|×
|-
（ ）
）
|-
|-
-
-
-
- -
：，：
|-
- |-
-
-
-


a gº K J WW
--~~~~~ º
LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORN/A


e -





WHEN LOVE SPEAKS





WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
BY
WILL PAYNE
“And when love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.”
— Love's Labour's Lost.
TWeſt, gork
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1906
All rights reserved


LOAN STACK
3.36. Gr
CopyRIGHT, 1906,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1906.
Mortggot 4Bregg
J. S. Cushing & Co. —Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS





WHEN LOVE SPEAKs
CHAPTER I
SAUGANAC, as doubtless every one knows, lies at
the mouth of the river of that name, on the east
shore of Lake Michigan, a day's ride by boat from
Chicago. Stoves, lumber, and patent medicines are
its best-known products, and it contains some
seventy-five thousand souls. The town is built
mainly around the foot of a long, wooded bluff that
flanks the river; but the manufactories are mostly
on the other, or north, side of the stream. From
that bank at night the moons of the arc street-
lamps and lighted windows of dwellings showing
through the leafy screen of the wooded bluff make
a pretty sight — to which head lamps of gliding
trolley cars and ogre eyes of rushing automobiles
up on Overlook Boulevard lend an attractively
theatric touch.
The town looks prosperous. In the business sec-
tion the streets are paved with brick; in the better
residence districts, with asphalt, or macadamized.
Along Overlook Boulevard are residences which, in
various architectural modes, show that the fresh-
B 1


2 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
water port has, in its half-century, produced its
share of wealth and social selection. Down town,
the First National Bank Building is eleven stories
high, and has a marble rotunda with a gilded
frieze.
Of course there is the other side. To the south
of the bluff – especially near the shore, on Fish,
Dock, and Lake streets — the view is rather dis-
mal. Wooden block pavement, put in long ago
with too scant foundations and too little of every-
thing except graft, has gone to wreck. Along the
ruined curb are mud-puddles in which broken pieces
of the pavement forlornly float. The plank side-
walks sag. /
Number 412 Lake Street was once a dwelling of
some pretensions. It has a basement — long dis-
used. A pair of stairs with an iron rail leads from
the street up to a front door, once black, with an
urn and a dropsical dove in each panel of frosted
glass. A mansard roof forms the second story, and
gives the appearance of an uncannily swollen head.
Two square windows in this upper story look like
eyes unpleasantly set in the midst of the bulging
brow.
One warm September evening a light shone against
the cracked green paper shade of the south window.
In the bare sleeping room within a suit-case lay open
on the bed. A well-made young woman was taking
things out of the wobbly bureau and packing them
in the suit-case with a decisive vigor which betrayed


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 3
temper. She was handsome, but perhaps not just
in the way a proper young lady would choose. Her
large, dark eyes under nearly straight brows might
have been called bold. There was a militant sug-
gestion in the set of her fine shoulders.
Occupying the only chair in the room — a weak-
backed willow rocker — Mr. Harris Doane watched
her vigorous movements. He was her brother-in-
law — unless his wife, during the last five years,
had secured a divorce somewhere out West, which
Doane disinterestedly considered probable. He was
still a youngish man in appearance, strongly built,
but rather fat. He wore a small mustache, jauntily
twisted up at the ends. Puffy lids drooped over his
brown and slightly bloodshot eyes. He made it a
point to have everything about his apparel as ex-
pensive and genteel as possible. Even the heavy
revolver in his hip pocket was pearl-handled, and
cost eighteen dollars.
“You always was a fool, Fan,” he observed.
“I was a fool to have anything to do with you,”
Fanny retorted. “I might have known it was a
crooked game, or you wouldn’t be in it.” She lifted
her handsome head angrily. “I did know it was a
crooked game. I knew it at the start l”
“Well, what's got you sore on it then?” he
asked.
She folded the shirt-waist and laid it in the suit-
case without replying. She knew of old that he
could not understand.


4 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
Some four weeks before, being in quest of employ-
ment, she had unluckily encountered her resourceful
relative and he had offered her a job. The generous
lure of twenty-five dollars a week tempted her sorely.
The job was conducting what Doane fancifully
named The Golden Horn Assurance Reserve In-
vestment Bond Corporation. She had nothing to
do but send out what he called the “dope,” and turn
over to him, on his semi-weekly visits, the accumu-
lated letters containing one-dollar bills. She knew
it was a kind of fake, swindling policy game.
“The suckers are simply bound to lose their
money anyhow,” he now philosophized, in answer
to her unspoken scruples. “You couldn’t nail it
to 'em with railroad spikes so’s they'd keep it. It's
real kindness to take it away from 'em with neatness
and despatch. I been in a lot of these games first
and last. First I used to set up nights and hire a
lawyer to fix a scheme that'd look good. Gawd!
I wish I had the money I’ve paid Wes Wogan for
fixin' 'em up legal.”
“Much good the money did that drunkard l’” she
commented.
“Wes Wogan's the best lawyer in Mission County
if he'd cut out the booze,” Doane replied. “But
fixing up pretty schemes is no good. Any old scheme
will do. The suckers simply got to lose their dough
or they’d drop dead. You’re a sucker yourself,
Fan.” He grinned humorously. “Gawd! I ought
to sell you a Golden Horn bond l’’


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 5
“Maybe I'm a sucker,” she replied darkly; “but
you ain’t as Smart as you think you are. You’ll
wind up in jail if you don’t clear out of here.”
“Aw, come off l’’ he replied with some irritation.
“What you getting back to that rot for? Suppose
I could have run here a month if I hadn't seen the
police? They’ve had their share good and plenty,
I tell you.”
“All the same, you ain’t as smart as you think
you are,” she iterated stubbornly. “I suppose you
have seen the police. But you grafters ain’t going
to have your own way much longer. There's men
you can’t buy.”
He regarded her speculatively a moment. “I
suppose you mean that duck Holmes, the reform
prosecuting attorney. Why, he's the biggest sucker
going. Gawd! I ought to sell him a bond l’’
“You can’t buy him, just the same !” she declared
significantly.
Her oracular manner excited his curiosity. As
she lifted some things out of the bureau drawer he
studied her back thoughtfully, and found the clew
he sought. “You’ve been up to see his wife Little
Kittie Donovan So that's what's eating you !”
She looked over her shoulder, flushing angrily. “I
have been to see Kittie | It's to her house I’m
going in the morning. So there !”
Reflecting upon this new phase, he saw her take a
well-worn jacket from the drawer, unfold it, and ex-
tract from the inner pocket an odd-looking envelope,


6 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
of large letter-size, tied up with a faded red ribbon.
The envelope appeared old, and he noticed, with a
sort of professional interest, that she laid it on
a corner of the bureau before walking over to the
bed with an armful of wearing gear.
“It don’t mean anything to you, Harris Doane,”
she said, “but I’ve been a square woman all my
life.”
“Gawd! I wish it run in the family l’’ he observed.
She ignored this delicate reference to her sister.
“I’ve supported myself since I was twelve years old,
and worked like a dog to do it, too. I never did any-
thing crooked before. And if you know when you’re
well off, you’ll clear out,” she concluded somewhat
inconsequentially.
“You don't mean you'll give me away?” he de-
manded.
Again she turned duskily red. “You’re just a
dog ' You don’t know what it is to be square l’’
Her opinion of his character seemed not to interest
him; but he ran his stout white fingers through his
pompadour reflectively. “Clear out it is, then,” he
said coolly. “Get out the dope and we'll burn it.”
“Do you mean it, Harris?” she cried with a note
of pleasure.
“What else is there to do?” he answered rather
sullenly. “Get out the dope.”
Her eyes still showed pleasure. She went
promptly to the wash-stand and lighted a half-
burned candle. “I’ll do it in two minutes,” she


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 7
said. He did not reply; but sat running his fingers
through his pompadour. She went briskly down-
stairs.
The “dope” consisted of pamphlets and circular
letters describing the advantages of the Golden
Horn Assurance Reserve Bond Investment Corpora-
tion, and these comprised the only tangible assets
of that concern. There was no need of bookkeep-
ing. Whatever money came in Doane pocketed.
Closing the dining-room doors, to prevent a light
showing from the street, Fanny put an armload of
the dope in the grate and applied her candle. Then
a belated suspicion crossed her mind. She ran noise-
lessly upstairs and applied her eye to the crack of
the half-open bedroom door.
Mr. Doane stood by the bureau. In one hand he
held a large letter-size envelope, curiously old-
looking, a piece of faded red ribbon, and a small
packet of sheathless letters. The other hand held
one of the letters open, and he was reading it with
much amusement. Fanny flew in.
“You dirty dog! You miserable sneak-thief l’’
she cried, and sought to seize the letters.
He had time to whip them behind his back, and,
half-turning, obtrude a defensive shoulder to her
assault. Her feminine fury simply heightened his
amusement.
“Tell me whose they are, Fan, and I’ll give them
up,” he said, gasping with merriment and fending
as well as he could with his shoulder.


8 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
She stopped her ineffectual clawing for the let-
ters. “They're my mother's,” she panted, her face
aflame.
Doane could hardly contain himself. “I knew
it !” he gasped. “The old girl’s 1 Then they're
from Fred Hasbrook 1 I remember about it ! Haw !
Haw l’’ Tears ran from his eyes. “The old girl and
Freddy ‘Oh, my beloved l’ And ‘Her shining
eyes!' Gawd! I always said the left one was
glass 1 That's shiny enough !”
For all his well-nigh uncontrollable mirth he no-
ticed that the flush on her face was succeeded by
pallor; her eyes glittered; her lower lip protruded
slightly; and she balled her right hand into a very
efficient-looking fist. Instincts, born of many ex-
periences, warned him that his position, with his
hands behind his back, was a poor one strategetically,
and that he was about to receive a punch on the
nose propelled by all the vigor of an arm nearly as
muscular as his own. He promptly produced the
letters.
“Don’t get excited, Fan,” he said mollifyingly.
“Gawd! You ain’t got any sense of humor l’” He
wiped the tears from his eyes.
Her fingers trembled as she refolded the letter he
had opened, replaced them all in the old envelope,
and retied it with the red ribbon. For a very inter-
esting moment Doane wondered whether she was
going to notice the absence of the one which –
mostly as a mere matter of professional pride — he


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 9
had put up his sleeve while his hands were behind
his back. Evidently she wasn’t — which height-
ened his amusement as he followed her down-stairs.
They worked silently — Doane still with mirth-
moistened eyes – conveying the dope to the grate.
Then she straightened up abruptly, listening.
“There's somebody at the back door,” she said
under her breath.
He followed her as she stole to the dark kitchen,
softly lifted a corner of the window shade, and peered
out. Then she ran to the door and opened it.
Doane heard a mellow, low-pitched old voice
saying: “Yes'm, Miss Fanny. It's from Miss Kittie,
to be read right off sharp. She say, ‘Don’ wait a
minute fer nothin'!’”
Naturally, when Fanny hurried to the lighted din-
ing room, Doane followed. He saw her tear the
square, cream-colored envelope, and snatch forth a
note.
“It’s a raid The sheriff's coming !” She spoke
it breathlessly, with wide, fear-stricken eyes.
“Rats l’” said Doane, incredulously.
“It is It is 1 Seel” she held out the note, her
eyes burning with excitement.
The note said: “Endicott will raid your place at
eight. Don’t wait a minute.” It was signed with
the letter K.
“Quick | It's almost that 1 I'll get my suit-case !”
she gasped, and ran headlong for the stairs.
A minute later when she came flying down, her


10 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
suit-case in one hand, her hat in the other, the flames
were dancing merrily over the last of the dope.
“Follow me,” said Doane, businesslike.
“Harris I Give me Kittie's note ſ” she said.
“I chucked it in the fire,” he answered, and slipped
into the kitchen.
As she followed him she knew he was lying, and
wished to say more; but her heart was pounding at
the base of her throat; there was a rushing in her
head. She felt, rather than saw, that he took the
revolver from his hip pocket; and she had a sort of
sickening sense of him as a big, bloody cat, as he
stepped softly to the curtain and peered out. She
heard his tense whisper, “Here's a man; run like
hell l’’
He flung the door open, leapt, and hammered fu-
riously with the butt of his revolver. She knew he
was upon the man; vaguely heard the impact of the
blows; and ran with all her might. She half tumbled
down the back stairs; staggered on, gaining her feet;
and raced blindly up the alley, clutching her suit-
CaSe.
Some three hours later she made her way out of a
brushy wood upon a road. She had lost her hat in
the tumble down the stairs; but still clutched the
suit-case. Down below she saw the vague shining
of the river in the dark. Something in her desperate
mind had been driving her on toward it. She was
weary, torn, bedraggled; and she presently paused
a moment by the roadside to get her bearings.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 11
Dimly outlined against the sky above her were the
tops of three giant pines. Then she made out the
tall, iron fence. She stretched out her hand and
touched it. In a moment she discerned the bulk of
a house back among the trees.
She was in front of the Hasbrook place. She
could not tell what the hot and deadly bitter emo-
tion was that rushed over her. She crossed the road
to the river side, swung her suit-case and hurled it
far out, and heard it light in the underbrush near the
foot of the bluff. Throwing away the suit-case was
Some way conclusive. She was not going to the
river. So she sat down on the grassy roadside and
wept, heart-brokenly. With that idea of the river
driving her, she had felt a certain tragic dignity.
Now she was utterly forlorn and abased; and her
Sore-wounded heart turned to Kittie.
She knew she oughtn't to do it. She had made
Kittie trouble enough. But when that great, help-
less ache came in one's breast, one must, some way,
find a mother lap.
Two o'clock in the morning, cold, torn, bedraggled,
half-dead with fatigue, she slipped in at the alley
gate and sat down on a box by Kittie Holmes's back
fence. When it began to lighten a little, so she could
see the outlines of the house, she stole to the stable
door, unlatched it, slipped in, and hid herself behind
the stairs leading to the haymow — to wait for
morning and whoever should discover her.


CHAPTER II
THE strengthening daylight presently revealed
the newness of Holmes's house. The mortar be-
tween the trim white stones of the foundation was
quite fresh. It was a simple, comfortable, square
frame structure with a wide veranda in front.
Holmes had built it that summer for his bride. The
lawn, uptorn in building, was still raw, its grass
scant and patchy as a youth's beard. It stood on
the corner of Orchard and Peach streets — that is,
toward the southern slope of the plateau, on the
opposite side from fashionable Overlook Boulevard.
The advancing sun shone strongest upon the
southeast corner, and presently awoke Holmes's
sister. She opened her eyes to the light, with her
limbs still sensibly full of the drowsy luxury of
sleep, and glanced about the room. She had arrived
in Sauganac, after more than a year's absence, the
afternoon before, so she had a certain idling delight
in looking upon the strangeness of this clean, new
room. Then her rousing brain took up its coil with
a kind of shock. To-day, no doubt, she would see
him. What would he demand of her? What
would she answer? She put a white arm above her
head and lay still, with wide-open blue eyes, thinking.
12


WHEN LOVE SPEAKs 13
Her brother Winthrop was in her thoughts, too;
and in a moment she remembered something else.
At the dinner table her brother — always full of
his office — had told her and Kittie that Sheriff
Endicott was going to raid a swindling policy shop.
He believed Mayor Griess's grafting city police had
been in collusion with it, and hoped to capture some
evidence to that effect. But the raid had been
“tipped off”; some traitor in their camp had given
warning of it. So the sharpers had time to burn
their papers and escape – by a hair's breadth; inci-
dentally half murdering Nesbit, one of the sheriff's
deputies. All the deputies got, besides this broken
head, was a woman's hat. The treachery in his
camp had fairly daunted Winthrop. Louise remem-
bered how gloomy he had looked, tramping about
his study.
It had cost Winthrop something to take the office
of prosecuting attorney for Mission County. In
spite of the great powers with which the statutes in-
vested it, the position had always been treated as a
lesser spoil of politics — going to some promising
youngster whom the bosses favored, and who took
it as a young doctor takes free hospital work. The
salary was only eighteen hundred dollars a year.
But Winthrop gave practically his entire time to it
and needed all his modest private means to make
ends meet. They kept only Martha, the compe-
tent, grumpy maid-of-all-work, and old Jefferson,
who had followed Kittie from her father's hotel as


14 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
a dog follows its master, and now puttered around
the grounds and stable. To Winthrop the office was
a trust, a mission. Thinking of the miscreant who
had betrayed his raid, Louise's blue eyes shone with
indignation. Her fine straight nose and roundly
modelled chin gave the outline of a classic profile.
She wished the cowards would come out and fight
like men. Then she looked at her watch and started
up guiltily to find that she had, after all, overslept.
When she came downstairs, the family had already
eaten its early breakfast, and Winthrop had left to
hark on the chase after the policy-shop culprits.
Martha was in a bad temper.
Afterward Louise could not tell just when or how
it was that morning that the air of something ex-
traordinary about the house obtruded itself upon
her. Martha had been driven down cellar to unpack
fruit-jars, whither she had gone sputtering protests
against that intolerable interference with her fore-
noon’s routine. The cocker spaniel pup had started
barking and been suppressed. There was a voice in
Winthrop's study, which was on the left of the
wide hall that bisected the lower floor. Louise
could hardly have told, at the moment, just why she
walked over and opened the study door.
Kittie sat in there, holding a tray from which a
breakfast had evidently been eaten. Beside her sat
a strange young woman. As Louise entered, her
sister-in-law looked up.
Mrs. Holmes's small person had the pretty plump-


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 15
ness of a pigeon, and her loose morning wrapper
showed the tender, round lines of her figure. Her
skin was milky white along the base of her smooth
neck, but tanned and somewhat freckled on her
cheeks and over her little piquant nose. Her
plump arms, bare to the elbows, and small, pretty
hands, and the little white-slippered foot under the
edge of her gown helped on the infantile suggestion.
A big wave of reddish hair rolled back from her fair,
square brow. Her eyes had the hue of her hair —
reddish, or golden in a full light. She looked up at
Louise undisturbed. -
The strange young woman was handsome, but
not exactly in the way a young woman should be.
Her big, dark eyes were heavy now; her face pallid;
her skirt torn and bedraggled. Her abundant hair
was badly disordered — suggesting the loss of a hat.
She had just drained the coffee cup which she still
held in her hand, and at the moment Louise stepped
in, she was looking at Kittie with a queer, wan little
smile that suggested a grateful dog. She looked up
at Miss Holmes with a dull start.
Louise was trying to shape her lips to murmur a
conventional and stupid “Pardon me!” but Kittie's
clear, sweet voice sounded, tranquilly, “You re-
member Fanny Trescott, don’t you, Louise?” And
to Fanny, “Louise Holmes, you know. My sister,
now.”
“Why, so she is your sister, now,” said Fanny, with
a faint glow of welcome on that account.


16 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
Altogether it was cool and commonplace as an in-
troduction at an afternoon tea. Louise had a sense
of being in a ludicrous position, and stood by the
door, undecided. -
Then, as though she were continuing a tea-table
topic, Fanny spoke to Kittie: “We’d got everything
chucked in the grate before they came; and Doane
saw one of 'em coming up to the back door. He
jumped on him and cracked him over the head with
the butt of his revolver, and I ran, and lost my hat.
The last I saw of Doane he was hammering the man.”
She dropped back in the chair and her haggard lips
twitched. “Doane knows about your sending the
note. It's like that, Kitten — me winding up by
getting you into trouble. If I’d been any good —
if I’d had any sand, I’d gone into the river.”
Kittie answered with a low, clear laugh: “What
good would that have done anybody? I'd rather
have you here full of coffee. We're going to pull it
off.” She laughed again, low. “They can’t stop
two unscrupulous women I’ve sent for Davy, too.”
Fanny slowly shook her head. “You’re a soft
little thing. Your mother was, too. But if it hadn’t
been for you two – honest, I guess God has you for
soldiers to fight for women like me.” Tears silently
overflowed her dark eyes.
“You’ve got to fight some yourself, Fanny,”
Kittie replied cheerily. “We’ll carry it through 1”
“I meant — I meant — the river,” said Fanny,
not much above a whisper. “That would have been


18 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
With one backward look he sped down the hall.
She vaguely acknowledged something physically
superb in the way he went through the door — with
a glide as light and swift as a cat's; his head up, his
shoulders square. Almost her only thought at the
instant was, “Why, he's fit and hard as nails l’’
And this was the way they met after nearly two
years.
She stood at the open door. It was perfectly
clear now that Kittie had given warning of her hus-
band's raid; that the woman in there was one of
the policy-shop culprits for whom Winthrop was
searching; that she herself was standing guard at
her brother's door — against her brotherl
In a way that was half ridiculous and wholly in-
tolerable she felt herself caught in the toils of the
plot. Then she summoned up her ample will, threw
off the coil bodily, and marched upstairs to her room.
After a while she heard sounds which told her that
Kittie had brought Fanny upstairs and was having
her lie down. At luncheon she pleaded a headache
and had Martha bring her a cup of tea. She did not
wish to meet her sister-in-law. From her window,
in the afternoon, she saw David drive up in a cab.
He entered the house and presently came out with
Fanny, and the two drove away together. About
four o’clock David returned alone.
Louise roused. She must get outdoors; have
air and motion. She dressed for the street and went
down. Stepping out on the veranda, she saw David


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 19
lounging there most tranquilly, and smoking a cigar.
Instantly her purpose changed. She would not be
afraid She lifted her pretty chin and marched up
to him.
“What has happened?” she demanded.
“Why, it's all over,” he replied. There was still
an anxious questioning in his eyes, and he evidently
wished to mollify her. “Fanny is headed for her
job in the sanitarium. Doane is on the way to
Chicago. There’ll be no more trouble.”
She sat down deliberately, her blue eyes looking
squarely into his with a meaning which the little
rosy flush upon her cheeks emphasized. Her parasol
lay across her knees, and the winged hat she wore
helped on the suggestive likeness to certain armed
statues. “David, tell me exactly what you have done
this afternoon.” She spoke quietly, and even that
made him know that, in a way, she sat in judgment.
He resumed his seat obediently, and studied the
crown of his hat a moment. “Exactly what I’ve
done, Lou?” he said rather low. “Well, first, I
telephoned for Mitchell and Kennedy. They’re the
plain-clothes men – the detectives at police head-
quarters. Of course, Doane would have been pay-
ing graft to somebody, and Mitchell and Kennedy
would naturally be the ones who had been taking it
of him. So they’d be most likely to know where to
find him. We located him without much trouble.
He gave up Kittie's note at once. He'll never open
his head to bother her.”


20 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
“Why are you so sure about that?” she asked.
Studying his hat-crown a moment, he did not an-
swer. Then he said, simply, “I suppose he knows me.”
“You mean it's because he's afraid of you,” she
said uncompromisingly, “afraid you’ll thrash him.”
She plainly meant it scornfully, although she did not
exactly know what set her on to badger him.
He looked up then, and a singular shock went
through her as she met his eyes. He spoke under
his breath, slowly. “Kittie is a blessed little soldier,
fighting all she knows to save that woman. Would
I let a blackguard like Doane — it's not a bad thing,
Lou, that she's got a wolf for a brother.”
“But what about Winthrop? Suppose I find it
necessary to tell him what has happened?” The
passion in his eyes seemed some way to try to beat
her down, and she asserted herself boldly against it.
He stared at her an instant. Then his lips bent
in a small, peculiar smile, and he slowly shook his
head. “Not you, Loie ' I might have believed it
if I hadn’t seen you again, but now that I’ve seen
you I know better. For you’re just the same —
just the same girl l’’
She felt her defences tremble. “Not just the same,
David l’” It was half a plea. “No, not the same.”
She arose hastily.
“Let me go, too, Lou.” He stood up.
“No, I wish to be alone,” she said quickly; and
added, with a swift glance as she raised the sunshade,
“Not now, Davy.”


22 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
One day, when her dresses came no lower than her
shoe tops, she had stood by while he robbed Mr.
Epperson's orchard and brought her a hatful of the
fruit. She knew it was said he was not always nice
to girls; yet, whenever, in his Jovian good-humor,
he noticed her, it was always to be nice to her.
After the high school he went to the state uni-
versity at Ann Arbor, where his prowess at foot-ball
soon made him as much of a personage as he had
been at home. She went to the seminary at Mount
Honor. During the year he sent her a Michigan
banner to tack up in her room. It was only in the
vacation after his junior year that they again saw
much of each other. Then he paid her a good deal
of attention, and when they returned to their schools,
they corresponded — rather spasmodically on his
part.
She went to Ann Arbor to see that year's great
foot-ball game on Thanksgiving Day. When he
broke through the line and made the winning touch-
down, she did not shriek with other frantic thousands
in the grand stand; but her insanity really ex-
ceeded theirs. That evening, behind some potted
palms, he kissed her.
She was then seventeen and he twenty-one. Both
her parents were dead, and there was nobody in
particular to tell. After that they corresponded as
Secretly betrothed lovers.
David began life in the power-house of the street
railway about the time she went to Wellesley. The


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 23
vacations of her first, second, and third year she
spent in Sauganac, and they were together much,
still as secretly betrothed.
Perhaps that kind of impassioned championship
of her slow, sure brother Winthrop, which had always
been a part of her life, now gave a certain bent to her
mind. At any rate, for a pretty girl, she interested
herself a good deal in the larger political problems
which so much absorbed him. She even looked into
law with an idea that she might help him. She had
never been slipshod. Far back she had not taken
the view that David did of Dennis O'Neill, the
shrewd, humorous, personally generous boss of
Sauganac's grafting political machine. First and
last she had had a good deal to say to David about
Dennis O'Neill.
In her junior year she happened to see a Detroit
newspaper which contained an item saying that
David Donovan had been arrested for helping to
steal some ballot-boxes. She wrote to Winthrop,
who did not know her real interest in David. Win-
throp wrote that 'twas undoubtedly true that David
stole the ballot-boxes, in Dennis O'Neill's behalf;
but they couldn’t convict him. She wrote to David,
then, and when she came home that summer, she
talked to him with tears in her eyes. He had been
contrite enough. In her senior year Winthrop came
down to see her. Among other things he told her
of an action in which he was interested. He had
some evidence that the distillers at Nogiac had put


24 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
bribe money in David Donovan's hands; but David
avoided the legal mesh and could not be brought to
testify.
She did not write to David about that. She had
not the heart. Neither did she break off the cor-
respondence with him; but it was different after
that.
Finishing her five-year course, she went abroad
with the Penroses. The Penroses were the most im-
portant family of Sauganac. The fortune had its
beginnings in a little foundry. Now the James A.
Penrose Stove Works were the largest in the world,
as they constantly reminded the public. There had
been some very profitable deals in government timber
lands – of which, as Louise understood it, the less
said the better. Latterly there had been Wall
Street and railroad operations, to say nothing of Mrs.
Penrose's elaborate social campaigns. The family,
in fact, had far outgrown Sauganac, and seldom
came to the castle on Overlook Boulevard. Miss
Holmes did not know exactly why Mrs. Penrose
was ever ready to take her up as much as she would
permit. She permitted it fully enough after she
left school. She did not wish to go back to Sauga-
nac then.
After the year abroad, however, she wished to
return – and take up her life anew at the age of
twenty-three. Her position with regard to David
had then seemed manageable enough. She knew
that he had got to be superintendent of the street


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 25
railway — probably was pretty much immersed in
money-making and inclining to grow beefy.
Her walk had taken her up on Orchard Street to
a neighborhood which at one stage of the city's
growth had been a suburb where a few of the better
sort of citizens had retired homes. Now it was
largely built up with flats, or with dwellings, all
about alike, which contractors had put up to sell on
the instalment plan.
Louise paused before a place which still, forlornly,
kept a flavor of the simpler time. The grounds
comprised less than a quarter of the block — out of
the original fifteen acres – and were now unkempt.
Grass grew rank and half choked the old rose-bushes.
Three gnarled old apple trees by the corner of the
house were nearly dead. The house itself was merely
an upright part with an L, having a narrow porch,
ballustraded and ornamented with fretsaw work.
This had been her home, built by her father — a
notable physician in his day. It was by the accident
of the city's growth, making the fifteen acres of land
valuable, rather than by any thrift in Dr. Holmes's
management, that he had finally left his children a
little competency. Probably, if he had lived longer,
with his constitutional carelessness of money, he
would have sold off the land and made ducks and
drakes of the proceeds. Nevertheless, Dr. Holmes
stood for something. In his sort he was the most
thrifty of men. He might have made ducks and
drakes of his land, but they would have been fowls


26 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
of a big-hearted and ardent-headed breed. He had
fairly dragooned his richest patients into founding
the free hospital.
From time to time negotiations for the sale of this
remnant of the old homestead had been under way.
It was unproductive, and should be sold. Louise
knew that ; yet she looked across the rank lawn with
a home-hungry pang. A certain tradition of fine
and generous living attached to it, and this tradition
Some way enfolded her from David Donovan.
David's own traditions were different. More than
once she had called him a red Indian. He met the
world gayly, with a ready, practical, undelicate com-
petence. He should belong more to Dennis O'Neill's
sort than to hers. He was a man who would not
always necessarily be nice to women. Thus he had
had plenty of opportunities to betray himself, and
so release her. He had first kissed her in a corner
like a flirting shop-girl. He might have attempted
the footing of a shop-girl flirtation, but he had not
at all. He might have laughed at her scruples over
the ballot-box exploit; but he had been humble and
penitent over them. He might, latterly, have light-
heartedly dropped her and taken up with somebody
else; but he had not. Her red Indian was constant.
He kept offering himself to her. Traditions were
very well; but her heart could not get over this
constancy.


CHAPTER IV
THE veranda was empty when Louise returned
to the house. She stepped inside, saw that her
brother's study door was open, and went to it with-
out waiting to take off her hat.
Kittie, in a soft, cream-colored dress, was standing
by the end of the big desk, stooping a little, dimpled
with laughter. “You are falling off, Johnny,” she
was saying, in her clear, sweet voice. “It’s sev-
eral days now since you’ve got any heads of large
families on the strait and narrow path to jail. It’ll
never do ! Why don’t you go jump on the old apple
woman at the corner?”
A masculine voice grumbled back, “I ought to
have you and all your blarneying, soft-hearted
family in jail!”
Louise blushed and dropped back from the open
door as she perceived two stout hands reached out.
She had been surprised enough when Winthrop
wrote her that he was going to marry Kittie Dono-
van. The letter reached her in Rome while she was
still aflame with the news that, leading his forces of
reform, he had won the office of prosecuting attor-
ney. She had reflected that Kittie, at any rate, was
a sweet little thing. She had imagined her sitting
27


28 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
dutifully at her husband's purposeful feet. But
she had not been in the house overnight without
awakening to the greater surprise that Winthrop,
in fact, was at his wife's feet.
She heard Kittie laughing — evidently struggling
against a pair of powerful arms. When she judged
it was safe, she again stepped to the door. Win-
throp saw her then.
“Ah, Loie l’’ he cried, his rather heavy face
lighting.
The prosecuting attorney was then in his thir-
tieth year. He was of big mould, heavy-limbed,
with hands and feet unusually large even for a man
of his stature. He was bony, not fat. His head,
too, was large, the brows projecting over his eyes,
which were of a dark, mottled gray. He wore a
close-clipped mustache. Honesty stamped him.
His sister had been away so long and had returned so
recently that her every appearance brought her newly
home to him. As he drew her by the hand beside
his chair and looked up at her, smiling, her woman's
jealous heart could not but be satisfied on the great
point that he loved her.
Kittie slipped an arm around her waist and cried,
“Let’s lock her up, Johnny She might get away
again l’ Louise knew that Kittie, too, wished to
love her. The little woman laughed. “Anyhow,
we'll feed her well.” With that, she went out and
left them. An instant before Louise had wondered
whether Kittie would leave them together — she
possessing the guilty secret.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 29
“Busy, I suppose,” Louise suggested, and sat down
with a little smile for the litter on his opened desk.
She knew that Winthrop's mind was slow. It was
only by hard grinding that he got through college
and won his law degree. Now he toiled every even-
ing in his study to finish work that a quicker man
would have disposed of in office hours. She could
imagine a sister being fond of a nimble, facile brother,
but somehow it was only for this slow, sure old Win-
throp, who never spared himself an ounce, that one
could feel quite such an impassioned championship.
His slowness seemed part of his great quality — the
one, she thought, that really marked him for an im-
portant career – namely, that steel-bright, impene-
trable integrity which encased him like a flawless
arm.Or.
“Oh, yes. There's plenty to do,” he replied good-
naturedly. “I’m hoping for a big stroke.” She
saw, from the way his mottled eyes shone, that it
was something unusual.
“I can go on shutting up cheap gambling joints
and raiding disorderly beer gardens,” he said.
“That's really what a good many of the people who
backed my campaign mean by reform. They don’t
want any important business interests disturbed.
The County Board won’t give me an appropriation
big enough to undertake anything really important.
They’ve got to keep taxes down or they’ll be un-
popular. I’ve found out well enough that most of
the rottenness in politics runs into business some-


30 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
where or other. The worst of our rottenness here
runs straight to those three rich distilleries at No-
giac. They’re always bribing. They’ve had their
own way so long that they think they own the gov-
ernment. They do own part of it. The attorney-
general of the state is as much their man as though
they paid his salary.”
He folded his big hands together and smiled a
little. “Maybe I have particular reasons for not
liking them; but that doesn’t affect their general
hatefulness. Of course, they opposed me in my
campaign, and they always fight with mud. Old
Codley, who runs their crooked law and crooked
politics, is a natural-born blackguard. He can’t
help it. They really own Julius Brown's Daily
News here; and the News had some dirty little
squib or other every day – for example, Epperson
was treasurer of my campaign committee, and the
News ran an article, pretending to be laudatory,
saying that my father got up the formulas for Ep-
person's patent medicines. They wouldn’t attack
Epperson openly, because he's too rich and his
medicine advertisements are too important. But
Julius Brown got a disreputable lawyer, Wesley
Wogan – you may remember him — to make some
speeches about Epperson's cocaine and whiskey
dope.
“Of course, that's mostly personal and ought not
to count; but it shows the breed they are of. It's
amazing how their influence ramifies, too. Tradger,


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 31
you know, was elected coroner on the same ticket
with me. I thought him an honest man. He'd
been in office only a month when a girl was found
dead on the beach near a bad beer garden. She was
a pretty, light-headed young creature, the daughter
of a laborer. I myself got evidence that young
Schwartz of Nogiac had her in the garden. It
wasn’t very unlikely that she had been drugged.
I supposed, of course, there would be an investiga-
tion, and was astonished to learn that Tradger had
impanelled a jury in the evening, brought in a ver-
dict of suicide, and had the body buried. Then I
found that Codley had been down here and hushed
the whole thing up. I don’t know now what in-
fluence he used with Tradger; but it was sufficient.
He evidently gave the girl's father some money, too,
and got him out of town. So there was nothing to
do—but jaw Tradger. He said, ‘Oh, well, she's dead;
what would be the good of stirring up a muss?'
That dead girl, flung into her grave, is a pretty good
symbol of what those Nogiac fellows are doing with
our laws. Of course, there's plenty of bribery and
loot, too.”
Louise's color had heightened during the recital.
Her eyes sparkled. “You’re going to pitch into
them 7” she asked with a half-breathless eagerness.
“I can’t do it myself, Loie,” he replied. “I can’t
lay hold of the money or the time. It’s a great big
fight. It needs somebody with ability and money
and courage. Fred Hasbrook is the man. I’ve


32 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
been working at him for two months. I believe he'll
take it up.”
“Oh, Frederick | Really?” she cried, as though
the news were too good to be true.
“He’s coming home Labor Day. I’ll see him again
then. I believe he'll take it up. If he does —
something important will follow. He's the man for
it.”
“Dear old Fred l’ she murmured; and exclaimed,
with animation, “Oh, he must 1 He shall !” She
laughed. “I’ll stick to him until he does. I’m
needing a job, you know !” -
It was, in a way, an intimate touch; and he bent
his big body forward in the chair. “You’re a job
in yourself, Loie,” he said. “Being fond of us and
letting us be fond of you is enough of a success for
anybody. We want you right here.”
She noticed the plural pronoun, and smiled a
little. “You don’t need me now, Winthrop.”
“More than ever !” he declared — “just because
I’m happy. I am the happiest man in the world.
I never in my life wanted anybody but Kittie. For
a long while it didn’t seem possible that she'd want
me — but she did l’’
He spoke with a kind of reverence. It was the
only thing he had said about his marriage — and it
was enough, for it laid bare to her his simple,
steadfast heart. After that — whatever Roman
instants she may have had, in which the possibility
of a disclosure suggested itself to her indignant mind


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 33
— she saw that she must, in a manner, be of the
league against him.
She must keep the league's secret; but she could
not content herself with doing simply that. Along
in the evening, Winthrop being still busy in his
study, she went boldly to her sister-in-law's room.
The little woman had slipped on a loose gown, and
whatever was soft and dear and babylike in her
made its appeal. Louise sat down beside her.
“What are you going to do now, Kittie’” she
asked, as one takes a child in hand.
“Nothing at all,” Kittie replied, so quietly that
it surprised the other. She clasped her pretty
hands over her round knee and was evidently per-
fectly willing to talk about it.
“Fanny's sort of an inheritance from my mother,”
she began calmly. “Maybe you remember about
her mother — Nellie Trescott, who used to keep a
millinery store here, and went away, and her husband
got a divorce, a long, long time ago. They said
some rich man figured in it. There was an older
daughter, who wasn’t all that a young lady should
be. Fanny came to the hotel one day when she was
twelve, and wanted work. She'd run away from a
pious aunt who'd taken her in. It seems the pious
aunt couldn’t forbear making moral reflections about
Nellie and Jennie Trescott. Fanny was always a
handsome girl. When she got a bit older and father
put her in the dining room, a travelling man squeezed
her hand and she broke a plate over his head.
D


34 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
“I hear being a ‘good' girl doesn’t count any
more, since Ibsen and others have come in ; but
from a youngster – maybe just because of her
mother and sister — she had a kind of furious instinct
to keep her womanhood clean. It's part of my job
of being a woman to stand by her. She's always
getting herself in a muss. She's a good deal of a
cat, too. The only way she's ever known to pro-
tect herself was to spit and claw — and she's done
it like fury. Maybe it's no credit to me, nowadays,
that I’ve been a ‘good’ woman. But from away
back — back in my mother's time — there's some-
thing that will always make me stand by Fanny,
and fight for her if it's necessary. Probably I’m
something of a cat myself at bottom. I suppose
there's a sort of ragged edge for women – and for
everybody. Because Fanny was poor and foolish
and had dubious female relatives, she's had to sort
of fight her way along the edge. Nobody but my
mother and I know about that fight. If it looks
to me as though somebody were saying of Fanny,
“She's pretty close to the edge, we'll just push her
over,' I have to hop in and say, ‘Now try whether
you can push me over, too.” Perhaps I don’t make
it as clear as I might.”
“Oh, yes! That part is clear, Kittie ' I under-
stand that | It's dear and brave and generous to
wish to stand by that unlucky woman. But that
doesn’t answer the policy-shop question, does it?”
“To me it does, Lou,” Kittie returned. “The


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 35
gentleman that ran the policy shop married the older
sister. It would be exactly like poor, blundering
Fanny to fall in with his offer of a job. I knew she
was there and had told her to quit it, and come here
in the morning. Then I found out about the raid,
and sent her warning.”
“And that, Kittie — that leaves a lie between
you and your husband l’”
The little woman looked up with untroubled eyes.
“There isn’t any lie,” she said calmly. “I couldn’t
have gone to Winthrop and asked him to let Fanny
off, for that would have put a bad spot in his con-
science. A bad spot in his conscience would make
a small man of him. He must go exactly straight.”
“That's true ! You understand it ! It's his
great quality l’ Louise exclaimed, surprised that
Kittie did understand so well.
“And don’t you see,” the clear voice replied, “it
would have been just as much against my conscience
to let Fanny be sent to jail. If I had stood aside
and not saved her, I would have been a smaller,
meaner woman for it. I know what you mean,
Lou — that husband and wife should be one. But
after you’re married yourself I think you’ll change
your mind. You give yourself to the man, to love
him and work for his house and bear his children.
But there's something you don’t give. I think you’ll
see that you ought not to give it — that you’d be
cheap if you did. Something that's your very self —
call it your soul or what you please. ‘Thy ways


36 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
shall be my ways and thy people my people’ – that's
all right. But not ‘Thy gods shall be my gods.’ I
can’t do that. It would take away all I’m really
good for. Probably my gods aren’t any too good
citizens; but they laugh and are tender-hearted.
What would I do with Winthrop's rocky New Eng-
land gods? They'd say in a minute, ‘What's that
lying little Irishwoman doing here? Put her out !”
Don’t you think I’ll love my husband better and be
more worthy of him because I saved that woman?
He'll not know; but what lie is there if I can say
to myself, ‘I, too, have done something; I’ve saved
Fanny.’ Whatever good there is in that goes to him
and his children.”
Louise perceived that these gods were heathen.
She perceived also – and this was most surprising –
that the little woman followed them with open, in-
telligent, steady eyes. She had something of a
proselytizing zeal — for the blindly erring. This
evidently was not a case for it.
“Of course, you must be the judge, Kittie,” she
said.
Something else lingered in her mind — that odd
thing Fanny had said about finding herself in front
of the Hasbrook place. What had that to do with
Fanny ? She was tempted to ask Kittie; but it
Savored of the vulgarity of scandalous gossip, and
she forebore.


CHAPTER W
THE formal celebration of Labor Day began with a
parade, which Louise chose to watch from a street
corner. She thought it good for her democracy to
stand on the flagging with the common crowd.
Banners and flags were displayed along Broadway.
The windows were peopled. Here and there a
group of facetious youths with megaphones hung
from the upper stories and favored the crowd with
comments on the marchers. By the time the march-
ing column wound past Louise's corner it was rather
straggling and sore-footed. There was an imper-
fect understanding between the nervous, red-sashed
marshals and their mounts – mostly delivery-wagon
horses, impressed for the day. Nevertheless the
spectacle was not insignificant. Broadway, with its
high buildings and Smart shops, displayed the little
city's pride. These three thousand wage-earners,
silently trudging behind the banners of their unions,
upholding socialistic mottoes, had their impressive-
ness for such a mind as Miss Holmes's.
The speech-making was to be at the front of the
Sauganac House – one of the town's famous in-
stitutions. The hotel, a long, three-story brick
structure with iron balconies, stood in a parked
37


38 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
square off Broadway – just where the street bent
nearest to the lake shore. This square had once
been a public park. When the old Sauganac
House burned—some fifteen years before, —Dennis
O'Neill's amiable henchmen in the City Council
had generously presented Landlord Donovan with
a ninety-nine year lease of the park, practically rent
free. The hotel proprietor and Dennis were fast
friends. There was no graft. It was simply a piece
of open-handed liberality from Dennis to his friend
– at the city’s expense. Such was the father of
David and of Kittie.
Louise was in no hurry to reach the hotel. She
always smelled Dennis's lease there. She waited
for the last straggler of the parade to pass; then
walked slowly. When she reached the pleasant
little park, she found the crowd in possession. The
rows of chairs and benches fronting the hotel had
long since been taken. People sat thickly on the
grass at the rear. The balcony over the front door,
from which the speeches were to be delivered, was
already pretty well filled with notables. The band
was vigorously performing a final air. She thought
it not practicable to enter the hotel from the front,
yet wished to hear Winthrop's speech. She skirted
the block, therefore, and approached the hotel on
the rear, or water, side. Here a cinder footway ran
under the veranda which looked out upon the harbor.
Walking along this, she smelled a reek of liquor and
heard a clamor of voices. A swinging screen door


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 39
opened and several men came out noisily directly
before her. The foremost of them, in a dirty
“Prince Albert” coat and soiled linen, held a half-
empty beer glass. He evidently knew her, and for a
second, while she halted, startled, his glance fell
level into hers – drunken, insolent, malicious. She
colored, stepped quickly aside, and passed the bar-
room group. For a little time the shock of the en-
counter lingered in her nerves. She knew who the
man was — Wesley Wogan, once a brilliant lawyer,
now gone to the dogs. She wondered why he seemed
to hate her. Also, she reminded herself that she had
seen the back door of Landlord Donovan's prosperity.
Staff and guests of the hotel seemed taken up with
the speech-making. The office was empty. Louise
went to the second story and looked about uncer-
tainly. A broad cross-hall gave to the balcony;
but the three windows were already full of people,
looking out. There were doors to the right and
left, one or both of which should admit her to a pub-
lic parlor. The door to the left was closed; that to
the right ajar. She entered. It was a parlor,
furnished with a good deal of plush and gilt, after
the manner of an inland first-class hotel. Eight or
ten persons stood or sat at the two windows which
looked upon the balcony. Louise identified them
at a glance. Stocky, grizzled Dennis O'Neill stood
by the nearest window. Beside him sat his plain,
gray, motherly wife. The other chair was occupied
by a woman about whom nothing seemed genuine


40 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
except her fat and wrinkles. Her hair was plainly
dyed to that auburn hue, and supplemented by an
ornate false front. She wore a much-befurbelowed
white gown and huge hat, and had diamonds in her
ears. This was Mrs. Julius Brown, wife of the editor
of the Sauganac Daily News. She had had an in-
conspicuous career on the stage long ago, and gave
herself many liberties in virtue of it. The editor
himself stood at the side of the window opposite
Dennis O'Neill — a large, loose man of forty, with
a long red neck made more noticeable by a wide,
turn-down collar. He was saying, “I always like to
hear Bascom speak; he's so sure to make an ass of
himself.”
Louise perceived that she had blundered into a
camp of the enemy — probably Editor Brown's
suite. She would have slipped out; but Landlord
Donovan saw her, and hastened over. He had
grown somewhat stout in later years. His hair and
mustache were quite gray. Still he presented the
handsome, gallant figure of a man. His smile, as
he held out his hand, was almost boyishly frank and
genial. Louise herself felt that one might as well
talk to a merry urchin about transubstantiation as
to this handsome, gray-headed, warm-hearted, open-
handed man about civic morality. She even gave
him a little laugh for the joke of her having blun-
dered in there, and let him conduct her to a chair
at the window. The talk proceeded without regard
to her near, but detached, figure.


42 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
Mr. Bascom, who called himself a lawyer and
made a comfortable living as fire insurance agent and
shaver of notes, and who had his finger in every pie
by virtue of an irrepressible determination to put
it there, had arisen in perspiring, podgy, and windy
dignity. His introductory speech was the merest
assinine verbosity. He was presently roaring out
of his purple face, “And so I introduce to you that
sturdy woodman — member of the woodman's union,
— whose bright axe of reform is clearing away the
jungle of graft — honest Winthrop Holmes l’’
The applause was perfunctory. Somebody at the
back of the crowd yelled “Rats 1” and hooted de-
risively. Even amiable Landlord Donovan laughed.
The prosecuting attorney arose, and Louise saw
at once that the foolish introduction had not in the
least disconcerted him. He went straight at his
speech as though there had been no preface.
He had no oratorical graces. The speech was a
simple, solid, unadorned argument for the suprem-
acy of the law. Before he had been up five minutes
Louise felt, with a sinking heart, that with this
audience it would quite fail. In Sauganac, he said,
there were seventy-five thousand people; in Mission
County, a hundred and fifty thousand. In the last
county election the issue was very clearly defined.
He had been elected prosecuting attorney and Endi-
cott had been elected sheriff on the unmistakable
understanding that they should, with strict impar-
tiality, enforce the law. It was a great thing, he


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 43
thought, that a governing majority of all these
people should deliberately elect to live strictly by the
law. It had been represented to him by very well-
meaning persons — sometimes on the side of cap-
ital, sometimes on the side of labor — that he ought
not to do certain things by way of enforcing the
statutes because those things would be unpopular
and even against the best interests of the people
themselves. He could only reply that the man-
date he had received from the people was, ‘Enforce
the law l’ He would obey it strictly. If, when the
next election came around, a majority of the people
decided that they wished to live under a different
dispensation, he would have nothing to say.
“Many people of Sauganac,” he went on, “are
ambitious to have the State Fair held here next
month, because it will advertise the town and bring
trade. I am told that the only way in which the
heavy expenses of the Fair can be met is to permit
book-makers, who will pay a great many thousand
dollars for the privilege, to run what they call for-
eign books — that is, take bets on horse-races all
over the country, which is clearly against the law;
and to let down the bars for saloons, which will sub-
scribe liberally if they are permitted to run all night,
and so on. I am told rival towns will offer these
concessions and Sauganac will lose the Fair unless
she does the same. If that is true, Sauganac must
lose the Fair. There will be no letting down of the
bars. I stand here to enforce the law, as the people


44 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
told me to do. So I shall stand while I hold the office
of prosecuting attorney.”
Louise caught her breath as he sat down, plumply.
It had the effect, simply, of a challenge. Her nerves
were quick to gather the disturbed, hostile air of the
balcony. A single hiss would have started a dem-
onstration. Directly in front of her window sat a
hollow-eyed old man, with a tall, narrow head cov-
ered with a mat of white hair, and a slim white beard
that fell halfway to his waist. This was Epperson,
the patent-medicine millionaire who had been treas-
urer of Winthrop's campaign committee. He pawed
his beard with a bony hand and turned to look bale-
fully at his companion, Banker Titus. It was evi-
dent that the patent-medicine man was furious.
But a crucial moment passed without a hiss; and
then a solitary voice, out among the workmen, called,
“That's the stuff, all the same !” It broke the ten-
sion. Some laughed. Others amiably applauded a
little.
Bascom bobbed up for another windy introduc-
tion. Louise heard Dennis say, “This is the Sena-
tor,” and she bent forward with an impatient mo–
tion. A lean, old man arose, to general applause,
and stood bowing urbanely. Louise clapped vigor-
ously; the color deepened in her cheeks; a sudden
passion of pride and love suffused her heavy heart.
Miles Hasbrook was now in his seventy-third year.
He had been lieutenant-governor, then governor of
the state during the Civil War, and had stamped


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 45
his name in the record of those times. He had served
a term in Congress; then, for twenty years, had rep-
resented the state in the upper house at Washington.
The year before he had declined a nomination for
vice-president. The relationship between himself
and Louise's mother was really distant; but she had
always called him “Uncle Miles.” The Hasbrook
place had always been a sort of second home to her.
The Senator, as he was still invariably called,
although he had been in retirement three years, was
quite round-shouldered and his white hair had grown
thin without leaving him bald. He had a big, arched
nose that looked exaggeratedly large in the midst of
his long, thin, smooth-shaven face. His eyes oddly
sparkled with vigor under their bristling, whitish
thatches; and he spoke in the mellow, flowing voice
that reaches over the largest crowd and holds it, in-
sensibly charming even dull ears with its music.
The words came without the slightest effort. He
moved in the narrow space left to him with a dis-
arming, leisurely naturalness, and with scarcely a
gesture — with an effect of candid, good-humored
reasoning as though he were in his study with some
friends.
Louise appreciated the ripe art of it to her finger-
tips. She saw the veteran, the champion who had
borne a weighty rôle in a hundred great verbal battles,
to whom the government had more than once in-
trusted its cause in a crisis. She had a delight which
was sensuous as well as intellectual in the play of his


46 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
practised sword. She understood, in a moment, that
he was taking up Winthrop's theme without seeming
to do it, and, with that disarming ease, was weaving
it full of allusions to the great, ever standing values
that move men's hearts. He stepped behind the
Small desk, his lean old hands resting upon it, and
let his voice ring bell-like in a terse peroration. And
the fire caught. Cheer after cheer went up — fervid,
impassioned, as happens when an orator strikes deep
and satisfies the dumb aspiration of a crowd.
Louise's throat was full and throbbing. She felt
her eyelashes suddenly wet. She saw that the old
master had set Winthrop's blunt cause of the truth
before these men in its proper royal garments, and
that their hearts acknowledged it. She split her
gloves applauding; and she heard Dennis O'Neill
saying, soberly, “All the same, every mother's son of
'em can go to school to the old man still !”
The speech-making was over, the crowd break-
ing up. Louise vaguely heard Mrs. Julius saying
something more about Fred and the milliner; but it
scarcely impressed her mind.
She went into the broad cross-hall, hoping to meet
the Senator. Instead, Winthrop found her.
“Fred Hasbrook got home to-day,” he said.
“I’ve seen him. He's going to take up the fight !”
His eyes shone eagerly. She saw that he cared little
or nothing about the failure of his own speech; but
was happy over the victory of getting Frederick on
his side. That was like him


CHAPTER WI
THE Hasbrook place was two miles beyond the
city limits, fronting a macadamized extension of the
boulevard that ran along the brow of the bluff. The
river curved there, so the spacious, well-kept grounds
overlooked the pleasant valley, some glimpses of
the town about the river's mouth, and the blue bosom
of the lake beyond.
It was a comfortable old house of no architectural
pretensions — a main part with a wing on each side,
all two stories high, of brick, now painted a dull
yellow. A wide veranda, only a foot above the
ground, ran along the front.
The weather was still genial, inviting one out-of-
doors; but the leaves were turning, enriching the
panorama of the valley with prodigal colors. Be-
fore Louise turned in at the arched iron gateway she
saw two men lounging on the veranda. One of them,
the Senator, saw her and waved his hand. The
other sat up, turning his head; and when she was
halfway across the ample lawn, he arose and came
leisurely to meet her. This was the Senator's son.
Frederick was then forty-five, as tall as his father,
but of an ampler, fleshier, looser build. Like the
Senator, he had the nose of power; but with him it
47


48 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
was meatier, more bulbous, and of a rather mottled,
coppery hue which betoken out-of-doors and good
living. He was almost completely bald, and the
big dome of his head was a kind of distinction in
itself. He moved in a loose-jointed way that sug-
gested bodily strength and indolence.
Approaching him, Louise's eyes shone, her cheeks
turned rosy. She held out both hands, stretched
up on tiptoe, and kissed him. He drew her hand
through his arm, and they walked up to the veranda.
He seated her beside the Senator and stood over
her, his hands on his hips, Smiling.
“Loie, it's fine to see you here !” he declared; and,
as he doubled his large body to a lounging attitude in
the chair he had left, he added, “It interests me
already to think what trouble you are going to get
into.”
“No trouble for me!” she replied gayly. “Uncle
Miles and I have talked it over and settled that l”
She was happy. These two men belonged to the
finest part of her life. As far back as she could re-
member she had run about the old place as another
home.
The Senator chuckled. “I can’t have trouble my-
self. It doesn’t care for me. I’m too old. Fred is
looking for some, though.”
“Yes,” she said eagerly. “Winthrop told me.
You're going to pitch into the distillers.”
“Pitching in's the word,” he answered. “I find
Winthrop's insanity catching. I’m in need of a job,


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 49
and I might do worse — although father hardly
thinks so.”
She turned her head, with a questioning aston-
ishment, to look at the Senator.
“It’s only that I doubt you will succeed,” said
the Senator, good-naturedly. “I don’t question
the comprehensive deviltry of the distillers —
heaven forbid! It strikes me that a suit in equity,
brought by a private person, is a rather poor way of
getting at them.”
“But Winthrop says they own the attorney-
general, so who but a private person can attack
them?” she urged warmly. “Not to lie down and
let them walk over everybody because they are rich
and powerful, Uncle Miles 1 To fight them — fight
them all you know ! To strike at them always,
everywhere, and never let up ! Isn’t that the way?”
Frederick tipped back his big head and laughed,
mellow and deep. “There's the only spirit, fatherl
There's the royal road to reform 1 That's the
doctrine — the good, fiery little heart that wants
to fight until it's knocked galley west and then come
back and fight more 1 That's the only platform
We must roast the distillers to please Loie We
must soak 'em hip and thigh so her gentle breast
may find peace l’’ He laughed again, with relish.
“We ought to have her in the lists with us !”
“Will you?” She bent forward a little, smiling
at his laughter, yet eager. “I know something
about law, really. I put in spare time at it, thinking
E


50 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
I could help Winthrop some. I can look up refer-
ences as well as anybody. If you think I'm a joke,
just give me a chance at loading muskets while
you’re on the firing line !”
As Frederick regarded her the laugh became only
a faint twinkling in the depths of his eyes. In a
way it was no joke. Here was the heart aglow ; the
generous, headlong enthusiasm – for a certain ac-
tion in equity against three opulent distillers. He
was still and ever would be to her the good old
Cousin Fred that he had been from the times when
she had come to him in trouble over rents in her
frock and stockings. Once, in her fourteenth year,
he had brought her home from Chicago across the
lake. There was an accident in the night and a
panic. He battered at her stateroom door, calling,
“Come instantly, Loie l’” She came as he com-
manded, a skirt and waist thrown mechanically over
her arm, her hair in a long, thick braid, her feet and
neck bare; greatly afraid, but quiet, obedient, trust-
ing everything to him. The girlish figure, with
wide, fear-stricken eyes, yet still, meek, yielding
herself to whatever was demanded, detached itself
from the ruck of crazily rushing forms and the babel
of shrieks, and strangely stilled his own panic.
From that time she had been rather different to
him. The difference finally shaped itself in a dream
of something that might have been. But he had
never been different to her.
“Probably the muskets will not shoot the worse


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 51
for your loading them,” he said lightly. “She's
quite right, father. The Nogiac gentlemen need
plucking. They’re overripe. Indeed, they’re rotten.
They’ve had their own way too long. Of course,
your idea is the sensible one — to drive them out of
politics by electing men they can’t bribe and so on.
But that means long time, and these wild Holmeses
have got me all infected with their impatience.
After all, somebody must start the ball rolling, raise
a banner, lead an assault; and I’m ready for the
job. I have reasons of my own for not liking them.
That old blackguard Codley represents them in
law and politics. If a man is a blackguard, why not
say so? I got him pilled at the Country Club, and
am very glad of it.”
“I don’t know but he should have been admitted,”
said the Senator. “Eminence merits recognition.
Codley is the ablest blackguard I know.”
“The fight will be all the more interesting on that
account,” Frederick returned. “I feel like pitching
right in, as Loie says.”
“Well, if the spirit really moves you, wade in,
Fred,” said the Senator. “I don’t wish to rob
another great historic character of his laurels; but
I will emulate him by washing my hands of it.
Of course, if it should turn out exceptionally well,
I'll claim the credit.” He chuckled again. He
and his son were good friends. They stood together.
“I suppose I might have gone on being congress-
man,” Frederick observed. He had served three


52 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
terms in the lower house. “It’s a pretty comfort-
able place to loaf. But I’m not built right for a
jumping-jack. Flopping my arms and legs as the
steering committee pulls the wires makes my joints
sore. I’d rather flop here on the lawn. It is easier
and counts for just as much. Newcomb is doing
it bully in my place at Washington, and likes it.
So I need a job. Shooting at the distillers will suit
me first rate.” He looked over at her, smiling.
“The fight will be bitter enough to satisfy the most
bloodthirsty young lady living.”
He spoke lightly enough; but she knew this was
literally true. It would be all in musty legal forms,
with bill and cross-bill, demurrer and subpoena
deuces-tecum. Had she seen a knight with sword
and shield purposing to engage a dragon she would
have advised him coldly to use cyanide of potassium.
Before this bald-headed lawyer her eyes shone, her
breast swelled, her blood quickened.
They heard footsteps on the gravel walk, and
looked up, to see Dennis O'Neill and David Donovan
crossing the lawn. Had the men noticed her then
they would have seen the light go out of her face,
and a little drooping, half sad, half bitter, touch the
corners of her mouth.
Frederick arose to meet the callers, and took them
into the house — from which it appeared that they
had come by appointment. Louise talked on with
the Senator awhile; went into the house with him;
finally left him in the library.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 53
A large square hall divided the lower floor.
Frederick had taken a front room in the right-hand
wing for his office, where he attended to such legal
and other business as he chose to occupy himself
with. The library was in the left-hand wing at
the rear, looking upon the garden and orchard.
A door at the end led to what had been meant for
a drawing-room — a long, rather narrow apartment
with narrow windows that came down to the floor
and opened upon the veranda. One wing of the
door to the hall was usually open, as now; but the
room was very little used. Only one of the six
white blinds was thrown back, so the apartment
was dim and cool, with an air of empty seclusion.
It was here that Louise came from the library, and
seated herself, half absently.
It was time to talk to David. Her will to cour-
age and rectitude struggled confusedly with all
the feelings that prompted her to postpone talking
to him. She felt that she knew what she ought to
say to him; and she detested a false position. But
her woman's pulses fluttered and trembled as she
tried to drive herself to the point of boldly taking her
station on the veranda and waiting until he came out
of Frederick's office. The slight droop, half sad,
half bitter, remained at the corners of her mouth.
Coming in from the hall to find her, David saw it
when he drew near, and her grave, steady eyes.
His own pulses were tumultuous. It was the
first time they had been alone, in privacy. He had


54 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
held her in his arms and kissed her lips. Her full,
steady look, not without a tragic dignity, denied the
ardent impulse that would have made his hands
stretch out to take her. He sat down before her
quietly, with a faint, half-defeated smile.
“My dear,” he said simply. In a way it put for-
ward all his claim — yet patiently, even humbly.
“After so long a time, David’” she asked, low,
with a kind of fond mournfulness.
“More than ever,” he replied. “It was a kind of
boy-and-girl affair. Perhaps it isn’t fair to hold you
to it.” He looked at her unflinchingly. “I know
your letters have been very different the last year
or so. I’ve honestly been trying to tell myself it
was something that was past and ended. But
the minute I saw you again, Loie – it all comes
back, more than ever. I have no choice, I simply
must. That's all, Lou.” -
She bit her lip a little to stop its trembling. “We
talked about the ballot-boxes, you know, David;
and a great deal else along that line. You must
have understood. If the letters were different—
You had bribe money in your hands.”
“I was honest with you about the ballot-boxes,”
he answered. “I was ashamed of myself and meant
never to do such a thing again, just as I told you.
The bribe money was entirely different. The dis-
tillers were getting an amendment of the dramshop
act through the legislature. Of course they were
paying for it. One of the members of the house


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 55
from Sauganac was named Barbour – a fellow who
had done some work for the street railroad off and
on, buying parcels of real estate for right of way and
so on. After the bill passed the house, Barbour
died suddenly. The money wouldn’t be paid until
the bill passed the senate and was signed by the
governor. Another member of the house came to
me about it. Barbour had left his wife and chil-
dren scarcely a cent. The brother member wanted
them to have the thousand dollars which was the
price of the vote Barbour had given for the bill.
I told Codley's Man Friday — Codley is the distiller's
chief counsel, you know; but he doesn’t handle the
money himself. I told the Man Friday to send me
the thousand dollars and I'd turn it over to the
widow as though it were due Barbour for work he
had done for the street railroad. It happened
there was a row on over the spoils. Some indignant
statesmen claimed they weren’t getting what they
had been promised. The man who usually handles
the cash for the boodlers in this section sided with the
malcontents. So Codley had an express package,
said to contain twelve thousand dollars, sent to me
with a memorandum from Friday saying to whom
it was to be paid. Codley had confidence in my
discretion, you see, and as I was going to take
Barbour's money he thought I might as well handle
it all. I returned the express package and told him
the Barbour money was all I cared to have anything
to do with. The row got so violent that it was


56 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
talked about pretty openly. So Winthrop and
some others learned about it. They thought I
ought to testify about the express package and
Friday's memorandum, with which evidence they
could convict Friday and a dozen legislators of
bribery. I refused to do it, and convinced them
that they couldn’t make me do it.”
“Why did you refuse?” she asked.
“Can’t you see, Lou?” he replied. “It would
have been easy to wash my hands of the whole
thing and let the widow and children go without
the thousand dollars. I preferred to help them get
it. Having gone into it in that way, how could I
turn state's evidence?”
“That's it, David. You put that sort of good
fellowship above law and truth !”
He studied the floor a minute, with a darkened
face. “Perhaps I was brought up wrong,” he sug-
gested with a trace of irony. “Dennis O'Neill
was a sort of godfather to me, because he was fond
of me. And Dennis — to his dying day, Lou, he
will never be able to understand that politics is
anything but a fine, nervy game of wits to be
played for the offices and the graft. Winthrop's
kind of politics seems to him just a new trick in the
old game — a new way to catch votes. I suppose I
had a knack for men's affairs. Dennis, out of fond-
ness for me and pride in my aptness, taught me his
game of politics early. When I was a high school
lad playing ball, I knew what was going on in the


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 57
ward clubs. Take the ballot-boxes — I happened
to be in Dennis's office that afternoon, and a clerk of
election came in and told Dennis how the other side
had stuffed the ballot-boxes in three precincts;
also how the stuffed boxes might be stolen by
prompt action. It appealed to Dennis's sense of
humor. I went because there was only one other
man at hand whom he could trust. Dennis rolled
on the floor when he pulled it off — stole the boxes
the other fellows had stuffed.”
“Oh, Davy 1 You smile a little even now !
Back there — telling me about the bribed represen-
tative – you half made a joke of it. You went
light-heartedly to those thieving policemen to find
the policy-shop man who threatened Kittie ' It's
half a joke to you!” she cried in pain.
He bent forward. “Not half, Lou ! Not near
half The little part that is a joke is all that's left
of what I started out with.” His voice shook and
he palpably controlled himself. “Let me tell you,
Lou. Don’t you see, it looked just as unlikely
that you’d be the girl I'd pick out as that I’d be a
man you would care for. Yet from the first –
that evening in Ann Arbor — you came in power-
fully. Maybe it was because you were so different.
You were a pretty hot-headed little piece sometimes;
but the finest part of you came out in your letters
to me — so sweet and clear — almost, dear, as
though we were a sober married couple making up a
life together. I built on them, my girl! I knew


58 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
I oughtn't to go into the ballot-box business, and
was ashamed of myself because I let it carry me
off my feet. I have nothing to do with crooked
politics. I mean to go straight. I built on it.
It's a poor enough thing to say; but out of my first
year's salary I put aside something toward a house.
Don’t you see how much it has got into my life?”
Her breast labored with the struggle to keep
herself in hand. The unruly little pulses that had
often leapt at his step, thrilled at his kiss, tried to
betray her. “I don’t doubt that, and I know the
honor it is, Davy,” she began rather blindly. “Tell
me what you are doing up here to-day.” He had
come with Dennis O'Neill.
“Here?” he repeated blankly, not understanding.
“Why, we're helping Fred in his suit against the
Nogiac distillers.”
“You are?” she cried breathlessly. “Really,
Davy 2 Are you helping him 7”
“Why, yes,” he answered, vaguely wondering.
“Bringing him some good evidence to use against
them, you know. It's going to be a big fight, too.
I’m going to get more evidence for him.”
She bent toward him, aglow, her eyes bright, her
lips slightly apart and touched by a smile. There
was invitation in her face. Still at loss, but with
a leap of the heart, he took her hand.
“And you’ve come over to our side, Davy, for
that big fight !” In an instant she would be in his
arms; but then he understood.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 59
“Of course, I’m doing it on Dennis's account,”
he said. -
“Dennis's account’” she repeated. The glow
faded from her face, and the little droop came back
to the corners of her mouth.
“It’s just this way, Lou,” he explained, compre-
hending her disappointment, and very sober.
“Dennis owns a little distillery here in Sauganac,
you know. He's put all his money in it, and gone
in debt to boot. When Dennis had his own way
here politically, the big distillery combine, of which
the Nogiac men are an important part, was very
good-natured to him. They’re rather sore because
he let Winthrop be elected. Besides, it seems the
big fellows are planning to form a big trust, to be
floated in Wall Street. They’ve evidently made
up their minds that it would be cheaper to rob
Dennis of his plant than to buy it of him at a fair
price. So of late they’ve begun to fight him —
stealing his trade here and there and so on. You
know how a trust does those things. Dennis
doesn’t propose to lie down. He proposes to fight.
He's going to help Fred Hasbrook; giving him
evidence of restraints of trade, blacklisting, and so
on — simply to impress the big fellows with the
idea that they’d best use him right. It's a rather
ticklish business. Dennis is constitutionally sus-
picious of lawyers. He asks me to help him.”
“It’s a kind of blackmail,” said she, with ominous
quietness. “Dennis is trying to frighten the dis-


60 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
tillers into paying him what he asks for his plant.
When he does that, he will have no further interest
in Frederick's suit.”
“I suppose that's about it.” He sighed. “Loie,
why should I sit by and see the old man robbed ?
He's always been my friend. It isn’t as you think —
with all the good on one side and all the bad on the
other. Fred knows Dennis's motive well enough.”
“And you know Frederick's motive,” she replied.
“Is it greedy? Is it selfish? Has it no regard to
anybody but himself? Will he sell out if he can
make a profit 2 That — that’s what I wish l’’
She took a small step nearer him, shaken with
earnestness, a small furrow in her brow. “Davy |
Tell me truly — in what's past, from the very
beginning, did you ever misunderstand me?”
“I don’t think I ever did,” he said. “I always
understood you meant I was to be square. I never
heard of another girl meaning that – really meaning
it the way you did. I guess that's why I’ve loved
my girl so. I’ve built on it. Loie, if I can’t see a
particular case just as you do, you oughtn't to be
rough on me.” -
“But I shall be rough on you, Davy | I shall be l’’
she burst forth passionately. “That's exactly my
part | You’re brave and generous and able. You
must come clear over to our side, Davy — with
honor and truth and justice Not on Dennis
O'Neill's side Don’t you see? I couldn’t bear —
could not bear — anything less than that. It


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 61
would be my own shameful failure. If I'm not
rough on you – I don’t love you !” She sprang up,
reddening.
He arose, bending his head to look more deeply
into her eyes, with the ghost of a happy Smile.
“Red-hearted; stubborn-headed ! My same dear
unaccountable girl!” He laid an arm over her
shoulder.
“No, Davy l” she refused, in a sweet, half-petu-
lant confusion, turning her head to deny her lips.
“You haven’t said. You’re still a grafter — some.
You're with Dennis O'Neill.”
He laughed low. “Anyway, I’ll see one or two
bombs landed in Nogiac. That will please you —
although you’ll pretend it won’t l” He had let her
slip from his lax arm.


CHAPTER VII
THE first bomb landed in Nogiac promptly — in
the form of a complaint filed with the Interstate
Commerce Commission, setting forth the payment
of certain freight rebates to the Grand Mogul Distil-
lery, the evidence having been furnished by Dennis
O'Neill. This formally opened the battle.
Toward eleven o’clock, one pleasant October
day, Mr. A. B. Codley, - commonly known as “Old
Alphabet,” — chief counsel for the Nogiac distillers,
issued from the Sauganac House and trudged serenely
down Broadway. The lawyer was just turned sixty-
five. His tall, bony, loosely knit frame was clad in
a trig suit of autumn brown. He wore brown shoes
and a white felt hat, neatly dented across the crown.
There was something ineradicably rustic in his
awkward figure, with flat, clumping feet, and hands of
which every finger was crooked. His mild affecta-
tion of style, therefore, looked incongruous. His
sallow face was smooth-shaven save for a grizzly
mustache that only half hid his thick upper lip.
The lower lip was even thicker, and his long chin
receded into the leathery folds of tough skin under-
neath. His eyes were small, gray, set close up to
the bridge of his nose. There was no humor in
62


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS - 63
them; so that they seemed not exactly to fit the
big, rather humorous mouth and long nose.
Codley was rich — worth half a million — and
famous; but of late his acute mind had pretty ac-
curately apprized certain signs which suggested that
he was becoming, in a measure, a back number. He
was a lawyer who had always secured results. But
with the vague drift of public spirit there were get-
ting to be more rich clients who drew the line at jury-
bribing, subornation of perjury, and like arts which
he had freely practised — and with a kind of open-
ness, too. His one daughter was getting to be
decidedly an old maid. She it was, chiefly, who had
made him aware that a scheme of social selection was
afoot in which money did not count for everything.
It had been quite a tragedy to Mrs. and Miss Codley
when the Country Club blackballed the eminent
barrister. Miss Codley personally had no particular
eligibility; yet it had seemed too much — an over-
flowing of the bitter cup — when Mrs. Penrose her-
self had invited the Schwartz girls down to her lawn
fête, but not Miss Codley. The result of all this was
to give Old Alphabet a fine dash of malignancy.
Nevertheless, trudging leisurely down Broadway,
he paused to give a silent chuckle over a newsboy
who was producing a prodigious volume of sound
out of a very small body; and he tossed the boy a
dime. Presently, with something the same sort
of amusement, he halted to look over the Sauganac
Daily News’ bulletin-board. The newspaper was


64 - WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
housed in a shabby, two-story brick building toward
the lower end of Broadway – where it began to trail
off into out-at-elbows regions. The lower floor was
occupied by the business office. Codley clumped
up the narrow and not over clean stairs that led to
the editorial and composing rooms, which took up
the second story and were divided only by a rickety
pine railing. A young man in shirt sleeves, scrib-
bling at an old desk, saw the lawyer, nodded genially,
and hastened to the editor's sanctum, which was a
kind of stall partitioned off in the corner. Julius
Brown, the editor, ran out with extended hand and
warm, wide grin.
The editor was a kind of intellectual and spiritual
protégé of the lawyer, and had consciously formed
himself on that eminent model. The distillers,
guided by Codley, really owned the controlling in-
terest in the paper. Beside the littered editorial
desk, with the door shut, Codley sat down delib-
erately.
“Julius, I am confronted with a pious task,” he
began in slow, amiable tones. “I think you can
give me a boost. So I came down to show you just
how the ground lies.” -
The editor nodded, rather eagerly, grinning and
turning a pencil end for end in his blunt fingers.
“All the big distillers,” Codley continued, in his
good-natured drawl, “are going into a trust. It will
take in the best Illinois concerns, the three houses
at Nogiac, some in Pennsylvania and Kentucky.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 65
The capital will be up in nine figures. The Wall
Street gentlemen who are going to promote it and
float it will see that it's large enough. Of course,
we'll have to clean up a score or so of little concerns,
scattered over the country, in order to have a proper
grip on the trade. This plant at Sauganac will be
included in the cleaning process. Personally I like
Dennis O'Neill tiptop,” the lawyer went on. “But
he hasn’t been doing his duty as a patriot. He
shouldn’t have let that fellow Holmes be elected
prosecuting attorney. It mars the symmetry of
our plans. Dennis's oversight irritates us. So we’ve
been giving him the chastening gaff a bit of late.”
Julius nodded again. “I know,” he said.
“Yes,” said Codley, amiably. “We thought it
would be right to knock off about half the value of
his plant before purchasing. Dennis took it hard.
He's rushed off to Freddy Hasbrook and given him
some evidence to use against us. That wasn’t
friendly.”
“Freddy being an ass, anyhow,” said the editor.
“Exactly,” Codley replied. “Freddy being an ass.
We don’t apprehend any serious difficulty in dealing
with Dennis. We'll take away the rest of his trade
and get two or three law-suits started to muss up
his credit, and he will see the light. Dennis is a
reasonable man.”
Mr. Codley regarded the editor a moment with
sinister little eyes. “It’s Freddy Hasbrook that I’m
after.”
F


66 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
“Hasbrook is an ass,” Julius repeated, with em-
phasis.
“He thinks he's some pumpkins,” said the lawyer,
“having a good deal of money and some prestige,
both derived solely from his father. He's strong on
the society dodge, you know; very four hundredy.
He doesn’t approve some good business men of
Nogiac who’ve made their money themselves, in-
stead of letting their fathers make it, and who
happen to be in the whiskey trade. I learn that he
proposes to pitch into us red hot. I suppose he
wants to get his name and picture in the papers,
with a little halo over it. He'd love to have the
ladies cluster about his manly form and beg him to
tell 'em just how he slew the naughty distillery
dragon. I told Charlie Schwartz to leave Freddy
entirely to me; that I’d guarantee to take out his
little tin insides and lay 'em along the sidewalk for
children to play with. I have a score or two of my
own with Freddy. It's a labor of love with me.”
Mr. Codley strove to keep his voice to the same
level, drawling, amiable manner; but in spite of
himself a dull color touched his sallow cheeks, his
eyes lighted ominously.
“Freddy thinks it very good form to throw bricks
at me, in his top-lofty manner — and at my family.”
Old Alphabet's voice was heavy with passion now;
his eyes narrowed to burning points. “I’m going
after Freddy.”
The editor felt himself somewhat infected by the


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 67
other's smothered wrath. “You’ll get him,” he said,
half in sympathy, half in admiration.
“I’ll get him,” Codley repeated, after a slight
pause; and returned more to his normal manner.
“That's where I need your valuable assistance,
Julius. There's a girl staying at the Hasbrook place
part of the time.”
Julius ceased turning the pencil in his fingers and
thoughtfully worried his mustache a moment. “I
don’t believe there's a thing in that,” he said quite
low. “She's a sort of ward of the Senator — Win-
throp Holmes's sister, you know. I don’t believe
there's a thing in it.”
“Well, maybe not,” Codley replied coolly. “Still
it never does any hurt to keep an eye out. I’ll have
a good man report to you — for I don’t care to be
on the ground myself. Usually there's a maid or
two about the house who'll tell what's going on for
a reasonable consideration. We'll just keep an eye
out. Do you remember that old story about Freddy
and a milliner?” -
“Yes, I remember it,” said Julius. “Nellie
Trescott was her name. She used to keep a kind of
double-barrelled store up on Maple Street — milli-
nery in one side, gent's furnishings in the other.
She went away, and her husband got a divorce.
Somebody put up some money, for the husband was
in funds for a while. He was killed in a railroad
wreck. Nellie went West — out to Montana as I
remember it — and married again and died seven


68 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
or eight years ago. The story was that Fred Has-
brook put up the money – which induced the good-
natured husband to let Nellie go and to get a di-
vorce. But that all happened twenty years ago,
you know.”
“Yes,” said Old Alphabet, and sighed. “It
doesn't sound at all promising – a youngster and a
milliner, twenty years ago.” He drummed thought-
fully on the table with the ends of his fingers. “I’ve
discovered this, Julius, in my long and energetic
career – that only about one man in a dozen is put
together all snug and tight without any loose ends
hanging. The other eleven — if you just keep on
looking 'em over carefully enough, by and by you’ll
find a loose thread somewhere, and if you take hold
of it and pull with proper discretion, you’ll soon
have him all unravelled and inside out. I’m going
to checkmate Freddy this trip, and I won't overlook
any ravellings.”
“There are two Trescott daughters,” the editor
suggested. “The older one married a tin-horn
gambler named Doane. I don’t know where the
other is. By the way, that reminds me. Rexford,
my sporting editor, was telling me the other day
that it was Doane who'd been running a fake policy
shop here and came within an ace of getting nabbed
in one of Holmes's raids, and that he had a woman
with him. It might — possibly — have been his
wife, the Trescott girl.” t
“Well, look it up,” Codley replied. “If we can


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 69
get hold of the girl, she may know something that’ll
help. We won't overlook any ravellings. I’ll have
a good man report to you – half a dozen of 'em if
necessary. Have Rexford see if he can locate the
tin-horn one. We won't overlook any ravellings.”
He drummed on the table again. “This distillers'
trust, Julius, means a good many hard million dol-
lars to my clients. They’re anxious to pull it off
right. The people in Wall Street are pretty sore
and nervous just now – there's been so much trust-
busting talk and all that. They don’t want any
rows and newspaper hullabaloos on their hands.
They’re kind of hanging back on this distillery affair
because they’re afraid there will be a row. So, you
see, Hasbrook's attack came at an inopportune
moment. Of course, with his money and prestige
and so on he can raise a good deal of hell if he's a mind
to. It's necessary for important business reasons to
choke him off promptly. And then, as I observed,
it's a labor of love with me.”
“Oh, you’ll get him all right,” said the editor,
cheerfully.


CHAPTER VIII
“WHAT is it, Annie?” called Louise, rather sharply.
“Nothing. I was going to dust the vases,” said
the girl, and disappeared.
Louise was annoyed. It was the second time she
had caught the maid slipping past the door and peer-
ing in. One couldn’t expect the servants in a men's
house to be very well disciplined; but this girl's
overgrown curiosity was displeasing.
Louise frowned slightly as she returned to her
book. She was sitting in the front room of the right-
hand wing — the one Frederick used as an office.
Her book looked unpromising enough. It was a
thick volume bound in blue pasteboard, and it con-
tained the report of a congressional committee which,
some eight years before, had made an investigation
of the distilling industry. It might yield some
ammunition for Frederick. She rested her elbow
on the table beside the fat tome, her chin in her palm,
a pencil, ready to make notes, in the other hand, and
resumed reading. Presently she was aware that
Some one stood at the hall door. An angry sus-
picion of the peeking maid disturbed her mind; but
she kept on reading. Even when the person gently
entered the room, she did not look up, for she did not
70


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 71
wish to be interrupted. It was only when the in-
truder had stood silently beside her chair a moment
that she did look up.
Then she cried, “Why, Teddie l’ colored with
pleasure, and reached both hands, laughing.
The young man, laughing also, kept her hands a
moment; then took the chair beside her. He was
slender, with a thin, dark face that seemed to laugh
easily. His hair was fairly black, parted in the
middle, and full of kinks that gave a foreign sug-
gestion. Whenever he smiled, dimples came in his
lean cheeks. In his school days those dimples and
the kinky hair had been the cause of many a gallant
and generally disastrous battle — for sometimes a
boy would call him “sissy,” which always meant a
fight. The shaven beard gave a bluish tinge to the
lower part of his face and his slim hands bore the
mark of Esau. He was not effeminate; yet in look-
ing at him one thought, what a stunning girl he
would have made 1
“When did you get home? They said you'd gone
north fishing. What luck?” She threw the ques-
tions at him in a lump, still laughing in a way which
both made a joke of him and took him to her heart.
Teddie Penrose, only son and heir of that house,
laughed with engaging frankness. “As for luck, I
can’t fish any better than I can do anything else.
But I had a good time forgetting my troubles.”
“But you’ve settled down here now – gone into
business,” she said in a more earnest tone.


72 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
“Not exactly,” he answered lightly. “I seem
not to get the hang of business. I was about ready
to chuck it. The fishing trip was a sort of letting
myself down easy. I say ! Why not come for a
spin’ I’ve got the machine out here.”
She knew that he wished to talk to her. “Let me
get a hat,” she replied, and arose.
He brought something back to her — association
with numberless pleasant, interesting things; an
atmosphere of richly appointed ease which unwor-
thily appealed to an unregenerate capacity for
luxury in her. Even as she walked across the lawn
with him and climbed into the expensive car, the
mellow air of that indulgent year abroad, with all
the vulgar little annoyances of life brushed away,
wafted itself back to her. Besides, she was very
fond of Teddie. As the machine rolled smoothly
forward, she sank back in the comfortable seat and let
herself go in luxurious enjoyment.
Penrose was in no hurry to begin his talk. He
bubbled gossipy nonsense, in the joy of having her
beside him, as the car slipped down the macada-
mized road into asphalted Overlook Boulevard.
“Lovely joint l” he laughed, as they rolled past
the Penrose castle — rather small for a castle in
everything except its quality of stony gloom, as it
bullied uselessly over its gentle lawn. They passed
Mr. Titus's villa and Epperson's colonial mansion –
fruit of the patent medicines — and other dwellings
of the town’s rich. As they approached the business


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 73
centre the houses became less pretentious, nearer to-
gether. Then they passed the Court House which
stood in the centre of a little plateau, a block in
extent, at the toe of the bluff and fifteen feet higher
than the street level. The building was a three-
story sandstone cube, the erection of which had
yielded its due proportion of graft. Thus the pur-
pose of the row of granite columns across the front
of the second story was not at all what it seemed to
be – namely, to darken the windows — but to give
a firm of stone masons a profitable job. The tall,
square clock-tower also had been a lucrative after-
thought of the contractors. Louise was not think-
ing of the graft, however. Her heart quickened a
little as she looked up at this capitol of Mission
County, for her eyes rested on the windows of the
prosecuting attorney's office in the second story.
Leaving the pride of Broadway to the left, with
the towering cornice and bare flagpole of the First
National Bank Building, they turned to cross the
river. The street railroad was building its new
power-house on the flats along the river bank.
Otherwise the district was dingy.
“Blasted Irishman l’’ Teddie observed, showing
his dimples and white teeth. He was looking at
the big, unfinished power-house.
Louise laughed back. “What's Davy been doing
to you now?”
“Why, he runs his street railroad with one hand;
and comes over every now and then and puts in an


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 75
taking Fruit Essences, I reckon,” he suggested, as
they turned and began climbing the hill whose
shoulder rapidly shut out the view of the factories.
“You know I got into a pretty fierce mess in
Florence,” he said abruptly, and with a quite sober
frankness. She recalled that his departure thence
had seemed precipitate. “Of course, father paid
the shot. There's never any trouble about that.
But it rather put me in a way of thinking I could
see my finish, so I decided to try living over here.
Father turned this little plant over to me. I sup-
pose he'd foreclosed on it or found it lying loose in
the back yard. My idea is there's no use of a fellow
living in this country unless he can do business.
The loafing is pleasanter on the other side. Honest
Injun, Lou, I’ve worked like a nailer at this little
one-horse bicycle plant; but it don’t come out right.
I can’t get the hang of it. I’m just a joke to the men
there.”
“Oh, but you will get the hang of it, Teddiel
You'll get the experience with time. That's what
you need That's what you lack — some experi-
ence; and just biting hard on the bit and wading
straight in You can do it ! Oh, I know you can l’’
she declared with a warm conviction.
He looked ahead, gravely. “I’m afraid not, Loie.
I could cram for an exam — if I had to, you know.
I’ve got some brains. I can play bridge first-rate.
But I haven’t got even a poor imitation of executive
ability. Now, Davy, you know — what he says


76 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
to his men goes, for they know he knows. They
know I don’t know, and the men and the whole busi-
ness simply play horse with me. I hate giving it
up, too, because it would be so easy for father to do
it that he can’t understand how I could fail if I really
tried my best. It will tend to confirm his previous
opinion that I’m not much good. That means a
pension and more loafing.” He looked at her with
a slight, rather wan smile. “Which isn’t really good
for me.”
“Don’t you give it up, Teddie 1 Don’t you do it,
old man Wade straight in I know you won’t
fail finally Stick to it, Ted l’” He fairly felt the
energy that her words suggested, and the ardent
good-will like a brave arm thrown around his
shoulders.
“Yes. You could do it, Loie l’’ he said. “My
education wasn’t commercial. I fell to mother,
you know. Possibly she made a gentleman of me.
Father stood aside with his hands in his pockets, as
he does about the high-priced jimcracks mother
buys abroad. It isn’t altogether my fault that I
can’t run a bicycle factory. It's so comforting to
blame somebody else !” He smiled again.
“You can make it go ! It needs only time and
patience. I’m sure you can make it go, Ted,” she
affirmed eagerly. “Davy will give you a lift, in
getting started right, whenever you need it ! I know
he will !” She had hardly meant to speak with that
authority of him.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 77
“Yes, Davy can do it for me, and will,” he re-
plied. “But what good is that? It isn't running
it myself. So I've fired him out of it.” He looked
around at her. “I need a boss, Lou; but not Davy
— for I hate him some, too.”
She knew of old the odd, impersonal sort of jeal-
ousy that lay in his warm friendship for the abler,
stronger man. It was exactly like him to mention
it now, when almost any one else would have striven
to conceal it. The little confession touched her in-
timately. He was sweet and open. As a matter
of course, she loved him in a way. There had been
moments before when the mother in her, and her
generous will to sacrifice and her militant will to
make herself felt, all arose to him. She could be
very fond of him and keep him up to his best. She
had even an odd sort of detached judgment which,
so far as it went, quite coincided with what she knew
to be Mrs. Penrose's able judgment of their mutual
eligibility.
“I surely need a boss. Some day you may take the
job l’” He spoke smiling. Twice or thrice before
he had said something to the same effect; but it was
unnecessary. His whole attitude expressed it — a
kind of open-handed, good-humored offering of him-
self, as though he mostly knew it out of the question,
yet stuck to a hope that she might one day take him.
No reply was needed. She simply let a decent
little pause intervene; then said, “Speaking of bosses,
when is your mother coming out?”


78 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
He accepted it good-naturedly. “Next month.
You know Sister Titus and Brother Bascom have
decided to give an orthodox horseshow. I suppose
it appeals to mother's sense of humor. At any rate
she writes that she's coming out then. Father has
some Englishmen whom he's going to take West to
show a railroad. They’ll kill the two birds with one
stone.”
“I’d heard of the horseshow,” she replied, half
absently. In fact she was looking ahead, with in-
terest. The roadside view ahead included a tall
hedge, with a triumphal entrance arch of pine,
painted red, white, and blue, and ornamented with
a string of Chinese lanterns. The sign on the arch
said, “Schmidt's Family Garden.” A single pursy
figure sat forlornly beneath the arch, and, recogniz-
ing Teddie as they sped by, waved a mournfully
hospitable arm.
“Good thing he didn’t know you,” said Teddie.
“He’d have run for a gun.”
This was the beer garden that Winthrop had closed.
She turned in the seat to glance back at the foe.
The battle was all about them |
Coming back, as they slipped down to the bridge,
she laid her hand on his arm.
“Don’t give it up, Teddie. You can do it. I
want to see you pull through.”
It was different from the way she had spoken
going out — in a way softer, more intimate, because
more decidedly sisterly. He realized it and smiled,


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 79
and let out the machine in defiance of the sign that
warned against speeding on the bridge.
At the other end of the bridge, as they sped and
turned to ascend, four men stepped from behind a
pile of brick where the new power-house was build-
ing. Three were in workmen's dress, the other
pointing. They were so close that the wind of their
car fluttered his coat, and a long thrill pulled at
Louise's nerves. Not that he had been in any danger,
and she did not care about mere business efficiency,
but the little fleeting picture of him directing his
men was oddly suggestive. For a moment she let
herself dream, and see him at an outpost, the light
of a watchfire on his tanned cheek. There would
be none braver than he.


CHAPTER IX
THE horseshow was held in the big shell of the
incomplete street railroad power-house. Prepara-
tions for the tremendous society event considerably
interested the female and juvenile population of the
dingy neighborhood. The prevailing adult male
attitude was expressed by the bartender of the United
States Hotel, who declared that he wouldn’t be
caught dead with such a bunch.
The hotel was half a block up the street from the
power-house. It had seen better days, although its
best days were nothing to boast of. Some of its
guests came solely because of economy, others be-
cause its slovenly, down-at-the-heel, out-at-elbows
air corresponded with the general scheme of their
lives, and there was a certain delicate suggestion
about the place which, to the initiated, conveyed
a comforting idea that the police didn’t trouble them-
selves overmuch about it. It was perfectly natural,
for example, that Mrs. Harris Doane should select
it for her brief sojourn in her native city. She looked
like a woman who belonged there. Like the hotel,
she had seen better days, but they had been nothing
in particular to boast of. She had grown rather
stout and flabby. There was something pathetic
in the brittle, chemical yellow of her hair.
80


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 81
She sat at a third-story window, rocking and
chewing gum with equal violence, a feline wrath
darkening her fleshy face and snapping in her brown
eyes.
“You always was stubborn as a mule ! You
always used me like a dog, too !” Her complaining
voice rose with her anger. “If I can make a dollar,
what you want to stand in my way for? I ain’t
ever done anything to you, have I? Fine sister
you’ve been to me!”
Fanny Trescott looked steadily out of the other
window without replying, her own face dark and
Stony.
“Can't you speak, numbskull?” Mrs. Doane's
voice climbed to a sort of shriek under the intoler-
able exasperation of her sister's stubborn silence.
“What you got against Wes Wogan’”
“He’s a drunken bum,” Fanny replied, low. “I’ll
not show my mother's letters to him or to anybody
like him.” She looked over at the elder woman
then, her fine black brows drawn together. “Tell
me the truth. What do you want of those letters?”
“I tol’ you what I wanted of 'em l’ Mrs. Doane
struggled to keep herself measurably in hand. “Fan,
I tol’ you all about it when I first saw you down
there in Tennessee.” She flew out violently again.
“What business is it of yours, anyhow 2 She's as
much my mother as she is yours, ain’t she? I got
a right to them letters!”
This outburst was met by a return, on Fanny's
G


82 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
part, to the stony silence; and the sister struggled
again – under the handicap of a very poor set of
nerves — to get control of herself. “It’s just as I
tol’ you, Fan,” she complained. “Doane's got some
money now; and I can jump him and get some
alimony; but I gotta be in a position to prove the
handwriting of them letters. If you'd give 'em to
me, or just loaned ’em to me, as I wanted you to,
there wouldn’t 'a' been all this expense. I’ll give 'em
back to you, Fan.” She was almost whimpering now.
“I told you, Jennie,” Fanny replied. “The letters
ain’t in mother's hand.”
“That’s just it !” Mrs. Doane returned, with an
eager showing of hope. “That's just what I gotta
prove. Wogan's got some of mother's hand and
some of mine, and if I can satisfy him them letters
ain’t in mother's hand or in mine, he’ll go ahead and
jump Doane and get me some alimony. Blame it
all, Fan, what you afraid of 2 I don’ ast you to give
me the letters. Just go to Wogan's office with me
and show 'em to him. You promised you would.”
“I didn’t know you meant Wes Wogan,” Fanny
answered. “I supposed you meant some decent
lawyer — or I wouldn’t have come here with you.
Wogan's a bum. I won’t show him the letters.”
She turned suddenly, anticipating the flow of rage.
“Mother couldn’t hardly speak when she gave 'em
to me. I won’t show 'em to Wogan. He ain’t
respectable.”
This seemed too much for Mrs. Doane's poor


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 83
nerves. “He wasn’t never caught running a policy
shop, was he?”
Fanny's lips parted. Evidently she was startled.
Mrs. Doane perceived it, and realized that she had
betrayed herself. Her own confusion caused her
to turn her face to the window, for a long, self-
reproachful, panicky moment.
“Well, of course, if you won’t, you won’t, Fan,”
she presently said, soothingly. “It’s a good six or
seven hundred dollars to me; but I suppose you
know best.” She spoke sisterly, and added, “Guess
they’re going to have a good crowd to their horse-
show.” Indeed, a stream of people flowed down the
street, brilliantly lighted for this once; carriages
passed, and occasionally an automobile.
Fanny saw the people; but they did not interest
her. Her whole mind had leapt to an alarmed alert-
ness at her sister's careless taunt.
Her non-legal understanding had never been able
to extract from Jennie's voluble but vague explai
nations just why it was so necessary for the elder
sister to have possession of those old letters in order
to get her divorce from Doane — at this goldenly
propitious moment when he was in fund and could
be made to yield some alimony. Jennie had said
that Doane knew about the letters and would accuse .
her of having written them and so defeat her bill for
divorce. Fanny herself knew that Doane knew
better, although she did not care, in conversation
with Jennie, to touch upon anything connected with


84 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
the policy-shop episode; and she conceived that
Doane, while knowing better, might easily lie about
it. She would not give Jennie the letters; yet she
was loath to have it upon her conscience that she
had stood in the way of her sister getting some
alimony. Finally, although she couldn't exactly
understand it, she consented to come to Sauganac
with Jennie, the elder sister having offered to pay
expenses.
She had consented because, if she could help
Jennie, she felt bound to do it, and not because she
had been able to work out a very clear or satisfac-
tory hypothesis as to the real usefulness of the letters
in her sister's cause.
Doane knew about the letters. From whom, save
Doane, could Jennie have learned about the policy
shop 2 She could not see what Doane wanted of the
letters any more than she could see what Jennie
wanted of them. The idea that he did want them
took possession of her alarmed mind. As a matter
of course, Doane wouldn’t want them for any re-
spectable purpose. She was an outlaw in Sauganac,
subject to arrest and imprisonment, she supposed;
hence not in a position to summon the aid of the law.
She felt herself in a trap.
“It looks as though they’d have a good crowd,”
she said, looking out of the window.
“Folks must be hard up for a way to blow in their
dough,” Jennie commented, and added, genially:
“I’m awful thirsty. Le’s have a bottle of beer.”


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 85
“I don’t want any beer,” Fanny said.
“Come on. A glass won't hurt you,” Jennie
enticed. “I’m dry as a fish. It'll make you
sleep better.” She arose, as to ring the bell.
A single, bare gas-jet flared in the room, giving a
somewhat uneven light. And it seemed to Fanny
that, by this light, she saw something lurking,
catlike, in Jennie's eye.
“You drink the beer if you want to,” she replied.
Her heart was beating faster. She was aware that
a single glass of beer sometimes exerted a tremen-
dous soporific influence.
“Pshaw l” Jennie exclaimed petulantly; and
resumed her seat, with a flounce. But she kept
herself in hand. “We’ll have to get up early,”
she observed, after a moment.
“Yes,” said Fanny. “There’s” — her voice died
away for an instant. “There's a lot of people going
to the show.” Staring down at the people, with an
active mind, she thought it was Mr. Harris Doane
whom she had seen on the opposite corner, looking
up at their windows. The figure swiftly disap-
peared, however. She seemed to feel a trap closing
in around her; and the packet of letters in her
breast appeared to beat with the throbbing of her
heart.
“Let’s go to the show,” she said suddenly.
“Not any,” Jennie replied with disgust.
“Come on,” Fanny coaxed. “I never saw a
horseshow. It only costs half a dollar to get in.


86 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
I’m going to take a look at it.” She stood up.
“Then we'll drink our beer and go to bed,” she
added artfully.
“What do you want to go there for?” Jennie
demanded, regarding her dubiously, and at a loss.
“Just to take a look at it a few minutes. I’ve
got just seventy cents. Might as well blow it in.
Then we’ll drink our beer and go to bed.” She was
already putting on her hat.
Mrs. Doane was displeased. It was true, how-
ever, that Fanny had only a little change, and her
bag was in the room. She didn’t know exactly how
to prevent the excursion.
“Don’t stay long, Fan,” she cautioned, com-
plainingly. “I’m tired as a dog. I want to go to
bed early.”
“I won’t,” said Fanny, as she went out.
Emerging upon the street she gave a swift glance
about. She believed she was watched — probably
by Doane. It was with this idea in mind that she
turned, on the opposite corner, smiling and waving
her hand in ostentatious greeting to the third-story
window where she had left Jennie. Then she went
on with the crowd; paid her half dollar, and entered
the show.
Even under these circumstances, she had an
humiliated consciousness that her skirt, jacket, and
hat were rather shabby – for she had been very fru-
gal since she took the job in Tennessee. She made
a poor figure in the crowd. She had not dared


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 87
walk by the entrance without going in, for fear
Doane was following her — perhaps prepared to
have her taken in custody by one of his thievish
police friends. She thought, once inside the build-
ing, she could find a way to slip out again. Her
forlorn position blent with her shabby clothes to
give her a kind of homesickness as she looked upon
the gala scene.
Almost the first person she saw whom she knew
was Ted Penrose, standing near the entrance with
two other young men, all three in evening dress.
She stood aside, her eyes upon him, catching at the
straw. He saw her in a moment and instantly
came up, with a gay smile, holding out his hand.
“Well, well ! Come home for the show, Fanny?
That's a right idea!”
“Could you lend me fifteen dollars, Ted? I
want to get home and I haven’t any money.” She
said it gravely; but without a blush or a wavering
of her large, dark eyes, laying her need before him
in a kind of nobly simple nakedness.
“Good old friend Why wouldn’t I lend you all
you want? What else is the money for?” He too
spoke gravely, under the sudden generous emotion,
and as simply as herself.
A faint, grateful smile touched her eyes and lips.
She had known him a long time, even when she
was a dining-room girl in Donovan's hotel. He
had always been fine to her — the finest of any
man she ever knew. She understood him, too.


88 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
He was fine to her because she had to work for a
living; because the edge of necessity made her
footing difficult. Exactly that in her condition which
put her at a disadvantage and so tempted some
men to try to trip her made this man hold out the
firm hand of a friend. He had that kind of chivalry.
Plenty of other men — David Donovan, for example
– had been nice, kindly, even generous to her.
But with them it was a sort of comraderie. They
all belonged in a way to the same big working army;
and they did not touch her imagination as did this
figure from what, to her, was a different sphere.
Ted laughed. “Lucky it's only an imitation
horseshow, or I’d be broke myself. But come
have a look at it now you’re here. Might as well.
You must get the worth of your money, you know.”
He laughed again. “Brother Bascom is having his
own troubles getting the thing started.”


CHAPTER X
THE show indeed lagged. The idea of it origi-
nated with Mrs. Titus, wife of the president of the
First National Bank. She had seen the exhibition
in New York the year before, and her placid mind
was untroubled by any doubt that Sauganac's
show was essentially the same thing on a reduced
scale and an elevated moral plane.
The banker's lady weighed two hundred. She
had a large, good-humored face lighted by dull but
handsome brown eyes, and a fine double chin.
Modesty forbade her to wear the conventional even-
ing toilet; and a multiplicity of jet ornaments, over
her ample, silk-covered bosom, moved with its power-
ful undulations and murmured a kind of blissful
content as she promenaded on the arm of Mr.
Epperson, junior — a negligible person, of his dis-
tinguished father's lank build, but without that per-
son's ability. His most noticeable feature was an
exaggerated Adam's apple. His self-consciousness
was expressed in a nervous, furtive fingering of his
white tie. Every time he swallowed the Adam’s
apple climbed his stringy neck, peered over the top
of his shiny collar, then dived down, as not liking the
view. The self-consciousness of Mrs. Titus, on the
89


90 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
other hand, was bland, joyous. Her eyes roved
complacently over the gathering which her talents
had evoked. She bowed as amiably to persons on
the highest tier of benches as to those in the single
row of boxes. This impenetrable satisfaction greatly
disturbed some ladies up aloft. One of them moaned
to her companion: –
“Oh, the cow ! She hasn’t even sense enough to
know it’s a joke She can’t see that Mrs. Penrose
is laughing at her l’’
Mrs. Penrose, however, was not laughing, but
smiling with the highest good humor. Her box was
the centre of the show. Every one looked at her.
Many women speculated as to what her simple
dull-black gown really cost. She was at once a
triumph and a defeat. She held herself with erect
grace. The firm, smooth white neck carried her
shapely head at a daintily imperious poise. Her
dark eyes sparkled with life; and her figure kept the
lines of a supple girl. Even the silvery powdering
of her hair, above the vivacious face, was a charm
in itself. One thought, “A beautiful woman l’’
That was a triumph, for her son was twenty-six.
Yet there were sharply marked lines from her
delicately arched nose downward. The perfect
rose had departed from her clear complexion. Her
hair was turning gray. Time had touched her.
That was the defeat. One thought, “What must
she have been at twenty l’’
Her husband, a solid and powerful man, some-


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 91
what heavy-looking in evening clothes, sat behind
her and talked across the box rail with Mr. Titus
and Mr. Epperson. The handsome banker wore that
chastened air which he always put on with this
penitential evening garb. He had no opinion of the
show except that it was one of those trying di-
gressions from business to which a good husband
must dutifully submit. He knew that his wife was
capable in managing her household and that she
had a solid understanding of business. The idea
that she was socially inept never occurred to him;
the subject itself had no interest, for him. He and
Epperson were discussing with Mr. Penrose a plan
for buying the electric light company and con-
solidating it with the street railroad. The young
superintendent, David Donovan, had evolved the
plan and was urging it upon them.
As it was Mrs. Titus's horseshow a certain respon-
sibility devolved, ex-officio, upon Mr. Bascom.
Nothing could have been more innocent than the
partnership between this pair. Together they ran
the First Presbyterian Church, and whatever else
came within range. Mr. Bascom was now in the
paddock, bustling and perspiring over the belated
arrangements for bringing in the horses. Unfor-
tunately, the citizen who combined a thorough under-
standing of horses with high moral qualities, and
who, therefore, had been selected by Mrs. Titus to
superintend this incident of the enterprise, had
fallen ill at the last moment. Landlord Donovan


92 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
had been available, but there was a certain broad
flavor of conviviality in the landlord's character
which, while it by no means disqualified him for
contributing liberally to the show, made it unmeet
that he should be distinguished by participation in
the management. In this crisis Mr. Bascom had
resorted to the heroic expedient of hiring a pro-
fessional horseman; but to his consternation the
expert had appeared far gone in liquor, and now
sat boozily dozing in the corner — a hideous monu-
ment to human frailty. Landlord Donovan had
good-naturedly responded to the cry for help, and
was now rapidly reducing chaos to order in spite of
Mr. Bascom's excited and misapplied assistance.
During the wait Mrs. Penrose's mischieviously
roving dark eyes lighted upon a pair near the en-
trance. She turned to Louise.
“Who’s that with Ted ?” she asked.
Louise looked in the direction of the questioner's
glance, and puzzled a moment, with a vague dawn-
ing of alarm.
“It's surely Fanny Trescott,” she said.
“Trescott?” Mrs. Penrose regarded her ques-
tioningly.
“Surely, it's Fanny Trescott,” Louise repeated,
and added: “Perhaps you remember a Mrs. Trescott
who kept a millinery shop here long ago. This is
her daughter.”
The mischief quite died out of Mrs. Penrose's
eyes. A subtle settling took place in the beautiful


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 93
face. She seemed to forget those with her. Her
eyes steadily followed the slowly moving pair.
Presently she surprised Louise with an abrupt ques-
tion: —
“She doesn’t live here, does she?”
It took Louise a moment to remember whom she
meant. Then she said, “I think not. I believe
she's living somewhere in Tennessee – working in
a sort of sanitarium. I hear she's capable.”
Mrs. Penrose appeared not to have heard the last.
Her eyes had returned to Ted and his friend. By
now she could see the girl's face clearly. Ted looked
up at the box with a gay smile.
Louise spoke to her. “Here are the Senator and
Frederick.”
Mrs. Penrose turned from Ted and Fanny then to
find the other pair; smiled and nodded to them; then
beckoned. Father and son came up to the box
obediently; were made known to young Mr. and
Mrs. Osborne of New York. Frederick, it seemed,
already knew Mr. Varnum, who appeared to be
rather especially Mrs. Penrose's young cavalier.
In the urbane chatter a slight indication, given by
a faint motion of Mrs. Penrose's shapely head, put
Frederick in Mr. Varnum’s chair at her side.
“We'll have a horseshow twice a year, if it will
bring you out, Betty,” he said, as he took the seat.
“Once a year is plenty,” she replied in a voice
lower than his own; still lower she said, “Nellie
Trescott's daughter is here.”


94 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
“Yes?” he replied softly. “I supposed the earth
had swallowed her up.”
“Ted has her here,” she said, her shoulder almost
touching his. “Find out what he's doing with her.”
“I will, Betty,” he answered very soberly.
They sat so close together that she could not very
well look at him; but he could look down at her
beautiful head and shoulders. In spite of the silvery
powdering of her hair she might still have been a
girl. “I’ll find out at once,” he repeated.
The band struck up. Some horses came in —
quite successfully. The show was beginning. When
Mrs. Penrose looked about, Teddie and his companion
had disappeared.
The show seemed well enough; but Louise was
quick to detect that it was not a success for Mrs.
Penrose. That imperious lady's humorous zest
for it seemed to have evaporated. Louise was not
surprised when the hostess proposed going home,
therefore, at the intermission.
When they got outside, a fresh vexation awaited.
The chauffeur was on hand; but the car was gone.
Ted had taken it. Mr. Penrose accepted it philo-
Sophically; but Mrs. Penrose was hardly at pains to
conceal her ill-humor. While they were debating
whether to go inside again, the missing car appeared
up the street, going at a good speed, with Ted alone
in the driver's seat.
“Hello? Kept you waiting?” he sang out ami-
ably, as he swung up to the curb. “Had to take a
friend to the railroad station.”


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 95
He saw his mother's sparkling eye, and met it
with a brilliant, mischievous smile. “I supposed
you’d be enthralled with the show,” he laughed as
he sprang out.
The party entered the car, and made room for him.
“No, thank you,” he said. “I couldn’t think of
missing the rest of the show.” He was looking at
his mother as he said it, and laughing mischiev-
ously — telling her plainly enough that he preferred
to wait until she had forgotten her provocation.
They left him at the curb, like a spoiled but still
sweet-tempered youngster enjoying the joke of his
mother's vexation. Mrs. Penrose knew he laughed
at her, and loved him and wished to box his ears.
“Speed up,” she called impatiently as they turned
into the boulevard. The chauffeur obeyed, and the
unlawful, thirty-mile gait stopped conversation.
Louise had taken the front seat. She bent her
head to the wind which whipped in little stinging,
pleasantly exciting lashes under the furs about her
neck. She heard the honk of the horn, a shout ;
felt the quick swerve of the machine; then a crash
and an impact which, however, was so light that it
scarcely unsettled her seat. The machine slowed
and turned. She saw the wreck of a peddler's cart
which a decrepit and terrified nag was trying to drag
up the terrace to Mr. Epperson's lawn. The street
was strewn with apples, in the midst of which a
man sat up and loosened a stream of objurgation in
the accents of sunny Italy.


96 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
“He’s all right,” said Mrs. Penrose. “It’s always
such a relief when they begin to swear. You know
they’re not hurt much. Give our name and drive
on.”
Her good-humor seemed mysteriously restored by
the accident. The potent name was called back.
The car described another circle and rolled home-
ward.
“A very neat shot, Webster,” said the hostess.
“I must brush up on Italian. I could understand
only three of the names he called us.”
The chauffeur explained that the cart came from
a side street and the panic-stricken driver countered
his effort to avoid it. But Mrs. Penrose paid no
attention to the explanation.
“Sober, Loie?” she asked. “It’s a perfectly
fair game, you know. Out in the country they throw
stones at us and put broken bottles in the road, and
in town we bowl 'em over !”
She leaned toward Louise as she spoke, and gave
her gloved hand a little squeeze. The street-lamp
showed her beautiful face, animated with a dazzling
smile. Louise felt the rush of her high gay spirits.
In spite of all there was a great, sparkling fountain
of life in her; she lived immensely.
Louise herself laughed indulgently. She was
relieved. All along her mind had been oddly
troubled over the incident of Fanny Trescott's
appearance — or, rather, over the way Mrs. Penrose
had taken it. In the case of another woman she


98 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
and drove across the river. The country roadside
was strewn with maple leaves, but the trees were
still rich with them. Some still vistas, where the
overhanging leafage was shot with sunshine, and
dust-particles, arising from the empty road, glinted
in the light, seemed made of gold. The rolling
country had yielded its fruit and grain and rested
peacefully. The man and woman felt near to each
other.
They went back to the horseshow finally, and
entered; but it was nearly over. People were
already leaving. They encountered David Donovan
there. It was Ted, rather than Louise, who, in a
happy hospitality, took him into their company.
David did not please her then. She had thought
about him too much and too troublously of late.
He did not fit the day. It was good sometimes to
dream, with a well-liked, perfectly tractable friend
at one's side and nothing to disturb one's peace.
Still, coming out of the show, it was her impulse
which proposed that they walk, which permitted
David to continue of the party. She surrendered
her jacket to Ted and her spirit was more with him
than with the other as they strolled leisurely on,
in a mood where what anybody said made no par-
ticular difference. She paused, without explanation,
to take in a view up the pleasant valley. This same
tranquillity to which she now wilfully gave herself
seemed to lie up there. In an idling, half-formless
way she was thinking, “Why not live with it?”


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 99
A line of Omar's came into her head. She smiled,
for her abstraction, at Ted, then at David, and they
started on leisurely. They had taken a little-fre-
quented, badly paved street halfway up the ascent
that led from the shelf of bottom land along the
river bank to the boulevard on the brow of the bluff.
Just ahead of them lay an intersecting street, also
not much used because the grade was too steep for
comfort and the cobblestone pavement, designed
to give horses a better footing for the stiff up-pull,
was rough and broken. Glancing upward she hap-
pened to see a big cherry-colored car flash by on the
boulevard. She thought it was the machine they
had gone to the horseshow in, and was about to
comment on it, when they all heard a shout, which
was taken up, repeated, cut with a scream. A pair
of powerful horses drawing a heavy farm wagon
shot into view at the head of the street and plunged
down its stony steep in a runaway. They were fairly
at the street corner then. They saw the farmer
tugging bravely but uselessly at the lines and a child
clinging to his arm. It looked like death.
The picture that hung in Louise's paralyzed mind
then showed these lightning-like motions: Teddie,
with an ashen face and wide, staring eyes that held
the soul of fear, thrusting her jacket into her hands
and starting forward; David springing after him,
catching his arm at the curb and pulling him violently
back; holding him firmly while the runaway hurtled
thunderously by. She drew breath as she realized


100 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
that the driver had managed to avoid a hole in the
pavement. The breath still trembled on her lips
when one horse fell, horribly; the wagon swerved
and crashed against the curb ; man and child shot
out of the wreck. The flying shutters that revealed
the picture in her brain slowed their motion. People
were running from all sides. David trotted for-
ward. Her numbed faculties resumed their func-
tions. She was seeing now and understanding. A
mangled horse lay in the road. She sank against
the low stone wall that held the terrace of the
hillside lot and put her hands over her face. When
she looked up, Teddie was sitting on the curb, his
elbows on his knees, his face in his hands. She
was sick all over, and vaguely struggled against the
assailing faintness. The people about the wreck,
now grown to a craning crowd that quite filled the
street, were clamoring. Two policemen had come
up. A minute later David came slowly and soberly
up the steep street.
“What it is, Davy 2 Are they hurt?” she moaned.
“Pretty bad, Lou,” he said, low and gravely.
“The little boy?” Her voice broke in a sob.
“Bad. Pretty bad,” he replied in the same low,
grave way; and he added, even lower, “His head,
you know.”
Her body writhed with the intolerable torment
of her sympathy. She hardly knew that, standing
over her, he reached his cool, muscular hands and
she clung to them.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 101
“Davy 1 Couldn't you have done anything?”
she wailed, and again sobbed aloud.
“There wasn't a chance in the world, dear,” he
said simply. “Not on that grade, with that team
and wagon. No man could do it.”
She knew he spoke the truth, and bent her head
over her hands — and his.
“Everything is being done, Loie. Shan’t I
send for a cab’’’ he said, as one comforting a child.
She waited a moment, pulling herself together.
“No, I'll walk,” she said weakly; and got to her
feet, helping herself by his hand. His other hand
touched her waist lightly, supportingly. She swayed
a little to him, and righted herself.
Then, for the first time, they were aware of Teddie,
standing in the gutter, ghostly white, looking at
them.
“Come on, old man,” said David. They went
very slowly up the street, still living in the heart
of the tragedy. When they came out on the boule-
vard, David looked back, down the steep and stony
course the wagon had taken.
“He made a good fight,” he said. “He got them
past that hole. He made the best fight he knew.”
Both of them comprehended that he was hardly
speaking to them, nor exactly to himself; but rather
more to the spirit of that other man and of all men
who went down making the best fight they knew.
Meanings of the picture were coming in upon
Louise's mind. She knew that Teddie had been


102 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
mortally afraid. A romantic concept of chivalry —
perhaps a pang of that odd jealousy, lest David
should go first before her eyes — had sent him for-
ward. In this abrupt intrusion of the elements of
life and death, at the end of her dreaming day,
David had been the competent actor. She had a
strange feeling that if the gallant farmer could
choose, it would be David's sympathy that he would
value most, although David had prevented Ted from
trying to stop the horses.
Teddie's brain, also, was helplessly appraising the
drama. At the further side of the boulevard he
halted, with a wan smile.
“Davy will get you home,” he said. “I’ll take
a street-car.”
She wished to prevent it; to make him feel that
he had an assured place at her side. But he had
seen her clinging to David's hands — the same hands
that had held him back from useless destruction.
She said nothing; but walked on with David.


CHAPTER XI
THE runaway received due attention at the
hands of Julius Brown's Daily News, which com-
mented solemnly upon the recklessness of some
owners of automobiles. Julius was disappointed,
however. He heard that Frederick Hasbrook was
in the car, and purposed printing his picture with
appropriate headlines. But investigation showed
the report of Frederick’s presence was false. Julius
rather needed a chance to insult Frederick just then,
for another enterprise had turned out badly. He
explained it to Old Alphabet.
“Rexford located Doane all right,” said the
editor, “and got that letter from him.” He nodded
to a missive that lay upon the editorial table at the
lawyer's hand, - the same that Doane had stolen
from Fanny. “Of course, Doane himself couldn’t
do anything about it, for Fanny Trescott would
be leery of him. With Doane's help your able
sleuth located the older sister — the wife of Doane's
bosom. He offered her two hundred dollars and ex-
penses if she’d land the other letters. The loving
sister got Fanny up here and was going to dope her
and take the letters; but Fanny slipped away.”
“Which was not sisterly,” said Old Alphabet.
103


104 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
He had a certain humorous appreciation of the
matter. “The letter is certainly in Freddy's hand.”
He picked up the old love letter, and laughed
amusedly at one of its ardent phrases.
“Wesley Wogan was up to see me the other day,”
the editor observed with a discursive interest.
“It seems Mrs. Doane thought she could get Fanny
to show Wesley the letters and had offered him a
ten to swipe them for her. I suppose she told him
about Rexford being in it and Wogan figured I was
behind Rexford. Anyhow, he wanted me to give
him the job of getting the letters.”
“I didn’t know Wesley’d been as sober as that of
late,” said Codley, amiably.
“He’s a mighty smart fellow,” the editor com-
mented. “Of course, he's an awful booze-fighter.”
The lawyer drummed thoughtfully. “I might
have a talk with him, if nothing else turns up,”
he said incidentally; “I think we’ll have friend
Dennis in a reasonable frame of mind before long.
If not, we'll have him in bankruptcy. There's
so much money at stake that we’ve simply expunged
the word ‘fail’ from our bright lexicon. But I
want, Julius,” he added with an exceeding quiet-
ness, “I want very much to land Freddy right.
And we don’t, so far, turn up anything very promis-
ing.”
“That's so,” the editor assented, and looked grave.
“Well, we'll keep on trying,” said Old Alphabet.
“We'll keep on trying. With patience, Julius,


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 105
there isn’t much that you can’t do. We will keep
on trying.”
Mr. Codley’s patience was even then about to
undergo a severe trial from a derangement of his
plans which originated in an unexpected quarter.
Within a week after his conference with Julius —
it was the night before Thanksgiving — the blow
fell.
David spent the evening at the Hasbrook place,
Louise being there. She had been staying there
several days. Frederick's comprehensive legal at-
tack upon the distillers was progressing. It more
and more absorbed her. She could not keep her
impatient fingers out of it. She had put in three
days digesting a comparative showing of alcohol
prices. Very likely Hammond, Frederick's secre-
tary, or some other equally available person could
have done it better; but she would not be denied.
The idea that she was helping in the good fight gave
her happiness. The happiness made her serene.
Besides, since the day of the horseshow, her attitude
toward David had passed to a new phase. She did
not wish to contend with him just now. She
waited, hoping.
At parting from him that evening before Thanks-
giving, she said, “Dennis has turned over all the
evidence he will, hasn’t he?”
“I suppose he can’t go much further that way,”
he replied. He understood the quiet hint that his


106 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
usefulness to Dennis in a capacity which was also
useful to Frederick, and, therefore, more or less
justifiable, was nearly at an end. The time was
coming when he must elect to be of Dennis O'Neill's
camp or of her camp. “You See,” he explained
unhappily, “they’re pushing the old man pretty
hard, Loie. He's a good deal in debt and they’re
fighting him on every corner. He even thinks they
wouldn’t hesitate to blow him up or hit him over
the head. I don’t think that; but it is a kind of
life-and-death fight for him.” He meant, How
could he turn his back on the good old grafter in
such straits? But he did not say it; and she said
nothing. Just now she did not wish to contend with
him. She waited, hoping.
It rather dashed him as he went out; but his
spirits recovered. He, too, waited, with a great
hope. Loie couldn’t, at present, see it just right;
wouldn’t admit that all the good wasn’t on one side
and all the bad on the other. She allowed nothing
for old Dennis's warm heart. She refused to confess
— what she must know — that the old grafter and
corrupt politician was a much lovelier person than
Epperson, with his cocaine and cheap whiskey on
one hand and his bigotry on the other. But she,
too, had a warm heart.
He chose to walk, for it was clear and cold. The
stars shone with the brilliance of a winter night.
An arc street-lamp ahead made a dazzlingly white
blur in the lower dark and sharply revealed the


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 107
bare black branches of the near-by trees. Passing
the Penrose house he noticed that it was again dark
and deserted. The mass of its shadows indefinitely
pleased him, like the stars, the bare trees, and the
vigorous motion of his own limbs. It seemed an
excellent world. In this harmony he entered the
hotel and happened to notice, as he stepped over
to the elevator, that it was ten minutes past eleven.
In his own room he had turned up the lights and
thrown off his hat when the telephone began ringing.
His gay “Hello!” was answered by Dennis O'Neill's
voice: —
“That you, Davy 7 I been trying to find you
this twenty minutes. Both my watchmen are dead
drunk. I think they’ve been doped. I’m alone at
the plant. I want you, lad.”
“Drunk?” David repeated.
“Laid out stiff in Krauss's back room. I always
come down and take a look around before I go to bed.
I’m thinking there's going to be something doing the
night, Davy. I want you.” The old man's heavy
voice showed uneasiness.
“I’ll be there,” said David.
There was no doubt in his mind as to what he
should do. Before he caught up his hat he turned
to the desk and opened a lower drawer. A revolver
lay there. He looked to see that it was loaded and
was putting it into his overcoat pocket; but paused,
regarded the murderous implement an instant, and
put it back in the drawer. Someway he was think-
ing of Louise.


108 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
Louise herself looked at the tranquil night from
her chamber window before she went to bed. To
her, also, it seemed a good world; and in the morning
she wilfully gave herself over to the day — Thanks-
giving, the home festival, the feast of the turkey.
Kittie, of course, was to be the hostess. The Has-
brooks were coming. Leaving the house directly
after breakfast, Louise warned them to be early.
She was to be an assistant priestess, an initiate of the
rites. At Winthrop's house she rolled up her sleeves
and put on one of Martha's huge gingham aprons.
It was a little past noon when the three toiling
votaries in the kitchen heard the men enter.
Kittie stepped into the hall and shook a floury fist
at them. “How dare you come so early 2 You
won’t stand the ghost of a show against us unless
you get up more appetite. Go back and run around
the block l’’
Louise, behind her, brandished a big iron spoon.
But even then she noticed that David was not with
them, and that Hammond, Frederick's secretary,
was. Frederick called back, “Come see the fire-
works,” and held up a round quart bottle filled with
a thick, whitish liquid. Winthrop seemed solemn
and absorbed.
Wondering, the two women followed the men into
the study. Frederick threw up the window, took
a sheet of writing paper from the desk, and spread it
on the sill. Then he uncorked the bottle and poured
a little of the whitish stuff on the paper. It spread


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 109
slowly; then suddenly burst into a fierce blue flame.
They watched it burn viciously. Frederick shoved
the paper outside and closed, the sash. “Phospho-
rus,” he said. “We’ll have it analyzed.” He set
the bottle on the desk.
“The great point,” said Winthrop, “is to keep the
fellow hid and get a confession out of him.”
“I think he will be kept close enough where he is,”
Frederick replied.
“But what is it?” Kittie exclaimed.
“An attempt to burn Dennis O'Neill's distillery,”
Frederick explained. “His two watchmen were
given drugged liquor last night. Two men broke
into the plant about one o'clock. Each had a
bottle of this stuff, one had bit and auger. A hole
bored in a tank full of spirits, and these bottles
emptied on the floor some distance away; would
make a very good time fuse. Five minutes after
the leaking spirits reached the fire the plant would be
a wreck. The men seem to have crawled in through
a chute to the cattle-sheds. At any rate they came
across Dennis up there and promptly knocked him
senseless with a slung-shot. But Davy was there.”
“Davy 2” Kittie murmured.
“Dennis had telephoned for him when he found
the watchmen drugged. I suppose he had a sharp
tussle with the men. One of them got away. He
captured the other. This is a state secret, you
understand.”
“But where is Davy” Kittie insisted.


110 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
“Why, the other bottle of this infernal stuff was
broken in the scuffle. Davy got into it a bit. One
hand and arm are burned some. We couldn’t per-
suade him to come along, with his bandaged arm and
his laurels.”
The Senator chuckled softly. “David is a shabby
hero — after the event. He seems quite down-
hearted about the laurels. He said one disabled
slugger wouldn’t be missed.”
It occurred to Louise – not because he spoke to
her, but because he seemed to take care to look
away from her — that the sharp old Senator sus-
pected something.
“I won't have it !” Kittie declared. “I’ll go
for him myself l’”
“I’ll go,” said Louise.
The Senator looked at her then, with a benevo-
lent smile. She heard Kittie saying, “Call a cab,
Winthrop.”
She went into the kitchen to take off her apron,
whither Kittie followed her. “It’s room three hun-
dred twenty, Lou. Don’t let him get away. He's
a mule for stubbornness,” she cautioned.
Up to the time she climbed the broad steps that
led to the hotel door, Louise had not even thought
of proceeding in any but a conventional manner —
by going to the parlor and sending up her card. It’s
room three hundred twenty, Kittie had said, and
this innocent numeral seemed suddenly to take
possession of her. She walked calmly across the


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 111
office, entered the elevator, and asked for the third
floor. In the same way she went down the corridor,
looking at the numbers on the doors. It was only
when the number she sought confronted her that
her heart began to beat up, and her nerves to flutter.
She thought, vaguely, “I’ll say Kittie sent me”;
and the sisterly wing rather comforted her. She
knocked on the door.
“Come,” said David's voice within.
She waited an instant, confused, uncertain, and
knocked again.
“Come in,” David's voice called more peremp-
torily.
Her own odd, foolish, schoolgirl embarrassment
confused her the more. She turned, ready to flee
to the office and send up a card. But those in the
office had already seen her come upstairs. With a
desperate resolution she opened the door.
It was half a sitting room, half an office. David
sat in a leather-covered chair over by the desk,
looking impatiently at the door. His left hand and
arm were bandaged. He sprang up in a kind of
panic. It came to her then that in crossing his
threshold she had burned some bridges; and he
looked actually afraid of her. That look of down-
right fear stilled her own nerves, lifted her up, gave
her joy. She laughed, low and sweet.
“You can’t get away, Davy I’ve come for you!”
In a sort of panicky awkwardness, like an acutely
self-conscious boy, he fumbled at an excuse.


112 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
“I’m not very presentable — with these ban-
dages.”
“Oh ! Are you getting vain?”
She had gone near to him. He looked down into
her sweet, laughing eyes.
“I suppose I must be.” He did not know exactly
what he was saying.
“You’ll have no reason to be if you keep Kittie's
dinner waiting.” For her, also, what was said did
not matter. The words were so many poor little
screens, blindly thrown out as though they could
hide the emotions.
The male, prosecuting his siege with desperate
valor, sees a sudden weakness, a sign of surrender,
and is overwhelmed with fear at his own fortune.
The woman grows brave, steps out and claims her
own. Both of them understood that something like
this had happened, and set up a thrilling tumult in
their hearts. What they said, at the moment, did
not matter. The place was half public, for the hall
door was open. She gave him a lift as he got one-
sidedly into his overcoat. They went down and out
to the waiting cab.
“It wasn’t what you wanted, Loie,” he began,
without prelude, when the cab started. “I wanted,
very much, to have everything — what you wanted.”
“His life was in danger,” she replied. “There's
no politics in that. Did you think — really — I’d
charge it up against you?” His fear of her judg-
ment made her singularly tender. She was alive


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 113
to a certain physical sense of him — his bulk and
fighting thews. Still he feared her -
“I wanted everything to be as you wanted,” he
repeated.
“It was a good fight !” she answered, low. Then
she colored — half aware of the aboriginal, unre-
generate female in her that loved the male for his
strength and courage and skill at combat. “Tell
me about it — just what happened l’’
He told her how he had gone to the distillery; he
and Dennis had separated for a tour of the plant;
he had heard the sound of the intruders; stalked
them and attacked them.
“It should have been simple enough, you see,” he
explained. “I knocked one of them down. The
other had a slung-shot. The bottle broke and that
stuff took fire. Of course, if anything was to be
done, there was no time to lose. So I cracked his
head with the big bolt I'd picked up and smothered
the fire with my overcoat.”
It was not at all dramatic as he told it. But
now she wished to keep him to this story. In a
rather mysterious way she was taking shelter behind
her fortifications again. “Is the man much hurt?”
she asked, as soon as his voice ceased.
“Yes,” he answered soberly; and turned his head
to look into her face. “I hit him harder than I
needed to. I was in a kind of rage against it all,
Loie. Slugging a man in old Dennis's distillery –
it was so far from what had been in my mind when
I


114 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
I left you a little while before. I’ve been mixed up
in a good many coarse kind of things, you see. When
I left you, Loie, I seemed to see it was going to be
rather different in the future — more as you would
wish it to be. But there I was slugging a man in
Dennis's distillery. I hit him harder than I needed
to. The doctor doesn’t say so, but I have an idea
he may die. You won’t like that.”
Her throat contracted in a little spasm and her
breath stopped. A man to die at his hands ! She
recoiled from it, and trembled. She put forth all
her courage and, so to speak, dragged herself bodily
up to the mark. Her wide eyes scarcely saw him,
but her hand reached out and found his.
“You were within the law and the right. It was
necessary — to attack him. Don’t think I’ll charge
it against you — if he dies.” In spite of herself her
voice weakened. “He will not die,” she said.
“Wait. He will not die.”
The cab stopped before Winthrop's place where
the Thanksgiving dinner awaited. They were some-
what pale when they entered.


CHAPTER XII
FoR three days the town had been valiantly digging
itself out of the snow which the soft gray clouds
shook down persistently. The snow-ploughs of the
street railroad were continually in commission,
nosing through the white blanket and piling up
woolly breastworks at either curb. Squads of the
company's workmen and of city street-cleaners at-
tacked the drifts, loading wagon after wagon to be
hauled to the river and dumped. In the business
district janitors and bare-headed, goose-pimpled
clerks sallied out with long-handled brooms to clear
the watery flagging. Still the snow fell, and nobody
cared. Throngs of shoppers tramped through the
slush. A caravan of umbrellas bobbed around the
chief corners. Store windows were piled moun-
tainously with bright-colored goods. The soberest
shops took on the air of a fair. Troops of children —
they seemed almost to come down with the snow —
ranged the streets and flattened their noses un-
checked against the plate-glass windows. Christ-
mas was at hand.
The afternoon of the third day, Louise walked up
Broadway. It was getting dark and turning colder;
but she did not mind the snow. It powdered her
115


116 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
fur coat, made little ermine epaulettes on her shoul-
ders, and covered the top of her cap. She felt an
exquisite pleasure in its fall, and smiled a little when,
now and then, an eddy of the rising wind drove a
handful of cold flakes full in her unprotected face.
Everybody seemed seized with a panic to get home.
The platforms of the street-cars bulged with pas-
sengers who, in turn, bulged with bundles. Men
burst from shop doors, parcel-laden, plunged into the
street, and raced after a slowly retreating car, to
which they were helped with volleys of jokes. Men
on the cars shouted greetings to those on the flagging.
A stout, elderly man with his short arms full pressed
for a place on a crowded car-platform. A cry went
up : —
“Why, here's Santy himself l’”
Louise stopped on the curb and watched them drag
the fat man, with several almost fatal slippings of his
luggage, to the car. A man sang out: —
“One thing's sure ! Davy Donovan's stocking's
full to-night. It’s a rod long, too !”
At the name a big, warm wave ingulfed her heart,
leaving her breathless with an excess of joy. Tak-
ing the occasion of some business, David had gone
to New York the day after Thanksgiving. “Wait !”
she had said, and he had thought it more endurable
to be away until they should know definitely whether
the man whose head he had cracked was going to
recover. She could forgive him the lawful blow —
but what then? “He will not die,” she had said —


118 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
Mr. and Mrs. Dennis O'Neill — a strange gathering;
but to-night politics did not count. Indeed, Dennis
carried off the honors, with stories of early Christ-
mases which he told with an irresistible humor.
David and Louise had not even spoken; but only
smiled across the board. Presently the hostess
bustled away and they heard sounds of a gathering
in the next room. When the doors rolled open, they
found themselves at the edge of an audience of
children that filled the larger room. It was needless
to ask whence they had come. The broken shoes,
mittenless hands, and shabby Sunday-best told.
The curtain across the bay window was pulled back,
disclosing the burdened Christmas tree and David
as Santa Claus.
After the gifts were distributed there were three
charades, in which David and Louise took part. The
men actors dressed in Winthrop's study, the women
upstairs. Thus David and Louise met only in the
hall or on the tiny stage. They brushed together,
touched hands, spoke to each other — all about the
business of the little charades. They were in that
hour when each one knows, but the word has not
been spoken. The brightly lighted room, the people
crowding near them, even the strange clothes they
wore for their parts, heightened that sense, thrilling
in the heart of each, of living in a secret paradise
to which none but the other had the key. This
human stir about them was light as finest smoke
against their powerful dream.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 119
Only one thing Louise really noticed, and that was
Kittie sitting among the children, talking to one and
another of them, looking at gifts that Santa Claus had
brought. The show ended by nine o'clock. Louise
stood in the hall with Kittie, watching the children
troop away, laden and happy. She was in a charade
costume, and Kittie accompanied her when she went
upstairs to change it. In a sudden access of love,
Louise put her arm around the smaller woman's
waist.
“If Santa Claus came to town, honey, you’d be
the very first person he would, come to see,” she
said.
Kittie laughed. “Santa and I understand each
other. He isn’t very bright.”
“It was so dear — those little children l Nobody
but you could have done it just right — been one
of them – made them the ones that were giving the
party.”
Kittie brushed her cheek against Louise's shoulder.
“It was truly their party, dear. I was coaxing
them to invite me, to take me into it, you see –
for the sake of some one who will be here next Christ-
mas if all goes well.”
Louise's heart fluttered at the base of her throat.
She stooped with awe and kissed her small sister-
in-law. “I thought that, Kitten,” she whispered.
Suddenly her eyes were wet.
Kittie went down to her guests and Louise changed
her clothes slowly. Her depths were astir, yearning


120 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
with elemental power. Dressing mechanically her
lips murmured, “Teach me to meet my life with the
same great heart that little Kittie has.” She did
not know whether it was to Kittie's gods or her own
that she prayed.
She went downstairs; David was in the hall. The
moment she saw him she knew that for him, too, the
hour was overfull; he could wait no longer. She
came down the last steps steadily, her eyes fixed on
his, her lips barely bent in a smile. An indirection,
a touch of coquetry would have seemed abominable
to her then. David met her at the foot of the
stairs.
“Loie — it's Christmas — How I love you!” He
spoke low, and half choked with an everlasting de-
sire. His hands reached out. She blushed red,
leaned against his breast, and took his kiss. Sud-
denly they were thrust back seven years. This was
as it had been that Thanksgiving night after the big
game when, a girl of seventeen, she had waited for
him, uplifted, athrill, impatient. The troth they
had plighted then was enduring.
It was only two minutes later that they went in
where the others were and sat down side by side.
Dennis was telling another story. In the silence that
followed the laugh he looked around the room, twin-
kling with good-nature. The next moment he slyly
pulled his wife's sleeve.
“I’m thinking Christmas is coming,” he whispered,
his shrewd little eyes upon the pair.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 121
“Man, it slipped in wit’ a millun candle-power,
thinkin' nobody'd see it, while ye was blarneyin'
away wit’ yer story,” she whispered back. “We
best be diggin' out. Santa's nervous in company.”
Perhaps the same sentiment stole to the others.
At any rate the guests departed early. Not long
after their going Louise was left to see David to the
door alone. In the hall they said again the words
that mean much to two, nothing to a third. He
should go; but he lingered.
Her fingers traced the edge of his coat lapel.
She opened her arms and laid them around his neck,
looking up into his face with a mighty and tender
pride of possession and surrender.
“Davy 2” In the little questioning lilt her
murmurous voice sang the name caressingly.
“You stand all — every bit — on our side now?
Not any on Dennis O'Neill's side?”
He understood her. His joy-drunken eyes smiled
a little. Half by way of teasing her he said: “You
know they’re driving the old man pretty hard now
— paying him for having given Fred that evidence
against them. They’ve taken most of his trade
and are crippling his credit.”
She simply looked up at him, grave and sweet
and silent, neither retracting nor renewing her plea.
She had asked. That was all.
His eyes drank in her steady gaze, the slightly
parted red of her lips, the tender curve of her chin.
He thought, with such a shock of delight as made his


122 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
heart tremble, “Ah, how she can pay !” That he
should hesitate at anything she asked seemed
incredible.
“All, every bit, on your side, honey ! Set me a
task | Say what you want l” Holding her tight
in his arms there was not room enough in the world
to think of anything but her.
She rested her head on his shoulder. “Just that,
dearest. Just that,” she murmured with an infinite
content.
He went out drunken with happiness, lifted above
the state and stature of a man. He wished to catch
up his life in his hand, as a boy takes a ball, and
hurl it at some unknown goal, amid ranks of some
unknown foe, to please her.
Louise forgot Kittie and Winthrop and the house
she was in. She found herself in her room. As she
lifted her hand to her throbbing throat to unfasten
her gown, a certain suggestiveness of the act pierced
her great dream. She understood that she had
finally quite surrendered, definitely promised her-
self. Her breast labored. She was glad to her
finger-tips. Then she realized, in the powerful
march of her passion, that after so long, after so
sharp scruples, after the stubbornly applied drag of
her will, she had let in love like a flood; that it
entered her life with an overwhelming, obliterating
force.
It was scarcely necessary to tell Kittie. The little
woman's eyes shone with the news at sight of Louise.


CHAPTER XIII
THE wedding itself was announced for the tenth
of May; but not even that changed the face of a
workaday world. The day following the announce-
ment three men, in particular, found themselves as
gloomy as though Hymen had gone out of business.
The three sat in the compartment of a Pullman
car — Mr. Codley, Mr. Titus, president of the First
National Bank of Sauganac, and Mr. Schwartz,
president of the Three Kings Distillery of Nogiac.
They were returning from New York, where they had
attended a meeting of the principal distillers who
were working to organize a trust of national scope.
It had turned out disappointingly. The great
Wall Street house which was to finance the venture
and float the new securities had interposed a demand
for delay. /
“Those fellows are scared out of their wits,”
Schwartz commented, with something of bitterness
and something of contempt, as he stared out of the
window at the flying landscape. He was a small,
spare man with a face so sharp that it seemed to have
been whetted to a cutting edge. He was very nattily
dressed. His red puff tie and large solitaire dia-
mond ring suggested sporting proclivities. He
124


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 125
wore his stiff black hair in a pompadour; but his
most noticeable feature was a high, thin, strongly
arched nose.
“There's a good deal of truth in what they say,
Charlie,” Titus observed thoughtfully. “There is
a lot of socialism and anarchy loose in this country,
and they don’t want to stir up any more of it.
Here's this blatherskite Sykes talking of running for
governor, and the newspapers and politicians and
all sorts of riff-raff howling against trusts and the
money power and so on. We don’t want a row any
more than they do.”
The banker was then forty-five, with a compact,
well-made figure and a handsome face. He smiled
easily, almost never lost his tranquillity, and was
one of the most popular men in Sauganac. People
said, “As good-natured as Johnny Titus.” He was
already bald over the front of his head. His pleas-
ant, smiling face was lighted by a pair of large brown
eyes, out of which now and then a strong and subtle
spirit looked. He had, withal, a high reputation
among men of affairs. He was not directly inter-
ested in the distilleries, but it was agreeable, both
to Schwartz and the Wall Street house, that he should
take a hand in the trust-making. Both of them
respected his opinion and trusted him. “We won’t
lose anything, finally, by waiting a bit,” he added
amiably.
The Wall Street house, in fine, had laid down
several conditions precedent to the flotation of


126 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
the trust. They called them, in the mass, “house-
cleaning.” They did not propose to bring out the
trust under conditions which would tend to provoke
popular clamor. With regard to the Nogiac con-
tingent they wanted to see if the Hasbrook attack,
which had already attracted too much newspaper
attention, couldn’t be shut off. And they had heard
something about a plot to burn Dennis O'Neill's
distillery at Sauganac. They wanted that quietly
interred. As Steinmetz had explained, they didn’t
want the newspapers calling the new securities
“Murder Debentures,” and “Arson, preferred.”
“It’s just as I told 'em,” Schwartz broke out
aggrievedly, after a moment's silence. “Allan
Thomas is a drunken fool. He got up that crazy
scheme to burn Dennis's distillery out of his own
head. Lord ' Do they think I’d have gone into
an idiotic scheme of that kind — and with that
lousy skate Dolton?”
“That's true, Charlie,” the banker replied. “But
you know well enough the newspapers and dema-
gogues would use it for a club to attack the whole
distillery trade with, just as much as though you
had got it up yourself. That’s exactly what Wall
Street don’t want — a popular hullabaloo and scan-
dal. There ought to be some way to choke it off.”
He glanced at Codley, who had been unusually
silent during the trip.
“It will be easy enough to get hold of Dolton,”
said the lawyer, quietly. “I told Herr Steinmetz


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 127
so. Getting hold of Dolton means only two things
— first, money enough to buy him over again;
second, outwitting Mr. Prosecuting Attorney Holmes.
If I can’t do that, it will be some cold day when you
can’t raise a couple of thousand dollars for Dolton.
You know, Charlie, we'd have moved in that direc-
tion long ago — only we judged a delay would
have a useful moral influence on Thomas.”
Dolton, the man who had taken part in the attempt
to burn Dennis's plant and whom David had captured
after cracking his head, had made a confession to
Winthrop Holmes and Frederick Hasbrook, and
had been kept in strict seclusion – first in a private
hospital, latterly in the county jail. The confession
said that Allan Thomas had hired him to burn the
plant. Allan Thomas had inherited from his father
a large interest in the Grand Mogul Distillery at
Nogiac, but his feeble understanding and inebriate
habits had not tended to make him in good standing
with his fellow-distillers. Dolton's confession spelled
penitentiary for him. Schwartz and Codley had
deemed it wise to let the threat hang over his head
until he consented to certain arrangements for
putting his distillery stock in the hands of a trustee,
which, while not depriving him of his income, would
shut him out of participation in the management of
the business.
“Well, I guess it's up to you, Codley,” said
Schwartz, still in the morose mood which the post-
ponement of the trust flotation had induced.


128 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
y
“It’s up to me,” said the lawyer, coolly. “Get-
ting Dolton will be easy enough. Getting Freddy
Hasbrook will be more difficult; but I always try to
look on the bright side, and believe that wherever
there's a will there's a way.”
He was not in good humor himself. Schwartz's
moroseness faintly suggested a certain unreasonable
dissatisfaction with his eminent counsel. Frederick
Hasbrook had unearthed a set of freight contracts
which Codley had devised, the disclosure of which
irritated their author. He sat loungingly in his
chair, his head sunk on his breast, and looked out
of the window with a rather sinister flicker in his eye.
“I don’t imagine anybody’s going to let ten or
fifteen million dollars slip away,” he said. It was
the thought that lay at the back of all their minds —
the immense profit which was in sight and which
would be theirs when the trust was successfully
floated. The heap of gold colored all their thoughts
as they sat in the compartment, not saying much,
while the train rushed on. It shone in the eyes of
the banker and the distiller as they looked blankly
out of the window.
The porter appeared in the door, beaming, brush
in hand, and announced that Nogiac was just ahead.
“I’ll go on to Sauganac,” said Old Alphabet. “I’ve
got a man to see there.”
That train made the run from Nogiac to Sauganac
in thirty minutes. Codley took a cab to the hotel;
telephoned; then seated himself in his room by the


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 129
window overlooking the small park. Little buds
showed here and there on the maple trees, but Old
Alphabet was not contemplating the processes of
nature that afternoon. He had hardly dropped
into the chair before his mind was back at its strong
toil of web-spinning. He was so absorbed that the
knock at the door was repeated before it roused him.
Julius Brown was at the door with another man
to whom Old Alphabet extended a welcoming and
bony hand, saying amiably, “How are you, Wesley’”
At the same time his eyes shrewdly appraised the
caller.
Wogan bore the scrutiny remarkably well. The
marks of dissipation were still upon his red, swollen-
looking, round face. There were heavy circles
under his dark, intelligent eyes. But he wore a
new, neat suit of clothes; his linen was clean.
Above all, as Codley perceived, he was quite sober.
Some twelve years before Wesley Wogan had been
a man in all Sauganac's eye. Even then it was
well known that the brilliant young lawyer was not
at all scrupulous; but that was considered as
merely a part of his smartness. So able a man
naturally would not shackle himself with the old
conventions of common honesty. Then a granger
member of the legislature, from up the state, had
arisen in his place in the house and confessed that
Wogan had paid him a bribe of four hundred dollars
to vote for the schoolbook bill. The house, com-
pletely dominated by the machine, ordered an
K


130 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
investigation which dragged along and was finally
smothered. The schoolbook bill stood. But some-
way the picture of the foolish old farmer standing
up in public, with broken voice, tears running down
his bewhiskered face, confessing his sin, would not
vanish. It was both tragic and grotesque; but the
grotesqueness was what hurt Wogan. He might
have withstood the fulminations of the preachers and
the serious editors; but the cartoonists, comic
paragraphers, and reporters blessed with a sense of
humor could not let it alone. The old man had
blubbered out, “I tuk the wages of shame f’um that
sinful man l’” After that the newspapers simply
could not resist the temptation to call the lawyer
“Sinful Wogan.” Then, although the fact had been
well known before, people began to say, with a
different meaning, that he was a rascal. His prac-
tice and income declined. Honest clients withdrew
from him, and for the dishonest the too-gross brand
upon him destroyed his usefulness.
Six months before the schoolbook episode Wogan
had married — under the spell of one of those in-
gulfing infatuations which sometimes befall men
whose sensuality is heightened by real intellectual
and imaginative power. His wife had a certain
pouting-lipped, warm-eyed, babylike prettiness
and was absolutely a fool. It was his crowning
misfortune that her thimbleful of brains was infected
by a social ambition. He wrecked his credit to
build her a house on the boulevard, where she


132 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
“Well, Wesley,” he said good-naturedly, “I
suppose Julius has told you what I want. This girl,
Fanny Trescott, has some letters that excite my
curiosity. They may not be worth a damn to me
after I get ’em. On the contrary they may be worth
some more. I want a look at 'em, and will pay a
good price for it. Julius tells me you have an idea
you can get hold of them.”
“I know the girl,” said Wogan. “I was a young-
ster in old man Merriam's office when the Trescott
divorce case came up. Merriam was Mrs. Trescott's
lawyer. Trescott himself wasn’t any good. He
gambled and generally lost. He and his wife once
bought a tract of land out Locust Street way.
Trescott managed to blow it in. She claimed she
didn’t sign the deed by which it was conveyed. I
don’t remember the details exactly; but that's
the outline of it. I know she wrote to Merriam
about it from Montana shortly before she died. He
looked it up and told her she couldn’t do anything.
Very likely this girl Fanny heard something about
it from her mother. Nellie usually told all her
troubles.” He spoke quietly, and to the point.
Old Alphabet observed, with pleasure, the workings
of a capable mind. “I don’t know what you gentle-
men want of the letters,” Wogan added, and looked
from one to the other.
Old Alphabet smiled. “Say we want ’em for
our scrap-book.”
Wogan accepted his exclusion from the secret


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 133
philosophically. “I know you do want them because
Fanny's sister came to me when she was trying to
get them. Now, my idea is to go down there where
Fanny is and tell her I can recover that land for
her mother's estate; and I’ve got to have the
letters for evidence. I know her. She's a good
deal of a fool. The land is probably worth twelve
or fifteen thousand dollars by this time.”
Codley’s smile warmed and broadened. He looked
at the caller with real admiration. “Suppose you
start in the morning,” he said, with an evident and
amiable relish of the other's astuteness. “You’ll
want some expense money.” Lounging in the chair
and smiling good-naturedly, he took a roll of bills
from his vest pocket, counted three twenties, and
handed them over, negligently. “There's going to
be plenty doing, Wesley. If you have good luck
with this job, it will lead to something else.”
Wogan took the money and the promise with
cool dignity, quite as though, like his neat suit and
clean linen, it was what he was used to. This, also,
pleased Codley. Leaving the room, Wogan felt
himself renewed, as though he had sloughed off the
bum that he had been for more than three years.
His brain was clear and capable. He was thinking of
his wife; but he had resolved not to write to her or go
to see her until he could show a solid foundation.
When the door closed, Codley turned to the editor
with a broad smile. “That fellow is going to come
out. I believe he'll pull himself up. He's bright as


134 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
a dollar, too !” And his satisfaction over Wogan's
reclamation was by no means ungenerous. Wogan
was a good deal his own sort. Old Alphabet wished
him well. “I may be able to give him plenty to
do, too,” he added reflectively. “If he'll keep sober,
I can give him a good boost. Anyhow, there's
plenty to be done.” He crossed his long legs and
thrust his hands in his trousers pockets. “I don’t
seem to have as much luck as I’m entitled to.”
“Nothing turns up?” Julius suggested.
“Things turn up, Julius; but they’re on the other
side,” Codley answered thoughtfully. “The Wall
Street men have postponed the trust. They want
everything smoothed over and sweetened up. Of
course, Charlie Schwartz is looking to me to do the
sweetening. I’ve tried to reach this fellow Nelson
in whose name Hasbrook brought suit; but Freddy
seems to have him pretty well tied up. It's Freddy
I want — and I guess I’ll get him with time and
patience. Patience is a great virtue of mine.”
“Young Penrose still hangs around,” the editor
observed incidentally.
“He seems to be the man, eh?” Codley replied,
rather absently, for it did not interest him very
much.
“Looks that way,” said Julius, much in the same
key. “He hangs around, holding her hands and so
on. Queer, too,” he speculated discursively. “You’d
suppose he'd be the one she would marry, with his
money and all that, if he's really the man.”


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 135
“You can never tell about those things,” Codley
returned still more absently; then he smiled.
“By ‘those things’ I mean women. Mamma and
Papa Penrose may be in the way. You never can
tell.” And fairly lost in thought, as though he
were making a vague remark about the weather, he
added: “I’m sorry to see Davy Donovan soaked.
He's a first-rate fellow. But when a man takes a
chance in that lottery, he never can tell.”


CHAPTER XIV
LOUISE stood in the hall of Winthrop's house,
wearing a simple tan-colored travelling suit and close,
turbanlike hat. She was trying to ask some one to
find her gloves; but she could not. Everybody
was clamoring at her; pulling her about. Every
nerve in her body ached to flee to any place where
she could be quiet and alone. At the door Kittie
slipped an arm around her waist, and she stooped,
with stupid helplessness, and made the motions of
kissing. She thought she had kissed everything but
the dog. As she crossed the veranda she was vaguely
aware of a bank of faces in the doorway behind her;
some tearful, some vapidly agrin. She saw David
standing below, holding open the carriage door.
She climbed in. David, following her, held the door
open a moment to call back replies to the farewells
spoken by those on the veranda. She simply sank
back in her corner of the seat. The door closed.
The carriage started. She shrank closer into her
corner, afraid that he would touch her — and she
had been so much mussed-up of late.
David looked smilingly into her face. “I got your
gloves,” he said, and handed them to her. The
glimmer of a smile upon her pale face thanked him.
136


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 137
In the compartment of the Pullman car he left her
alone. She did not know where he was taking her.
At the moment she did not care. It was enough to
be alone. It seemed to her that she had been pushed
and crowded for hours. Little by little her taut
nerves relaxed. She looked vacantly out of the
window at the pleasant, rolling fruit country through
which they travelled. The maple trees were in their
new green. The oaks were leafing out. Here and
there a farmer was at work in a brown field. The
shadows fell long to the eastward. Gradually she
forgot the jar and rumble of the train; her spirit
went out to the peaceful orchards and meadows.
Two hours after dark they left the train.
Stepping down, she looked about in surprise.
A mass of leafage rose wall-like before her — above
that the still night and the stars. A few rods up
the track stood a little shanty of a station, having
a lantern with a tin reflector nailed over the door.
They were barely on the ground before the train
started, and she supposed David had especially
arranged to have the limited stop there. It was very
dark after the light of the car. She took his arm,
and they started up the path beside the tracks.
The figure of a man shaped itself out of the darkness,
coming to meet them — a lean figure, coatless, with
an old blue cap having the words “Station Agent”
on the brass tag above the visor. He evidently
knew David, and shook hands. Louise heard herself
introduced.


138 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
“Mart got thirty-one bass yesterday,” said the
agent, addressing David. It seemed out of modesty
that he ignored the bride.
Reaching the little station, Louise saw a wagon
and span and a man on the driver's seat. With him,
too, David shook hands, and he touched his hat-brim
and said, “How d’do, ma’am’” when the bride was
introduced.
It seemed mostly woods thereabouts. But as
they drove from the station Louise saw a hamlet.
Kerosene lamps illuminated the windows of two
small shops. They trotted through the dusty little
street, and at once entered the woods. The driver
was talking fish to David. It was cool in the woods.
Louise drew a wrap about her. She wondered how
the horses found their way in the thick dark.
A strange, quiet world seemed to lie in this dark.
Presently she saw a broad, dim shining ahead, as
though a fleecy cloud had fallen from the sky. In
a moment she knew it was water. The driver gave a
shout. A voice, hoarse and deep, answered. A twin-
kling light appeared, advancing and oscillating.
“Road's kind of bad down here,” the driver
explained.
“Hello, Mart l” David called.
“Hello!” the hoarse voice boomed back. As they
approached the lantern-bearer, Louise made out his
squat, fat figure. He looked, she thought, rather
like a pirate, with a tumble of iron-gray hair and
huge, bristling, iron-gray mustache, a big flat nose,


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 139
and face composed of wrinkling fat. He looked up
at her very good-naturedly, however, and brushed
his rumpled hair a little with a thick hand, evidently
with an idea of improving his appearance in her
honor.
They followed the rude wagon way to the front of
a frame cottage by the shore of the lake. Mart's
wife was on the small porch, awaiting them. She
shook hands warmly with David and timidly with
Louise. She seemed a dumb, motherly old soul,
in a shapeless calico dress, with sparse, iron-gray
hair and a pair of iron-bowed spectacles which, in her
timid nervous self-consciousness, she turned about
in her work-crooked fingers. It struck Louise that
this sole representative of her sex was a woman
whose will had been absorbed by her men-folk.
Still she was a woman, and the bride's own nervous-
ness clung to her.
The men had disappeared somewhere. Sitting
on the small porch, Louise kept on a conversation in
which Mrs. Lacey was the merest dead weight. The
fishing was very good. She had two children, a son
and a daughter. The daughter was married and
lived in Chicago. The daughter's husband was a
street-car conductor.
While Mrs. Lacey docilely answered her ques-
tions, Louise's senses were alive to the scene — the
woods behind them, the dimly shining lake in front;
the immense, primeval stillness over all; a stillness,
however, that lived. There were little noises in the


140 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
woods. Down the shore frogs called and chorused
with a sound that was primordial – a note of
passion in an elementary world. Its harsh rhythm
beat in Louise's ear. Then David stood before
them, smiling a little; and she understood, with a
new shock of surprise, that she was to go with him.
The way was dark along the lake shore. They
passed a shadowy copse of bushes, and her eye caught
the cheery glow of fire. A long, low log cabin stood
before them, and the open door was rosy from a
crackling hearth within.
“I don’t claim much for the architecture. I built
it myself,” said David. “Nobody ever comes here
but me.”
There were three rooms, the middle one, in which
they stood, some fifteen feet square. Floor, walls,
and ceiling were of smooth, unpainted pine boards,
and there was a rude brick grate opposite the door.
The ruddy glow of the grate furnished the only light.
Abruptly she understood that this would be exactly
the place he would wish to take her — back to some-
thing elemental in himself.
“Indian l’” she breathed, with lips that trembled.
He slipped his arm about her waist. “Indians
knew how to live long ago,” he answered low, and
kissed her. She vaguely felt herself letting go, fall-
ing back into the elemental.
Louise made a short, noiseless stroke with the oars.
The reel hummed softly as David cast. She watched


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 141
the line cutting its little ripple through the water as
he wound it in. Then she pulled lazily at the oars
and he cast again.
Away at the other side of the lake old Mart was
still fishing. His motionless boat and fat, humped
figure under a tattered straw hat made a mere blur
against the shadow-darkened shore water. It
seemed that he had been exactly there from time
immemorial; would be precisely there for ages to
come. The few fleecy clouds in the high blue sky
sailed serenely in eternity. And all this stillness was
vividly alive, too. The sudden undulatory move-
ment of the pond-lilies near the shore, the parting of
the water, the flashing leap of a trout, were exactly
in keeping, as though the deep repose of the living
face had been broken for an instant by the flutter
of an eyelid.
Louise looked up at David, smiling, and turned the
boat so he could have a try for the trout that had
leaped. It seemed that her existence had become a
part of this about her. They had been three weeks
at the lake. Her brain was dull, her thoughts lazy,
while she felt the underworld of her being absorbing
vitality from the slow, serene life of the woods and
water.
They strolled and sailed and fished. Indoors
she took a singular delight in poking about the log
cabin where none but himself had been, and where
she rummaged among fishing and hunting gear, even
his old clothes and the drawers of the rude table


142 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
where he had sometimes worked. It was all so
peculiarly, so intimately, his own.
After supper at Mart's that evening they sat
before their cabin — the only persons in the world,
for the intervening trees hid Mart's cottage. The
sun had set, gorgeously coloring the clouds that
lingered in the west. To the east the lower slopes
of the hills were already mellowing to a softer mass,
slipping into the advancing night. Little noises
in the woods mysteriously sang of repose, as though
nature made faint sounds in settling down upon her
couch. The chorus of frogs made the still air pulse.
The lake took color from the clouds, red at first, then
a wonderful yellow over its entire western half. A
whole joyous season, refined to its living gold, seemed
poured out there with a kind of immortal prodigality.
The two on the shore watched it silently with
beating hearts. They were going back to Sauganac
in the morning. Louise could scarcely bear to see
it fade. She wished to beg, “Only another hour !”
It seemed to her like her honeymoon. She had
let herself drown in an ocean of love. The joy was
too great to be resisted. With conscious love she
had taken up his old boots, turned over his fishing
tackle. Back there in Sauganac lay many things
to try them. She obscurely feared them. Some
way that fundamental question concerning David
had hardly been answered. She feared it. She
wished to say to him, “Take me altogether, Davy |
Keep me here up in the woods !”


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 143
The last pale band of pearl faded from the water.
To the eye the lake became only a mirror for the
stars. The chorus of frogs sounded like an old,
persistent note of desire in a void world. Her hand
groped out and found her husband's.
On the way home next day, as they neared the
boundary of Mission County, Louise again found
herself alone in the Pullman car. Dreaming to her-
self she looked out at the pleasant fruit country —
gently rolling, sandy slopes set with vineyards and
orchards, widely margined with stretches of green
pasture, interspersed with leafy woods. It had a
contented, prosperous look. The farm buildings
were generally comfortable, shaded with oak and
maple trees, often brightened with flowers. It was
these good farmers, living in the sun, their wealth
in purple grape clusters and crates of golden peaches,
whose votes had turned the scale in Winthrop's
favor. Louise's blue eyes looked upon their pleasant
land with a singularly vivid love. She thought, in
the main, they wanted only what was good and right.
Then, somewhat as back there at the lake, her heart
contracted. She wished to find her husband and
say to him, “Let’s live out here in the sunny coun-
try, David What do we care about consolidated
electric light plants and getting rich. It's so peace-
ful here — so much room and time to love each
other l’’ Her nerves fluttered and her breast ached
with the wish.


144 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
The booming whistle of the locomotive sounded.
The train slackened and stopped. A brick wall,
vast, grimy, and blank, towered outside the window.
They had entered Mission County. They were in
Nogiac. This enormous brick wall formed the side
of the Three Kings Distillery — Charlie Schwartz's
plant. It suggested something mediaeval, a seat of
dark, barbaric power that dominated a country. It
was the stronghold of the enemy. The train, de-
layed at a switch to let out a string of distillery cars,
started again and slid into the Nogiac station.
Louise visualized the town — overshadowed by its
three great distilleries, ruled by the gang, a seat of
corruption. The saloons did as they pleased here.
Vice flourished.
When they pulled out of Nogiac, her eyes again
rested upon a panorama of pleasant country; but
she was not thinking of that now. She was think-
ing of David as she had often thought of him before,
only more intimately, with a dream more warm and
heady — of a champion as brave and steadfast as
Winthrop, and abler than he, gifted with that mys-
terious touch which commands men. She craved
the heroic. She did not know just how it would
come about, but out of her own ardor there should
be an occasion when she would buckle the harness
upon her husband's strong limbs and send him forth
— her warrior; the darling, not of her body but of
her soul. She dreamed this wholly to herself. It
belonged in that nest of her heart which is guarded


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 145
by an inviolable modesty, which no one will let
another see, no matter how dear or intimate that
other may be.
When David came in, he wondered at the smile
which transfigured the beauty of her face. It was
so serene, yet tender. She slipped her hand in his.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 147
bouquet of roses stood on the cook-stove. Beside
it was a card, written on in Ted Penrose's hand:
“For the cook; in anticipation.”
“Teddie l’ she cried, with the singing lilt of a
fond woman over an object of her affection. She
took up the flowers; buried her face in them; turned
impulsively to David.
“I love him very much, Davy | Really very
much l’’
It seemed infinitely dear to him — the way she
showed him that part of her heart, bravely, loyally,
yet with a little half-defensive questioning. He
laughed fondly, and kissed her. “Of course you do,
honey,” he said.
The precious joke of their shabby home was still
with them at next morning's breakfast table. He
was to leave her now and go down into the town
about his business. Fond as they were, they had
that tendency to a balance which all normal people
have. For the time they had seen enough of each
other exclusively. Louise had many household
things to see to ; the problem of a new maid was
upon her hands. David's affairs awaited him. She
watched his going with a serene heart.
At the gate David turned and waved his hand;
then swung away with vigorous strides. He was
sunnily conscious of being a very happy man. One
great concern of his life — marriage — had been
settled with the highest good fortune. Now his
mind ran forward alertly and with confidence to


148 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
the business affairs from which he had been cut off.
He had the practical male's zest for them. Already
he was absorbed in running over his plan to get the
electric light plant and consolidate it with the street
railroad. It was a good plan. He ought to make
a capital stroke for himself with it — seventy-five
thousand dollars if luck favored him.
At the street railroad power-house he was greeted
from all sides. The burly Swede barn boss actually
blushed over his own warmth. Day laborers grinned
and nodded. David had a jolly word for them all.
He liked this human stir. He was at home among
IſleIl.
He went up-town, and it seemed that about every
tenth man he met on Broadway remembered that
he had been married. Sometimes two or three
“joshed” him at once. This, too, was to him an
expression of the good workaday world's geniality.
It pleased him to be among these friendly people
who thought well of him. It was, after all, the scene
in which his capability exercised itself – his par-
ticular world.
He had hardly stepped into the handsome office
of the First National Bank before the bald cashier,
looking across the marble counter from his desk,
sang out loudly, “Hello, there, Davy l’’ Every
one looked around, and there was a small, jocular
ovation. The assistant cashier himself went to See
whether Mr. Titus was engaged, and smilingly beck-
oned David to enter the president’s office at the rear
of the general banking-room.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 149
In the beginning Penrose and Epperson had joined
in building a small horse-car line in Sauganac, as
public-spirited citizens. From time to time the
line was extended; then equipped for electrical
operation, and enlarged still more, until now it was a
very respectable concern with some fifty miles of
track in city and near-by country. When the earlier
extensions were made, Penrose and Epperson had let
other substantial citizens come in as stockholders.
At present the holders of stock, small and great,
numbered over thirty. Penrose, with his great for-
tune, no longer gave much personal attention to his
Sauganac affairs, and none at all to the street rail-
road. Titus represented him and voted his stock.
The banker was interested himself and held proxies
from other stockholders, so that he and Epperson
really controlled the company. Epperson was still
president; but since David had developed the ca-
pacity to manage the concern, the patent-medicine
man gave only incidental attention to it. David
really ran the road, under Titus's advice as regards
financial matters. Thus, in going to the bank,
David was reporting at headquarters.
The handsome banker greeted him genially. He
liked David. The younger man’s business capacity
itself in a way endeared him to the elder. He had
been looking over the plan to take in the electric light
plant; thought very well of it; believed it would be
a good stroke; Epperson, ever cautious, hadn't
completely come around, but was coming; the


150 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
Chicago fellows who owned the plant were rather
on the fence; they were light-weights and hesitated
over attempting to raise the two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars that ought to be spent on the plant
to put it in proper shape.
“Martindale was over to see me the other day,”
Titus went on. “He owns a fifth, and is anxious
to sell. Some of the others are holding off; think
they can do better. I told Martindale we'd give
them a fair deal; but, naturally, we wouldn’t pay
any fancy price, for we can get a light franchise of
our own and run them out of business if we have to.
I think they'll come around to a reasonable figure
all right.” -
“Here's how I stand,” said David. “I’ve got
forty thousand dollars in street-railroad stock. It's
all the money I have, except what my new house
will cost me. I can buy Bryerly's stock right now —
pretty cheap, too; not over par. What would you
think of making me a loan’”
The banker drew two little circles with his pencil
on the blotting-pad – a sign that he was thinking.
“How much is it?”
“Thirty-five thousand dollars,” David replied. “I
suppose I can raise the money elsewhere; but I’d
rather come to you. Of course, you’re entitled to
know whatever I do. The stock is worth the price
if we don’t get the electric light plant. If we do get
it, and form a new company and double our stock,
the new stock will be at a premium in a year. I’m


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 151
certain that taking over the light plant will be the
most profitable thing we ever did.” He laughed.
“You know I’ve bored you to sleep preaching that l”
The banker dropped his pencil. “Go ahead,
Davy. Buy the stock. I'll lend you the money.
If anybody makes a profit out of this light deal,
you’re entitled to it, for it's your plan.”
David arose, smiling and sparkling. “Good l I’ll
be in for the money in a day or two !”
He went out into the sunny street with a stronger
happiness, a heightened zest. It was good to suc-
ceed, good to make money! Titus and Epperson
were backing him. He felt the ground firm under
his feet. He crossed the parked grounds of the
Sauganac House. The old hotel looked good to him.
Landlord Donovan was stepping out on the ve-
randa as David mounted blithely to it. “Hello,
father l’’ David sang out gayly. The landlord's
genial face lit up. He laughed and shook hands
with David; laughed again and threw an arm around
his stalwart son's shoulders. His full-hearted pleas-
ure seemed to infect the very furniture. He marched
David through the office, hugging him, laughing like
a pleased boy. The clerk behind the desk, some
lounging guests, the very bell-boys, looking on and
catching the genial, open-hearted joy, beamed or
laughed outright in pure sympathy.
Triumphantly the landlord marched his son down
the broad stairs to the bar-room. Both were ab-
stemious men; but it was a kind of merry rite to


152 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
pledge the returned prodigal in a drink. Word of
David's return went about the hotel, and Dennis
O'Neill came peering and twinkling to the bar-room
door. Even more abstemious than either of them,
he nevertheless walked up to the bar and took his
symbolic drink with them.
David ate luncheon at the hotel with his father and
Dennis. In this genial hour he felt all his old-time
fondness for the shrewd, humorous, unmoral old
boss. Several times it was on the tip of his tongue
to say, “You must bring the ‘missis’ up to see us,
Dennis.” That seemed the most natural thing in
the world to say; yet he forebore.
Other men, lunching at the hotel, came over to
their table from time to time — friends of David,
who shook hands with him and congratulated him,
or “joshed” him, according to their natures. He
was not less in love with his wife, yet it was a joy
to him to be back again in this sphere of men. He
seemed to feel mental muscles that, for a month,
had laid unused stretching out, getting agreeably
in play once more. Men's talk, men's laughter, the
broad, practical, tolerant attitude of his own sex,
stimulated him.
It was after two o'clock when he got back to the
street railroad office to take up work in earnest.
There was plenty of it waiting for him, and he
plunged into it with ardor. He was fairly surprised
when he heard the six o'clock whistles blowing. He
left the office with the pleasure that comes from


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 153
having worked hard and to good purpose. His
mind turned to his wife with a keener zest for having
been, for some time, quite detached from her. He
did not formulate it at all; but he simply felt that
here was the final beauty of marriage — the good,
busy, successful day among the affairs of men; then
to leave it all and go home to the dear woman who
awaited him.
Louise had been in the house most of the day, her
hands busy with unpacking and arranging, her heart
and mind full of her dreams of him. At four o’clock
she put on one of her prettiest dresses, remembering
that he had admired it, and went out in the yard to
the patched rustic seat beneath the gnarled, half-
dead old apple trees. She took a book, and read a
little; but mostly she brooded on the nest of her love
and waited for her husband. She was not really
disappointed when he did not come by five, as she
had expected, not until after six. She had great
contempt for the sort of wife whose puling selfishness
seeks to bind her mate's working hands. Naturally,
David would have much business the first day.
Nevertheless it made her think of that wide field of
his activity where he went alone, leaving her at home.
Half his waking hours would be spent down-town
with affairs which, naturally, she could not know
much about.
When he appeared, walking rapidly, she called
gayly, arose, and went to meet him. His mind was
still genially full of the impressions of the day — and


154 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
he was hungry. When they went in to dinner, he
told her jovially that he had seen Titus; the electric
light plan was going ahead well; they’d make a
good thing out of it. He said he had seen his father,
too. But he waited until the maid was out of the
room to say: —
“Dennis was there, you know. I was going to tell
him to bring his wife up to see us. They’re not cere-
monious people.” He was smiling and regarding
her with a good-natured, rather expectant ques-
tioning.
“Dennis?” she repeated — and hesitated, in an
odd pain. “We don’t need Dennis, do we, dear?”
He laughed somewhat forcedly. “Well, you
seem not to, Loie. Of course, you’re the mistress,”
he said. He was really rather surprised. It had
seemed so natural to have old Dennis personally their
friend. It was the little defect in the rose. His
wife was a bit narrow-minded.
She knew his thought, and it hurt her. It was
not good to balk his geniality. But it was exactly
in this genial, light-hearted carelessness that the
danger lay.
“I know Dennis is personally likeable in a way,
Davy,” she said. “But I simply can’t take him in
that way. To me he can never be anything but the
bribe-giver and grafter. His being good-natured
and generous doesn’t interest me, dear.” She spoke
gently, making it, in fact, half a little plea for his
forgiveness.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 155
He responded instantly, smiling across at her with
a generous fondness. “We’ll cut him out !” he
said.
She knew that, in his fond way, he still rather
laughed at her for her scruples — and forgave her
them.
They went out-of-doors after dinner, rambled
about the ragged yard, discussing whether they
should have it put in shape. It was deep dusk when
they came back to the porch. David stepped up,
turned abruptly, set his heels together, swung his
arms, and jumped. He paced the distance he had
cleared, and laughed to find it less than he should
have made.
“I’ll be getting fat, next l” He pinched her
cheek.
All the evening a problem had been going round
and round in the back of her mind. She thought:
“How much he is a boy! I love him too much l It
carries me off my feet. This isn’t the right way.”
Yet what could she do but love him with all her
might? The idea of contending with him, of doing
anything that would make him less anxious to be
by her side, wounded her from all directions at once.


CHAPTER XVI
THE June weather was superb. All the trees were
in leaf; the river valley a magnificent cradle of
living green. Mr. Codley, issuing from the Sauganac
House, lifted approving eyes to the leafage of the
little park.
The lawyer turned into Broadway; but in the
direction opposite to the Daily News office. Where
the main thoroughfare grew shabbier as it approached
the river, he took a side street; and so reached a two-
story frame building of weather-beaten and unat-
tractive appearance. The stairs that he climbed
were darker and even dirtier than those leading to
Julius Brown's sanctum. The door from the little
hall at the head of them bore a dingy sign: “Wesley
Wogan, Attorney at Law”; but the door was locked.
Old Alphabet opened the half-opaque window at
the end of the hall and sat down comfortably on
the dusty sill. The lower story of the building was
occupied by a feed store. Some bales of hay and
straw lay in the belittered back yard, and chickens
picked industriously over the grain-strewn ground.
“Very pastoral for Wesley,” Mr. Codley com-
mented to himself, with considerable amusement. He
heard a step on the stair and watched Wogan's ascent
156


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 157
with the same expression of good-nature. His first
glance had told that Wesley's clothes were neatly
pressed, his linen clean. Codley judged, with satis-
faction, that he was perfectly sober; and confirmed
the judgment when the younger man, near the head
of the stairs, looked up. There was energy in the
red, swollen-looking face. -
“On hand 2’’ said Wogan. “My train was a little
late.” He got a key from his pocket, unlocked the
door, and, with a nod, invited Codley to enter.
The office comprised two rooms, of equally un-
kempt appearance. In the inner room Wogan put
his bag on the battered, ink-stained table and sat
down, motioning to another chair; and Old Alpha-
bet, with perfect good-nature, chuckled inwardly to
behold already the air of the capable, successful
lawyer to whom clients were a commonplace.
“It was a long pull; the girl was about as stubborn
as they make 'em,” Wogan observed, by way of
preface. “I finally got her interested in recover-
ing the land, though; and, of course, I got the let-
ters.” He took out his pocket-book, drew a folded
paper from it, and handed it over. “There's her
receipt for the two hundred dollars we advanced her.
You see, it gives me the case on a contingent fee
and makes me a partner in it, so we can hold her
tight enough if she should get flighty. But she
won't get flighty. Her topknot is full of pleasant
dreams of the hard cash she's going to get. If you
think well of the letters, we'd best send her on a wild-


158 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
goose chase up to Montana, where her mother died,
to keep her out of the way and have a finger on her.
Now — about the letters. I don’t know whether
they’re worth a rap to you or not. But my job was
to get ’em, and I’ve done it.”
He took a thick new envelope from an inner pocket
and tore it open. It contained another envelope,
curiously old-looking and wound with a faded red
ribbon. This envelope in turn contained nine let-
ters, or notes, five in a man's hand, four in a woman's.
Wogan laid them out in a row on the battered table.
Old Alphabet bent over them as though he were
reading a fortune in cards. All were undated and ,
unsigned. There was not even an initial.
“There's no doubt about the man's,” Wogan com-
mented. “They’re in Fred Hasbrook's hand.” He
leaned back in the swivel chair, his dark, intelligent
eyes fixed on Codley. Now and then, with an im-
patient finger, he tapped his chin. Old Alphabet
looked intently at the letters, one after another, as
they lay in a row, without offering to touch them,
although two of the man's contained more than
one sheet. He seemed to wish to wrest the secret
from these time-faded sheets in the mass.
“Do you know Mrs. Trescott's hand?” he asked.
“This isn’t her hand,” said Wogan. “The girl
Fanny says so.”
“What's the girl's idea?”
“She hasn’t any.”
Codley looked up then. “What's yours, Wesley?”


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 159
“It’s plain enough,” said Wogan. “Hasbrook
and the woman who wrote these letters used Mrs.
Trescott as a go-between. She had two shops, you
know, one opening into the other. I think they met
there. The question is, How did Mrs. Trescott
come to keep possession of these letters?”
Codley hunched forward with an oddly avid move-
ment. “She wouldn’t have done it,” he said, “if
there hadn’t been something extraordinary about
the affair. It wasn’t any maid-of-all-work, any
dining-room-girl case.”
The suggestion whetted Wogan's appetite anew.
With a gentle little intaking of the breath, he, too,
bent forward. And Old Alphabet now took up the
letters, beginning methodically with the first, study-
ing each faded word. Even to these men the some-
what yellowed sheets breathed out the tragic air
of a dead romance. The fingers that penned these
lines might have long mouldered in the earth.
They were blind enough — mere love-letters whose
tender words now lay like corpses of the long-past
emotion in which they had been written. The
woman's especially were blind and brief. One of
them was a mere scrawl in pencil: “Only to say,
Darling ! Sweetheart 1.” A second was not much
longer. It concluded, “The week will be another
age. Be sure to see J.” A third began, “Yes.
You may come to-morrow ! Think of it ! What a
trick they’ve played on me — turning all the leaves
yellow !” It was to this one that Codley came back,


160 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
at the end of an hour during which only a few words
were spoken.
He read it over again; then picked up one of the
man’s letters which began, “To-morrow then ; and
thank God l Could the touch of little rosy feet have
turned the leaves yellow 2°
The lawyer took his meaty nose between a thumb
and forefinger and pondered a moment; then turned,
very quietly to Wogan.
“I smell a trail, Wesley,” he said very, very
gently. “How would this hypothesis strike you?
They wrote these letters to each other because they
couldn’t meet. Yet both were in Sauganac. Imag-
ine the woman was in bed, and the faithful Trescott
brought her a letter, which she didn’t want to keep
anywhere about her. So she gives it back to the
faithful Trescott to burn up. The faithful Trescott,
who has ideas of her own, prefers to keep it. Also,
she decides to swipe some of the woman’s letters to
the man — to make her case complete, you see, if
she should ever deem it prudent to use the corre-
spondence for a gainful purpose.”
“That looks reasonable enough,” said Wogan.
“Why would she be in bed and inaccessible?”
Codley asked, and paused an instant, and added,
quietly: “Get me a copy of all the births in the
autumns of the years 1880, 1881, and 1882. I
wouldn’t wonder if these same little rosy feet would
lead us somewhere, Wesley. I seem to smell a
warm trail — whether there's any good game at the
end of it or not.”


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 161
He tapped the ends of his bony fingers together,
regarding Wogan with a certain approval. “I
suppose I needn’t tell a gentleman of your pene-
tration who it is that I'm after,” he said. “I may
have a personal and unworthy motive of my own.
Freddy Hasbrook has been quite rude to me. But
that's neither here or there. He's made up his
alleged mind that the thing for him to do now is to
raise all the hell he can with some good business men
who happen to be in the whiskey trade, and whom
he don't approve because they've had to make their
fortunes themselves, instead of having their fathers
do it for them. It happens at an awkward time.
There are some big plans afoot that Freddy interferes
with. There are a good many million dollars at
stake, Wesley. We haven’t the least idea of letting
a son of his father yawp us out of them. I expect to
have plenty of work for you. You’ll find the pay
satisfactory.”
“I’m needing the money,” Wogan replied suc-
cinctly.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 163
whom David had captured in the attempt to burn
Dennis O'Neill's plant. Dolton had once been a
gauger in the government's internal revenue service,
which naturally made him familiar with distillers
and distilleries. Some years before he had been
dismissed from the service for what looked very
like connivance on his part in a scheme to defraud
the government in collection of tax on spirits.
Following his dismissal he was taken in, as a sort
of camp-follower, by the Grand Mogul Distillery at
Nogiac, which appeared to have been the especial
beneficiary of the fraud upon the government. He
had made a confession that Allan Thomas, of the
Grand Mogul, had hired him to burn O’Neill’s plant.
He was now kept very tight in the county jail.
“Dolton knows more than he has confessed,”
the prosecuting attorney was saying. “He knows
a lot more. He's been mixed up in other skulldug-
gery besides this plot to burn O’Neill's plant. I’ve
got hints of it out of him. He'll come to the point
of confessing it before long.”
“I suppose he wants some money,” Hasbrook
observed.
Winthrop hesitated and frowned. He hated
that phase of it. “Well, I suppose he does,” he
admitted.
“Let me know when you think he's ripe,” said
Frederick. “I’ll go see him. I shan’t mind mak-
ing him a present. In fighting the devil, some fire
is necessary.” He laughed good-naturedly over


164 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
y?
Winthrop's distaste. “It’s right enough, too,
he added philosophically. “In testifying for the
state Dolton will naturally lose his job of cheap
villain for the distillers. He couldn't afford to step
out empty-handed and cut off from the only means
to a livelihood in which he has any considerable
experience.”
“He sees it differently now,” Winthrop made
haste to say. “He’s anxious to get into some decent
way of living. He talks about a farm far west.
The fact is, Fred, he's afraid of his life. He told
me those fellows wouldn’t hesitate to have him put
out of the way. He's actually afraid of his life.
It's no trouble to keep him tight. He doesn’t
want any stranger admitted to him. Of course, his
fears are exaggerated. But I doubt if he would
sleep easy anywhere out of jail. His niece says he
wouldn't.”
“Do you know the niece?” Hasbrook inquired,
rather incidentally.
“No. She comes to see him once or twice a week;
seems rather ignorant, but fond of him.” The prose-
cuting attorney’s mind was back in the coil of his
plans. “I must get Dolton to tell what he knows –
all he knows. We’ll only scotch this snake, Fred,
until we get two or three of those fellows in the
penitentiary. Fines and civil judgments and so on
won’t stop 'em. If there’s a law on the statute
book that they haven’t broken, it's been merely
because it didn't suit their convenience to break it.”


166 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
that arose on other ground than literal truth. He
put his eggs in one basket. It was difficult for him
to understand a divided mind. Perhaps there were
scarcely two men more inwardly unlike than he and
the good friend to whom he nodded a greeting as he
alighted from the car at the Court House corner.
The good friend nodded back, showing his teeth
and dimples, and watched the solid figure climb
the steps that led to the Court House grounds. Win-
throp's effect of massive singleness someway height-
ened Teddie Penrose's confusion.
He had left his bicycle shop for the day. He was
going home. To reach his lodging he should keep
straight on up the hill to the third corner. The next
cross street was on the way to the old Holmes place.
He walked very slowly; even stopped twice and poked
into the grass with his stick as though he were look-
ing for something. He was not thinking at all, but
merely drifting around in confusion. At the corner,
however, he took the cross street. “I’m acting like
a hog,” he said to himself. Before he reached the
rickety gate in the picket-fence he saw Louise, in a
light summer gown, working among the old rose-
bushes. He hailed, gayly, as he opened the gate.
“It’s what I need — pruning-knife applied about
at my ankles,” he said as he came up to her.
“What makes you think your feet are all right?”
“They brought me to you. Isn’t it Shelley that
has something very neat in that line about his
hoofs?” He spoke gayly. She was bare-headed


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 167
º
and smiling. He said to his depths, “Why should
I mind? She's pretty near all in the world that I
care about.”
She bent a little toward him, pruning-knife in
hand, and laughed with a fond raillery. “What
have you been up to, Ted, that makes you so gay ?”
He laughed, too. “I suppose it's the limit.
You know I play poker sometimes,” he plumped
out, showing his dimples. “A while ago I ran across
my cashier in the joint I patronize — one of those
Winthrop hasn’t discovered and shut up. I wouldn’t
like my boss to assume that I was going to steal just
because he found me playing poker. So I nodded,
friendly. Later, I found him there several times.
I never sat in the same game with him except once
when it would have looked stuck up and holier-
than-thou not to. This afternoon he came into my
office, white as a ghost; the old story, you know —
fifteen hundred short ; lost at poker; wife and two
kids. To save my life I couldn’t do anything but
tell him to charge it up to advertising, and laugh;
couldn’t even fire him. We'd drank from the same
canteen, you see. It makes me gay to realize what
a stupendous joke I am as a business man.”
She knew the troubled soul beneath this smiling
face; felt that shock of bewilderment within him,
as life so often handed him a puzzle that he could not
solve. She knew it was to her that he must come.
But she was too much in love with David to compre-
hend just why Ted must come to her.


168 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
“That wasn’t so bad as it might have been, Teddie
You might have played poker and been rough on the
man, too.” She spoke to him sweetly, with affec-
tionate, smiling eyes. She wished, as so often, to
make up to him what was untoward in his circum-
stances and in his own composition. In a way she
claimed him for her own. She had been so long used
to him — to his docile, sweet-tempered, self-depre-
ciatory attitude—that she did not entirely under-
stand.
Penrose was thinking, “I ought to go away —
but I won’t ; no, I won’t l”
“What I need is a job as gardener. I believe I
could learn to prune a rose-bush first-rate,” he said
lightly, and stooped to help her.
An hour later David came home and found them
still at work together. His heartiness to Ted showed
her again his liberal and generous mind. She felt
that her husband admired her the more for exercis-
ing her womanly powers in this other man’s life.
If there were tendencies in him that were dangerous,
certainly they had nothing to do with jealousy or
the like defects on the meaner side of man. She
had never been more in love with him. He urged
Ted to dine with them. When he refused, they all
walked down to the gate together.
Louise was first to see a notable figure making
diagonally across the street toward them — a figure
portly, red of face, and in the livery of the law.
The stiff straw helmet, with a large pewter shield


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 169
of the city in front, was tipped far back from the
perspiring brow. The blue policeman's blouse dan-
gled dejected from the fat shoulders; the official
trousers bagged sadly at the knee. He came up to
the gate and stopped, with a kind of questioning look
at Teddie.
“Hello, Clancy. Want to see me?” said David,
genially, and at the same time he gave his wife's
arm a little humorous Squeeze, which meant that
she was to stay. Ted took himself off, smiling
mischievously. David gravely introduced the caller
to his wife. They walked across to the seats under
the apple trees, Clancy gloomily silent. He laid his
helmet on the ground and wiped his brow. - “Danged
hot day,” he suggested, sociably, to Louise; then
sighed and turned woebegone eyes upon David.
“Well, I'm in a heap of trouble, Davy.” He
brought it out plumply and simply.
“Yourself, Clancy?” David asked with some
surprise.
“Me, Davy; after sixteen years on the force and
never a charge against me.” A touch of brogue
mellowed his speech. David was humorously aware
that there was seldom a charge against any police-
man in Sauganac.
The policeman unconsciously settled into an
official, half-magisterial attitude. “Yu’ll be re-
memberin’ Peter Costello — lives out by the dump?
Peter's kind of a weak sister, ye might say. He's
got a stiff leg and five young ones and boozes more’n


170 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
he ought at times. He's a mule to work, though,
Davy. Right at it when he's got a job. They’ve
been havin’ pretty hard times lately, wit’ sickness
in the family, and out o' work. Well, sir,” — he
came to the dénouement deliberately – “Monday
night I was comin’ through the railroad yards.
It's orders to go through the yards every night and
keep an eye out for coal thieves. I was comin'
through the yards, and here was Peter, right at it
— hoppin’ off a car wit’ a gunny sack full — fair
more’n the blackguard could lug. He kind of reeled
off slaunchways wit’ it plumb into my arms —
arrested himself, ye might say.”
Clancy looked up dramatically. In spite of him-
self David laughed softly — being aware that if
Costello hadn’t arrested himself he never would
have been arrested.
“There we was, Davy,” the officer repeated.
“And you?” David prompted.
The officer hesitated a moment. “I’m tellin’ it
to ye straight, lad. I give him a smart rap wit’ me
stick over his pate and told him he was a disgrace
and if he ever did it agin I’d run him in. And that's
the last I seen of him,” he concluded, with an air of
complete candor.
“And the trouble?” David insinuated gently.
“Ye see, the railroad detective's been tellin' the
sheriff and Mr. Holmes” — he looked studiously
away from Louise – “that the police was in league
wit’ the coal thieves. The detective and a deputy


172 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
“Resign, Clancy,” said David. “I’ll take care
of you. We want another watchman.”
The officer contemplated his helmet a moment;
then lifted his woebegone eyes. “Ye see, lad – me
bein’ on the force so long; the missus and kids
and the neighbors all bein’ used to seein’ me in the
blue uniform; it gives a man a kind of official
standin', ye see.”
They understood his pride in his uniform, and the
importance it gave him in his own world.
“I don’t see what I can do, Clancy,” said David,
with kindness.
“I was thinkin', Davy,” said the policeman, softly,
yet eagerly, “maybe if you'd go to Mr. Holmes for
me and tell him just how it was — and my record on
the force and all. Of course, if it was anything
crooked or white-livered – taking graft from the
saloons or sneakin’ away fum a tough crowd —
why, I wouldn’t ask it. But I was thinking if ye’d
show him just how this was – not mentionin’ Cos-
tello by name, of course” – He paused with an
eager, yet suspended hope.
“He wouldn’t see it as we do,” said David. “As
prosecuting attorney he has no relatives – nor
friends,” he added with a wilful truth.
Clancy's eyes fell. “Well, I was thinkin’ I’d
ask ye, lad,” he said as one defeated.
“I’ll go to him and do my best for you,” David
replied quickly. “But I don’t think it’ll do any
good.”


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 173
The policeman seemed gloomily baffled by this
idea of a prosecuting attorney who wouldn’t do his
own brother-in-law a friendly turn. “Well, do
what ye can,” he said. He picked up his helmet.
“I know you’re square, anyhow, Davy,” he added,
emphasizing the pronoun.
Some two weeks after this another caller gave
Louise a different light upon David's down-town
activities in the world of men. The caller appeared
before David had come home to dinner. He seemed
at the first sight a very grumpy old gentleman —
spare, with a smooth-shaven upper lip, square-cut
gray whiskers, and a high, three-cornered forehead.
He asked surlily for David. Louise said he was
probably still at the street railroad office.
“They told me there he'd gone home,” the old
gentleman replied, in a manner that evinced sus-
picions of her veracity.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, coloring, and lifted
up her magazine. She was sitting on the narrow
porch.
The caller took a chair, uncompromisingly, held
his stiff, brown glazed straw hat squarely across his
knees, and took a formidable bite of his underlip,
showing glaringly false, white teeth. Louise pre-
tended to ignore him. She peeked, however, and
saw him eye David's approaching figure in a squint-
ing, belligerent manner. He did not rise or move
in any way when David came to the porch, nor give
any sign in recognition of his “How d' do.”


174 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
Instead he said, “I’ve come to get back that street
railroad stock of mine.”
“I’m afraid I can’t accommodate you,” David
replied lightly.
The man shut his jaws tight, his underlip pro-
truding slightly, and regarded David malevolently
through narrowed eyes.
“You swindled me out of it,” he said. “If you
don’t want trouble, you’ll give it back.”
David's face darkened with quick anger. Then
he laughed. “You’re just a crank,” he said in a
way that dismissed it.
“Crank, am I?” The old gentleman softly ground
his teeth, and his voice rose. “You swindled me out
of it. You knew this electric light deal was coming
off and 'twould make my stock worth twice what you
paid me for it. I want it back, I tell you !”
“Well, you won’t get it,” David replied, his own
voice lowering. He turned to Louise, his back to
the visitor. “Is dinner ready?”
“I think so,” she said. David held the door open
for her, and she walked in. As David followed her
the old gentleman shouted, “Rogue ! Swindler l’’
David shut the door in his face and against his shaken
fist.
“Who is he, David 2 What is it?” Louise asked
breathlessly.
“Oh, old man Bryerly,” he replied, as though it
bored him, and with a slight frown on his face. “He
made some money running a livery stable here.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 175
Everybody knows him for an ignorant, stupid old
crank. He got some street railroad stock in an
early day, and he kicks about everything. The
company issued bonds to pay for the new power-
house. Old Bryerly went around roaring that it
would ruin the company — bored everybody to
death. Titus finally shut him out of the bank. He
pestered me, wanting me to buy his stock. When
this electric light deal took promising shape, I did
buy it. Now, evidently he's heard about the deal,
and he wants his stock back. You can’t do anything
with such people except to knock 'em on the head.”
“Davy — tell me all about this electric light deal.
How is it that you expect to make so much money
out of it?”
They were going into the dining room, and he put
his arm around her. “It’s very simple, Loie. Our
new power-plant is a ripper – if I do say it as
shouldn’t. I stood out to have it built right, if it did
take a lot of money. It’s like any other first-class
factory; we can produce electric current very
cheaply. Those electric light fellows are cheap-
Johns. Their plant is a cheap old junk heap, out
of date, inadequate, and it falls to pieces as fast as
they can patch it up. So it costs 'em a great deal
more than it ought to operate it. They’ve got to
raise a big sum and build a modern plant or sell out
to us. We use current mostly in the day time.
They use it mostly in the evening. It's something
like running one flour-mill part of the day, then


176 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
another the rest of the day, when you might as well
do all the grinding in one mill. In a word, we can
handle their business a good deal cheaper than they
can handle it themselves. They don’t extend the
light service as they ought to because they haven’t
the plant to take care of it. We will give the city
a much better service than they do, at the same price
they charge, and make a big profit on it, too. It's
good straight business, girl.”
She supposed it was. He had told her that they
purposed doubling the capital stock of the street
railroad company on the strength of it, and that the
new stock would be worth par or more within a year.
There were some reservations in her mind, which,
however, she recognized as being unbusinesslike —
perhaps too fastidious for a workaday world. For
example, why should the few stockholders take all
the benefit to themselves? Why shouldn’t they be
satisfied with half as much profit, and reduce the
price of lights somewhat?
She took her place at the table. “All the same,
dear, I wish you hadn’t bought the ‘old crank's’
stock,” she said.
“Somebody was bound to buy it. He wanted to
sell it. He offered it,” David replied earnestly.
“Why shouldn't I buy it?”
“Maybe just because he is an ‘old crank,’” she
replied rather vaguely, and smiled a little.
It was repugnant to her feeling. In a way an
advantage had been taken of the old man. She


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 177
knew the common judgment of men would fully jus-
tify David. It was good business. She must not
worry him with mere womanish qualms. In the
case of Policeman Clancy she wished he had not
gone to intercede with Winthrop — although he
went without any hope of success, and had none.
On his part that was simple generosity, just as the
purchase of Bryerly's stock and the electric light
deal were simply business. She realized that his
genial, practical-minded nature would take a view
of many things different from hers. After all, these
cases were mainly matters of feeling, without any
very clear moral issue.
“We’ve got to make some money, you know —
the way the architect and contractor are piling it
up on the house,” he said, laughing.


CHAPTER XVIII
DOG-DAYS, and hot! The town groaned and
sweltered. A constant, glassy shimmer rose from
the big iron roof of the new car-barn.
The power-house was completed and the street
railroad company had taken possession of it. The
front of the big brick shell was occupied by the
offices — the clerical force downstairs, the mana-
gerial staff above. The second-story suite opened
on a balcony that overlooked the dynamo room.
Up there a little man in overalls was painting a sign
on the ground-glass panel of the further door. The
sign said, “Vice President and General Manager.”
The directors had voted David the position when
possession was taken of the power-house, of which he
had been so much the builder. It was not an empty
honor, for it carried an increase of salary from four
to six thousand dollars a year. Moreover, Epperson
had formally assented to the plan to take over the
electric light plant, and Titus was negotiating with
the Chicago owners.
The stubby sign-painter wiped his moist brow on
an oily sleeve and cast a hungry glance at the elec-
tric fan which whirled on the vice-president's desk,
sending out a wind that ruffled that official's hair and
178 -


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 179
puffed the shoulders of his negligée shirt as he sat
dictating to a stenographer. A visitor, puffing
from the stairs, tapped the sign-painter's shoulder
as notice to stand aside, and entered the cool room
mopping a red face.
“Talk about hell!” he observed.
David swung around in his chair and sprang up,
exclaiming, “Dennis, how are you?” and clapped
the shorter man on the shoulder.
He had seen very little of O'Neill lately. As he
looked down at the stocky, humorous old man, his
heart was constricted. He noticed the blanched
hair and deep wrinkles. Old Dennis was getting old
indeed.
David nodded to the stenographer, who obediently
faded into the next room; called to the sign-painter,
“Close the door.” Then with an affectionate hand
he pushed Dennis to the seat at the end of the desk.
At the moment he happened to recollect that it was
Dennis who had got him his good start with the street
railroad. The visitor surveyed his host with the old,
humorous twinkle.
“Ye seem to take marriage easy, Davy. Likely
ye'd been vaccinated.”
David laughed, but was ashamed. Dennis had
not been to their house. “How are you getting
along?” he asked.
“Fine,” said Dennis. He paused a moment,
twinkling. “Our Nogiac friends realize that they’re
in the hole. Ye're acquainted with Allan Thomas,


180 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
of the Grand Mogul. Allan inherited a gob of stock,
and so got into the game. He hadn’t any brains
to speak of in the beginning, and what he had he's
been carefully cooking in whiskey for twenty years.
What he's got in the inside of his head now would
make a rotten punkin look Shakespearian.”
“Oh, I know Allan,” David assured him.
“Allan's the genius that got up the scheme to burn
me out.” -
“Of course, I know that. Dolton confessed it,”
said David.
“Allan did it all by himself,” Dennis continued.
“But nobody would believe it. At least the news-
papers wouldn’t. They’d charge it up to the whole
combine. The distillery fellows are getting up a
big trust, Davy. They’re anxious to bring it out
in a dress as white as the driven snow. The Wall
Street lads that are going to put up the cash have
got nervous. They don’t want any scandals on their
innocent hands. Old Alphabet and me’s been talk-
ing it over.”
David turned the ruler in his hand, for a moment
avoiding Dennis's shrewd, steady, eyes. He thought
he knew what was coming.
“They’ve made me a proposition,” Dennis con-
tinued. “They’re going to buy my little booze fac-
tory at the satisfactory price of three hundred
thousand dollars. They’ve deposited fifty thousand
in escrow with friend Titus as an evidence of good
faith.”


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 181
David realized that on the one hand there was a
comfortable fortune for Dennis; on the other hand
perhaps bankruptcy – for the fight with the Nogiac
crowd had pressed him hard. “What are the terms?”
he asked kindly.
“The terms are that the distillery trust be formed
and floated according to plans and specifications
October first next. Which it won’t be unless friend
Allan's case is choked off and some other matters —
that I ain’t got anything directly to do with — are
straightened out. It lies here, my lad. The Wall
Street boys has got to dig up some thirty million
dollars to launch it proper. Old Alphabet tells me
the Wall Street boys are sore. The newspapers and
congressmen and other public enemies has been pitch-
ing into 'em very stiff of late. Their sensitive natures
are hurt. What's more to the point, it hurts their
business. They’ve put their foot down that there
mustn't be any scandal. Sending Allan to the pen
for arson would be a scandal.”
“You know the situation, Dennis,” said David.
“Dolton has made a confession and put it in writing.
Winthrop Holmes has it. You and I and Fred
Hasbrook and Winthrop heard it. Winthrop's got
Dolton snug in jail, ready to turn state's evidence.
You know Winthrop. I don’t see how they can
save Thomas from the penitentiary, except by brib-
ing the jury.”
“Well, neither do I see how they’re going to do it,”
said Dennis. “But you know devilish queer things


182 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
are done sometimes. Old Alphabet's very chipper
and confident about it, and Old Alphabet, Davy, is
a mighty wise and sinful party. Look here, lad.
This trust means so many million dollars that it
makes simple, hard-working men like you and me
dizzy to think about it. Burnin' up half a million
or so wouldn’t jar 'em. And with enough money to
burn, ye can do about what you want in this wicked
world.”
“I doubt if they can pull this off,” said David.
“Although I have a high opinion of Old Alphabet's
ability.”
“In view of the three hundred thousand,” Dennis
observed, “I’m resigned to seein’ his dishonorable
talents triumph. I needn’t tell ye that I’ve dropped
out of the prosecuting. The check for fifty thousand
changed me heart. I seemed to see 'twould be a
shame to send a good, idiotic man like Allan to the
pen. If the case comes up for trial, I’ll be unavoid-
ably absent. Old Alphabet mentioned you.”
“What about me, Dennis?” David asked, still
kindly.
Dennis regarded him a moment. “Ye went in
on my side of it, Davy; as my man,” Dennis replied
quietly. “My side now ain’t what it was then. But
ye’re married to the law and order side, as I explained
to Old Alphabet. I’m not askin' ye to come over
with me, lad — and ditch yer brother-in-law. But
I’m thinkin’ ye might properly set on the fence, like
— anyhow until Old Alphabet has a fair chance to


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 183
see what he can pull off. The long and short of it is,
Davy, I thought it no more than right to show you
just how the case stands with me.”
“Quite right, so far, Dennis. I’m glad you did.
It's always good to see you —” He checked him-
self. He hadn't been enjoying that pleasure as
much as it was open to him to do so. “I wish you
to come out of it on top of the heap anyway.”
For some minutes after Dennis left David sat
still, thinking it over. So the distillers were astir
at last; Old Alphabet was at work. He believed a
great deal – not cynically, but as a matter of open-
eyed experience – in the power of money. Few
understand better than himself the possibilities of
that murky underworld of crooked politics and
crooked business which was Old Alphabet's kingdom.
That able practitioner, with his unlimited chicane
and unlimited funds, could go far.
Deep down in his genial and practical mind there
was a kind of irritation against his brother-in-law's
stubborn, narrow-minded view of life as a thing that
could always be squared with the law. His sym-
pathies could not attach themselves very strongly
to that side in a case which appeared to him primarily
as simply a contest between Dennis and the Nogiac
fellows over the price to be paid for a certain dis-
tillery. Perhaps there was the hint of a sports-
manly attitude in the interest with which he awaited
developments.
The next development came ten days later, when


184 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
Titus telephoned, asking him to call at the bank.
Inside the bank, thanks to the awnings, the thick
stone walls, and the electric fans, it was quite cool.
This coolness, the light subdued as compared with
the glare outside, befitted the powerful institution.
The president's room, with solid, handsome furnish-
ings, was even dimmer and cooler than the bank
itself. Titus motioned to a seat at the end of the
desk, leisurely crossed his legs, and silently offered a
cigar, for it was closing time and the stress of the
day's business was over.
“Davy, I’ve got something for you,” the hand-
some banker began with a smile of good-will. “It
don’t exactly belong to you, either.” His smile of
good-will broadened over the joke. He glanced up
to see that the door was closed.
“Confidentially, the distillers are going into a
trust. It will be a big thing. All the Nogiac plants
will go in, and the best ones in Illinois, Pennsylva-
nia, and Kentucky. One of the strongest houses in
Wall Street will furnish the cash and float the se-
curities.” He paused to knock the ashes from his
cigar, still smiling a little. “There are about a
dozen small concerns that will be bought up for cash
beforehand and turned over to the trust when it is
formed. Dennis O'Neill's plant here is one of them
— and it will be simply a godsend to Dennis, for he's
hard-pressed. There is going to be a little syndicate
that will buy up these small concerns for cash.
Subscriptions to the syndicate will amount to three


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 185
millions. When the trust is formed, the syndicate
will turn over the plants at a clean profit of three-
quarters of a million. I’ve saved up a fifty-thousand-
dollar subscription for you.”
“I haven’t any money now,” said David.
“Of course, that won’t make any difference,”
said the banker. “The money to float the trust is
ready. The syndicate will be able to borrow what-
ever it needs.”
David understood perfectly. With the money
provided by the trust promoters the syndicate would
buy certain properties, paying three millions for
them, and immediately sell them to the trust for
three and three-quarters millions. Thus the only
real function of the syndicate would be to distribute
among its subscribers a clean profit of three-quarters
of a million dollars, or twenty-five per cent of the
amount of their subscriptions. The trust promoters
chose this method of making a present to various
men whose good-will they wished to secure. David
could guess that certain politicians would be among
the subscribers to the syndicate. Other men, in-
cluding journalists, even judges, would take a bribe
in this specious form.
David himself met it plumply. “The fact is,
Mr. Titus, I’m due to give some evidence that may
land Allan Thomas behind the bars.”
Titus knocked the ashes from his cigar, coolly.
“You mean that arson case. Here's the situation,
Davy: Allan Thomas is a drunken fool. He got


186 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
up that arson scheme absolutely single-handed.
Charlie Schwartz and his friends have satisfied
Dennis. They’ll give him three hundred thousand
for his plant. So far as Dennis is concerned the
arson plot turns out, not an injury, but a godsend.
Nobody cares a damn about Thomas personally.
But the newspapers and demagogues and blather-
skites generally will kick up a row and say the whole
distillery crowd was in it. We're mighty anxious
to avoid such things. Winthrop Holmes isn’t any
more honest than anybody else. He don’t care a
damn about Thomas. He's trying to use that case
simply to discredit the whole distilling crowd. We
don’t propose to have it made a handle to hurt a
hundred million dollars worth of property and give
ammunition to the socialists and yellow newspapers
who are doing their best to ruin the country.” The
banker did not raise his voice, but the deeper spirit
in his good-natured brown eyes shone out.
“The point is, I don’t see how you’re going to
stop it,” David argued mildly.
“That's in Codley's hands,” said the banker.
“How he proposes to head it off, I don’t know –
and don’t care. He says he can do it, and he usu-
ally gets results. Here's a big industry, Davy;
a hundred million dollars worth of property; big
profits. There's no equity or decency in using Al-
lan Thomas's drunken break as a club to beat down
all this business. We don’t propose to let a crank
like Winthrop Holmes do it. That man has no more


188 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
meant in good part, as an expression of his liking
for the young man. He didn’t want to see David
go wrong and tie himself up with the losing crowd.
He thought he saw signs of going wrong. When
David went out, he thought, “Dennis O'Neill was
right; his wife's got him hypnotized; too bad.”
His opinion of David’s ability fell a number of points.
David was fully aware of this, and it disturbed
him. He went home thoughtfully, with a vexed
mind. His wife was quick to notice the abstraction
in his eyes.
“What is it, Davy 2” she asked with a gentle
abruptness.
He told her about his talk with Titus.
“I don’t care about the twelve thousand dollars
I might have made in the syndicate,” he commented,
“nor that Titus and Epperson happen to control
my job. The real thing is that they rather control
my future. I suppose running a street railroad isn’t
much to brag of; but it's what I’ve been thinking
about doing since I left school. I’ve had ideas
about it and have worked for them. I’ve got the
power-house now, and am in the way of getting the
electric light business. After that there will be
other things I’ll want to do. But, you see, I can’t
take a step except with the help of Titus and Epper-
son. I’ve always thought of myself as a business
man, and in business, anywhere, you can’t do any-
thing nowadays except with the help of the men who
can command capital. Your ideas are no good


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 189
unless you can get capital. You can’t get capital
unless you’re businesslike. Naturally Titus takes
the businesslike view of this arson affair.”
“What is that view’’’ she asked.
“Why, the arson plot was, in fact, simply a bit of
irresponsible drunken folly. They don’t propose to
have it made a handle to hurt a whole big industry
with. And Dennis, the man against whom it was
aimed, has actually profited by it. Why should
anybody else complain?”
“How profited?”
He smiled. “Well, you mustn't tell Winthrop;
but the fact is Dennis has sold out to the combine —
got the price he wanted for his plant, you know; so
hereafter he'll be working on the Nogiac fellows’
side. He won’t testify against Thomas.”
“He must 1” she cried. “The law requires it !”
He smiled again. “The law is disappointed in its
requirements every day.”
“It’s abominable, David It's shamefull” she
exclaimed hotly. “Is the law a minor item of a
whiskey trade? Winthrop ought to know about it !”
“No l’’ he said peremptorily. “Understand, the
old man told me in confidence. It's a cold fact,
Lou, that under the circumstances any other
prosecuting attorney than Winthrop would sim-
ply drop the case — the prosecuting witness being
satisfied.” -
“Thank God, Winthrop doesn’t take that view l’”
she replied.


190 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
Each of them felt the sharp edge of a division.
It remained with them a number of days; then
Something happened that took it away.
He had scarcely reached the office one morning
when Louise called him up on the telephone, ex-
citedly. An hour later she telephoned him from
Winthrop's house. Directly after luncheon he called
her up there. Again, about half-past three, she
telephoned him. He hurried with his work, and
left the office early.
When he reached the rickety gate, he saw his
wife across the ragged shrubbery. The sight of
her vaguely relieved him, as though she had been
rescued from some mysterious peril. He hastened
across to meet her.
“All still well?” he asked.
“Oh, yes! Kittie's doing splendidly. They let
me see her a minute before I came away. It's the
dearest little girl, Davy l’’
He sat beside her on the battered rustic bench
under the apple trees, and Louise told him all about
it, low and quietly. They forgot all about Dennis
and business. The tiny stranger that had come into
the world absorbed their hearts. Now and then the
woman's breast fluttered with a long breath. He
Saw, deep in her steady eyes, that she dreamed
forward with dread and courage to the day when her
own time would come. In the curve of her lips he
saw a deeper, sweeter yielding to him than ever
before. Going in to dinner he slipped an arm


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 191
around her — feeling that he, the male, with all
his problems and tasks, was, after all, hardly more
than a watcher of the show of life. He thought, with
a mind both chastened and uplifted, “My business
affairs — running a street railroad –making money
— what does all that amount to ? The greatest
thing is to do right by her.”


CHAPTER XIX
FATHERHOOD uplifted and softened Winthrop
Holmes. Also, it made him absurdly nervous.
In the midst of his work he suddenly thought of
anxious little inquiries or directions to be telephoned
to the house. He was actually uneasy because busi-
ness was calling him to Nogiac for a night and a day.
A covered way connected the Court House with
the jail. Winthrop traversed it hastily, a type-
written manuscript in his hand, and followed the
turnkey upstairs to one of the large cells that were
reserved for women or for prisoners whose confine-
ment was to be made as light as possible. Except
for the iron bars at the window there was nothing
prisonlike about it. On the contrary it seemed
merely a clean, bare, rather airy bedroom. The
prisoner, Dolton, was sitting by the window, and
arose, cordially, as Winthrop entered. The prose-
cuting attorney noticed that the book which the
man hastily laid on the window-sill was the Bible.
Dolton was elderly, and wore a flowing gray beard.
He was never without a blue coat adorned by brass
army buttons and the insignia of the Grand Army of
the Republic on the lapel. Thus, at first sight, one
saw an old soldier. Some there were, more cynical,
192


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 193
who at second sight seemed to perceive a professional
old soldier.
“Here it is, Dolton,” said Winthrop, cheerfully,
and extended the typewritten manuscript.
Dolton adjusted his spectacles deliberately. “Yes,
sir. Here she is,” he said meekly. He cleared
his throat. “Mr. Holmes, I’m puttin’ myself in
your hands – more, I guess, 'n you really realize.
There’s just one thing about it that I don’t really
like. Your friend, Mr. Hasbrook, is goin’ to give
me a little stake, to git myself out of these parts with,
and maybe set up a little farm out West somewhere.
Says I to him, ‘Mr. Hasbrook, there's only one con-
dition that makes me take your money. I’m takin'
it,” says I, ‘to save my life.” With what I’m goin'
to put down in black and white in this here confes-
sion, Mr. Holmes” – he tapped the manuscript
impressively with his forefinger — “over and about
what's in it now about burnin' Dennis's plant —
Mr. Holmes, I don’t honestly believe my life’d be
worth ten cents if I stayed around here. You don’t
know them fellows like I do.” He gave a nod and
formidable wink.
“They’re a bad lot, Dolton, a bad lot,” Winthrop
assented.
“You bet they’re a bad lot,” the ex-gauger
replied. “I been in with 'em, too — thick and thin.”
He looked apprehensively about the room and lowered
his voice. “I can put you in the way of findin’ out
what become of Tommy Preston that disappeared
O


194 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
and they said had run off with some money of the
Three Kings. I ain’t wanted to go into details
very much, Mr. Holmes. Now that I’ve made up
my mind to make a clean breast of it, I want to set it
all down careful in black and white, just like this
here is set down.” He tapped the written con-
fession again. “And I wouldn’t take a cent, either
— I’d do it for the good of the country — only I
gotta have some money to get away.”
“I understand, Dolton,” Winthrop replied,
quickly and sympathetically. “For my part I
believe you’d be safe right here in Sauganac. But
I can’t urge you to take a chance — since Frederick
is ready to give you a lift. The country will get
the good of what you do, just the same.” -
“You think I’d be safe, Mr. Holmes,” the prisoner
replied with dignity, “because you don’t know 'em.
Do you know why I sleep? It's on account of them
iron bars at the window and the steel doors down-
stairs. I wouldn’t, Mr. Holmes” — he lifted up
the manuscript impressively – “I wouldn’t for
ten thousand dollars walk out of this jail and spend
the night. I know 'em, sir. And another thing,
Mr. Holmes, that I’ve said before. I want strict
orders give downstairs, strict orders that no
strangers is to be allowed to visit me, nor come
around my room except there's a guard with 'em.
No, sir! And if you should be goin’ away any time,
Mr. Holmes — if you should be goin’ out of town,
even for a day” — his voice rose, with nervous


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 195
anxiety — “I want you should lemme know, and
tell Endicott over again that no strangers is to git
next to me.”
Winthrop laid a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“Rest easy, Dolton,” he said. “No strangers will
come near you. I am going to Nogiac to-night.
But be perfectly secure. I’ll speak to Endicott
again. But, without that, you might rest perfectly
easy.”
“I’m restin’ easy, Mr. Holmes, because I’m restin’
in jail,” said Dolton, and again nodded, with a por-
tentous wink.
Winthrop could not help smiling a little over the
old man's nervousness, as he went out. Also, he
was encouraged. It had taken much persuasion to
get Dolton to the point of confessing all he knew
about the distillers. Finally, he would do it only
in his own way; insisting on having his confession
of the arson case as a model to guide him in putting
everything down in black and white. Just how much
the confession would amount to Winthrop did not
know. But he was encouraged by the hope that
when he returned from Nogiac next afternoon Dolton
would have something really important for him.
When he did return the next afternoon, having
been absent in Nogiac twenty-four hours, Endicott,
the tall and bilious sheriff, was at the station to
meet him.
“Dolton's out on bail; Judge Showman released
him this afternoon,” said the sheriff.


196 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
Winthrop seized his arm and pushed him along
as though they must hurry to prevent something.
“Wesley Wogan appeared for him,” Endicott
continued, falling in with the other's hurried stride.
“Showman took it up in chambers and released him
on a fifteen-hundred-dollar bond. Schlimmel, the
saloon-keeper, signed the bond.”
“Where is he? Where's Dolton?” Winthrop de-
manded, throwing his shoulder against a swinging
door from the trainshed to the waiting-room of the
station.
“Wogan popped him into a cab and they disap-
peared. I’ve got Nesbit and Sears looking for
him,” said the sheriff.
“He got away !” the prosecuting attorney cried,
and halted abruptly in the waiting-room. “Why
didn’t you telephone me, Endicott? Why didn’t you
stop it?” His voice was excited, harsh, and accusing.
“There was no time,” Endicott replied. “They
had it all cooked up beforehand. Codley's in town.
Before God, I believe Judge Showman had been
prepared for it. They evidently knew you were
going out of town. The first we knew — I was out
at the moment — came Wogan with an order from
the judge to bring the prisoner before him. Of
course, the jailer couldn’t do anything but obey,
and he sent a man on the run to find me. When I
got there — in the judge's chambers — the judge
and Wogan and Dolton and Schimmel were there,
and the clerk. Bail had already been accepted. I


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 197
objected all I could – urged Showman to wait until
you returned. He said it was a perfectly simple
case – a man in jail on a charge of attempted arson,
which was certainly a bailable offence, and as satis-
factory bail was offered there was no alternative but
to release him. I asked him for a word apart. He
agreed to that ; but bail had already been accepted.
As we stepped aside, Dolton and Wogan and Schlim-
mel walked out. I dropped the judge and ran after
them, meaning to have Nesbit keep watch of them.
But the cab was waiting and they disappeared. It
was all a put-up job l’’
“We must find him, Endicott We must find
Dolton l’’ Winthrop cried. “It was a put-up job
Ah — I’ve let them beat me !” He clenched his big
fists until the nails bit into the palms; his face
drew as though he suffered physically.
He saw it now. While he rested in a false security,
the cunning enemy had been plotting, and they’d
sprung a mine under him 1 No doubt that pre-
tended niece of the prisoner was the go-between.
How they must laugh over the facile manner in
which that miserable bum Dolton had pulled the
wool over his eyes – even contriving to get posses-
sion of his own written confession, and carrying it
off with him |
“I ought to have put a charge of attempted murder
against him. Then they couldn’t have got him out,”
he muttered. The sense of his own culpability ate
into his mind.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 199
thought you understood there was a lot more in the
case than the formal charge of attempted arson.”
Judge Showman exhibited the outspread palms
of polite, but sarcastic surprise. “How was I to
know? Do you think I run my court on gossip —
or by reading the thoughts of the able prosecuting
attorney? The man Dolton was locked up on a
strictly bailable charge. Good bail was offered. If
you happen to be acquainted with the statute, you
are aware that I had no alternative but to release
him.”
On its face this was unanswerable. Winthrop
saw that he was getting nothing out of the quarrel
with the court. Still his troubled, smouldering
glance was bent upon the seamed, intellectual,
rather aristocratic face — trying to read some-
thing. It was exactly the sort of situation that
Old Alphabet was so skilful in dealing with —
something to be done which was outwardly fair and
which, therefore, could be done without danger of
exposure. Winthrop's own integrity was loath to
think evil. Yet he knew of such little arrangements
as Titus's distillery syndicate, in which even judges
sometimes participated. º
“If you want Dolton on another matter, why don’t
you have him rearrested ?” the judge suggested.
Winthrop could read nothing in the lines of this
face. “I shall try to,” he answered rather help-
lessly. He felt, however, that it would be a difficult
task. Undoubtedly the plot had been well laid.


200 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
The plotters would do their best to keep the ex-
gauger out of the toils. It was plain enough that
he had been paid money — probably a good deal of
money. Every one knew that Wogan had no
money. Endicott had said that Codley was in
to Wn.


CHAPTER XX
LEAVING Judge Showman's, there remained with
the prosecuting attorney the bitter, wounding
knowledge that he had been egregiously tricked.
Codley was in it. The distillers' money was in it.
He felt the stir and pull of many forces, potent,
secret, sinister, that were arrayed against him to
balk the law. And at the first pass with them he
had been badly beaten. This hardened his resolu-
tion. The blow that fell upon him heated his will.
He could not rest that evening; but, soon after a
late and hurried dinner, went over to the old home-
stead.
As he stepped into the old sitting room its long-
familiar homeliness assailed his heart. Someway
it came back to him how his mother had sat at that
round-topped, black-walnut table reading by the
light of the fat-bodied lamp with an immemorable
crack across its yellow shade — just as Louise now
sat with her chin up-tilted a little, smiling. There
was something that had to do with the beginnings
of his life; something homely, peaceful, sweet, out
of the good, calm middle-distances of life itself.
Even this alien masculine figure rising genially from
the other side of the table did not jar. On the con-
201


202 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
trary, through him Winthrop seemed suddenly to
understand his sister better — to see her drawing
him into her love and the good, sweet air of the old
home. The prosecuting attorney took the old horse-
hair rocking-chair, facing both husband and wife.
“They’ve got Dolton away – slipped him out
on bail, David,” he began abruptly.
“Yes,” said David. From the tone Louise under-
stood that he knew of it. She softly clasped her
hands in her lap, sitting erect, her lips slightly apart,
regarding her husband, then her brother. Winthrop
also was surprised to find that David knew of Dol-
ton's release. Dennis O'Neill had told him.
“It leaves me rather lame,” Winthrop went on,
after an instant in which he was vaguely disconcerted.
“Of course, I’m to blame. I’ve let them make a fool
of me.” He said it simply. “Dolton got me to let
him take his written confession – on the pretence
that he wanted to elaborate it. He's carried it off
with him.” He smiled a little, while the emotion —
which with him operated very powerfully in its
narrow field — tugged at his heart. “I almost
wish he’d taken one of my arms instead. It weakens
my case against Allan Thomas; but it doesn’t kill
it by a long shot. I have Fred Hasbrook's testi-
mony, and yours, and Dennis O'Neill’s – unless
they’ve bought Dennis off, too.”
David was aware that his wife turned her head to
look at him eagerly; but he did not answer.
“It seems,” said Winthrop, “that those fellows


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 203
have made up their minds to clear Thomas at any
cost — to beat the law if they can.”
“That's a matter of course,” David replied rather
lightly.
“Why should it be?” Winthrop asked, as though
he really did not know.
“Why, because it is to their profit to clear him.
As the case lies it would seriously interfere with
their business plans to have one of their men con-
victed of a crime. Probably if the truth were known,
Thomas knows so many trade secrets that they're
simply bound to stand by him anyway. You
wouldn’t expect them to play into your hands !”
“I can’t see it as a game to be played, or a business
profit, or a case to be won or lost, David,” said the
prosecuting attorney. “The way I look at it, the
law is all we have. The poor and weak can’t have
any other defence, finally. It doesn’t answer to say
we’ll defend it another time, on another issue.
We're always saying that. The people happened to
elect me to defend the law, and I can’t help feeling
a terrible responsibility.” He unfolded his big
hands and slid them along his lap, palms upward –
a little foolish motion made by muscles that ached
to strain themselves until they cracked. “I want
the chance to fight this fight right. They mean to
blindfold me and give me a lath sword, as they’ve
always done by the people's lawyer. I don't pro-
pose to let them.”
“Quite right, of course, Winthrop !” David as-


204 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
sented frankly. “Of course, you ought to make the
best fight you can. And you must expect them
to make the best fight they can. You've been
unlucky.”
Winthrop did not reply to that. His eyes, fixed
on the lamp, grew rounder and glowed; then turned
abruptly to his brother-in-law.
“You and I could lay them by the heels,” he said.
“How 2° David demanded in surprise.
“You can prove bribery in that old Barbour
matter – bribe money and a letter directing how
it was to be paid were sent to you.”
Louise caught her breath and paled. This was
the matter of the bribery of Barbour, a member of
the legislature from Mission County, who had sold his
vote in favor of an amendment to the dramshop
act, and died before the bribe-money was paid over.
David had made the Nogiac men pay over the money
for the benefit of Barbour's widow. He had told
Louise the facts — which at the time he had refused
to divulge to Winthrop who had a certain wind of
them. Lately, in an intimate talk with her brother,
Louise had repeated the facts to him — in defence
of David.
Now David did not look at his wife; but he an-
swered sharply, even challengingly, “If I have such
proof, it is not at your disposal.” It hurt him that
Louise had told; and in Winthrop's request that he
betray the men who had trusted him he saw only a
sort of hateful fanaticism.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 205
“I want to put it squarely before you,” said
Winthrop, “for I think you ought to testify against
them. You know well enough that those fellows
will do everything in their power to reëstablish their
rule — even down to that murdered girl on the
beach. They ought to be fought everywhere, at
every corner, to the last ditch. I tell you, David,
there never was a bigger battle – never anywhere !
I don’t mean just this one here in Mission County,
but everywhere, all over the country — this fight
against corrupt politics and thieving business and
the alliance between the two ! David, it's just as
much a war for right and human liberty as any that
ever was fought ! The call comes right now to every
man to choose which side he will be on 1’’ Winthrop
bent his big body forward and struck his fist into his
palm.
David leaned back in his chair, somewhat wearily.
“Say that I’m deaf then,” he answered curtly.
“Certainly I don’t hear the call. See here, Win-
throp. I broke into that Barbour case to get some
money for a woman and children who needed it badly.
If I’d been attending to scruples, naturally, I’d have
piously refused to touch the case – and let the
woman and children whistle. My scruples aren’t
worth that much to me. I’d rather the woman and
children had the money. And the Nogiac fellows
met me in the open. Say they supposed I was more
or less one of them. That doesn’t matter. They
met me openly and trusted me. Under those cir-


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 207
a bit humiliating to ask another man to help you.
But I don’t care about that. This Dolton affair
opens my eyes more than ever to my own limitations.
They simply made a fool of me there. So I said to
myself, ‘I won’t omit anything — not anything;
I'll go to David, who is an abler man than I am in
many ways, and call on him to help me — for the
sake of the great responsibility that rests upon me.’
And I thought, too, that your feeling about the
issues that are involved here had rather changed.”
That glanced plainly at Louise's influence upon
him, and so it irritated him afresh against Winthrop's
narrow intensity.
“I hope my feeling about what seems to me my
honor will never change,” David replied dryly.
“That is the only answer I can give.”
There was a pause. Then Winthrop looked around
at his brother-in-law, and spoke even more quietly.
“There's a personal way in which I hope we won’t
misunderstand each other,” he said. “Your happi-
ness must be a good deal to me when it's bound up
in the happiness of the two women who are dearest.
I simply hoped, now, you would be on my side.
There were cases in the war of brothers firing at each
other — and still with personal love.”
“Oh, but why do you say I'm firing at you?
Why do you say I'm on the enemy's side?” David
exclaimed.
“It’s the way I feel about it,” Winthrop replied.
“To me there are just the two sides. When the call


208 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
comes to any man, I think he must be of one side or
the other.”
“Well, I don’t hear any such call,” David answered,
as giving it up.
Winthrop arose. “I suppose you couldn’t tell me
whether Dennis O'Neill has sold out?” he asked
simply. “It would be an advantage to know now —
instead of a week later.” -
“I couldn't tell you,” David replied.
“Of course, I’m disappointed,” said Winthrop,
very simply. “But I’ll make the best fight I can.
Good night, David.” He spoke it kindly.
“Good night,” David replied in an even tone.
He did not arise, however.
Louise went with her brother to the door. She
held his hand a moment, looking deep into his
eyes. His face showed work and anxiety. He had
spoken of two brothers firing from opposite sides —
but there were only a few men on his side: a thin,
heroic little line, hard pressed by the prosperous foe.
With a sudden passion she raised his hand to her
lips; then fairly pushed him out-of-doors.
The kiss stung David's heart. He saw her turn
from the door with big, dry, shining eyes. Instinc-
tively, with a searching pain, he gathered himself
against an outburst. But she came to him silently,
sat down on the stool by his feet, took his hand
between her palms. He saw her body trembling
slightly.
“I’m between two fires, Davy.” She spoke


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 209
slowly, low, and with uncertain accents in the
struggle to keep herself well in hand. “I’m all
— all on Winthrop's side, dear. I feel it just as he
feels it — a great battle for justice and freedom and
truth. I know the other, too — I mean some obli-
gations of good fellowship and a kind of good faith.
I know you have a fondness for Dennis O'Neill, too.
But as against this other—against this great claim of
truth and right — ” Her voice ceased. She looked
dumbly up into his face, with a tender yearning
Question. “You don’t hear the call, dear?” she
asked, not much above a whisper.
“Those men trusted me, Loie,” he answered
firmly. “Dennis trusts me and loves me. To give
them away — or to betray Dennis — why, it's
simply impossible.”
Still holding his hand, she rested her cheek against
his knee, her face turned away, and so for some
minutes they were silent. He stared down at her
soft, wavy hair and her smooth cheek.
“Yet even now, Davy,” she said, “I don’t know
but that I should tell Winthrop that Dennis has sold
out.”
His only answer was a sigh.
“I wish you to think about it, dear,” she went on,
after a pause; “to keep it in mind all the time.
We'll say this case is doubtful; but sometimes I
could — almost — be afraid. Because you’re a bit
light-hearted, Davy, and have friends who are ras-
cals.” She waited a moment. “There are some
P


210 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
things I simply couldn’t bear — simply couldn’t
bear.”
David stared down at the lovely head. His
heart chilled. He felt she was judging him. “Need
you say this to me, Loie ’’’ he said, under his breath,
with pain.
She raised her head, quickly; her face lifted,
tender, her eyes half closed. “Forgive me the
thought, Davy l Forgive me the fear !” she ex-
claimed. And even then a sharp, small voice within
her said, “Weakling!”


CHAPTER XXI
MR. CodLEY was again at the Sauganac House.
He learned that the prosecuting attorney was not
daunted by the defection of Dennis and the dis-
appearance of Dolton, but meant to go ahead with
the case.
“All right,” said Old Alphabet, blandly, to Wogan.
“Let him go ahead. The next shot'll fetch him off
his perch.”
The hotel was unusually full, for it was the first
day of court. Every train brought relays of out-of-
town lawyers, clients, witnesses, and others drawn by
the big net. Many persons climbed the flights of
broad plank steps that led from the street level to the
little plateau on which the sandstone cube of the
Court House stood, surmounted by its tall clock
tower. Many loitered in the open, under the bright
September sun, peopling the wooden benches on the
grounds. Within the building there was a bustle
of coming and going. The sleepy air of the long
summer vacation was broken.
But in spite of the stir the halls and offices were
pervaded by a dusty smell — an atmosphere of
government, of officialdom, of law, as though it were
breathed out of the rows of calf-bound volumes.
211


212 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
Lawyers, clerks, witnesses, all who came, took it
into their nostrils, and to all except the hardened
habitues it brought a peculiar sense — as though
they were in the presence of formal, long-descended
authority.
During the day Winthrop Holmes filed his infor-
mation — corresponding to an indictment — against
Allan Thomas, duly charging him with an attempt
to commit arson. Without waiting to be arrested,
the distiller appeared in court and gave bail, until
the case could be heard.
This, to Louise, was as Lexington, and at the
breakfast table next morning she looked eagerly to
see what the newspapers would say. Julius Brown's
Daily News said never a word. It had a long, hu-
morous, descriptive article about the opening of
court, but the Thomas case was not mentioned. Of
course, Julius was the mere creature of the distillers.
She took up the Times, the solid and leading paper
of Sauganac, which had supported Winthrop vigor-
ously in his campaign for the prosecuting attorney-
ship. There were no first-page headlines on the
case, such as she had expected to see; nothing on
the second page, either. Court news was on the
third page, and here, almost at the bottom of the
column, in agate type, among abbreviated records
of proceedings, she found this: — -
“People v. Thomas; bail, $2000.”
That was all. There was no editorial reference
to the matter. She looked up from the page, sur-


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 213
prised, and caught David's questioning, rather
amused glance.
“Why doesn’t the Times say something about it?”
she asked abruptly.
“Just as I told you, Lou,” he replied. “Winthrop
is manning a wooden cannon. He's firing blank
cartridges. Probably Barstow doesn’t say anything
about the case because Epperson and Titus asked
him particularly not to, and he doesn’t think it im-
portant enough to take the risk of disobliging them.
Epperson's patent-medicine advertisements and
Titus's countenance are worth too much to him to
be hazarded where there seems so little to be gained.
Barstow knows Winthrop has half lost his case
already. The solid, practical ability of the town
wouldn’t uphold him in pushing the prosecution.
Not that those men condone arson as a general propo-
sition; but because in this particular case the busi-
ness injury that will result from discrediting the
distillers just at this time seems to them much more
important than going ahead in a very doubtful
attempt to enforce a minor statute against a certain
offender.”
“I see,” she replied with vigor, “and I abhor it !
It means simply that we must lie down and let the
scoundrels walk over us again because some money
will be lost if we don’t Davy, you don’t believe
what you’re trying to make me think you do — that
it's all a matter of expediency and compromise and
business interests. You can’t believe that and be


214 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
a man l” She caught her breath; but her eyes did
not falter.
“I hardly said it, Loie,” he replied. “You know
that cowardice isn’t among my faults. I’m simply
saying that the solid, practical ability of the town
doesn’t see the virtue in pushing a fight that is so
nearly lost.”
“But it isn’t nearly lost, Davy | It can’t be l’’
she exclaimed. “Don’t you see? It isn’t just a cer-
tain arson case. It's the fight for everlasting truth
and right ! We believe now it doesn’t make any
difference whether one is Roman Catholic or Prot-
estant. But when Latimer and Ridley went out
to die at the stake for their Protestantism, weren’t
they glorious? Not that their theology mattered;
but because they gave their lives for everlasting
freedom and truth. It’s just the same here, dear!
Nobody cares about a certain arson case, except that
it marks the issue between fraud and lies on one side,
and law and truth on the other. It's truth, Davy |
It's right ! Don’t you see, Davy 2 What the court
and jury may finally say is secondary. It's you and
Winthrop and Frederick that have a case to win or
lose – by standing immovably for what is true;
or deserting. Which one of you could fail?”
“Well, I couldn’t, Loie,” he replied good-
naturedly. “I’m not given the option, don’t you
see; it isn’t left open to me. Winthrop has me
subpoenaed. Naturally, I have no idea of running
away !”


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 215
“Yes.” Her hands dropped in her lap. “I
know you’ll not fail, dear,” she added softly. Yet
his very geniality, the light-hearted way in which
he spoke of it, subtly wounded her.
The way the Times buried the case impressed her.
She understood now that, as David said, the domi-
nant, practical business sense of the community did
not support Winthrop. He must fight it out mostly
alone. Her own will hardened.
In the afternoon she made an occasion to walk by
the Court House. She could not see, now, the ab-
surd row of granite columns. Her mind was not in
an attitude to acknowledge even an architectural
absurdity in the dull gray old structure. The stone
walls looked enduring. The generation that reared
them had passed away. They would stand, while
others yet unborn filled their span upon the scene
and passed. The question with her, then, was not
what her and David’s little measure of personal hap-
piness might be, but whether they took the trust
which descended to them as children of men and kept
it true and passed it on unblemished.
A reaction of which she herself scarcely knew the
power was upon her. Love had carried her away in
an irresistible tide. That tenderness, searching and
immense, which had made her touch even inanimate
things that belonged to him with conscious love,
had also made a coward of her. The thought of
putting herself in opposition to him, of doing any-
thing which would make him less eager to be at her


216 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
side, had been intolerably painful. But all the time
a principle within her had dumbly protested that this
was not the right way; that she must stand firmly
upon her own feet if she wished to be the influence
in his life which she had purposed being. He was
genial, light-hearted. That very day she had
abruptly seen herself as she had been a year before
— all armed and stanch against his moral careless-
ness. How far she had come !
Now, she saw clearly a weakness in herself which
she had not suspected a year before — a possibility
of shuffling, of running away from the battle when
her love beckoned. She had left off to watch and
be sober. It was not only David's soul, therefore,
but her own that she must now stand firm for. She
had a certain great courage and it was now aroused.
Having seen herself slipping and yielding, all her
passion for integrity now cried out to her. The idea
of any further shuffling was intolerable. It was sim-
ply prostitution. She could cry out against it, “No,
no, no l Here, exactly here; this very minute 1”
There was even that impatience in her. As she
looked up at the gray old Court House she wished
the trial might be even then ; that she and David
were going in the next moment, hand in hand, to
face the distillers and Dennis O'Neill and Titus and
Epperson and the “practical ability of the town” —
that all the ruck of shuffling fellows might have their
answer at once, full in the face.
She walked slowly, yet soon passed the little


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 219
outside. It's too plastery here, I don’t think you
ought to chuck it, Ted. Davy thought you were
getting hold of it.” Her fondness hovered over
him, sisterly – a bit self-reproachful, anxious. They
went out of the side door and walked along under
the maple trees that lined the roadway.
He told her about it soberly, looking mostly
straight ahead or down at the grassy path. He
was the merest fizzle as a business man. He'd
tried it a year and wasn’t really getting any hang
of it worth mentioning. He hadn’t the face to keep
up the pretence any longer. Besides — here he
brightened up courageously — this thing took execu-
tive ability, and he didn’t have any to give it. His
talents lay in another direction. He thought his
father would let him take a try abroad as agent —
plenipotentiary extraordinary—a kind of sublimated
drummer — for the stove works. He was a good
jollier; could set 'em up copiously; that seemed to
be the chief requisite in a salesman. He proposed
to try around until he found what he was good for.
He wasn’t good for bicycles, so it was best to drop
that.
He talked this to her courageously, and although
she was rather dubious about it she could not find
any weighty argument against it.
Teddie's principles were not particularly fastidious.
Given another man and another woman, he could
have sat at the man's table, shaken his hand, smiled
at him, and coveted his wife. But not with Louise;


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 221
“It doesn’t sound generous,” he went on quietly,
without heeding the interruption. “But even that
— even your interest — hasn’t turned out lucky –
altogether.”
“As how 2’’ she asked quickly.
“It’s best I should go somewhere else,” he replied,
“and it makes me lonesome to leave you.”
“Of course you'll come back! Of course, you
must 1”
“One can’t tell about coming back, you know,”
he answered, with a slight smile. “Suppose I
shouldn’t 7” He took her unresisting hand. “Sup-
pose I shouldn’t, and you and I shouldn’t meet
again? For everything, take my thanks, dear.”
He raised her hand to his lips.
“I’ll not think of that I’ll not permit it !”
She too smiled a very little. “It’s altogether too
dismal. Of course you’ll come back l’’ Her hand
had slipped from his and she laid it lightly on his
shoulder. “I know you, Ted. You're a lot better
than even I have given you credit for being. Don’t
forget that when you get over there.” She shook
her head at him, her eyes and lips lightening with
humor. “Especially when some other people you’ll
probably meet begin to tell you how good you are l’’
Obeying her motion he arose. They laughed
lightly together ; and, lightly, swayed to each
other so that their shoulders touched; their bodies
yielding that much to the strong and tender currents
which drew them to each other.


222 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
A sharp-eyed maid, loitering – accidentally —
behind a syringa bush, pulled a branch aside in her
eagerness to take in all the details of the scene.
“When will you come for the potato — to-mor-
row?” Louise demanded gayly. They were erect
now, and conventional again.
“We'll make it a going-away feast,” he answered
in her key, without setting a day.
He saw her on the street-car; stood by the track
as it sped away. He thought, “It’s the last time
I shall ever see her.”


CHAPTER XXII
TEDDIE meant to leave town within two days.
But he did not do it. That sad thought, “It is the
last time I shall ever see her,” ate his heart. He
awakened in the night to its pain. Here she was,
so near him, in her beauty, with that air of a creature
exquisitely clean, with all her brave-hearted fond-
ness. Elsewhere was a lonesome waste. He loitered.
It was really so innocent to loiter on the other edge
of the same town — even to go over once more for a
jolly little family dinner.
And Louise was absorbed, waiting, intent upon the
unfolding court routine which contained the drama
that she now charged with such significance.
The court routine ground on. The first week of
the session passed – given over to preliminary
matters and the trial of one criminal case. Accord-
ing to Winthrop's calendar the case against Allan
Thomas would be reached about Thursday of the
second week. Endicott had turned up a promising
clew to Dolton's whereabouts. They hoped to
have the ex-gauger in the toils by the time the case
came on for trial. Meanwhile the prosecuting
attorney was busy day and evening with his grist.
He even worked nearly all day Sunday.
223


224 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
On Monday afternoon Frederick Hasbrook, A. B.
Codley, and Wesley Wogan sat in the inner room
of the latter's dingy office, Codley and Hasbrook
side by side at the battered table, Wogan facing
them. A type-written legal document — a bill in
equity — lay on the table. Wogan held in his left
hand a thin packet of letters in an old envelope,
bound with a faded red ribbon. The table drawer
in front of him was open a little. His right hand
still rested on the edge of it, an inch away from the
loaded revolver that lay within it.
Hasbrook was looking at the safe in the corner of
the room; but he was not aware of it. His eyes
actually saw nothing. The pigments had washed
out of his high-colored face, leaving it a mottled,
unhealthy tallow. He mechanically wetted his lips
with the tip of his tongue, and they saw his breast
heave as he took in a long, slow, sighing breath
without knowing it.
Old Alphabet had chosen his position at Fred-
erick's right hand for its strategetical advantage.
While grappling with him on his right side, in case
of need, his own right arm would be free to ply the
slung-shot in his pocket. However, no such dis-
agreeable necessity had arisen. Frederick had not
attempted to seize the letter when it was laid on the
table that he might recognize the hand-writing.
Now, although the instant of the crisis had actually
passed, Codley still half crouched in his chair, lean-
ing slightly toward Hasbrook, with narrowed, sin-
ister eyes bent upon his face.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 225
With a little inner breath of relief – realizing that
the crisis had passed – Old Alphabet thought in
his mind, with a kind of slow mental chuckle and
grin: —
“He’s done for The knife went clean through
his heart l”
Hasbrook felt the narrowed, peering eyes, and
looked around at the door in order to avert his face
from Old Alphabet. He wetted his lips again —
more consciously and furtively this time. He was
dumbly exerting all his will to rouse his stunned
mind; to think clearly.
“What do you propose, Codley?” he said, and his
own articulation sounded strange in his ears.
“Nothing unreasonable, Hasbrook,” Codley re-
plied. He began to realize his triumph; his mind
began secretly to exult. “I want my Nogiac friends
let alone for a while. My idea is that you leave for
Europe to-morrow, and stay there three months.
When the trust is once formed and floated, you can
come back and do what you please. Three months
is all the time we ask.”
“Where is my security?” Frederick asked, in
tones dull but steady. He was trying with all his
might to see all around it, to bring the full power
of his mind to bear upon it.
“I needn’t point out to you,” said Codley, low,
but rather lightly, “that those letters are the hoof
and hair and hide of my case.”
“It’s the letters I want,” Frederick replied. He
Q
y


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 227
disagreeable to both sides. Now, see if you can
propose a reasonable plan.”
Again Hasbrook exerted himself, whipped up his
mind. After a moment Codley spoke abruptly, as
though he, too, had been thinking.
“I’ll meet you halfway, Hasbrook. After all,
the principal thing with me must be to satisfy my
clients. I’ll take your word of honor that you’ll
leave for Europe to-morrow and not return within
three months. Then we’ll rent a safe-deposit
box for three months. We’ll seal these letters in a
new envelope and lock them in the box and go throw
the key into the lake. And we'll tell Titus that at
the end of three months he's to drill open the box
and carry the envelope to the furnace in the presence
of both of us and chuck it into the fire. Pulling
off the trust on time means some millions of dollars
to my clients, and I won’t have them say that I
neglected to do anything within my power to get it
pulled off — putting aside, as I said before, all little
personal sentiments that may animate you and me.”
Hasbrook turned in his chair and looked Codley
in the face. “Let’s do it now, this afternoon,”
he said quickly. He was still unhealthily pallid.
His eyes were leaden, with a strange look in them.
Codley thrust forward his chin a little; narrowed
his own eyes to that intent, rather sinister squint.
So, for a moment, they confronted each other.
“Then you must leave town this afternoon, too,”
said Codley, suspiciously.


228 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
“I’ll take the five-twenty for New York,” said
Hasbrook. “I can get a slow boat Wednesday
morning.”
“And not return within three months,” said
Codley.
“And not return within three months,” Hasbrook
repeated.
Still eying him narrowly, Codley waited an in-
stant, and said, under his breath, “On your word
of honor, Frederick.”
“On my word of honor,” Frederick repeated.
After a further moment of silent, intent question-
ing Codley nodded. “Go ahead,” he said. He
turned to Wogan. “Get a stout envelope, and
sealing-wax.”
Hasbrook examined the envelope when Wogan
produced it — a plain, stout manila one. He glanced
at the stick of green wax; took up the seal and scruti-
nized the device. It was the ordinary seal of an
express company. Then he took up the type-
written bill; turned to that part of it in which copies.
of the letters were set forth, and checked them off
one by one as Wogan spread the original documents
on his side of the table, near enough so that Freder-
ick could identify them, yet far enough away so
that he could not reach them without springing
from his chair — while Old Alphabet, his right hand
on the slung-shot in his pocket, resumed his strate-
getical position.
With watchful eyes Hasbrook saw Wogan return


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 229
the letters to their original cover, put that in the
manila envelope, and seal it with wax. Wogan laid
the sealed envelope on his side of the table, so that
it would not be out of Frederick's sight. And
Frederick never for a moment took his eyes from it.
When they were ready to leave the office, Wogan
took the envelope in his right hand. Hasbrook
took Wogan's right arm, walking beside him in an
attitude that a casual spectator might have taken
for affectionate familiarity. Down the dirty stairs,
along the street, through the office of the First
National Bank, downstairs again into the safe-de-
posit vault, Frederick kept his hand within Wogan's
crooked right arm, and his eyes steadily upon the
oblong brown package in the lawyer's right hand.
Old Alphabet trudged behind them, his sense of
humor so far returning that he twice grinned openly.
In the parlor of the safe-deposit vaults they took
seats at a table, upon which Wogan laid the enve-
lope, within Frederick's sight, but out of his reach.
Codley told the attendant to ask Mr. Titus to step
down. The urbane banker soon appeared, and took
a seat with them.
“We want to rent a safe-deposit box for three
months, Johnny,” Codley explained calmly. “We
want you to come along and see us put this package
in it.” He nodded to the envelope. “I rather guess
the key to that box will be lost, and the rent won’t be
paid after the three months are up. So, naturally,
you’ll be under the necessity of drilling the box


230 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
open. Hasbrook and I will be on hand when you
do it, and you'll take our package and chuck it into
the fire. Is that correct, Frederick?” he asked
lightly.
“Correct,” said Frederick.
Codley put his hand in his pocket. “What's the
rent of a box for three months, Johnny?” he in-
quired jocularly.
“A dollar and a half, I believe,” the banker re-
plied, smiling good-naturedly. He told the attend-
ant to summon the clerk in charge of the vaults.
The clerk confirmed his idea that the rent of a small
box for three months was a dollar and a half.
Codley handed him the silver coins, with a humor-
ous look. “You can put it,” he said — and con-
sidered an instant — “in the name of George
Washington Jones.”
“Yes, sir. George Washington Jones,” said the
clerk, anxious to appreciate a joke in that company.
He returned in a moment with a slip of paper —
being the receipt for rent of the box. Codley
glanced at it and tossed it carelessly to Hasbrook.
Frederick took it, but did not lift his eyes from the
envelope.
They passed through the massive steel door to the
vaults proper, and stood close together while Wogan,
in plain view of all, put the sealed envelope in the
tin box, slid that home, shut the stout little steel
door upon it and turned the key that locked it in.
Frederick put his hand to the little door to make


232 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
train came. Codley and Wogan accompanied Fred-
erick to the gate through which passengers passed.
They stood there and saw him climb aboard, waited
until the train pulled out, then walked leisurely to
the street. Since they left the steamboat wharf, an
hour before, not a word had been exchanged. Leav-
ing the station Codley smiled down at his shorter
companion.
“A bright boy, Freddy is,” he observed; “but
he's got a whole lot to learn — a whole lot to learn.”


CHAPTER XXIII
TUESDAY was a busy day for the prosecuting at-
torney; but even in the grind of his court work his
mind recurred now and then to People versus Thomas.
Endicott had his best man, Nesbit, up in the northern
peninsula on a clew which promised to lead to the
rearrest of Dolton. In the morning they had a
cipher message from the deputy, which gave encour-
agement. Before dinner another wire came. En-
dicott hurried in with it to Winthrop, hopefully; not
suspecting that Old Alphabet had manufactured the
clew.
“Good l’’ Winthrop cried, and his eyes shone.
“Bully Do you know, Endicott – we’re going to
win in spite of all their money and chicane. By
George, there's still a God in Israel!” He laughed
in his satisfaction. “I must give Fred Hasbrook
a hint of this l’’
He took up the telephone. Endicott heard him
ask for the number; then for Fred Hasbrook; and
saw his face turn blank, as he stammered excitedly,
“What? How’s that? Gone? Gone to New
York?” His mouth opened in astonishment as he
listened to the voice that came over the wire. He
returned the instrument to its place, and looked
around in a dazed way.
233


234 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
“Why—that's funny! Mighty funny!” he mum-
bled, and rubbed his chin in perplexity and gave
a little laugh of sheer bewilderment. “Hammond
says Fred's gone to New York – went yesterday —
in such a hurry he didn't take any baggage. Funny!
Funny l’’ he repeated helplessly.
He took up the telephone again, impatiently, and
questioned Hammond. Yes, the secretary said, the
Senator was in New York; Fred hadn’t sent any
word about forwarding anything to him; without
doubt it was a flying trip.
“Of course, something turned up of a sudden,”
Winthrop commented as he turned again to the
sheriff. “Let’s see. He got to New York this
afternoon. Why, yes! He will leave there to-
morrow forenoon and get here at eleven-ten Thursday
morning. A tight squeak, by George, when the case
is set for ten o’clock. But that's it, of course.
He knew he’d be back in time. I’ll get a wire from
him in the morning.”
On the morrow no message came to Winthrop;
but in the afternoon Hammond telephoned him that
he had called up the Holland House, where the Has-
brooks usually stayed when in New York, and
learned that Mr. Hasbrook had left for the West.
Thus Winthrop reassured himself. Frederick would
be on hand at eleven-ten — say eleven-twenty at the
Court House. The case was set for ten o’clock,
but it would take at least an hour to get a jury. He
could make the proceedings drag.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 235
Thursday, to leave nothing undone, Winthrop
stationed Judson with a carriage to meet the eleven-
ten train from the East. He was dilatory in the
court work that morning. It was half-past ten before
the case of People versus Thomas was reached. The
defendant was on hand, with the Nogiac lawyer who
appeared for him. Mr. Codley sat within the bar
of the court, but took no part. The work of exam-
ining venire-men began. Here Winthrop expected
the usual forensic fencing. To his surprise Thomas's
lawyer promptly accepted every talesman whom
he offered, without a question. He thought, “So
then, they don’t expect the case to come to trial at
all; they have some trick to play.”
David Donovan had come in, a little after ten,
and taken a seat inside the railing which divided
the bar from the public. Codley stepped over
gravely and shook hands with him.
The last three venire-men whom Winthrop passed
and offered to the defence were instantly accepted.
The jury was complete. It was half-past eleven.
Winthrop had barely noticed the time when he saw
Judson hurrying in. The train had arrived. It
brought Senator Hasbrook, but not Frederick.
The Senator had said that his son did not come with
him.
Winthrop turned to the Court and asked a con-
tinuance. An important witness whom he had surely
expected had been delayed; could not be on hand
that day. He was fairly entitled to the continuance;


236 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
but Thomas's lawyer promptly arose to oppose it.
The case had been duly set; the defendant was on
hand, demanding trial. The State had charged him
with a serious crime; it was not right that he be kept
under the cloud of an indictment when he was ready
to stand trial; let the prosecuting attorney go ahead
with the case, or dismiss it.
The incident of Dolton's release on bail came
sharply to Winthrop's mind. He felt the Court
was against him — not that Showman would do
anything gross; anything overt. He was too
cautious for that. But custom gave him auto-
cratic power. It was easy for him to trip the heels
of the prosecution without seeming to unbend from
the judicial attitude. Winthrop was alive to the
danger. An arbitrary word from the bench now
would undo him. He pleaded with all his power;
with passion so genuine that it rang in his voice
and burned in his eyes. The State was entitled
to the continuance. It could not harm an innocent
IIla, Il.
Showman wavered. He knew that Mr. Codley
was trying to catch his eye; but he looked the other
way. He would like well enough to trip up this
bull-headed prosecutor, who had lectured him in his
own house — the lecture had caused him a good
many uneasy thoughts. Yet to deny the continuance
might look rather suspicious. Winthrop's impas-
sioned plea was evidently affecting the crowd.
So he granted Winthrop's motion; setting the


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 237
case for nine o'clock sharp the following Monday
morning; at the same time taking pay for his own
irritated nerves by giving the prosecutor a sharp
lecture concerning his duty to be prepared for trial
when his cases were called, and not to jeopard the
interests of the State by delays, at the same time
working an injustice upon defendants who were
prepared to be tried. He must not expect any
further indulgence of the Court in that regard.
Winthrop took the rebuke meekly and wiped the
sweat from his brow, relieved that, at any rate, this
danger was passed.
Mr. Codley went out in ill-humor. To his brother
lawyer from Nogiac he called the judge a rabbit-
livered lobster. He had to see again that Barstow
kept the case out of the Times which was not so easy
a task as it had been the first time, for the editor had
some scruples about complying so far to the dictates
of his money interests. Old Alphabet had counted
upon seeing the end of the vexatious Thomas case
that forenoon. In his vexation it seemed to him
that a still sharper stroke was now expedient.
Winthrop, meanwhile, took up the coil of his other
cases. It was half-past five when Court adjourned.
He hurried out, and boarded a car for the Hasbrook
place.
There was no need to inquire for the Senator.
From the road Winthrop saw his tall, round-shoul-
dered old figure pacing under the maple trees at the
further side of the lawn, his hands behind his back.


238 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
The visitor's hurried stride covered four feet to the
old man's loitering one. Midway of the leafy avenue
the Senator glanced around, apprised by the snap-
ping of a twig, and Winthrop instinctively moder-
ated his pace, for he seemed to see a mask of age
before him. It was not exactly that Hasbrook
looked haggard; but he had lost color and the lines
of his face were more deeply bitten in. His old
blue eyes were dull. In the pose of his lean form, and
in the way he held his drooping head as he looked
back, there was still an inextinguishable pride, as of
a blanched old eagle.
“Senator, I came to ask about Fred,” said Win-
throp, with an odd touch of embarrassment, caused
by the mysterious check to his impatience; and as
he stepped up beside the other he felt vaguely un-
comfortable as though he were doing something
impudent. “He didn’t appear at the trial to-day.”
“My son sailed for Europe Wednesday,” said the
Senator. “He will not return soon.”
Winthrop stared at him a moment, and his dry
lips mumbled the words, “My God!” He tried to
pull himself together. “Why, you know I was de-
pending upon him, Senator. You know how the
arson case stands.”
“He will not testify in that case,” said the Sena-
tor. “That is ended.” The old man spoke de-
liberately, and still with that inextinguishable pride.
Suddenly Winthrop disbelieved his senses. It
was simply impossible that the Senator should be


240 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
It was instinct more than a reasoned purpose which
made him leave the car at the cross street that led
to the old Holmes place.
He found David and Louise ready to go in to
dinner. He declined the invitation to eat with them
quite mechanically. He could not, just then, give
his attention even to eating.
“Frederick Hasbrook has sold out and sailed for
Europe,” he said, as he dropped in a chair.
“Oh, no l’’ It was Louise's voice, incredulous
and stricken, that broke the silence.
“He has sold out. He has gone to Europe. He
will not testify. The Senator himself just told me
so,” Winthrop asserted dully.
“Oh, Winthrop ! I can’t believe it !” Louise
cried. “I can’t l” She turned to her husband,
her brow contracted with pain. “Can you, Davy’”
she appealed.
“It’s so, Loie,” David replied quietly.
They understood then that he had known it be-
fore, and they sat half breathless with eyes fixed
upon his face. Louise's clasped hands fell in her
lap. Her head was erect, and her eyes, fixed on
her husband's face, were wounded through and
through. He knew
“David, how could they have bought Frederick?
How could they pay him? What did they do to
him 2 ”
“I’ve no idea what or how they paid him, Lou,”
he replied. “They have many kinds of currency.”


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 241
“How did you know, David 2 Who told you?”
As before she spoke low; nevertheless it was a
strong demand. Frederick's fall was something
monstrous and intolerable to her. In it, like her
brother, she felt the stir and drag of malignant, hate-
ful powers which she abhorred with all the force of
her mind. Yet David, in a sort, was in their confi-
dence; knew what they were doing; spoke of them
with quiet, matter-of-fact tones.
“Titus told me,” David replied promptly; but
in the same tones. “He sent for me this afternoon.
As I’ve said before, the prosecution of Thomas and
Frederick's campaign against the distillers threatened
to interfere with a very profitable business deal.
Titus and the others who are interested in the deal
don’t relish the interference. They had supposed
that with Dolton and Dennis and Fred out of the
way the case against Thomas would fall to pieces.
Winthrop's obstinacy in pushing it when he has only
one witness left, whose testimony is of doubtful
value, provokes them. I suppose you know, if
they’ve used dirty means, they’re all the more exas-
perated because the means fail. That would be
quite natural. It isn’t only the distillers, but Titus
and Epperson and others like them, who wouldn’t
burn anybody out themselves; but don't wish to see
a big business deal hurt. It's a pretty formidable
opposition, Winthrop. In one way or another, it
has already taken Dolton and Dennis and Fred out
of your hands.”
R


242 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
“Yes,” said the prosecuting attorney. “They
have determined that the case shall not come to
trial; that the people shall not even have a day in
their own court. I tell you, David, if I had only a
scrap of paper, only a babbling child for a witness, I
should bring the case to trial l’’
“I supposed so,” David answered, rather dryly.
Winthrop's round eyes turned to his sister.
“There's even another reason now — the wreck of
Fred Hasbrook's honor. I owe them one for that l”
Louise's lip trembled. “Frederick,” she said —
“whom you, David, speak of with the fellow Dolton
and the fellow O'Neill ! You know in your heart
how different he was. He was noble. How could
he have done it?”
“Of course the poor fellow hated the bargain,”
David speculated sympathetically.
“Oh, bargain, Davy | Bargain l’” she cried out.
“What right had he to bargain It isn’t himself
alone. Others loved him and thought him noble.
Could I or Kittie step off into the gutter alone?
We'd drag with us the love of you and Winthrop
and others who loved us. What right had Fred-
erick to bargain? Was his honor, that many others
loved, an old coat that he could swap or give away?”
“Even that, Loie,” David answered. “You see
he has sold it, although he loved it and loved the
others that loved it. I’ve no idea what the bargain
was; but I know he didn’t like it.”
This iteration struck against her aroused, accu-


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 243
mulated passion. It was just this genial laxity,
this good-natured tolerance that she could not bear
In OW.
“You don’t believe it !” she cried. “You don’t
believe that such men may bargain for their honor
I loved him with all my heart, but I could not take
his hand now. It would be a lie. I simply cannot
understand loving a man without honor, David.
It's exactly that — seeing him degraded and forever
incapable of being loved — that makes it so terrible
to me! Oh, your Tituses and O'Neills l What they
do l’”
David looked up at her from under his eyebrows —
yes, with the faint hint of a smile. “I don’t claim
any ownership of Titus, Lou,” he said lightly. A
silence, embarrassed, painful to both, followed. Win-
throp broke it: —
“The Thomas case has been set for nine o’clock
sharp, David,” he said quietly. “The Court’s
against me and will give me no more favors. So I
want you to be on hand promptly.”
It was growing dark in the room so that they
could no longer see one another's faces clearly. “I
think I can win the case,” said the prosecuting at-
torney. “Truth is a bigger factor on one's side than
Codley gives it credit for being. You know the
truth is on my side. It will rest with you, I think,
whether the jury is made to feel it. You can obey
the subpoena and still defeat me by the way you tell
the story. My Subpoena can’t command more than


244 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
lip truth. But I want you to be my very witness,
David; the State's very witness; to deliver the very
truth to that jury; hold it up to them like a banner.
That's what I came to ask of you. As I’m a living
man I believe it’s for God’s sake.”
His voice ceased in the darkening room. Louise
felt the base of her throat contract.
“I’m not that kind of a liar, Winthrop,” David's
voice answered quietly. “If I come to your witness
stand Monday, it will be to tell the very truth the
best I know. You can bank on that.”
Winthrop arose. “I know you don’t agree with
me,” he said. “But I know your courage, too,
David. It's the rock I lean on now. Do as you
have said and I’ll be your debtor as long as I live.”
When he was gone, they did not at once move
toward the belated dinner, nor to light the lamp.
David realized, with a certain distaste, that Louise
had more to say to him.
“David — truly, don’t you know what they did
to Frederick?” she asked, low.
“I haven’t the least idea,” he replied, and stifled
a little sigh. “They play their own game. Titus
himself didn’t know.”
“What did Titus say to you?”
“Why, as I told you, he's irritated because Win-
throp is going ahead after the bottom’s been knocked
out of his case. That going ahead hurts the business
deal. Winthrop's obstinacy in fighting after he's
so much beaten, exasperates the other people. Titus


246 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
fact is that I would like Winthrop better just now
if he would consider me a little. I’m not so consti-
tuted that I can see another man toss me into the
scrap-heap for what seems to me a quite imprac-
ticable ideal and feel entirely good-natured toward
him. I’m too practical-minded, Lou, to enjoy being
ruined for its own sake.”
“Oh, ruined, Davy | Ruined ! Can losing money
ruin you?” Her voice pleaded, passionately. “Think
of Frederick l’’ -
“We think of different things, Lou,” he answered,
good-naturedly. He sprang up, stooped, and took her
hand. “Let’s go to dinner, honey.” He lifted her
to her feet and would have tucked her hand, gayly,
under his arm, to lead her to the dining room. But
she resisted. He felt her tremble.
“No 1 — no, Davy l’” Her low voice, also, trem-
bled a little. “Let us understand each other. My
husband, I want you to know just what this means
to me — truth and right and honor: whatever is
noble and beautiful.” She flung her arm around his
neck. “Davy, don’t even traffic with those men;
don’t go near them — Titus, Dennis O'Neill — that
crew of dirty rogues who dragged even Frederick
down. Their dirty hands are reaching out for you
too, dear. You must understand how vital this is
to me. Don’t traffic with them any more.”
As her soft body clung to him in the dark and her
sweet, agitated voice sounded in his ear, it came to
him that even she, for all her high mind and strong


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 247
spirit, must play the old legendary part of woman
and bind him with her beauty.
“I know your courage, too, Davy,” she whispered.
“You are my soldier l How could I bear to see you
overthrown 2''
He slipped an arm around her and brushed his
cheek against her hair. “You’ve told the whole
story, Loie ' You’ve stated the whole case ! So
far as Winthrop is concerned, we simply think differ-
ently. I can’t at all see the tremendous importance
in a certain arson case that he sees. But that has
nothing to do with it now. And that's exactly why
I’m easy and, as you say, light-hearted about it. I’m
your soldier now. I wear your colors. It's all
bound up, my dear, in what was really promised
when you gave yourself to me. You send me to the
post. Do you imagine I’m down in the mouth about
going? Do you think I'll flinch?”
Her arm tightened about his neck; her heart
swelled; for a luscious moment, as she kissed him,
she gloried in his courage. And then — her thought-
lessly exultant heart was constricted. She wished
to say, “This isn’t the right way, Davy 1 You must
do it for its own sake, and not merely to please me!”
But he had just said that he did not see the necessity
of doing it for its own sake. They went in to dinner.
Along in the night she sat up abruptly in bed.
In the restless coil of thought it had come to her more
and more strongly that she must not compel him.
Whether he did right or wrong, he must do it for the


248 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
sake of the thing itself; on Monday he must be a
free man – to choose according to his own feeling.
The motive was so strong that, for an instant, she
meant to go over to his bed and waken him.
She clasped her hands and sat thinking in the
dark. She could hear his regular breathing as he
slept soundly. He was so light-hearted ! His con-
science was hardly engaged at all ! If she should
release him and —
Again the ghastly wreck of Frederick's honor
came before her. Oh, no l Whatever else hap-
pened there must be no question, not the slightest,
of David's position on Monday. Her will uprose;
armed itself anew. She could not tolerate the
thought of Titus and Codley and that slimy gang
dragging him down, tripping his careless feet. And
if he felt now that she was compelling him, he must
feel differently when the stress of the action was
past and he saw it in its true light.


250 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
can tell when it's going to fall in mighty handy.” He
drummed again, ruminating, “What's your idea
about getting hold of young Penrose?”
Wogan brushed his hand nervously across his
cheek. There seemed, far back in his restless, dark
eyes, which kept flitting to and from Codley's visage,
a kind of fear — something like the dawning of
terror. “Telephone him, I suppose; send him a
note.”
“Why not send the girl to him, now that she's
here?” Codley suggested. “We might as well
use her when we can. Give her a story; let her go
to him and bring him in.”
“Why, yes!” Wogan replied, with a touch of
eagerness. “That'll answer first-rate.”
“I guess Penrose can persuade the virtuous lady,
– unless all our signs are misleading,” Codley
commented, his lip drawing in a small and sinister
grin. He looked at his watch. “Well, I'll go after
friend Titus.”
“You don’t — anticipate any trouble there?”
Wogan asked, as one in whose mind an anxious
doubt still lingered.
“No,” said Codley, tersely. “Johnny knows
which side of his bread the butter's on.” He
arose, opened the intervening door, and nodded to
the colored man, who sprang up with obedient
alacrity. “I’ll come back here and telephone you
when I’ve got the stuff,” he said as he went out,
followed by his servitor.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 251
About an hour later Codley appeared at the First
National Bank with an odd following — the negro,
a constable, and a coatless man who carried a small,
well-worn Satchel hugged under his arm. With
merely a good-natured nod to the assistant cashier,
the lawyer led his troupe through the banking room
and downstairs to the safe-deposit vaults.
“Tell Mr. Titus I’d like to see him,” he said,
calmly, to the attendant, and indicated a leathern
couch on which his followers silently disposed them-
selves. Old Alphabet himself sat down at the table
on the other side of the room, and took up one of the
bank's advertising pamphlets which he proceeded to
read with leisurely interest. He was on the last
page when the banker appeared, and dropped in the
chair beside him, with questioning eyes, like a busy
man interrupted in his work.
The lawyer took an envelope from his pocket and
laid it on the table. It was of manila, sealed with
green wax. Mr. Titus swiftly identified it as the
exact duplicate of one he had seen before.
“There's been a little mistake about that safe-
deposit box I rented the other day, Johnny,” said
Old Alphabet, calmly, and so low that none but the
banker could hear. “We’ve got to correct the
error.” He raised his voice a little, and with a nod
indicated the respectable-looking negro, who in-
stantly stood up, like a manikin whose string has
been pulled. “My coachman and esteemed client,
Mr. George Washington Jones, has a safe-deposit


252 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
box here. The key has been lost, as duly set forth
in his affidavit. He has sworn out a writ of replevin
to recover the contents of the box. This officer of
the law is here to serve the writ, and he has brought
along an expert gentleman with a set of drills to open
the box.”
The handsome banker turned a little pale. His
dark eyes were bent upon the lawyer's grizzled face.
He was an honorable man. He guarded the solvency
of his bank with inflexible vigilance. Estates and
other monetary trusts in his hands were safe. His
word in a plain business deal was good for a million.
If Hasbrook had put a packet in his hands person-
ally, he would not have given it up. On the whole,
however, he took the world as he found it and
looked at the larger, more tangible aims. For a
moment he was at loss to see exactly where his line
of conduct should run.
Codley spoke lower again. “My man will re-rent
the box and put this in it.” He tapped the dupli-
cate envelope with his finger. “Of course, you’ll
have a new door put on it. All will be as before. I
never go in for coarse work.” Then he raised his voice
so the others could hear. “As a matter of course,
we can enforce the execution of the writ.”
That was the point | Everything was strictly
legal and regular. Mr. Titus at once resolved
himself into the impersonal, corporate landlord –
the First National Safety Deposit Company.
“Why, of course, if you’ve got a writ, we can’t help


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 253
ourselves,” he said. “We can’t stand against the
law.”
“Certainly not,” said Codley, rather more loudly.
“We could have simply forced our way in, by virtue
of the writ, if we'd been minded to. But I thought
it would be more neighborly, Johnny, to let you
know what we were doing.” He beckoned to his
men. “Go ahead,” he said.
The clerk in charge of the vaults had gone over
by the attendant who stood at the great steel door
which gave ingress to the vaults proper. When the
constable and the expert came to this door, the clerk
looked questioningly at the banker, who nodded.
The men entered the vaults.
Mr. Titus glanced swiftly and significantly at the
duplicate envelope. “You’ll see everything's left
right, Codley,” he said under his breath.
“Depend upon it, Johnny,” answered the lawyer.
The banker hurried back to his office upstairs,
his hands cleanly washed of the affair. Mr. Codley
stepped inside to superintend the drilling of the
box, and presently returned to the hotel with the
letters in his possession. He gave George Washing-
ton Jones a largess of two silver dollars and sent
him back to his humble duties in Nogiac. Sitting
in his room, cross-legged, the slim package held
rather caressingly in his hand, his thoughts ran
like this: Freddy has a lot to learn; he would have
done better for himself if he had been able to keep
his mind clear and concentrated on the main issue;


254 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
but he let himself go to thinking of the expediency
of murdering me and Wogan; I saw it in his leaden
eyes when he looked around at me; that blood-
thirsty notion confused him, so he wasn’t a good
match for me, and I outwitted him; now, I’ll teach
the dog his lesson so he’ll remember it; Johnny
Titus can go to the devil — if it's necessary.
In short, Old Alphabet thought more highly of
the letters than ever before. They nourished the
malignancy in his heart. He didn’t propose to give
them up after they had served the purpose of his
clients.
He looked down at the faded envelope, tied with
its old red ribbon; and his breast warmed with the
thought that he held there in his hand the reputation
of a woman — a rather splendid article of its kind,
too. He was a kind of broker in reputations.
Natural inclination and long practice had made him
a species of social buzzard. The scent of carrion
titillated his nostrils. He interrupted his agree-
able speculations of empire to telephone Wogan.
After luncheon he repaired to Wogan's office. His
penetrating eyes perceived anew that Wesley was
nervous. There was something like a hovering
of fear at the back of his glance. There was sin-
gularly little intercourse of a personal kind between
tool and master. Wogan would not have thought
of telling him that he had, that morning, received
a letter from his wife, in answer to the long one he
had written her — the first in nearly a year – when


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 255
he thought he had something tangible to offer her.
Mrs. Wogan treated his pleading allegations of
reformed habits and prosperous prospects with
frank and even contemptuous unbelief. She didn’t
believe, she said, that he would ever be anything
but a bum, and she wasn’t coming back to live with
him. -
Wesley's nervousness was disagreeable to Codley.
He watched him furtively; even took a sly occasion
to sniff at his breath, which, however, bore the test
satisfactorily. He gave him counsel as to what he
should say in the pending interview and withdrew
to the inner room, the door of which he left slightly
ajar, with a chair braced against it so that it could
not be forced open.
He had to wait a little beyond the appointed hour
before Fanny Trescott appeared in the outer room.
He listened approvingly while Wogan suavely
explained to her that, in the matter of her impor-
tant law-suit, a juncture had arisen which made
it necessary to get Ted Penrose's testimony. She
was to go to Penrose and send him to Wogan's office.
“Why, I don’t want to go to him, Mr. Wogan,”
the girl replied, troubled and rebellious.
“Friendly, aren't you?” the lawyer inquired
lightly.
“He’s one of the best friends I’ve got in the world,”
she declared stoutly, coloring. “Why have I got
to go to him 7” Then she burst out, angrily,
“Mr. Wogan, I don’t believe there ever were any


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 257
If you don’t, why I'll go ahead anyhow. You can’t
stop me.”
Fanny bit her lip. “I know you’re a smart lawyer
all right,” she began. Then she turned to him, her
brow contracted, pleading. “Mr. Wogan, what
would you want to hurt me for? I never hurt any-
body in my life. You know I’m poor and haven’t
many friends.”
“I haven’t the least idea of hurting you, my
dear,” Wogan replied gently. “On the contrary,
I want to do you good. But you must be reasonable
and not spoil everything when we’re about to
succeed.”
She regarded him with troubled, questioning
eyes. “I don’t want to go to Ted,” she said, low.
“Let him stay out of it. He's one of the best
friends I’ve got in the world — one of the best. I’d
want to die if I let him in for any trouble.”
“If he's your friend” — Wogan cleared his
throat softly, to overcome a slight huskiness of
speech – “he ought to be all the more willing to
give you a little lift now. Of course, I could sub-
poena him; but it's better to have it arranged,
friendly, beforehand.”
“Is it really and truly — necessary?” she asked,
in a way that begged to be let off.
“Quite necessary,” Wogan replied; and he added
gently, “You do as I tell you now, and you’ll come
out on top of the heap.”
“Well,” she said reluctantly. She stared at the


258 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
wall a moment; then arose, mechanically. “But I
won't do anything like this again,” she said, warn-
ingly, with a shake of her head. That feminine
ending someway relieved Wogan's mind, and Old
Alphabet was smiling as he opened the door.
Fanny took her troubled way up the hill. She
was, someway, not satisfied. She had a kind of
pathetic faith in her own propensity to get into
trouble. She never had nor could exactly trust
Wogan – although the dazzling story he told her
about the land looked so plausible.
Penrose lodged in an old-fashioned square brick
house which, like the Holmes place, being out of
the line of fashionable development, had fallen from
its estate of a family mansion. He had a suite in
the second story and was the principal dependence
of the gloomy landlady who had to overlook his
morals in consideration of the rent he paid, which
formed so considerable an item in her budget.
She came to the door and told Fanny — in a way
which left no doubt of her idea of the propriety of a
young lady's calling upon a young gentleman at his
lodgings — that Mr. Penrose had not come in. She
could not refuse the sombre hospitality of her parlor,
however. There Fanny waited, an hour, two hours.
At length she heard the latch-key in the lock, the
springing step in the hall and upon the stair, and
ran to the door, calling.
Ted turned, halfway up the stairs, and instantly
ran down, blithely. His eyes sparkled; his brill-


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 259
iant, eager smile, and the quick motions of his
outreached hands, seemed the result of a kind of
intoxication. -
In truth he was drunk. He had given up. Even
now he came straight from Louise, with whom he
had spent most of the afternoon — taking care to
leave before David returned. Why should he tor-
ment and mutilate himself 2 Why shouldn’t he
take some joy into his little life? The blood sped
in his veins. He laughed, gayly, fondly; kept one
of Fanny's hands, as though they were children
together, as he led her back into the dismal parlor.
She told him that Wogan wished to see him about
some testimony in a lawsuit that he was managing
for her.
“Wogan?” He sat beside her, smiling. “What's
this you're up to with Wogan, girl? He'll skin you
out of your eye-teeth. Tell me about it.”
His gay, frank liking loosed Fanny's troubled
heart. Here was a friend, true and powerful with
the power of money. She told him the whole story
of the lawsuit from beginning to end.
“Why, Fanny, it's three to one that it's just some
cheap crooked game,” he said. “You know Wogan.
He's only a drunken bum. I’ll bet he's trying to
hold somebody up for the price of a drink. But,
whatever it is, don’t you be alarmed. He can’t hurt
you. I’ll go to see him and find out what's up.”
“I suppose it's some sort of trouble,” she said,
in a voice a bit uncertain. “I knew I oughtn't


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 261
The instant before she spoke his mother came to
his mind. That beautiful, proud, mischievous face
abruptly made the drifting thought ridiculous.
What a mess she would think it !
“Not unless you’re ready to shoot me,” he replied
lightly. “I suppose it's incurable.” He patted
her shoulder comfortingly. “But don’t worry about
Wogan. We’ll go see him right now.”
“I guess you better telephone,” she said. “He
told me to.”
Ted went down the hall to the instrument and
called up Wogan. .


CHAPTER XXV
WOGAN received Penrose's message, hung up the
receiver, and turned disconcertedly to Codley.
“They're coming down here together — Penrose
and Fanny,” he said.
“Why didn't you head her off?” Old Alphabet
demanded, harshly and frowning.
“Well — there wasn't any time. He just spoke
and hung up the receiver,” Wogan replied, and
brushed his hand nervously across his cheek. That
harsh tone, the frown and cold, half-hostile look that
accompanied it, threw him off his balance, produced
a small chill in his mind. “We can have her wait
on the stairs,” he suggested, “ or send her away.”
Codley considered; absently ruffled his bristling
mustache; gently cleared his throat. “It doesn’t
matter,” he said tranquilly. “You know what to
do. You can let her stay in the front room.” His
eye, glancing at Wogan, held the glint of something
oddly malicious, satirical, hostile.
A curious little drama was playing itself out in
Old Alphabet's able brain. He was perfectly aware
that Winthrop Holmes, with his three best witnesses
gone, had only one chance out of a dozen of winning
his case against Thomas. He, as a careful strate-
262


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 263
gist, might have a certain justification in wiping out
the twelfth chance. But that wasn’t the only —
perhaps not the main – reason for the move that
was now to be made. He hated Frederick Has-
brook. It had tasted good to him when, in this
very room, the color went out of that man's face
and the strength out of his veins. That feast for
his malignancy hadn’t sated its appetite. Also
he hated the Penroses. Yet he was human, too.
Beside the wolf in his soul that licked her chops
when it was whispered to her what was going to be
done to Teddie Penrose, there was something else
that started and quailed. Deep in him, even Old
Alphabet had a certain perception that a man who
looked on at too many things of this kind was going
to be pretty well damned. He had been feeding
the wolf that afternoon. Yet when Fanny's coming
suddenly offered a neat opportunity, he decided to
run away. Let Wesley do it. Wesley was good
and damned already |
The glint of this was in his eye; but his voice had
never been more amiable. “You know what to do,
Wesley. You can manage him easily enough if he
flies off the handle. Keep your hand tight on these,
you know.” He took the package of letters from
his pocket and laid them on the table. “We’re
very close to the harbor now, you know. We
mustn't strike any sand-bars.” He put on his hat
and stumped out.
Wogan slipped the letters in his pocket, his eyes


264 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
still upon the door through which Old Alphabet had
disappeared. The chill remained in his mind.
That glimpse of something cynical, hostile, heartless,
in the elder man's glance whipped him as with a rod.
He was absolutely dependent upon Codley; had, as
yet, received little money from him except for ex-
penses. He was the superior villain's tool. It was
the common experience of tools to be thrown away
when used. The degradation from which he seemed
to have emerged — the state of a bum, moneyless,
shabby, sleeping on the frowzy lounge — subtly
upreared itself and threatened him.
He was not so completely case-hardened as he
should have been for his work. He had once known
some gentility. His wife's letter had thrown him
out of balance. Fanny's plea had disturbed him.
The task immediately in hand made him oddly
afraid. He thought he knew why Codley was leav-
ing him to deal with it alone — because he was well
damned already. And there was something else
which, all day long, had been incessantly whispering
and teasing at his soul; touching his throat with
hot little fingers. Some beads of perspiration Sud-
denly stood out on his forehead. Under the complex
strain something mysteriously gave way.
He hopped up nimbly, ran to the front window, and
peered out. Daylight was beginning to fail; but he
could see Old Alphabet's lank figure plainly enough
stumping down the street, turning the corner. He
seized his hat, flew downstairs, cut hurriedly across


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 265
º
the street and down an alley, and so reached the
United States Hotel bar-room. When he returned
fifteen minutes later, he was quite serene, fortified,
pleasantly ready for any chance. Even a flitting
suspicion that Old Alphabet might have come back
did not disturb him much. He found the office
open and empty as he had left it, however, and dark-
ening. So he lit the gas in the outer and inner rooms,
pulled down the shade, and took a seat at the bat-
tered table. From one pocket he took a bottle, from
another a package of aromatic pills, very effective
in scenting the breath; both he tucked into a drawer.
As he waited, a troup of little imps danced merrily
in his brain.
He had not long to wait. When Teddie and Fanny
appeared, he met them composedly, told Fanny to
sit down in the outer room; took Penrose inside and
closed the door.
Ted did not wait for him to begin, nor attempt
to conceal his amusement; but dropped in a chair,
smiling broadly.
“What are you up to now, Wogan?” he asked
cheerfully.
The tone was not lost upon the lawyer. Never-
theless he preserved his composure.
“I suppose you’ve heard,” he said calmly, “of
a case entitled, The People versus Allan Thomas, in
which Thomas is accused of an attempt to commit
arson?”
“Why, certainly I’ve heard of it,” Ted replied,


266 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
surprised. “That business of burning Dennis
O'Neill's distillery.”
“Exactly,” Wogan replied. “The only witness
the State has left is David Donovan. My under-
standing is that his wife insists upon his testifying.
You’re a friend of hers. I thought you might use
your influence to see that he doesn’t testify.”
Ted stared with all his eyes; flushed and paled.
He tried to discredit his senses. That secret, dear
and disgraceful, hid in the bottom of his heart,
wrapped about with fold on fold of secrecy, guarded
by all his faculties — and now this drunken bar-
room bum, this fellow of the gutter, reaching a dirty
hand to it ! Suddenly he tipped back his head and
laughed with uproarious, half-hysterical energy.
“Why, Wesley, it's a peach 1” he cried. “Your
jag, I mean. You couldn’t have got it with just
whiskey. You must have been smoking opium.”
Wogan understood the insult. A sinister light
shone in his dark eye; his lip lifted a little.
“Do you think you have my proposition firmly
fixed in your mind, Penrose?” he said coolly.
“That you’re to exert yourself to prevent David
Donovan from testifying?”
“I’ll never forget it ! I enjoy a joke too much
Ted cried, and tried to laugh again; but it sounded
hollow to him. “See here,” he said. “I thought
you had a case in which Fanny Trescott was in-
terested.”
“That case is set forth in this little bill,” Wogan
17,


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 267
replied. He took the type-written document —
the same that Frederick Hasbrook had seen — out
of a drawer and tossed it across the table. “Read
it.”
Teddie, still mechanically agrin, took up the bill
as though he meant merely to glance at it. But
the caption arrested his eye. Under the formal
designation of the court appeared the title of the
case: “Fanny Trescott, plaintiff, versus Frederick
Hasbrook, defendant.”
Hasbrook's name surprised him, aroused a new
interest. He set himself to reading the bill, and in
a moment he sobered with an almost impersonal
touch of sympathy, as it occurred to him that Wogan
must have gone clean daft. For this crazy bill
began by reciting Nellie Trescott's divorce of twenty
years ago. Mrs. Trescott, it said, had kept silent and
permitted her husband to divorce her. Thereby
her own reputation and the social standing and pros-
pects in life of her children, especially of this plain-
tiff, Fanny Trescott, had been very greatly injured.
And the said Nellie Trescott had permitted herself
to be divorced, not that she had been at fault in
respect of her marriage obligations, nor of her own
free will; but because she had been persuaded and
coerced thereto by the said Frederick Hasbrook.
The said Frederick Hasbrook was at that time
carrying on a guilty correspondence with another
woman, whom he met at the place of business of
the said Nellie Trescott, to whom he sent, and from


270 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
our Lord 1881, Hasbrook especially aroused the
jealous suspicions of Herbert A. Trescott, husband
of said Nellie Trescott, and to a peculiar degree gave
ground for scandalous gossip concerning said Nellie
Trescott, because said Hasbrook then went to her
place of business several times every day and in the
evening, the real reason being that said Hasbrook
was then excessively anxious to receive notes and
messages from said other woman, because she, the
said other woman, had on some date between the
tenth and the fifteenth of October, in said year 1881,
given birth to a child and was unable either to leave
her house or to receive the personal visits of said
Hasbrook. Here followed copies of the several
notes or letters which had passed at that time.
Ted looked up, his brow somewhat contracted.
“Have you the originals of these letters?” he asked.
He was still incredulous, yet vaguely perplexed;
indefinitely alarmed.
“I have,” said Wogan. “You will notice that
the name of that other woman is not given in the
bill. Of course the bill can easily be amended in
that particular.” He took a note from the package
in his pocket, returned the others, and buttoned
up his coat. Also he opened the drawer in front of
him a little way. “Here is one of the notes,” he
said, and laid it midway of the table, with his left
hand upon the top of it.
Ted bent over; his eyes took in the handwriting
— and Wogan was too slow. For Ted snatched the


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 271
note from under his hand, and leapt to his feet,
bloodless and glaring.
Wogan's right hand came out of the drawer with
a revolver in it.
“Steady now,” he said, under his breath. “I’ll
shoot you with all the good nature in the world, and
file my bill, too. Remember that.”
Ted's face was a marble mask of agony. He
seemed about to shed tears of stone. A tiny foam
bubble broke at the corner of his livid lips. He
tore the note into shreds.
“That's all right, too,” said Wogan. “I’ve got
others, you know. Remember what I said to you
about David Donovan. Go to his wife. You’ve got
her under your thumb. Tell her he mustn't testify.
Then this bill goes in the stove. Otherwise it goes
on file, and into Julius Brown's paper.”
Ted whirled about and rushed from the room,
flinging wide open the door to the outer office. Thus
Wogan saw Fanny Trescott spring up with out-
stretched arms; saw Ted strike her and rush by ;
heard her wail, “Oh, Teddie 1 Teddie l’” For a
moment her head seemed to float in the other room,
amazed, staring, heart-broken. She gave a moaning
sob and went out, too distraught even to remember
the lawyer or where she was.
It struck Wogan that he had seen two young souls
plunge into the pit. He felt an aching laxness in
his nerves as he sat, with his dry lips apart, looking
blankly into the outer room. Then he was aware of


272 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
a hot little finger in his throat. He snatched the
bottle from the drawer, turned and shattered it in
the grate. That was it ! The drink was getting
him again l He was going to hell with it ! He
leaned his sweaty brow upon his hands and closed
his fingers in his hair. But the powerful scent from
the broken bottle was in his nostrils. -


CHAPTER XXVI
RUNNING down the stairs, Ted came out on the
shabby street. It had grown dusk. The street-
lamps were lighted. The feed-store man was sitting
in the door of his shop, contentedly smoking a
cob pipe. His little child sprawled on the sidewalk
in Ted's way. The father spoke to it — mainly by
way of apologizing to Ted for its being in the way—
and made to rise, with an outstretched hand to pick
it up. Ted stepped around the child, however. An
old woman had brought a chair out on the sidewalk,
for the pleasant evening air, a little further along.
Across the way some youngsters sat on the edge of
the sidewalk. A wagon lumbered by. Some foot-
passengers walked along.
Penrose only vaguely saw these things; yet they
imposed a certain restraint upon him. His very
pores took in a sense of the commonplace, conven-
tional aspect of the poor street. Mechanically
he moderated his pace to a rapid walk. When he
turned the corner, heading up Broadway, he was
walking still more slowly. The lights, street-cars,
stores, people, mysteriously laid a touch upon him.
He began to think how he should do the thing he
had in mind. He remembered – as though some
T 273


274 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
one had abruptly spoken it to him — that Wogan
would be on his guard.
He paused before the plate-glass window of the
pawnshop. A score of revolvers were displayed for
sale. As he stared down at them, a coatless little
man came flying eagerly out of the shop, and bobbed
against his elbow.
“Refolfers? I got a elegant line ! Sheap ! Dirt
sheap ! Lemme show you a automatic — nine
tollers l’’ He laid a hand, not very clean, on Ted's
8.IIIl.
“I was just looking in,” said Ted, dully, and turned
to shake off the solicitous hand.
“I mage it eight sefenty-fife,” said the little man,
excitedly, trotting beside him. “I got others —
sheaper. Oh, vell, if you don’ wanda buy l’” The
last sarcastically, as Ted walked away.
No, I can’t do it ! I can’t do it ! Ted was saying
over to himself. It seemed to him that his heart was
weeping in sorrow over itself because it was of too
soft stuff to do murder. Without exactly knowing
what he was about he took a street leading east, and
when he found himself by the Court House, he climbed
the steps that led to the yard and sat down mechan-
ically on a bench. His stunned spirit began to toss
and work. He remembered the stuff Wogan had
said about the Thomas case and David's testifying.
. . . Abruptly the very soul of the tragedy descended
upon him anew and with such power that his limbs
trembled and he shuddered through and through.


276 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
three or four yards to the left. He stood before it,
reached out and touched it. Time had roughened
its edges. Even as he touched it he knew in his
heart that Wogan's lie was true.
He struck a match, shielding it with his hands,
as he knelt to read the inscription. It was very
simple — thus: —
“Fredericka, daughter of James A. and Bettina
Penrose; born October 13, 1881; died November 26,
1883.”
He could remember the pretty creature — the
dear little live doll. It was the birth-date that he
wanted to know. Wogan's bill had said it was be-
tween the tenth and the fifteenth. It was actually
the thirteenth — an unlucky day. He lay down
on the grave with wide-open eyes.


CHAPTER XXVII
SATURDAY morning dawned very fair. The days
were still warm, although the maple leaves had begun
to turn golden – as though the richness of the sum-
mer which the suave air held in solution were being
precipitated upon them. A gentle wind, like a sigh of
content, drew across the valley.
It blew into the dining-room windows of the old
Holmes place. David and Louise, glancing out as
they sat at breakfast, were aware of the geniality
of the day. She was not satisfied. Many times in
the last twenty-four hours she had said to herself,
“He must stand for the truth on Monday; then I
will pay him with love. Perhaps he feels now a
touch of humiliation, as of being held strictly to his
bond. But afterward he will see it as I do.”
Yet this did not satisfy her. He shouldn’t be
doing it because she demanded it, but because he
felt it to be right. His motive — to please her —
was not clear and strong enough. There was a touch
of sad disappointment in her soul because he did
not already see it as she did and feel her sacrificial
passion for the truth.
Almost every hour that passed, and brought the
trial a step nearer, wound up her heart; bit into her
277


278 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
mind with a sense of the imminence of the crisis.
Some way they had undermined Frederick — a
thing she had thought impossible. They were power-
ful, cunning, sleepless. She fairly felt them darkly
digging away at David — at genial, light-hearted,
practical-minded, careless David. This was the last
business day before the trial. It would be this day,
perhaps, that they would spring some trap upon him.
Breakfast was seldom a talkative meal with them.
This morning they said less than usual. They had
said nothing at all about the grand subject since
Thursday night — although she had been straining
her ears to catch a word from him; something that
would show that he was seeing it as she saw it, and
giving his allegiance to the right with a free will.
David arose, finally. “Well, I must be going,”
he said cheerfully; took up his hat and came around
to her side of the table and stooped and kissed her,
smiling a little, pinching her cheek.
She, too, arose and walked into the living room
with him. She was pale now, and her lip trembled
slightly. Her heart fluttered and beat painfully.
His good-humor suddenly struck her with a penetrat-
ing dismay. She seemed to see him walking into
the ambush all unarmed and carelessly confident.
She laid her hand on his shoulder. -
“To-day, David — be careful what you do; be
watchful,” she breathed, her breast swelling with
the throbbing of her heart. “Your eyes are not yet
open. This trial is all — everything — to me.”


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 279
“Not much danger of my going wrong to-day,
Loie,” he replied rather lightly and with a little
smile. “I’m getting ready to resign.”
“Resign?” she repeated.
“Yes,” he said. “The bank called my loan yes-
terday — notified me to pay it up, you know. They
hold all my stock as collateral. They can do a good
deal as they please with me. I don’t care to stay
there without the good-will of Titus and Epperson.
I couldn’t do anything worth while. I suppose
they'd let me remain as a kind of superior barn boss;
but that wouldn’t suit me. I’ll have a talk with
Titus this afternoon. If he's stiff on the bit, I’ll
quit.”
“Yes, quit, David l’” she exclaimed. “Let them
take your stock and your position. What do we
care for that ?”
He gave a little shrug of one shoulder.
She turned paler. “Which is the most to you,
David — that or your wife? I could sit at the feet
of a husband who was merely poor. But one who
sold his honor — never !” -
It was the little shrug that did it. She had not
meant to put the case so harshly. Yet now that
she had spoken she stood immovable. “As you
said, it is in the bond between you and me.”
She stood before him tall and white, looking
straight into his eyes. And he, looking back, saw a
strange woman, one he did not know, whose spirit
appeared to him with a sword and a balance,


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 281
past. If Titus proved frosty, he would hand in his
resignation.
He climbed the stairs, and paused a moment on
the balcony which gave to his office, and which also
overlooked the long dynamo room. The room was
still and scrupulously clean. The warm air held a
faint, soft humming from the generators that were
sending out the energy which moved cars over a
radius of twenty miles. Only three men, each in a
blue blouse, were in sight. One of them disappeared
into the boiler-room at the further end, and as the
door stood ajar David's eye caught for an instant
the incandescent glow of an open furnace, hot as
with elemental fires. The huge glass transom high
up on the south wall gave an irregular view of the
car barn with long, yellow vehicles silently slipping
in and out. A marble switch-board, barely a yard
square, was set in this wall. The touch of a human
hand upon those little levers controlled all.
The general manager lingered a moment in a kind
of love for it. In a way it was his home. He had
built it. His mind ran through it. These masses
of brick and iron, the glowing furnaces, the whirling
dynamos, were figments of his thought; all this
plant a thing of power from the loins of his brain.
It seemed very good to him — a man's honest work
in the world, to be done with his head and his muscu-
lar hands. Plenty of men did these things, without
mussing themselves up with womanly anxieties
about their souls. He gave a little sigh, and with


282 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
a last look before turning to his office, he hoped the
man who came after him would use the plant and
the men – the good organization of enginery and
muscle and minds — decently and intelligently.
He went in to his desk. The day's grist took up
the forenoon. It was not until after luncheon that he
was able to turn to the several unfinished things that
he wished to leave in perfect shape if he resigned.
The exercise of working comforted him. After all,
there was always work in the world for a capable
man to do. He glanced up at the little clock on his
desk from time to time. Titus always stayed at the
bank until five. He must get around before that
hour, and he saw that he would be rather close-
pressed to do it. He caught up a sheet full of
figures and ran nimbly downstairs to consult the
auditor about it. Sailing under full steam always
rather exhilarated him. One would have thought
him quite happy seeing him, ten minutes later, go
up the stairs two at a time and bound into his office —
But he stopped, as abruptly as though he had been
shot. Ted Penrose, or his ghost, was sitting in his
chair by the big desk.
Ted looked a wreck. His clothes were wrinkled
and bedraggled as though he had slept in them. His
shoes were muddy. Some burs stuck to his trousers.
Yet, just then, it was only his face that David saw —
waxed and drawn as though he had suffered a painful
death; and in this mask his living eyes seemed
horrified at finding themselves quick in a corpse.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 283
It was no time to talk. Instinctively David
reached behind him and closed the door; then went
to the desk with careful steps, his shoulders bent
forward, his head held low, as though something that
could blast them both visibly held Ted and he meant
to snatch him from it. He laid his hand on Penrose's
shoulder.
“What is it, Teddie?” he asked, under his breath,
quickly.
“I had to come to you, Davy. It’s a terrible
trouble.” Ted enunciated the words so imperfectly
that David had to stoop and bend his head to hear.
He had eaten nothing for a day, and in physical fact
he could not endure much further. He could not
bring his stiff lips together for proper utterance.
In this mutilated speech, as of a cranky automaton,
he managed to convey a jerky notion of Wogan's
bill — designed to uncover the old love affair of
Frederick Hasbrook and a woman. David could
gather only a vague hint of it.
“But this woman, Teddie? Who's this woman?”
he asked.
Penrose's leg stirred convulsively; his head rolled
to one side. He raised his hand. David took it and
a shock went through him. It was flaccid and
clammy. His own strong and warm fingers closed
tightly over it.
Then Teddie whispered two little words, indis-
tinctly. But David's strained ear caught them, and
all his faculties stopped. His own lips formed the


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 285
with pity, and he was exalted. His spirit felt the
joy of knowing himself brave and generous. He
gave Ted a hug. “You must brace up, now ! We'll
pull it off l’”
It did not occur to him then that Ted's slender
body was exhausted from lack of food and endless
tramping, besides being racked by anguish. He
saw only that he was utterly broken — so broken
that he seemed, in physical fact, near to death.
David promptly took the business upon himself,
ordering a cab, telephoning to Wogan; and that
harmony remained within him, that sense of being
pure and generous.


CHAPTER XXVIII
CODLEY and Wogan were together. They had
spent the day in the dingy office awaiting develop-
ments. In the forenoon Wogan had seemed rather
ailing – slightly pale and with eyes a little blood-
shot. The night before he had emptied a bottle and
gone straight to bed. He had wakened nervous, but
sober; refreshed himself with a bath, taken a new
grip of himself; but all the forenoon he had suffered.
He thought he knew why Old Alphabet was stick-
ing to him so closely. He seemed to see the reason
twice or thrice in a cold, cynical glance of the old
man's eyes. Old Alphabet suspected that he had
been drinking. “I mustn't do it again. I must
fight against it,” Wogan had said to himself a
hundred times that day. And all the while his
tormented soul seemed to feel the little imps busy
digging away the ground from under his feet. Of
old it had often begun in exactly this way.
His power of resistance had been subtly weakened,
and he was aware of it. Blackmailing Frederick Has-
brook might be all well enough as a move in a game
which, while dirty, had areasonable motive. But some
way he ought not to have let Codley’s malignancy
push him on to this other business of torturing young
286


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 287
Penrose. That was too wolfish – a bite into the
throat of a helpless victim. Wogan saw this now, in
certain clear flashes that left him dripping with an
indescribable degradation. It was this degradation
that mysteriously bound his hands when he wished
to drive away the little imps that were digging the
ground from under his feet.
During the day Codley had mentioned specifically
that his fee for the business, when it was pros-
perously concluded, would be five thousand dollars.
He supposed Codley meant it as an inducement to
him to keep sober. But he also saw that it hinted
a termination of their relationship; and this wolfish
business of young Penrose seemed necessarily to
imply a termination of the relationship. Naturally
Old Alphabet wouldn’t wish to be reminding him-
self of this little murder-den nor of the tool where-
with he had cut a throat in it. Thus Wogan's own
conception of his relationship with Codley under-
went a change during the day. Before, he had
thought of it rather as a partnership in which he
had been simply the junior member. But now the
superior villain towered above him, huge and sinister
and heartless, and he himself was hardly more than a
dirty little puppet to be used for a turn and tossed
aside. He felt this and could make no headway
against it; could scarcely, even to himself, protest
against it. The affair of young Penrose fixed the
terms.
And while this drama of his own peril was playing


288 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
itself out in Wogan's mind, he talked with Codley,
smiled, discussed plans and probabilities. Old
Alphabet was loafing up and down the office with his
hands in his pockets when the telephone message
came; and he grinned when he thought that David's
wife's lover was fetching David in person.
“All the same, Wesley,” he observed, amused,
“we don’t want to forget that Donovan is a bright
man. Samson was all right, you know, except for
his wife. David is a bright man. Old Dennis
trained him and Old Dennis has sat in about all
the games there are, first and last. No rusty work
will go with friend David. We must be careful
not to try any. He wouldn’t have bit at the safe-
deposit box, for example. He hasn’t forgotten what
was done to the box in the Fetlock case. It’s im-
portant to be fair and square and above-board with
him. The boat's the thing; a pleasant jaunt on the
lake — with a warrant at the other end. Be careful
how you talk to him.” He stepped to the door to
the inner office. “I’m going to provide company for
you on the boat, Wesley — a handy man with his
fist. Because I wouldn’t put it beyond our impul-
sive young Irishman to take the letters by force
and chuck you over the rail. This is the last lap of
the race, you know. We mustn't stub our toe.”
He smiled a little at his own wit; yet again Wogan
seemed to see that cold, cynical glint in his eye.
He went inside, fixed the door slightly ajar, and
braced his foot against it.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 289
-
When David and Teddie entered the outer room,
Wogan was sitting in the corner. He merely nodded
to them, without rising, and indicated two chairs
at the other side of the room. Yet he was aston-
ished. Penrose was not leading a victim, as he had
expected. On the contrary David had his hand
under Ted's arm, supporting him. And Penrose
looked half dead. He slipped limply into a chair;
sunk his face between his hands. David stooped
over him a second, saying a word under his breath;
his strong hand lingering for a light, comforting
touch on the other's shoulder. It might have been
a tableau of Courage comforting Despair. Wogan
secretly quailed before it.
David stood upright, looking the lawyer in the
eyes. He noticed that Wogan's hand was in his
coat pocket; suspected it held a pistol; a faint,
contemptuous smile shone in his glance.
“I want to see this bill of yours, Wogan,” he said
coolly.
“On the desk,” said the lawyer, indicating with a
nod of his head, motionless otherwise.
David saw it lying there; picked it up; stepped to
the window for better light; read it through de-
liberately. With what Ted had told him he saw
that, silly as it was legally, it was still a perfect
instrument for blackmail.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I want you to go out of town until the case against
Allan Thomas is disposed of,” the lawyer answered.
u


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 293
“It’s all right, old man,” said David, bending
over him. “It’s all fixed. We’ll get the letters.
Don’t worry. It's all settled.” There was a kind
of crooning, yet anxious joy in the low almost whis-
pering tone. Lying thus in David's arms, Ted looked
more than ever like a girl. And David was thinking,
“There's no time to fence here ! We must take a
chance l’’
Presently he helped Ted over to the chair, and sat
beside him, one hand on his knee.
“Of course, we get the letters, Wogan,” he said
quietly. “What's your plan?”
It would have been good policy to propose some-
thing else first, to lead around to the real plan cir-
cuitously, to let the idea of the lake trip seem to come
from David himself. Yet all Wogan could do now
was to bring it out baldly.
“You’re under a subpoena to appear Monday morn-
ing,” he said. “If you don’t appear, the case must
be dropped, for you’re the only witness. The fruit
boat leaves here about three o'clock in the morning
and goes down the shore and gets to Chicago in the
evening. You and I will take it. I’ll have the
letters along. We’ll go to a hotel in Chicago together
and stay together until we get word that the Thomas
case has been disposed of. Then you’ll take the
letters and walk out.”
“All right,” said David. He added, “I shall want
to see those letters in your hands, Wogan, before I
go aboard the boat.”


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 295
watch on the boat. I’ll take the early train for
Chicago and be there in time to arrange a little recep-
tion committee for David when he lands. These
black-haired Irish are bad citizens when they get
started. I think it would be just as well if, when you
get on the boat — or, say, after the boat leaves
St. Joe — you just slip the letters over to Mulhol-
land.”
“I can keep them,” said Wogan.
Codley was a little startled – as when a sleepy cat
suddenly scratches. Wogan himself was a little
startled. He felt himself being helplessly elbowed
out — and suddenly scratched.
“Just as you like,” Codley answered suavely.
The game was not yet played out; the pawn must
move once more. “I suggested it for your benefit.
Don’t let friend David get too chummy with you in a
lonely spot on the boat, though.” He softly cleared
his throat. “Bring the letters up to me at the hotel.
You’ve done the job to the queen's taste, Wesley,”
he added genially. “There’ll be a check for five
thousand waiting for you to-morrow.”
For a moment the figure loomed large in Wogan's
imagination. “I can use it,” he said with a nervous
laugh. -
“It’ll give you a good stake, Wesley,” said Old
Alphabet. He was quite philanthropic when it
did not interfere with his other interests. “Let
me give you a word of advice with it, my son. Cut
out the booze.” He paused an instant and added,


298 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
himself well in hand. In time he must souse himself
well in the tub and eat some breath-killers, to appear
on the dock in good shape. And all the while that
beefy ass Mulholland would probably be lurking in
the corridor, watching his door Wesley Wogan
was no fool!


CHAPTER XXIX
LEAVING Wogan's office, David's immediate anxi-
ety was for his charge. Ted was alarmingly white
and weak. David helped him into the cab.
“It’s all fixed now, you know, Teddie,” he said.
“The trouble is all over. Don’t worry any more.
But you must brace up, old man. I’ll want you to
help me a bit later on. See here, we must have
some dinner. You mustn't let go, you know.”
“Yes. All right,” said Ted.
David told the cabman to drive to a little German
restaurant. He felt that Ted wouldn’t want to go
to the hotel where many who knew him would see
him. So Ted, anxiously but furtively watched by
David, ate something — broth and bread and a cup
of coffee. It replenished his bodily strength.
“I want you to come to the hotel and lie down a
while, old man,” said David. “We’ve got a night
ride ahead, you know; and I want you to be fit.”
“Yes. All right,” Ted replied.
He suffered David to take him to the hotel, put
him in a room. He took off his coat and shoes, as
David advised, like a sick but obedient child, and
lay down on the bed. As his weary body met its
supporting softness he felt as though he were physi-
299


300 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
cally dissolving. He lay stretched out, lax, power-
less; his mind itself washed out, flaccid, empty of
thought or emotion. There was no sleep in this
void. He vaguely felt that he would never sleep
again; but the lids drooped over the weary eyes.
David watched him, approving. This rest would
do him good. “Ted, I want you to lie quite still
for an hour or so,” he said; “not to try to get up,
you know — while I run up to the house. Will
you do that?”
Ted faintly nodded, still like a sick but obedient
child.
David had to satisfy himself with that assent. “I
won't be very long,” he said assuringly; and slipped
quietly out of the room. In the corridor he hur-
ried. Stepping briskly out of the elevator into the
office almost the first thing he saw was Codley’s
lank, stooping back. The old practitioner stood
at the desk, telephoning. Wogan sat near by,
looking thoughtfully at the floor.
The sight of them imparted a shock to David's
nerves – although it was quite a matter of course
that they should be there. He hesitated an in-
stant. But he had to see Louise. So he crossed
the office swiftly, keeping the tail of his eye upon
the enemy, and got out without their seeing him. He
heard a street-car passing, and took to his heels
at top speed, going diagonally across the little park
in order to catch the car.
It was half-past eight now, and dark. He noticed


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 303
Frederick Hasbrook's degradation tormented her.
Oh, for a vessel among these men into which she
might pour her own great passion for righteous-
ness l Many times that day, with a sudden yearning
heart-ache, she wished mightily to hasten to David,
to sit beside him, be near in case that temptation
to which he was so light-heartedly blind should come.
She hardly expected him before six; yet from five
she walked restlessly about the ragged yard, stood
at the gate looking down the street. Dinner time
came. The world began to darken. The shadows
crept into her fighting breast. It grew dark. The
hurrying, mechanical little ticks of the clock beat,
beat upon her pulses. She looked at the telephone
minutes long, and it seemed that by force sheerly of
her intense craving it must begin to ring; his voice
must sound over the wire explaining that some mere
business detail had delayed him. Then the silence
of the instrument suddenly became ominous, fateful.
She built up numberless reasons why he had been
detained here or there; and the little, painfully
made structures crumbled away. He had never once
stayed so late without sending her word. Why
should he do it on this day? What business save
one could keep him now? Her fear reacted upon
itself. . . . Perhaps he had gone. . . .
She heard his quick, firm tread on the porch, and
he stepped through the door as she arose.
“They've upset us, Loie. I’ve got to go to Chi-
cago to-night,” he said hurriedly, as he came to her.


304 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
She knew his arm went round her waist; his hand
touched her shoulder. He saw her pale, suffering
face, and with a simple instinct kissed her brow. “I
came up to tell you about it.” His mind was still
full in the drag and sweep of the other drama, to
which this was only a by-play.
The very manner in which he entered the room;
his hurry — this businesslike briskness; his cock-
sure approach; the very state in which he so ob-
viously was, struck upon her deeply laboring spirit
like an insult; contemned and cast aside her pro-
found anxiety – at the same time that his lips
assured her that her cruelest fear was realized.
A sort of wrath, so big that it was impersonal,
uprose.
With deliberate movements her left hand lifted
his right from her shoulder and her right hand clasped
his left wrist, disengaged his encircling arm, pushed
it back to his side. He saw a very strange little
smile draw her mouth obliquely.
“My soldier is deserting,” she said, low and
slowly.
He was simply disconcerted. He knew she would
be badly disappointed; but under the overwhelming
motive that animated him he had not thought she
would take it like this.
“Why — hardly that, Lou,” he said. “Only
something quite new has come up. I came to tell
you.”
“Something new 2’” she answered. “Has Win-


306 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
He tried to assert his will; to reach across and get
again close to her side as they had seemed to be
before.
“Let me tell you the whole story — just what's
come up,” he said. “I’ll leave it to you yourself
to judge, Lou.”
She bent a little toward him. “Remember just
what you are saying, David,” she answered quickly.
“Remember just what you say. You will leave it to
me to judge.”
There was a note of eagerness, of triumph, in her
voice — and in spite of himself this was painful and
hateful to him. It sounded of Winthrop and all
the narrow, literal, white-blooded folk. His call
sounded clear. His soul stood up.
“I misspoke, Lou. I must take it back,” he said.
“I cannot leave it even to you. Not even you can
answer for me. I must answer for myself. I shall
go ahead as I intended.” He spoke low; but looked
her in the eye. A slight pause followed. “Now,
Loie, I’ll tell you the story — if you like,” he added.
Even to himself it sounded futile, and at the moment
he was aware of a repugnance against telling her the
story, as though it would be a sort of prostitution of
Teddie's anguish and his own generosity.
“Why should I wish to hear it?” she answered.
“You are honor-bound. If some price or other has
been offered you, why should that interest me?
Understand me, David. I stand squarely upon
your pledge. Nothing else will satisfy me. Tell


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 307
the story or not, as you please. It is immaterial
to me. All that I ask of you, you can fulfil at nine
o'clock Monday morning. Nothing else will answer.
Make no mistake about that, David.”
In the little silence that followed the image in her
mind was of degraded Frederick Hasbrook; the
image in his mind was of broken Teddie Penrose.
And just one thing was all that she asked of him —
all, out of the whole round of his being, that inter-
ested his wife? She simply set him a stunt to do,
like leaping among the lions for her glove.
“You give me a difficult hand to play, my girl,”
he said quietly. “I’ll do my best to satisfy you —
at nine o’clock Monday morning.”
She would have asked him why he went away if he
really wished to do his best ; but she was still armed,
cap-à-pie, in that great, fairly impersonal wrath .
against all shuffling and truckling and compromise.
The supreme stake lay bright and clear before her
eyes.
“If you choose to leave it that way, David,” she
replied. “I shall be in court at nine o’clock.”
His upright spirit and his fond heart were both in-
dignant. His wounded pride said, “Fulfil the pledge
then ; do the stunt she sets you !” Nevertheless he
tried again to assert his affection; to resolve this
alien, judging woman back into the dear wife.
“Loie l’’ he burst forth, “we’re making an awful
mistake to leave it this way. Why should you be
setting me stunts to do? You married me. Con-


310 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
“We aren’t quite out of the woods yet, you know,
Teddie,” David suggested gently. “They’re not
above fooling us if they get the chance. The trick
is to get the letters from Wogan as soon as possible.”
“That's so, Davy,” Ted responded. He under-
stood clearly what David said and meant; com-
prehended perfectly that the affair was not ended;
that there was still great danger ahead of them.
But he could not rouse himself; couldn’t whet him-
self to any edge. While his brain understood, his
deeper faculties lay dull and blank.
His pulses throbbed a little when David put out
the light and they left the room; but even then
his spirit was flat. He wished to say something to
David — to the friend who was doing so much so
generously; but he could have spoken only with his
lips. David himself was silent as they trudged
through the office and down the street toward the
dock. His muscles were ready for the action; but
his nerves were quiet. Deep within him he felt that
a great defeat had overtaken him.
An arc lamp on a pole illuminated the dock. Be-
yond, the cold dead dark lay thick and damp over
the lake. The heavy, tublike fruit steamer was
alongside. Men were trundling crates of grapes into
her hold — trudging across the dock with their noisy
barrows in monotonous regularity. David looked
about. Evidently Wogan was not yet here. He
noticed the boat's captain sitting on an upturned
keg at the side of the dock, gossiping with a stranger.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 313
“Suppose you stand there,” said Wogan. He
took the letters from his pocket, his shoulder to Ted
and David. The human bulldog, apparently lost in
thought, stood three feet away, and in front of the
group, holding a stout walking-stick by the small
end in his large right hand and swinging it a little,
reflectively. In that position a good man should
be able to crack a skull in a twinkling.
Wogan unfolded the letters one by one and held
them up. Both David and Ted thought them genu-
ine. David kept close to the lawyer as they walked
aboard, and the muscular stranger kept close to him.
They went up into the stuffy little cabin and sat down
in a row. The boat started. David was close at
Wogan's side. The lawyer turned his head to speak
to him.
“I’ve engaged a stateroom,” he said. “I’m
going to lie down.”
David did not answer; but his heart leapt. He
had caught a peculiar odor. “Sol Wogan's drink-
ing again l That ought to help !” he thought. He
sat by while Wogan disappeared into the stateroom.
Then he gave Ted a significant glance. “I’ll take
a turn about,” he observed and arose. The detec-
tive, sitting directly opposite Wogan's stateroom
door, looked up at him with pale, dull, bull-doggy
eyes.
This lumbering fruit boat was furnished with only
a dozen staterooms, for it carried few passengers.
David found from the purser that the six on Wogan's


314 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
side were taken. But there was one on the other side
which he engaged. Alone in it he examined the
fastenings. There were two outer doors — one of
solid plank, the other of stout slats, both with good
locks. The door to the cabin was of solid board,
secured by an ordinary lock and a strong bolt. A
man might break it with a crowbar; but it would
take a little time. Of course, the bulldog would be
watching. By now David's brain was wholly busy
with the problem before him. He was ready, even
keen for it. But behind this mental activity he
vaguely felt a void.
The problem was not easy. Yet Wogan was drink-
ing; the other was a mere hired thug. He and Ted
– or, rather, he for Ted — were playing for an
immense stake. Somewhere or other the lesser men
would slip; glance aside; relax their guard — and
then |
The plan was to let Ted keep an eye on the thug,
while David stalked and crouched, waiting for the
opening. Presently he called Ted into the state-
room; let him out by the outer door; led him around
to the stern of the boat where he could sit comfort-
ably beside a window and have the cabin under his
eye, including the thug and Wogan's stateroom door.
He himself watched the outer door of Wogan's room
from a position by the rail and opposite the narrow
passage that led to the cabin. Thus, if he saw the
door opening, he could dodge in and hide.
The tubby boat churned on in the dark. It was


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 315
cold. Now and again the form of his wife rose up in
David's mind-slim and beautiful and separated
from him. He thrust it resolutely down into that
void which he felt to be under his surface activity.
His business now was to watch this door. In the
dank, mournful gray of earliest dawn they made the
next port; took on more fruit. This involved a
shifting of their positions, for the thug got up and
walked about. But when the boat got out in the
lake again, they were posited just as before. The
sun was well up when they lumbered into the
harbor at St. Joseph; and they lay here an hour.
A score of passengers came aboard. The bulldog
paced the cabin; even stuck his nose outside several
times. David and Ted kept out of his sight.
As the boat paddled away from the dock David
noticed that it was half-past eight, and a very beauti-
ful Sunday morning. The boat was fairly populous
now. Two girls had taken possession of the wheezy
organ in the cabin and were performing “Nearer
My God to Thee” with very indifferent success.
It seemed to distress the detective. The next stop
was Chicago. This was the last leg of the race; the
last turn of the wheel.
David and Ted came out of the stateroom as
though they had just arisen. David nodded amiably
to the thug. “Aren’t you going to get some break-
fast?” he asked, as though the joke were under-
stood between them.
The man eyed him a moment with a kind of


316 WHEN LOVE SPEAKs
suspicion. “I believe I will,” he answered gravely,
and went over and knocked on Wogan's door. He
talked to him a moment through the door, David
and Ted standing good-naturedly by. Two or
three minutes elapsed before the lawyer emerged.
The moment David saw him he felt better. He
judged that Wogan had not been to bed and that
he had had the company of a bottle. The four went
down to the rather greasy dining room together.
After breakfast they went to the stern on the lower
deck. David and the bulldog smoked; even ex-
changed a few observations, as that it was a fine
day and the boat was slow. Ted sat to one side
of them, Wogan to the other. By tipping his chair
back David could from time to time observe the
lawyer. He had already noticed that Wogan ate
hardly anything.
Presently Wogan arose, spoke a word in the
detective's ear. The detective nodded; but with
a gloomy look. It was very pleasant out there.
The cigar tasted good. The prospect of sitting
again in the stuffy cabin, with the wheezy organ and
squawking vocalist, was disagreeable. He smoked a
moment; then tossed away the cigar reluctantly
and followed his ward into the enclosed space.
David watched him disappear in Wogan's wake;
waited a moment longer; then sprang up nimbly.
“Keep your eye on him, Ted, I’m going to the
old place,” he said, and ran up the steep stairs to
the cabin deck.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 317
Wogan loitered a moment in the lavatory — wish-
ing to dare, yet uncertain, rather afraid. As he
hesitated the door opened and his burly guardian
looked in upon him.
A red-hot rage of disappointment prickled the
lawyer's mind. However, there was no help for it
— just now. With the detective at his heels he
walked through to the forward stairway, climbed up
to the cabin, and went to his stateroom. “I’m
going to get some more sleep,” he said, as he closed
and locked the door. The detective chewed at his
mustache. It was disagreeable in there. He walked
up, took a seat not far from the organ, and stared at
the two girls.
Having locked the door, Wogan gently tried it
to make sure that it was fast. The conflagration
was raging now. It wasn’t in the least a question of
resisting. His throat burned and contracted. He
wetted his lips which were immediately dry again.
His very breath came short. The only thing in the
world that he could think of was to get drink — to
get it quick. His hand began to tremble as he took
the empty bottle from under the pillow and tipped
it up. But there wasn’t a drop left. As usual, the
moment he definitely resolved to have liquor a
growing madness possessed him. Now, as he gently
unfastened the outer door of slats, he was ready to
fly at the bull dog's throat if necessary. As cau-
tiously he unlocked the door of plank; opened it;
thrust out his head. A rustic young couple and an


320 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
For what?
He could not free his mind of the strange, cold
woman in the guise of his wife who had stood up to
judge him, and judged him wrong; who had set him
a certain task to do—as though they had not already
irrevocably given themselves each to each. “No,
Loie,” he thought, “you oughtn't to have done that.
You oughtn't to have said you'd throw me over if
I didn’t meet certain conditions. How can we get
along that way? You oughtn't to have done it !”
This persistent idea that his marriage stood upon
something else than just love continually came up
and subtly defeated him. He kept working himself
up — thinking how he would go to a telephone, call
up Winthrop, explain where he was, look up a train;
and, finally, save himself with Louise. But the fact
that he had to save himself with her continually
overthrew him. He was beaten already
He was thinking very little about Teddie or Wogan
or the bulldog as the tubby boat paddled slowly into
the river, heading for the darkened masses of ware-
houses. He had an impression that Wogan had kept
his stateroom; but it didn’t matter in the least.
His very nearness to the telephone and the train
someway helped to baffle him. He must run about
now and try to make good a footing with his own
wife — and she herself pushed him away !
He felt defeated. His thoughts were anxious,
disconcerted; not firm and clear as when he had
been busy with Teddie's case. Something had been


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 323
which he was arrested; demanded also the right to
communicate with his friends; insisted upon being
permitted to telephone to a lawyer. He simulated
a passion; filled the station with his clamor. He
let them know that he knew the law and the police
regulations; told them they had no right to lock
him up without giving him a chance to send word to
his lawyer and to friends who would go bail; assured
them he would take it up in the courts and in the
newspapers, too.
The desk sergeant had a face like a full red moon,
and was simply impassive. A man in the uniform
of a lieutenant of police appeared at the door of the
private office, listening. The two detectives who had
arrested him stood by, rather amused, waiting for a
word of command. David knew perfectly well that
his arrest had been cooked up with somebody in
authority. He had no doubt that Old Alphabet had
paid a handsome bribe. More than that he himself
felt the utter hollowness of his own passion. He
could raise his voice, shake his fist, look fierce. But
all the while he knew there was no real force behind
it. The impassive desk sergeant calmly told him
the gross and palpable lie that the telephone was
out of order; as calmly told him to write a note to
his lawyer — which would be sent as soon as the
sergeant could find a man to take it. Finally, David
suffered himself to be led away to a cell. His poor
little farce of resistance was played out.
He was defeated. The fight was subtly gone out


324 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
of him. He sat in the cell stolidly, trying to tell
himself that Teddie would get him out with a writ of
habeas corpus, yet not believing it. In his need,
Loie had denied him and set him a stunt to do.
In the meantime Wogan and the thug had taken
a cab for the hotel where Old Alphabet awaited them
— to take the letters. The mind of such a drunkard
as Wogan is a landscape lit by lightning flashes.
At one instant he saw clearly; then all was confused
darkness. With his rocking brain he was trying to
stick to a plan whereby he could get hold of the
five thousand dollars before Codley became aware
that the letters were gone. This involved slipping
away; going to another hotel; and, in the morning,
demanding that the currency be sent to him — after
Codley had spent a night in apprehension. He
supposed the thug would keep a certain guardian-
ship of him until the letters were delivered. Also, he
paid his astute principal the compliment of supposing
that Mulholland probably had instructions to lay
hands on the letters any time if a fair chance offered.
There wasn’t much use in trying to disguise that he
was drunk. On the other hand, in his lucid mo-
ments, he had a cunning idea that his interest lay
in the opposite direction.
In the cab he gave an exaggeratedly drunken
chuckle. “Mulhol — old man,” he crowed thickly,
“I got letters here worth hundred thousand dollars l’’
He patted the breast pocket of his overcoat. “They
can’t fool Wes Wogan l’’


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 327
pockets empty. There was a deep wrinkle in Cod-
ley's forehead; his eyebrows drew together. He
looked ugly, but businesslike.
“Have you got the letters?” he asked.
“The lake's got 'em, Codley,” David replied.
“I tore 'em into inch bits and threw 'em over-
board.”
Old Alphabet's sinister eyes bored at his face.
“I’ll have you searched,” he said.
David spread his arms and laughed. “Search and
be d–d. You'll have an account to settle with me
too, Codley. You don’t suppose I like this kid-
napping business, do you?” He looked the old
practitioner in the eye a moment. “You don’t
really think I'd carry those letters around? You
don’t suppose I’d have my fingers on 'em two
minutes and not destroy them?”
“How did you get them 7” Codley demanded.
David recounted the circumstances simply. Cod-
ley looked at Mulholland. The bulldog scratched
his head and sighed. “I guess that's straight. I
couldn’t watch two doors at once,” he said.
The lawyer stroked his chin and considered, study-
ing the floor; then questioned David with his eyes.
When he spoke it was in an altered tone.
“I suppose you did get the letters and I’ve lost
that stake,” he said, low and quietly. “The other
stake I’ve won. I’ll saw off with you.”
“As how’’’ David demanded.
Codley nodded at the clock. “It’s almost six.


330 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
His good task was done. But there was the other
— the stunt his wife had set him. Codley had said
the Thomas case was lost. No doubt it was. So
he would fail in his stunt. Even, with Ted beside
him, whirling up awakening Michigan Boulevard
in the bright, crisp new day, that great loneliness,
came upon him again. His heart said that he had
done well; but Loie denied him.


334 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
They wanted him to take up their case that evening,
so a decree could be signed at once.
Louise looked mechanically around her. Near by
sat a rather hang-dog young man in an obviously
ready-made suit, his sandy hair plastered over his
brow. He was talking to his lawyer, and Louise
understood that he was to be tried for stealing a
horse. A slim, bedraggled young woman sat next
the lawyer dandling a baby with stupid, monotonous
motions, while a chubby youngster of three years
leaned against her thin knees and twisted his fat
hand into her skirt. The young woman never took
her eyes off the prisoner and his lawyer. It was easy
to read in them the poor little soul on the rack.
Without thinking about it, Louise comprehended
her — the good, dull little creature, busy and worried
with her poor burrow and her young ones and her
inconsiderate mate — and now suddenly this awful
hand of the law. It was pitiful.
Louise's eyes mechanically travelled on. Then
she saw the back of a man who was standing at one
of the tall narrow windows — the fat on his shoulders
and the roll of flesh, stuck with hairy gray bristles,
above the edge of his collar. That was Allan
Thomas. She saw also the stocky lawyer standing
beside him — saw him grin; and Thomas looked
around, grinning, also. She sighed, and looked
away. The three lawyers were still talking to the
judge. She tried to hear what they were saying as
though it were something important. She even


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 335
examined the thin, rather aristocratic face of the
judge himself. She had no high opinion of Mr. Alfred
Showman; yet a certain majesty invested this figure,
leaning over in the high seat, listening to the law-
yers – as though wig and gown, the symbols of the
law, were visibly there. There was a very little
action in this scene before her — the informally
arguing lawyers standing close to the bench; the
turning of a paper; a man stepping across to speak
to another; a nervous, elderly advocate softly
pacing up and down; Winthrop over there hurriedly
reading the document that he held in his hand.
Yet she indefinitely felt in it the sweep of a colossal
drama — not this little case that had brought her
here; but the endless unfolding of civilization
through the law.
A slouchy man stepped up to Winthrop and spoke.
Winthrop screwed up his face and looked at the
clock, as though something hurt his nerves. Louise
felt that he was going to look at her, and averted her
eyes. A little later, when she looked back, the
slouchy one was marshalling a file of men into
the jury-box, where they settled themselves into the
empty chairs. It came to Louise that this was the
jury – selected before the continuance — which was
to try Thomas. Then she looked at the clock.
It was eighteen minutes past nine. For many hours
the sharp point of a sword had lain against her
breast. Now it ran through her heart. She opened
her lips to draw in the long, shuddering breath that


336 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
got no farther down than the top of her lungs.
Would he not come 2
She started, turned quickly at the opening of the
door. But it was not David. She looked down at
the floor and gently bit her lip to quiet herself.
She felt the stir about her; but for a moment could
not look up. Then she saw that the three lawyers
had left the bench; the judge dropped back to a
lounging attitude in his chair. Also, Allan Thomas
and his lawyer were coming forward, seating them-
selves coolly at a long table. Winthrop stood by
another table, a document in his hand, apparently
deeply absorbed in it. The room was absolutely
still.
This stillness itself was the last act of the drama.
Louise had armed herself, contended, sought to pre-
serve a decent dignity. But in this silence she was
mere pain. Clutching hands dragged her up to the
block before a voiceless, curious crowd.
“Well?” said the Court, sharply.
Thomas's lawyer spoke up loudly. “We are
waiting for the State, your honor.”
Winthrop laid his document on the table, gave a
look around, and at the door; then stepped over to
Louise and stooped.
“Will David be here?” he asked, under his breath,
gravely.
She looked up into his face, her breaking heart in
her eyes. “I don’t know, Winthrop. He left town
Saturday night. I told him to meet me here.”


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 337
Their eyes said what else was to be expressed between
them. His hand brushed her shoulder compas-
sionately.
He went back to the table and cleared his throat,
softly. “My witness isn’t here. I ask that the
case be passed — to see if he comes.”
“Has this witness been served, Mr. Prosecutor?”
the Court demanded. The Court was not sorry to
have Mr. Prosecutor so fairly on the hip.
“Yes, your honor,” said Winthrop.
“He was told to be on hand at nine sharp?”
The judge leaned forward, his lip lifted scornfully,
his eyes fixed on Winthrop with a malicious smile.
He looked singularly like a pet dog about to bite.
“Yes,” said Winthrop. -
Allan Thomas's lawyer spoke up loudly, with a
gross sarcasm. “The State's witnesses in this case,
your honor, seem singularly gun-shy.”
Several grinned broadly. One of the jurymen
tittered aloud, and at once blushed guiltily. The
grins burned Louise's breast. She felt, with an
immense despair, that infamy was about to triumph.
Smug, cock-sure, agrin, it merely waited for a mali-
cious moment until it drove the knife home. She
gripped the arms of the chair. It seemed to her
that she must rise, step forth, take the witness seat.
She did indeed have the half-formulated notion of
walking over to Winthrop, asking him to put her on
the stand.
The Court spoke slowly, ironically. “I told you


338 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
clearly enough at the last continuance that no other
would be granted.”
“It’s half-past nine now,” said Thomas's lawyer.
Winthrop drew his hand across his brow. “I will
make my opening address to the jury,” he said.
“Oh!” cried Thomas's lawyer, ironically; and
he added, low, yet loud enough to be heard, “Does
your witness know what you expect to prove by
him 2 ” -
The Court gave the prosecuting attorney a look
of astonishment; then dropped back in his big
chair, with a sarcastic smile. Louise understood
that, by making the address to the jury, Winthrop
would gain time. Yet he was taking the chance of
making himself endlessly ridiculous, by formally
opening a case when he might have no witness to
carry it on with. Looking at her brother a hot mist
of tears came into her eyes.
Winthrop cleared his throat; again passed his
hand over his brow; and turned to face the jury.
Louise looked up at the clock, and her despairing
heart cried within her, “Oh, David Now!
Now I’”
Nesbit came hurrying in from the little door near
the jury-box, a telegram in his hand. Winthrop
seized and tore the envelope. Unconsciously Louise
put her hand to her breast, her lips parted, and she
hung in suspense with the thought, “Was her
prayer answered?”
Winthrop stared down at the yellow sheet in his


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 341
them proudly in the face, and swept by. But she
soon lost again all distinct sense of material things
around her. She reached the house; spoke mechani-
cally to the maid; went to her bedroom, closed the
door behind her, and dropped on the bed, where she
lay curled up, dry-eyed.
She wished to shut them all out ! The court-room
swam before her with a shoal of faces that tittered
and grinned — grinned and tittered. The gross
vulgarity of that last little farce, with Winthrop
confused and awkward, the cheap little sarcasms
of the judge, and Dave Mercer, the witty devil—
that was most intolerable.
David was dishonored — and all they could make
of it was a dirty little farcel It was not love that
troubled her now. Her heart was dumb. It was
her mind that suffered. Her love had disappeared
— evaporated in the heat of that infernal grin which
was now the face of the whole world. Some dam
had broken, letting baseness flood the earth. It
seemed to her that even to exist in it some way
contaminated her.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 343
“Send whatever he asks,” Louise replied wearily.
When the door closed, she turned her face to the
wall. In spirit David was so far from her that she
did not even ask herself where his body was — no
doubt over there in Chicago. But he would be com-
ing back Yes, he would be coming back 1 She
stared at the wall, mechanically tracing over with
her dry eyes the figure of a vine and flower in the
wall-paper. Sometimes she experienced the op-
tical illusion of a movement, a flowing or turning, as
though the vine ran on and on under her eyes. She
imagined it as the steady turning of the great wheel
whereon she was bound. He would be coming back l
She did not sleep that night. Dawn and daylight
came on slowly, the steady turning of the great wheel
to which she was bound. While the wheel turned,
one must rise, bathe, dress, eat. By and by she
remembered to look at the Times and the Daily
News. Neither had a word about David. There was
a kind of diabolical humor in the fact that the sinister
power which had shielded the distillers from print
now extended its protection over David's disgrace,
too. Her pale lips drew in a little smile that hurt
more than any tears her dry eyes could have shed.
It did not even occur to her to ask what price they
had paid David. They had many prices; many
kinds of currency. She did not suffer through love.
David had not only sold his honor, but he had sold
her. There had been no misunderstanding between
them as to the vital significance which she attached


346 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
“I wish you'd tell him so,” said Titus, plumply.
“You must tell him yourself, Mr. Titus,” she said
coldly.
The banker's dark eyes subtly questioned her.
“He hardly left the way open,” he suggested. “He
simply sent me imperative instructions.” He paused
a moment, still subtly questioning her. “There's a
fine future for your husband here,” he added.
Ah, yes! she thought. A fine future ! It brought
back to her, in its rawest grossness, all the infamy
of the Thomas case. She was coldly silent.
Titus frowned slightly. “David paid par for the
Bryerly stock,” he said. “That's about the market
for it, so far as there is any. In view of all the cir-
cumstances, however, Mr. Epperson and myself will
take David's stock at a hundred and twenty-five
dollars a share — if you say to go ahead on his
instructions.”
“I shouldn’t think of amending his instructions,”
she replied.
The banker's opinion of her had never been less
complimentary. He consulted a slip of paper on
his desk, took up pad and pencil, and began figur-
ing. “David's account with us shows a balance
to his credit of forty-seven hundred and eighteen
dollars,” he said, looking at the slip. “We pay
a hundred and twenty-five dollars a share for his
seven hundred and fifty shares and deduct the loan.
It will stand that way, then.” He handed her the
pad.


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 347
She saw that the final sum amounted to more than
sixty thousand dollars.
“His instructions were to turn this balance over
to you,” said Titus.
“Yes,” she replied calmly. Her chief idea just
then was to cast out Titus — to present an icy front
to his smutty-fingered friendliness. The largeness
of the sum secretly daunted her. But the banker
was the last person whom she proposed to let into
her confidence in that or any other regard.
“We'll put it to your credit,” Titus concluded.
She already had her own little account at the bank.
“Very well.” She arose. Titus stood up cour-
teously.
“There's one thing, Mrs. Donovan,” he said ab-
ruptly. “This fellow Bryerly's charge was sheer
lunacy. There isn’t a particle of foundation for it.
It wasn’t right to bring it up – arrest David on
that trumped-up charge.”
“I didn’t know he was arrested,” she said, the
truth coming out, so to speak, before she was aware.
“Why, yes,” said Titus. “This old crank Bryerly
went to Wogan — or Wogan went to him. They
trumped up a charge. There isn’t a thing in it. It
will never be heard of again. I wouldn’t have per-
mitted it to be made if I’d known about it. I wish
you'd tell David so.” Indeed, now that the point
was gained and the danger past, Titus felt almost
sure that he wouldn’t have permitted it. He saw
the surprise in her eyes. Then she collected herself.


CHAPTER XXXIII
AFTER an early luncheon Monday, David bade
Teddie good-by. Penrose was taking a train for
New York—thence to Europe, as David had advised.
Teddie's going made David's loneliness more abso-
lute. He returned to his room – to be at hand if a
telephone call came. Before luncheon he had tele-
phoned to Sauganac and learned the disposition of
the Thomas case.
He had broken the bond. He had repudiated his
pledge. That was the great thing now. The cause
in which he had done it was past.
About two o'clock he went abruptly to the tele-
phone in an overwhelming impatience. Loie, after
all, was so near ! A touch upon this mechanism
would bring her sweet voice to his ear !
He called for the connection to Sauganac, and as
he waited he fell into a kind of abeyant panic. Al-
most for the first time in his life he was thoroughly
afraid. When the first words sounded, his heart
was hammering at his ribs. But it was the voice of
Jessie, the maid. He had thought of that in his
panic; and he told her to send him the red book. He
would hold the wire until she found it. In a moment
the voice sounded again. She had found the book;
349


350 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
would send it. That was all. He hung up the
receiver, and was ashamed. “It was a cowardly
trick,” he thought.
He had broken the bond. It should be left to
Loie now to say what followed. That seemed clear.
That evening he wrote a letter of instruction to
Titus, and one to his wife. The letter to Louise
Iſan : —
“You know before this that I have lost. When
I left you Saturday night, I thought it probable that
I should not be able to appear and testify to-day.
Something new came up which was more important
to me than testifying. I had given you a pledge;
but it was necessary that I break it. You were
right enough in not hearing my story. I see that
now. You had a right, if you wished to take it,
in insisting upon the pledge. The necessity that
seemed imperative to me might not seem so to you.
It all comes back to this proposition: I did what I did
because I felt that I must. As it looks to me now,
Lou, when a man feels that way he has no right to
turn aside for anybody.
“I am writing Titus to sell my stock and turn the
balance over to you. I don’t know how he will treat
me, but at any rate there will be several thousand
dollars. The house is already in your name. This
part doesn’t amount to much in a way. Yet it is
due to you — a just debt that I owe you. What I
owe you most of all now is to make you as free and
independent as I possibly can. I know what I am


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 351
saying, Lou, when I write here that I have taken my
own freedom. That must be so when I refused to
make good the pledge I had given you. I hardly
knew before that a man could have as great a wish to
be exactly square as I now have. It seems to me
that I can never have any other wish in my life —
not even the wish of regaining you, dear — which is
as great as my wish to be exactly square with you.
It wasn’t your fault or my fault; but we didn’t
start out exactly square. We said that I would
take your reasons and feelings in some cases and act
on them implicitly. That was what was understood.
When it came to the test, I couldn’t do it. Think
this over in your own time — that I did what I did
because I felt that I must — with all that you know
of me. And then think, freely and independently,
what you wish to say to me. It wouldn’t be exactly
square, either, if I didn’t say here that I love you
and want you with all my heart. I will wait at the
hotel several days.”
That was all. Try as he would he could get
nothing better on paper.
He waited Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday
forenoon Dennis O'Neill found him.
“Brother Titus sent for me yesterday, and put me
next some things, Davy,” said the old Irishman.
“The job's there waitin’ for ye, lad — the good busi-
ness and the good future. Come back with me.
What’re you sore about?”
“Not sore, Dennis,” said David; “no, I'm not


354 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
“He’d turned over my balance to her?” David
asked.
“Yes,” said Dennis; and, catching the drift,
“Pshaw She'll turn it back, lad. Anyhow, ye
don’t need to bother about money. You know that.
I’m flush.”
David turned from the window, with three steps
to the middle of the room. “Lend me a thousand
dollars. I’ll soon have a job,” he said.
The old man looked up at him, loath and dumbly
protesting.
“She shall not have a husband that she doesn’t
want, Dennis,” said David, under his breath; “not
one that she has to apologize for in her own mind —
as though she let him in at the back door when he
came sneaking home. I won’t give her a man that
seems to her a counterfeit. I could make her let
me in, as you say; but I can do better than that
by the woman I love. I can leave her free.”
Dennis's face puckered. “Don’t do it !” he mut-
tered.
David scarcely saw him just then. His eyes were
fixed above the grizzled head. “Come if you will,
freely — freely, Loie l’’ he breathed. He heard the
steady call of his courage.
Dennis stood up and dropped his hand on David's
arm. “The heart's too stout, lad!” he said with a
kind of mournful regret.
“Lend me the thousand dollars,” David replied.
Dennis went to the four-thirty train alone. About


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 357
eyes, erect, fond. Was he really base? He used
to seem so bravel
Presently she folded the letter and went mechani-
cally to the bedroom to put it away. Her eyes fell
upon the iron couch at the left of the room — empty,
spruce, unwrinkled, corpselike. A long shattering
ache drew through her heart – a birth-travail, the
pain of something seeking to be born.
In the first light of morning she turned her head
and looked over at the empty bed of her mate. He
would never get up of mornings until she had
turned on the water and called to him that the
tub was full. Then often she had to scold him
to get him out. How strong he had been l How
blithel How he used to sing nonsense jingles as
he dressed 1
Kittie came to see her that day, bringing the baby.
Tactful as ever, the little woman did not mention
David or the trial; talked only of indifferent things,
as though nothing had happened. Presently she
put the baby in Louise's lap – a soft, befurbelowed
little lump, with silly galvanic motions that comi-
cally aped humanity. A moist, boneless little hand
clutched over Louise's finger. Again, that mighty,
racking pain wrung her heart – a birth-pain.
And then things that were intimately David's
began to torment her — a pipe carelessly dropped
where it shouldn’t have been ; his clothing; things
all over the house that she was continually coming
across, which brought him bodily back to her, kept


358 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
offering themselves like so many little whispering,
pleading ghosts of her happiness.
One morning she looked from the window; and
her breath caught in her throat. A light frost had
fallen. The ground was strewn with autumn
leaves. How the great wheel turned on 1 David
had been gone two weeks.
That evening she loitered in the yard; looked
away into the twilight spaces, and realized him —
somewhere upon the earth; somewhere among the
numberless children of men, in bodily being, with
his vigorous limbs and genial eyes; and she asked:
“How is it with you to-night, David 2 Are you
well or ill? What are your strong hands busy
with — or do they lie weak with fever — or
cold 2’’
She suddenly choked and tears ran from her eyes.
And then she felt clearly that what racked her heart
was in fact birth-travail; the struggle of a new
love that sought to be born. For her hungry, almost
irresistible impulse was to run to him, wherever he
might be, to take care of him, to give herself to him
as the Indian woman yields to her husband.
She walked restlessly about the yard; then on up
the street without aim. There was a slight chill in
the air, yet many people sat out on their porches
and door-steps — getting the last of the summer
season. Groups of children played on the small
lawns or in the street with shouts and laughter.
Louise heard the gossiping voices of the people,


360 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
had sixty thousand dollars in the bank. An in-
dependent career was open to her. But she could
not really think of that as yet.
Three weeks passed since the trial. Kittie came
up to see her with the baby, talked a while, kissed
her, thrust a letter into her hand and went away.
The letter was from David. It gave a post-office
address in Wyoming; said he was well and at work.
Then: —
“Of course, I am thinking of Lou all the time. I
have been thinking of her most of the time since I
left home. I still see it just as when I wrote you
before, and as I tried to write her. We were married
under a kind of false pretence — that in certain cases
I would accept her feeling and be guided by it.
When the test came, I couldn’t do it. Such a man
and such a woman as Lou and I ought not to be
married that way. We are both brave enough to
need to be free. What I want most in the world is
to have those I love free in the things that their
feelings tell them are vital. Lonely as I am, I still
want it to be exactly that way with Lou. I can’t
write to her very well; for I could hardly help beg-
ging her in one way or another to do something that
her own feeling may tell her is wrong. And if I
kept from begging her, the letter would sound cold
and as though I didn’t care. You know I love her,
Kitten; but I can never again say to her as I once
did, “Do with me as you please.” Experience has
opened my eyes. That isn’t right for either of us.”


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 361
The sheets fluttered from Louise's fingers. “Oh,
I don’t know ! I don’t know !” cried her divided
mind. And then she resolved upon something she
had thought of before — to go to the Senator.


CHAPTER XXXV
Louise found the Senator at home. He had
scarcely left his grounds in three weeks; but had
occupied himself putting his house in order. He was
aware that in the course of nature his time could
not be very far away – just how far did not in-
terest him much. Frederick's disaster had not at
all broken his heart. It had simply made him feel
that his last experience had come to him — in a
sudden douch.
He knew of the final collapse of the prosecution of
Allan Thomas, and that David Donovan had left
town. As one detached, afar off, with an almost
cursory interest, he had set afoot some inquiries, and
so learned of Ted Penrose's visit, with David, to
Wogan's office, and the trip on the lake. The rest,
in outline, was easy guessing, and there he had simply
dropped it. He was not thinking very much about
Frederick, or the Thomas case, or Louise or David,
or anybody else. He had nothing more to do with
it. “Finis,” was written. His old heart withdrew
from the world, brooded with a quiet, mournful
fulness. And when he heard Louise's voice in the
hall, it was a sort of small, pleasant return; a little,
sweet waking up, for a few moments. He went
362


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 363
toward the door to meet her, smiling serenely, hold-
ing out his hand.
Louise's . first thought was that he had aged.
Something of the working of his spirit showed in
his lean, wrinkled, distinguished face. He seemed
to her a person blanched and sear with knowledge
of life. She sat down before him with an odd touch
of humility, as though her own troubles had grown
smaller, more selfishly personal.
“You know David has gone away, Uncle Miles,”
she began.
“Oh, yes,” he said; and with an abrupt, gentle
impulse, “Thank him for me and for Frederick, Loie.
He had to fight our battle, too.” He smiled whim-
sically, “There's always so much for the valiant man
to do l’’
She looked at him in surprise, not understanding.
“I don’t know what to do, Uncle Miles,” she said —
quite like a troubled child coming to a parent. “He
was required to testify, you know.”
“Do you think so?” he asked, with some surprise
on his part. As he regarded her a rather startling
question suggested itself to him. “You know why
he went 2 ”
“No,” she replied. “There had been a contention
between us. I made it imperative that he testify.
He simply went, and wrote me that something had
come up which made him feel it was impossible to
testify.”
He comprehended then. His aged eyes, clear


364 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
but weary, dwelt upon her face — a fair tablet upon
which Time would write so much. He imagined then
her stiff young will and her laboring heart to which
many experiences were coming.
“Ah, that, also l’’ he said under his breath, with
an odd lighting of his aged face. “He had also to
break your bonds to do it, Loie l’” She saw that he
spoke with love to her; but the admiration was for
David.
“I will tell you just why he went away,” said
the Senator, quietly. He told her the story of
his son, the old letters in the hands of Codley and
Wogan, of Teddie Penrose, to redeem whom David
had paid the price.
“David had a certain fondness for Betty Penrose,”
he continued evenly, “as we all had. He could
hardly have borne to see the dogs set upon her in the
street. Above that was his love and pity for Ted.
There are situations so poignant, my dear, that the
soul that is generous and unafraid wishes irresistibly
to throw itself to the rescue. I have lived a long
time. Probably the highest point I ever touched
was when word came that Lincoln had been shot,
and I thought ‘Would to God that my breast had
been in the bullet's way !’”
The old man’s voice ceased. The still air of the
room held all the drama in solution. Louise feared
to move, almost to breathe, lest someway she should
precipitate it anew. She was looking at the Senator
with wide, awe-stricken eyes, as he sat before her,


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 367
“I like to imagine it there in his office,” he con-
tinued, low; “when Teddie came to him in such dire
need, in such pain; and David hears the long call,
my dear, the fife and drums of his heart; and he
opens his hands so; throws everything away, almost
lightly, and answers.” With the same slight smil-
ing he held up his hands, as letting everything run out
of them. “It heartens me to think of that l” He
saw her parted lips and storming breast. “If you
consider it, Loie – even Codley and Wogan and all
sorts of bedeviled men and women – they, too,
may open their hands and be free. Even their hearts
call sometimes. They have only to listen — and
throw away.” He made the gesture again.
“Yes! Yes!” she said, with a sudden, breathless
energy. She stood up, lifted her hands as he had
done. “Oh, yes!” she repeated; and the soft, sweet
lilt of love came into her voice. “I know what to
dO l’’
Abruptly, her face radiant, she leaned over him.
He took her cheeks in his palms and kissed her.
“Good-by, dear,” he said simply.
The words gave her a certain shock. She under-
stood he was very old. For an instant she half
heard the rush of sable wings. Then the Senator
stood up, with a quiet smile, and laid his hand on her
shoulder. And someway she was not afraid. She
heard the wings; but they did not daunt her.
“Dearest,” she murmured, and lifted her lips
again; then whispered, “Good-by.”


WHEN LOVE SPEAKS 369
The perfectly straight line of the railroad ran over
the brown floor. The dirt of the grade seemed just
to have fallen into place. The marks of the shovel
were still distinct. Some miles beyond the town a
Smudge of smoke gave the only sign of human ac-
tivity. Advancing toward it one saw presently the
construction outfit — a smoking engine, a string of
cars, the moving figures of men. They seemed few
and small in the centre of the great plain. Yet
their tiny hands had laid these rails along the earth.
They were pushing on to assail the mountains and
would conquer them.
Close at hand the camp bulked more imposingly.
The cars numbered half a score. A locomotive
loafed, smoking. The puffing of another engine
mingled with the harsh sounds of grinding iron,
blows, human voices. The foreman, in overalls and
blue flannel shirt, stood on a pile of ties overlooking
the work. Just so Louise had found him when she
drove to the camp.
Now she sat on the lower tier of ties, her hands
idle, looking on, serene, lifting her face to the low
steady wind that drew across the plain.
They had had much to say to each other, but the
great reconciliation had made itself. She was his
wife. That covered all. And life had mysteriously
become as simple as the scene. She seemed fully
to understand him now. He, too, was simple, and
deeply rooted in life. Here she had found him,
directing his gang of men, doing his day's work.
2B


370 WHEN LOVE SPEAKS
There were numberless things that should not be
so. Here in this new land all the wrongs of the old
were coming in. These bright steel rails which would
quicken the empty earth to life would also bring in
greed, oppression, chicane, corruption. One wished
it were otherwise; but it could be made otherwise
only slowly.
They were going back to Sauganac soon — at least
to wind up his affairs in the open. Trials awaited
them, and so long as the wheel turned it would bring
problems, difficulties. But this did not disturb her
now. They would meet them all together, side by
side, loving – and free.
With idle hands she looked on, at peace, watching
the men work, lifting her face to the low wind.
David's voice above her shot out a direction with
energy. She turned her head, looked up at him,
laughed — low, sweetly, serenely. This was a
strange place — the rough, toilsome little camp in
the centre of the vast plain, where the foot of man
had scarcely trod before. Yet she was at home.


wORKS BY JACK LONDON
WHITE FANG
With Illustrations and Decorations in Color by Charles Livingston Bull
Gloth 12mo $1.50
Mr. London's new novel is the biggest and most elemental book of its
kind that has appeared since “The Call of the Wild.” Its theme is the ex-
act opposite of “The Call of the Wild,”—the gradual taming of a wolf, from
the time when he hovers round a dog-sledge in the frozen north, through the
long months of his gradual adoption of the ways and habits of man-animals.
It is one of the most thrilling and dramatic stories that Mr. London has yet
written.
Tales of the Fish Patrol
With Illustrations by George Varian
Cloth 12mo $1.50
“These are good and vigorous stories, made yet more interesting by the
fact that their theme is comparatively fresh and unfamiliar.”
— Richmond Times-Dispatch.
“That they are vividly told hardly need be said, for Jack London is a real-
ist as well as a writer of thrilling romances.”— Cleveland Plain Dealer.
“They are good stories of adventure to which the background of truth
lends additional interest.”— Toledo Daily Blade.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
64–66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK


RECENT FICTION
IF YOUTH BUT KNEW
By AGNES and EGERTON CASTLE
Authors of “The Pride of Jennico," etc., etc.
IIIustrated by Lancelot Speed
Cloth 16mo $1.50
Although totally different, both as to story and as to method of tell-
ing it, from “The Pride of Jennico,” “If Youth but Knew" possesses
the same kind of atmosphere. Among its leading actors is an old
wandering musician, a man with a deeply tragic past, a mysterious,
almost fantastic figure, caustic yet invariably benevolent, who roams
the world, unable to rest long anywhere. One sunset hour up in the
mountains his path crosses that of a young man whose essential quali-
ties of heart and manliness he quickly detects. Finding the young
man strangely blind to the glory of his years, he undertakes to teach
this youth to be young; to realize the delicacy of the spring of man's
age; to taste the fragrance of adventure; to hear the music of young
love; to know, in short, the beauty of this world before its colors
begin to fade in the eyes of age. This is his purpose throughout the
first portion of a romance that is intensely picturesque and always
charming.
The Sin of George Warrener
By MARIE VAN WORST
Author of “Miss Desmond,” “Amanda of the Mill,” etc.
Cloth 12mo $1.50
Her new novel, “The Sin of George Warrener,” is a study of life
*: manners among a circle of people in one of the suburbs of New
ork.
The story is realistic and human, dealing with the conditions created
by modern ambitions under the conditions created by existing social
and commercial standards.
Its theme is interesting and handled fearlessly, and in a way which
only a writer of long experience and devotion to her art dares to
attempt.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
64–66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK