He pressed Stuart's arm and spoke in low tones:

"I've made some big mistakes in my life, my boy. I'm just beginning to see them. I've read a new message in the flutter of this poor fellow's pulse. I'll not be slow to heed it."

But Stuart stood watching with growing wonder Harriet's deft little hand brush the damp hair back from the poor disfigured face.

CHAPTER XV

CONFESSION

The face of the dying boy haunted the doctor's imagination. With his eyes closed or open, at noon or alone at night the pity and the horror of his lonely death gripped him. A boy of twenty, weak, hungry, ragged, alone, had dared to lift his thin arm above his head and charge the entrenched authority of the civilized world.

Was he, with other theorists, responsible for the mad act?

He began to think that Tolstoy is right in his assertion that human progress is a march of ideas--and that the day of revolution by bloodshed has passed. He began to fear that his struggle with Bivens in his long-drawn and fiercely contested lawsuit was an act of the same essential quality of blind physical violence. He began to see that the real motive back of his struggle was hatred of the man--this little counter jumper, who had destroyed his business. It was the irony of such a fate that sunk its poisoned dagger into his heart. He faced the fact at last without flinching.

He rose and paced the floor of his library for a half-hour with measured tread. He stopped suddenly and clenched his big fists instinctively.

"I do hate him--with undying, everlasting hatred, and I pray God to give me greater strength to hate him more!"

Again the picture of the pale, torn, blood-stained face, with its mute piteous appeal, rose before him. The anger slowly melted out of his heart and the old thought came back:

"How rich is my life after all compared to his!"

And then he made a mental inventory of his assets, with sad results. He had tried for a long time not to face those facts. But if he gave up the suit he must face them. He had identified this action at last with his faith in the very existence of justice. To realize that the element of personal hatred was the motive power back of it was a shock to the whole structure of his character.

He rose with sudden determination. He would not surrender. He would fight it out with this little swarthy scoundrel, win or lose. His house was mortgaged, the last dollar of his savings he had spent in helping others and the money set aside to finish Harriet's course in music had been lost in the panic. He would fight it out somehow and win. But the one thing that must not fail was the perfection of his girl's voice.

The court of appeals would certainly render their decision before her next term's work would begin. She could rest during the summer. It would do her good. If he could be firm with his tenants and collect his room-rents promptly from everyone, the income from his house was still sufficient to pay the interest on the mortgage and give them a little to eat. It would be enough. Food for the soul was more important. He resolved to ask Stuart to collect his rents.

He looked up and Harriet stood smiling at him.

"What an actor you would have made, Papa!" she exclaimed.

"Why?"

"I've been watching you play a great scene, all the characters by yourself."

"A foolish habit, dear!" the father laughed. "Always muttering and talking to myself. I suppose I'll be arrested for a lunatic some day."

He stopped suddenly and looked at Harriet closely.

"Come here, Baby."

She came and stood beside his chair. He pressed her hand tenderly.

"What have you been crying about?" he asked anxiously.

"Oh, nothing much," was the low answer. "I really don't know--perhaps the thing that makes the birds out there in the Square chirp while the snow is still on the ground, the feeling that Spring is coming."

"You're keeping something from me, dearest," he whispered, slipping his arm about her waist. "Tell me."

"You really believe in my voice, don't you?" she asked slowly.

"Believe in it? Do I believe in God?"

"Could I go abroad right away and finish my work there?"

She asked the question with such painful intensity, the father looked up with a start.

"What's the matter, dear?"

The girl slipped her arm around his neck with a sob.

He bent and kissed the golden hair, stroking it fondly until she was calmer.

"Why do you wish to go now, child?" he asked at last.

"I've a confession to make, Papa dear."

The little head sank low and the arm tightened its grip about his neck.

"What is it, darling? I'm sure it's nothing of which you're ashamed."

"No, something of which I'm proud. Something so sweet and wonderful in itself, the very joy of it I feel sometimes will kill me. I'm in love, desperately and hopelessly."

Again a sob caught her voice, and the father's arms drew her to his heart and held her.

"But why hopelessly, my baby?" he asked. "Your hair is beaten gold, your eyes are deep and true, your slender little form has all the symmetry and beauty of a sylph. You are young, radiant, glorious, and your voice the angels would envy."

"But the man I love doesn't realize all that yet, Papa dear. He is bound by the memories of the past to a woman he once loved, a woman who is evil at heart, and though she betrayed him for the lust of money, is determined to hold him still her slave. But she shall not. I'll fight for him! And you'll help me, Papa, won't you?"

The father drew her close.

"Won't I--just wait and see!--But you haven't told me his name? I've been very blind, I fear."

"You've never guessed?"

She lifted her face to his in surprise.

"No."

"Jim."

"Our Jim Stuart?"

She nodded. Her voice wouldn't work.