" shouted Stanton, trying to restrain him. It was too late and Stanton almost fell back into his chair.

"Come, stand up! To your feet, Ahlmann!" shouted Von Barwig in a loud voice. "I cannot throw you from your house as you would me; but I can empty it for you. Come! I want to introduce you to your friends." He threw the door wide open. Stanton came forward as if to close it, but Von Barwig waved him back. "Stay where you are," he cried. "I introduce yon to your friends as you are. She shall choose between us.

Against your money and respectability I put my life. Your friends shall choose; she shall choose; the young man she is to marry--he shall choose." The old man was now almost incoherent. "I have her back! she is mine, she is mine!" At this juncture Joles entered.

"Speak; tell him!" shouted Von Barwig. "If you don't, I do!"

"Call Miss Stanton," said Mr. Stanton.

"And her friends," commanded Von Barwig.

Stanton nodded acquiescence; and Joles left the room.

"You've ruined me; and you'll ruin her," said Stanton in despair.

"I get her back, I get her back!" repeated Von Barwig over and over again. "She is mine."

"Very well! she is yours, then," replied Stanton in desperation.

"Yours with this disgraceful scandal over her head."

"I don't care! She is mine--I get her back," was all Von Barwig could say.

"Yours with her engagement at an end, her heart broken! Yes, her heart broken! Do you think they'll take her into that family, do you think they will receive your daughter, the daughter of a----"

Von Barwig was now almost hysterical. "If they don't take her, I take her! If they don't want her, I want her. She's mine, I'm going to have her! I want my own flesh and blood. Do you hear, Ahlmann? I'm tired of waiting, tired of starving for the love of my own. I'm selfish, I'm selfish!" in his excitement the old man banged his clenched fist several times on the table. "I'm selfish! I want her, and by G.o.d I'm going to have her!" At this juncture Helene came into the room. There was a dead silence. Von Barwig saw her and his clenched fist dropped harmlessly by his side. He stood there silently waiting. Helene looked at Mr. Stanton; his head was bowed low and he uttered not a word. She looked inquiringly at Von Barwig. He seemed incapable of speaking.

"Father," she said in a low, gentle voice. Neither man answered.

Stanton dared not, and Von Barwig steeled himself against telling her the truth. Stanton's words had had their effect; Von Barwig was unwilling to ruin the girl's chances for his own selfish interests.

"You have explained?" she asked Von Barwig. He nodded, but did not speak. The sound of approaching voices caught their ears. Joles threw open both doors and Mr. Cruger came into the room with his son and Mrs.

Cruger, followed by many others. They greeted Mr. Stanton, who welcomed them as well as he could. In a few moments the conversation became general. Von Barwig stood apart from them. Mr. Stanton, nervous and anxious, watched him closely. Mrs. Cruger fastened a beautiful diamond pendant on Helene's neck. Mr. Cruger kissed her.

"We cannot give you the wealth of your father, my dear child," said he; "but we can give you a name against which there has never been a breath; an honoured name, a name with which we are very proud to entrust you!"

Von Barwig heard this, and groaned aloud in his misery.

"I'm very happy, very happy!" said Helene.

Others gathered around the happy pair and showered congratulations on them. After a short while Beverly saw Von Barwig in the corner of the room and went over and greeted him. Helene joined them.

"Is it all arranged between you and father?" she asked.

Von Barwig nodded.

"I knew you could explain," said Helene.

"Yes, he has let me explain!" said Von Barwig with a deep sigh. He was quite calm now. "Pardon the liberty I take--I--forgive me--" he placed Beverly's and Helene's hands one in the other. "Pardon the liberty I take; I am an old man," he said in a low voice. "I wish you both--long life--much prosperity--much happiness--much joy to you both. G.o.d bless you, children; excuse me, I speak as a father. G.o.d bless you!" and the old man picked his hat up from the table on which he had deposited it and wiped away the tears that were coursing down his cheeks. Stanton, who had been watching him closely, uttered a cry of joy. Von Barwig went out of the room slowly, shutting the door behind him.

Chapter Twenty-three

It was midwinter nearly a year later. The cold was the severest in the memory of any inmate of the Houston Street establishment, including Miss Husted herself. Everything was frozen solid. It was nearly as cold inside the house as it was outside, greatly to Miss Husted's dismay, for added to the increased expenditure for coal, the services of the plumber to thaw out frozen water and gas pipes were in constant requisition. Houston Mansion was a corner house with an open s.p.a.ce next door, and the biting north winds on three sides of the unprotected old walls added greatly to the discomfort and suffering of the "guests"

within. In every sense it was a record breaker. There had already been three blizzards in the past month and a fourth was now in progress. It was on the top floor, however, that the extreme severity of the winter was felt. The cold biting winds howled and wailed over the roof, circling around the skylight and forcing their way through the cracked and broken panes of gla.s.s. It was impossible to keep the draughty old hallway warm with the one small stove intended for that purpose. Pinac, Fico and Poons, huddled together around the fire bundled up in their overcoats, had to place their feet on the stove to keep them warm or blow on their fingers and walk about the room to keep their blood in circulation.

At this time Pinac and Fico were playing at Galazatti's for their dinners, being unable to obtain more profitable engagements, and Poons was playing in an uptown theatre. Poons was trying to save enough money to get married, and neither Pinac nor Fico would touch a penny of his earnings, although the boy generously offered them all or any part of his savings to help them tide over until the Spring, when they were reasonably sure of obtaining lucrative engagements. The men had just finished their breakfast and Jenny was washing the dishes for them.

"I shall lay a cloth for the breakfast of Von Barwig when he shall wake up," said Pinac, suiting the action to the word and spreading a red tablecloth on the rickety wooden table. "His work at the Museum keeps him so late he must sleep late."

"Sacoroto, the rotten museum he play at, I wish it was dead," growled Fico.

They knew now that Von Barwig played at a cheap amus.e.m.e.nt resort on the Bowery, and that it kept him out till early morning; and they loved him for it all the more. They knew that necessity, not choice, had driven him to it. Besides, it made them more akin to him, for it brought him nearer their own artistic standard, and yet they did not lose one atom of respect for the old man. Gone was his commanding spirit, and in its place was a quiet, gentle dignity which called forth respect as well as love; but above all--love.

"He is sleeping later than usual," said Jenny as she restored the crockery to its proper place in the cupboard.

"All the strength of the coffee will boil away," murmured Fico.

"Parbleu! we make new coffee for him," replied Pinac.

"He have sleep long enough. I call him," said Fico, tapping lightly on the door of the lumber room that served Von Barwig as a bedroom.

Receiving no reply, Fico knocked louder. Finally he pushed open the door. It had no lock on it and the catch was broken. Fico looked into the room, shook his head and then turned and stared at his friends.

"He have gone up," he said with an anxious look. "You mean he have get up," suggested Pinac. "Got up!" corrected Jenny. "Yes," replied Fico.

"He is got up and out."