"An' he went under, Champ did—went under—"
Aileen felt, without seeing, for her face was still turned to the meadows and the sheds, that the old man was leaning to her. Then she heard his voice in her ear:
"Hev you seen him?"
"Once, Uncle Jo."
"You're his friend, ain't you, Aileen?"
"Yes." Her voice trembled.
"Guess we're all his friends in Flamsted—I heered they fit in the shed, Champ an' Jim McCann—it hadn't ought 'a'-ben, Aileen—hadn't ought 'a'-ben; but't warn't Champ's fault, you may bet your life on thet. Champ went under, but he didn't stay under—you remember thet, Aileen. An' I can't nowise blame him, now he's got his head above water agin, for not stan'in' it to have a man like McCann heave a stone at him jest ez he's makin' for shore. 'T ain't right, an' the old Judge use ter say, 'What ain't right hadn't ought ter be.'"
He waited a while to regain his scant breath; the long speech had exhausted it. At last he chuckled weakly to himself, "Champ's a devil of a feller—" he caught up his words as if he were saying too much; laid his hand on Aileen's head; turned her face half round to his and, leaning, whispered again in her ear:
"Don't you go back on Champ, promise me thet, Aileen."
She sprang to her feet and laid her hand in his.
"I promise, Uncle Jo."
"Thet's a good girl." He laid his other hand over hers. "You stick by Champ an' stick up for him too; he's good blood, an' ef he did go under for a spell, he ain't no worse 'n the rest, nor half ez bad; for Champ went in of his own accord—of his own accord," he repeated significantly, "an' don't you forget thet, Aileen! Thet takes grit; mebbe you wouldn't think so, but it does. Champ makes me think of them divers, I've read an' heerd about, thet dives for pearls. Some on 'em comes up all right, but some of 'em go under for good an' all. Champ dove mighty deep—he was diving for money, which he figured was his pearl, Aileen—an' he most went under for good an' all without gettin' what he wanted, an' now he's come to the surface agin, it's all ben wuth it—he's got the pearl, Aileen, but t'ain't the one he expected to get—he told me so t' other night. We set here him an' me, an' understan' one 'nother even when we don't talk—jest set an' smoke an' puff—"
"What pearl is it, Uncle Jo?" She whispered her question, half fearing, but wholly longing to hear the old man's answer.
"Guess he'll tell you himself sometime, Aileen."
He leaned back in his chair; he was tired. Aileen stooped and kissed him on the forehead.
"Goodnight, Uncle Jo," she said softly, "an' don't forget Hannah's broth or there'll be trouble at Champo."
He roused himself again.
"I heered from Tave to-day thet Mis' Champney is pretty low."
"Yes, she feels this heat in her condition."
"Like enough—like enough; guess we all do a little." Then he seemed to speak to himself:—"She was rough on Champ," he murmured.
Aileen left him with that name on his lips.
On her return to Champ-au-Haut, she went down to the boat house to sit a while in its shade. The surface of the lake was motionless, but the reflection of the surrounding heights and shores was slightly veiled, owing to the heat-haze that quivered above it.
Aileen was reliving the experience of the last seven years, the consummation of which was the knowledge that Champney Googe loved her. She was sure of this now. She had felt it intuitively during the twilight horror of that October day in The Gore. But how, when, where would he speak the releasing word—the supreme word of love that alone could atone, that alone could set her free? Would he ever speak it?—could he, after that avowal of the unreasoning passion for her which had taken possession of him seven years ago? And, moreover, what had not that avowal and its expression done to her?
Her cheek paled at the thought:—he had kissed love into her for all time; and during all his years of imprisonment she had been held in thrall, as it were, to him and to his memory. All her rebellion at such thraldom, all her disgust at her weakness, as she termed it, all her hatred, engendered by the unpalatable method he had used to enthrall her, all her struggle to forget, to live again her life free of any entanglement with Champney Googe, all her endeavors to care for other men, had availed her naught. Love she must—and Champney Googe remained the object of that love. Father Honoré's words gave her courage to live on—loving.
"Champney—Champney," she said low to herself. She covered her face with her hands. The mere taking of his name on her lips eased the exaltation of her mood. She rejoiced that she had been able that afternoon to show him how it stood with her after these many years; for the look in his eyes, when he recognized her, told her that she alone could hold to his lips the cup that should quench his thirst. Oh, she would be to him what no other woman could ever have been, ever could be—no other! She knew this. He knew it. When, oh, when would the word be spoken?
She withdrew her hands from her face, and looked up the lake to the sheds. The sun was nearing the horizon, and against its clear red light the gray buildings loomed large and dark.—And there was his place!
She sprang to her feet, ready to act upon a sudden thought. If she were not needed at the house, she would go up to the sheds; perhaps she could walk off the restlessness that kept urging her to action. At any rate, she could find comfort in thinking of his presence there during the day; she would be for a time, at least, in his environment. She knew Jim McCann's section; she and Maggie had been there more than once to watch the progress of some great work.
On the way up to the house she met Octavius.
"Where you going, Aileen?"
"Up to the house to see if I'm needed. If they don't want me, I'm going up to the sheds for a walk. They say they look like cathedrals this week, so many of the arches and pillars are ready to be shipped."
"There's no need of your going up to the house. Mis' Champney ain't so well, and the nurse says she give orders for no one to come nigh her—for she's sent for Father Honoré."
"Father Honoré! What can she want of him?" she asked in genuine surprise. "He hasn't been here for over a year."
"Well, anyway, I've got my orders to fetch Father Honoré, and I was just asking Hannah where you were. I thought you might like to ride up with me; I've harnessed up in the surrey."
"I won't drive way up, Tave; but I'd like you to put me down at the sheds. Maggie says it's really beautiful now in Shed Number Two. While I'm waiting for you, I can nose round all I want to and you can pick me up there on your way back. Just wait till I run up to the house to see the nurse myself, will you?" Octavius nodded.
She ran up the steps of the terrace, and on her return found Octavius with the surrey at the front door.
Aileen was silent during the first part of the drive. This was unusual when the two were together, and, after waiting a while, Octavius spoke:
"I'm wondering what she wants to see Father Honoré for."
"I'd like to know myself."
"It's got into my head, and somehow I can't get it out, that it's something to do with Champney—"
"Champney!—" the name slipped unawares through the red barrier of her lips; she bit them in vexation at their betrayal of her thought—"you mean Champney Googe?" She tried to speak indifferently.
"Who else should I mean?" Octavius answered shortly. Aileen's ways at times, especially during these last few years when Champney Googe's name happened to be mentioned in her presence, were irritating in the extreme to the faithful factotum at Champ-au-Haut.
"I wish, Aileen, you'd get over your grudge against him—"
"What grudge?"
"You can tell that best yourself—there's no use your playing off—I don't pretend to know anything about it, but I can put my finger on the very year and the very month you turned against Champney Googe who never had anything but a pleasant word for you ever since you was so high—" he indicated a few feet on his whipstock—"and first come to Champo. 'T ain't generous, Aileen; 't ain't like a true woman; 't ain't like you to go back on a man just because he has sinned. He stands in need of us all now, although they say at the sheds he can hold his own with the best of 'em—I heard the manager telling Emlie he'd be foreman of Shed Number Two if he kept on, for he's the only one can get on with all of the foreigners; guess Jim McCann knows—"
"What do you mean by the year and the month?"
"I mean what I say. 'T was in August seven years ago—but p'r'aps you don't remember," he said. His sarcasm was intentional.
She made no reply, but smiled to herself—a smile so exasperating to Octavius that he sulked a few minutes in silence. After another eighth of a mile, she spoke with apparent interest:
"What makes you think Mrs. Champney wants to see Father Honoré about her nephew?"
"Because it looks that way. This afternoon, when you was out, she got me to move Mr. Louis' picture from the library to her room, and I had to hang it on the wall opposite her bed—" Octavius paused—"I believe she don't think she'll last long, and she don't look as if she could either. Last week she had Emlie up putting a codicil to her will. The nurse told me she was one of the witnesses, she and Emlie and the doctor—catch her letting me see any of her papers!" He reined into the road that led to the sheds.
"I hope to God she'll do him justice this time," he spoke aloud, but evidently to himself.
"How do you mean, Tave?"
"I mean by giving him what's his by rights; that's what I mean." He spoke emphatically.
"He wouldn't be the man I think he is if he ever took a cent from her—not after what she did!" she exclaimed hotly.
Octavius turned and looked at her in amazement.
"That's the first time I ever heard you speak up for Champney Googe, an' I've known you since before you knew him. Well, it's better late than never." He spoke with a degree of satisfaction in his tone that did not escape Aileen. "Which door shall I leave you at?"
"Round at the west—there are some people coming out now—here we are. You'll find me here when you come back."
"I shall be back within a half an hour; I telephoned Father Honoré I was coming up—you're sure you don't mind waiting here alone? I'll get back before dusk."
"What should I be afraid of? I won't let the stones fall on me!"
She sprang to the ground. Octavius turned the horse and drove off.
On entering the shed she caught her breath in admiration. The level rays of the July sun shone into the gray interior illumining the farthest corners. Their glowing crimson flushed the granite to a scarcely perceptible rose. Portions of the noble arches, parts of the architrave, sculptured cornice and keystone, drums, pediments and capitals, stone mullions, here and there a huge monolith, caught the ethereal flush and transformed Shed Number Two into a temple of beauty.
She sought the section near the doors, where Jim McCann worked, and sat down on one of the granite blocks—perhaps the very one on which he was at work. The fancy was a pleasing one. Now and then she laid her hand caressingly on the cool stone and smiled to herself. Some men and women were looking at the huge Macdonald machine over in the farthermost corner; one by one they passed out at the east door—at last she was alone with her loving thoughts in this cool sanctuary of industry.
She noticed a chisel lying behind the stone on which she sat; she turned and picked it up. She looked about for a hammer; she wanted to try her puny strength on what Champney Googe manipulated with muscles hardened by years of breaking stones—that thought was no longer a nightmare to her—but she saw none. The sun sank below the horizon; the afterglow promised to be both long and beautiful. After a time she looked out across the meadows—a man was crossing them; evidently he had just left the tram, for she heard the buzzing of the wires in the still air. He was coming towards the sheds. His form showed black against the western sky. Another moment—and Aileen knew him to be Champney Googe.
She sat there motionless, the chisel in her hand, her face turned to the west and the man rapidly approaching Shed Number Two—a moment more, he was within the doors, and, evidently in haste, sought his section; then he saw her for the first time. He stopped short. There was a cry:
"Aileen—Aileen—"
She rose to her feet. With one stride he stood before her, leaning to look long into her eyes which never wavered while he read in them her woman's fealty to her love for him.
He held out his hands, and she placed hers within them. He spoke, and the voice was a prayer:
"My wife, Aileen—"
"My husband—" she answered, and the words were a Te Deum.
X
Octavius drew up near the shed and handed the reins to Father Honoré.
"If you'll just hold the mare a minute, I'll step inside and look for Aileen."
He disappeared in the darkening entrance, but was back again almost immediately. Father Honoré saw at once from his face that something unusual had taken place. He feared an accident.
"Is Aileen all right?" he asked anxiously.
Octavius nodded. He got into the surrey; the hands that took the reins shook visibly. He drove on in silence for a few minutes. He was struggling for control of his emotion; for the truth is Octavius wanted to cry; and when a man wants to cry and must not, the result is inarticulateness and a painful contortion of every feature. Father Honoré, recognizing this fact, waited. Octavius swallowed hard and many times before he could speak; even then his speech was broken:
"She's in there—all right—but Champney Googe is with her—"
"Thank God!"
Father Honoré's voice rang out with no uncertain sound. It was a heartening thing to hear, and helped powerfully to restore to Octavius his usual poise. He turned to look at his companion and saw every feature alive with a great joy. Suddenly the scales fell from this man of Maine's eyes.
"You don't mean it!" he exclaimed in amazement.
"Oh, but I do," replied Father Honoré joyfully and emphatically....
"Father Honoré," he said after a time in which both men were busy with their thoughts, "I ain't much on expressing what I feel, but I want to tell you—for you'll understand—that when I come out of that shed I'd had a vision,"—he paused,—"a revelation;" the tears were beginning to roll down his cheeks; his lips were trembling; "we don't have to go back two thousand years to get one, either—I saw what this world's got to be saved by if it's saved at all—"
"What was it, Mr. Buzzby?" Father Honoré spoke in a low voice.
"I saw a vision of human love that was forgiving, and loving, and saving by nothing but love, like the divine love of the Christ you preach about—Father Honoré, I saw Aileen Armagh sitting on a block of granite and Champney Googe kneeling before her, his head in the very dust at her feet—and she raising it with her two arms—and her face was like an angel's—"
The two men drove on in silence to Champ-au-Haut.
The priest was shown at once to Mrs. Champney's room. He had not seen her for over a year and was prepared for a great change; but the actual impression of her condition, as she lay motionless on the bed, was a shock. His practised eye told him that the Inevitable was already on the threshold, demanding entrance. He turned to the nurse with a look of inquiry.
"The doctor will be here in a few minutes; I have telephoned for him," she said low in answer. She bent over the bed.
"Mrs. Champney, Father Honoré is here; you wished to see him."
The eyes opened; there was still mental clarity in their outlook. Father Honoré stepped to the bed.
"Is there anything I can do for you, Mrs. Champney?" he asked gently.
"Yes."
Her articulation was indistinct but intelligible.
"In what way?"
She looked at him unwaveringly.
"Is—she going—to marry—him?"
Father Honoré read her thought and wondered how best to answer. He was of the opinion that she would remember Aileen in her will. The girl had been for years so faithful and, in a way, Mrs. Champney cared for her. Humanly speaking, he dreaded, by his answer, to endanger the prospect of the assurance to Aileen of a sum that would place her beyond want and the need to work for any one's support but her own in the future. But as he could not know what answer might or might not affect Aileen's future, he decided to speak the whole truth—let come what might.
"I sincerely hope so," he replied.
"Do—you know?" with a slight emphasis on the "know."
"I know they love each other—have loved each other for many years."
"If she does—she—won't get anything from me—you tell her—so."
"That will make no difference to Aileen, Mrs. Champney. Love outweighs all else with her."
She continued to look at him unwaveringly.
"Love—fools—" she murmured.
But Father Honoré caught the words, and the priest's manhood asserted itself in the face of dissolution and this blasphemy.
"No—rather it is wisdom for them to love; it is ordained of God that human beings should love; I wish them joy. May I not tell them that you, too, wish them joy, Mrs. Champney? Aileen has been faithful to you, and your nephew never wronged you personally. Will you not be reconciled to him?" he pleaded.
"No."
"But why?" He spoke very gently, almost in appeal.
"Why?" she repeated tonelessly, her eyes still fixed on his face, "because he is—hers—Aurora Googe's—"
She paused for another effort. Her eyes turned at last to the portrait of Louis Champney on the wall at the foot of her bed.
"She took all his love—all—all his love—and he was my husband—I loved my husband—But you don't know—"
"What, Mrs. Champney? Let me help you, if I can."
"No help—I loved my husband—he used to lie here—by my side—on this bed—and cry out—in his sleep for her—lie here—by my side in—the night—and stretch out his arms—for her—not me—not for me—"
Her eyes were still fixed on Louis Champney's face. Suddenly the lids drooped; she grew drowsy, but continued to murmur, incoherently at first, then inarticulately.
The nurse stepped to his side. Father Honoré's eyes dwelt pityingly for a moment on this deathbed; then he turned and left the room, marvelling at the differentiated expression in this life of that which we name Love.
Octavius was waiting for him in the lower hall.
"Did you see her?" he asked eagerly.
"Yes; but to no purpose; her life has been lived, Mr. Buzzby; nothing can affect it now."
"You don't mean she's gone?" Octavius started at the sound of his own voice; it seemed to echo through the house.
"No; but it is, I believe, only a question of an hour at most."
"I'd better drive up then for Aileen; she ought to know—ought to be here."
"Believe me, it would be useless, Mr. Buzzby. Those two belong to life, not to death—leave them alone together; and leave her there above, to her Maker and the infinite mercy of His Son."
"Amen," said Octavius Buzzby solemnly; but his thought was with those whom he had seen leave Champ-au-Haut through the same outward-opening portal that was now set wide for its mistress: the old Judge, and his son, Louis—the last Champney.
He accompanied Father Honoré to the door.
"No farther, Mr. Buzzby," he said, when Octavius insisted on driving him home. "Your place is here. I shall take the tram as usual at The Bow."
They shook hands without further speech. In the deepening twilight Octavius watched him down the driveway. Despite his sixty years he walked with the elastic step of young manhood.
XI
"Unworthy—unworthy!" was Champney Googe's cry, as he knelt before Aileen in an access of shame and contrition in the presence of such a revelation of woman's love.
"'Unworthy—unworthy!' was Champney Googe's cry, as he knelt before Aileen"
Aileen lifted his head, laid her arms around his neck, drew him by her young strength and her gentle compelling words to a seat beside her on the granite block. She kept her arms about him.
"No, Champney, not unworthy; but worthy, worthy of it all—all that life can give you in compensation for those seven years. We'll put it all behind us; we'll live in the present and in hope of a blessed future. Take heart, my husband—"
The bowed shoulders heaved beneath her arms.
"So little to offer—so little—"
"'So little'!" she exclaimed; "and is it 'little' you call your love for me? Is it 'little' that I'm to have a home—at last—of my own? Is it 'little' that the husband I love is going out of it and coming home to it in his daily work, and my heart going out to him both ways at once? And is it 'little' you call the gift of a mother to her who is motherless—" her voice faltered.
Champney caught her in his arms; his tears fell upon the dark head.
"I'm a coward, Aileen, and you are just like our Father Honoré; but I will put all behind me. I will not regret. I will work out my own salvation here in my native place, among my own and among strangers. I vow here I will, God helping me, if only in thankfulness for the two hearts that are mine...."
The afterglow faded from the western heavens. The twilight came on apace. The two still sat there in the darkening shed, at times unburdening their over-charged hearts; at others each rested heart and body and soul in the presence of the other, and both were aware of the calming influence of the dim and silent shed.
"How did you happen to come down here just to-night, and after work hours too, Champney?" she asked, curious to know the how and the why of this meeting.
"I came down for my second chisel. I remembered when I got home that it needed sharpening and I could not do without it to-morrow morning. Of course the machine shop was closed, so I thought I'd try my hand at it on the grindstone up home this evening."
"Then is this it?" she exclaimed, picking up the chisel from the block.
"Yes, that's mine." He held out his hand for it.
"Indeed, you're not going to have it—not this one! I'll buy you another, but this is mine. Wasn't I holding it in my hand and thinking of you when I saw you coming over the meadows?"
"Keep it—and I'll keep something I have of yours."
"Of mine? Where did you get anything of mine? Surely it isn't the peppered rosebud?"
"Oh, no. I've had it nearly seven years."
"Seven years!" She exclaimed in genuine surprise. "And whatever have you had of mine I'd like to know that has kept seven years? It's neither silver nor gold—for I've little of either; not that silver or gold can make a man happy," she added quickly, fearing he might be sensitive to her speech.
"No; I've learned that, Aileen, thank God!"
"What is it then?—tell me quick."
He thrust his hand into the workman's blouse and drew forth a small package, wrapped in oiled silk and sewed to a cord that was round his neck. He opened it.
Aileen bent to examine it, her eyes straining in the increasing dusk.
"Why, it's never—it's not my handkerchief!—Champney!"
"Yes, yours, Aileen—that night in all the horror and despair, I heard something in your voice that told me you—didn't hate me—"
"Oh, Champney!"
"Yes. I've kept it ever since—I asked permission to take it in with me?—I mean into my cell. They granted it. It was with me night and day—my head lay on it at night; I got my first sleep so—and it went with me to work during the day. It's been kissed clean thin till it's mere gossamer; it helped, that and the work, to save my brain—"
She caught handkerchief and hand in both hers and pressed her lips to them again and again.
"And now I'm going to keep it, after you're mine in the sight of man, as you are now before God; put it away and keep it for—" He stopped short.
"For whom?" she whispered.
He drew her close to him—closer and more near.
"Aileen, my beloved," his voice was earnestly joyful, "I am hoping for the blessing of children—are you?—"
"Except for you, my arms will feel empty for them till they come—"
"Oh, my wife—my true wife!—now I can tell you all!" he said, and the earnest note was lost in purest joy. He whispered:
"You know, dear, I'm but half a man, and must remain such. I am no citizen, have no citizen's rights, can never vote—have no voice in all that appeals to manhood—my country—"
"I know—I know—" she murmured pityingly.
"And so I used to think there in my cell at night when I kissed the little handkerchief—Please God, if Aileen still loves me when I get out, if she in her loving mercy will forgive to the extent that she will be my wife, then it may be that she will bestow on me the blessing of a child—a boy who will one day stand among men as his father never can again, who will possess the full rights of citizenship; in him I may live again as a man—but only so."
"Please God it may be so."
They walked slowly homewards to The Bow in the clear warm dark of the midsummer-night. They had much to say to each other, and often they lingered on the way. They lingered again when they came to the gate by the paddock in the lane.
Aileen looked towards the house. A light was burning in Mrs. Champney's room.
"I'm afraid Mrs. Champney must be much worse. Tave never would have forgotten me if he hadn't received some telephone message while he was at Father Honoré's. But the nurse said there was nothing I could do when I left with Tave—but oh, I'm so glad he didn't stop! I must go in now, Champney," she said decidedly. But he still held her two hands.
"Tell me, Champney, have you ever thought your aunt might remember you—for the wrong she did you?"
"No; and if she should, I never would take a cent of it."
"Oh, I'm so glad—so glad!" She squeezed both his hands right hard.
He read her thought and smiled to himself; he was glad that in this he had not disappointed her.
"But there's one thing I wish she would do—poor—poor Aunt Meda—" he glanced up at the light in the window.
"Yes, 'poor,' Champney—I know." She was nodding emphatically.
"I wish she would leave enough to Mr. Van Ostend to repay with interest what he repaid for me to the Company; it would be only just, for, work as I may, I can never hope to do that—and I long so to do it—no workman could do it—"
She interrupted gayly: "Oh, but you've a working-woman by your side!" She snatched away her small hands—for she belonged to the small people of the earth. "See, Champney, the two hands! I can work, and I'm not afraid of it. I can earn a lot to help with—and I shall. There's my cooking, and singing, and embroidery—"
He smiled again in the dark at her enthusiasm—it was so like her!
"And I'll lift the care from our mother too,—and you're not to fret your dear soul about the Van Ostend money—if one can't do it, surely two can with God's blessing. Now I must go in—and you may give me another kiss for I've been on starvation diet these last seven years—only one—oh, Champney!"...
The dim light continued to burn in the upper chamber at Champ-au-Haut until the morning; for before Champney and Aileen left the shed, the Inevitable had already crossed the threshold of that chamber—and the dim light burned on to keep him company....
A month later, when Almeda Champney's will was admitted to probate and its contents made public, it was found that there were but six bequests—one of which was contained in the codicil—namely:
To Octavius Buzzby the oil portrait of Louis Champney.
To Ann and Hannah one thousand dollars each in recognition of faithful service for thirty-seven years.
To Aileen Armagh (so read the codicil) a like sum provided she did not marry Champney Googe.
One half of the remainder of the estate, real and personal, was bequeathed to Henry Van Ostend; the other half, in trust, to his daughter, Alice Maud Mary Van Ostend.
The instrument bore the date of Champney Googe's commitment.
The Last Word
I
It is the day after Flamsted's first municipal election; after twenty years of progress it has attained to proud citizenship. The community, now amounting to twelve thousand, has spent all its surplus energy in municipal electioneering delirium; there were four candidates in the field for mayor and party spirit ran high. On this bright May morning of 1910, the streets are practically deserted, whereas yesterday they were filled with shouting throngs. The banners are still flung across the main street; a light breeze lifts them into prominence and with them the name of the successful candidate they bear—Luigi Poggi.
The Colonel, as a result of continued oratory in favor of his son-in-law's candidacy, is laid up at home with an attack of laryngitis; but he has strength left to whisper to Elmer Wiggins who has come up to see him:
"Yesterday, after twenty years of solid work, Flamsted entered upon its industrial majority through the throes of civic travail," a mixture of metaphors that Mr. Wiggins ignores in his joy at the result of the election; for Mr. Wiggins has been hedging with his New England conscience and fearing, as a consequence, punishment in disappointmenting election results. He wavered, in casting his vote, between the two principal candidates, young Emlie, Lawyer Emlie's son, and Luigi Poggi.
As a Flamstedite in good and regular standing, he knew he ought to vote for his own, Emlie, instead of a foreigner. But, he desired above all things to see Luigi Poggi, his friend, the most popular merchant and keenest man of affairs in the town, the first mayor of the city of Flamsted. Torn between his duty and the demands of his heart, he compromised by starting a Poggi propaganda, that was carried on over his counter and behind the mixing-screen, with every customer whether for pills or soda water. Then, on the decisive day, he entered the booth and voted a straight Emlie ticket!! So much for the secret ballot.
He shook the Colonel's hand right heartily.
"I thought I'd come up to congratulate personally both you and the city, and talk things over in a general way, Colonel; sorry to find you so used up, but in a good cause."
The Colonel beamed.
"A matter of a day or two of rest. You did good work, Mr. Wiggins, good work," he whispered; "you'd make a good parliamentary whip—'Gad, my voice is gone!—but as you say, in a good cause—a good cause—"
"No better on earth," Mr. Wiggins responded enthusiastically.
The Colonel was magnanimous; he forbore to whisper one word in reminder of the old-time pessimism that twenty years ago held the small-headed man of Maine in such dubious thrall.
"It was each man's vote that told—yours, and mine—" he whispered again, nodding understandingly.
Mr. Wiggins at once changed the subject.
"Don't you exert yourself, Colonel; let me do the talking—for a change," he added with a twinkle in his eyes. The Colonel caught his meaning and threw back his head for a hearty laugh, but failed to make a sound.
"Mr. Van Ostend came up on the train last night, just in time to see the fireworks, they say," said Mr. Wiggins. "Yes," he went on in answer to a question he read in the Colonel's eyes, "came up to see about the Champo property. Emlie told me this morning. Mr. Van Ostend and Tave and Father Honoré are up there now; I saw the automobile standing in the driveway as I came up on the car. Guess Tave has run the place about as long as he wants to alone. He's getting on in years like the rest of us, and don't want so much responsibility."
"Does Emlie know anything?" whispered the Colonel eagerly.
"Nothing definite; they're going to talk it over to-day; but he had some idea about the disposition of the estate, I think, from what he said."
The Colonel motioned with his lips: "Tell me."
Mr. Wiggins proceeded to give the Colonel the desired information.
While this one-sided conversation was taking place, Henry Van Ostend was standing on the terrace at Champ-au-Haut, discussing with Father Honoré and Octavius Buzzby the best method of investing the increasing revenues of the large estate, vacant, except for its faithful factotum and the care-takers, Ann and Hannah, during the seven years that have passed since Mrs. Champney's death.
"Mr. Googe had undoubtedly a perfect right to dispute this will, Father Honoré," he was saying.
"But he would never have done it; I know such a thing could never have occurred to him."
"That does not alter the facts of this rather peculiar case. Mr. Buzzby knows that, up to this date, my daughter and I have never availed ourselves of any rights in this estate; and he has managed it so wisely alone, during these last seven years, that now he no longer wishes to be responsible for the investment of its constantly increasing revenues. I shall never consider this estate mine—will or no will." He spoke emphatically. "Law is one thing, but a right attitude, where property is concerned, towards one's neighbor is quite another."
He looked to right and left of the terrace, and included in his glance many acres of the noble estate. Father Honoré, watching him, suddenly recalled that evening in the financier's own house when the Law was quoted as "fundamental"—and he smiled to himself.
Mr. Van Ostend faced the two men.
"Do you think it would do any good for me to approach him on the subject of setting apart that portion of the personal estate, and its increase in the last seven years, which Mrs. Champney inherited from her father, Mr. Googe's grandfather, for his children—that is if he won't take it himself?"
"No."
The two men spoke as one; the negative was strongly emphatic.
"Mr. Van Ostend," Octavius Buzzby spoke with suppressed excitement, "if I may make bold, who has lived here on this place and known its owners for forty years, to give you a piece of advice, I'd like to give it."
"I want all I can get, Mr. Buzzby; it will help me to see my way in this matter."
"Then I'm going to ask you to let bygones be bygones, and not say one word to Mr. Googe about this property. He begun seven years ago in the sheds and has worked his way up to foreman this last year, and if you was to propose to him what you have to us, it would rake up the past, sir—a past that's now in its grave, thank God! Champney—I ask your pardon—Mr. Googe wouldn't touch a penny of it more 'n he'd touch carrion. I know this; nor he wouldn't have his boy touch it either. I ain't saying he don't appreciate the good money does, for he's told me so; but for himself—well, sir, I think you know what I mean: he's through with what is just money. He's a man, is Champney Googe, and he's living his life in a way that makes the almighty dollar look pretty small in comparison with it—Father Honoré, you know this as well as I do."
The priest nodded gravely in the affirmative.
"Tell me something of his life, Father Honoré," said Mr. Van Ostend; "you know the degree of respect I have always had for him ever since he took his punishment like a man—and you and I were both on the wrong track," he added with a meaning smile.
"I don't quite know what to say," replied his friend. "It isn't anything I can point to and say he has done this or that, because he gets beneath the surface, as you might say, and works there. But I do know that where there is an element of strife among the men, there you will find him as peacemaker—he has a wonderful way with them, but it is indefinable. We don't know all he does, for he never speaks of it, only every once in a while something leaks out. I know that where there is a sickbed and a quarryman on it, there you will find Champney Googe as watcher after his day's work—and tender in his ministrations as a woman. I know that when sickness continues and the family are dependent on the fund, Champney Googe works many a night overtime and gives his extra pay to help out. I know, too, that when a strike threatens, he, who is now in the union because he is convinced he can help best there, is the balance-wheel, and prevents radical unreason and its results. There's trouble brewing there now—about the automatic bush hammer—"
"I have heard of it."
"—And Jim McCann is proving intractable. Mr. Googe is at work with him, and hopes to bring him round to a just point of view. And I know, moreover, that when there is a crime committed and a criminal to be dealt with, that criminal finds in the new foreman of Shed Number Two a friend who, without condoning the crime, stands by him as a human being. I know that out of his own deep experience he is able to reach out to other men in need, as few can. In all this his wife is his helpmate, his mother his inspiration.—What more can I say?"
"Nothing," said Henry Van Ostend gravely. "He has two children I hear—a boy and a girl. I should like to see her who was the little Aileen of twenty years ago."
"I hope you may," said Father Honoré cordially; "yes, he has two lovely children, Honoré, now in his first knickerbockers, is my namesake—"
Octavius interrupted him, smiling significantly:
"He's something more than Father Honoré's namesake, Mr. Van Ostend, he's his shadow when he is with him. The men have a little joke among themselves whenever they see the two together, and that's pretty often; they say Father Honoré's shadow will never grow less till little Honoré reaches his full growth."
The priest smiled. "He and I are very, very close friends," was all he permitted himself to say, but the other men read far more than that into his words.
Henry Van Ostend looked thoughtful. He considered with himself for a few minutes; then he spoke, weighing his words:
"I thank you both; I have solved my difficulty with your help. You have spoken frankly to me, and shown me this matter in a different light; I may speak as frankly to you, as to Mr. Googe's closest friends. The truth is, neither my daughter nor myself can appropriate this money to ourselves—we both feel that it does not belong to us, in the circumstances. I should like you both to tell Mr. Googe for me, that out of the funds accruing to the estate from his grandfather's money, I will take for my share the hundred thousand dollars I repaid to the Quarries Company thirteen years ago—you know what I mean—and the interest on the same for those six years. Mr. Googe will understand that this is done in settlement of a mere business account—and he will understand it as between man and man. I think it will satisfy him.
"I have determined since talking with you, although the scheme has been long in my mind and I have spoken to Mr. Emlie about it, to apply the remainder of the estate for the benefit of the quarrymen, the stone-cutters, their families and, incidentally, the city of Flamsted. My plans are, of course, indefinite; I cannot give them in detail, not having had time to think them out; but I may say that this house will be eventually a home for men disabled in the quarries or sheds. The plan will develop further in the executing of it. You, Father Honoré, you and Mr. Buzzby, Mr. Googe, and Mr. Emlie will be constituted a Board of Overseers—I know that in your hands the work will be advanced, and, I hope, prospered to the benefit of this generation and succeeding ones."
Octavius Buzzby grasped his hand.
"Mr. Van Ostend, I wish old Judge Champney was living to hear this! He'd approve, Mr. Van Ostend, he'd approve of it all—and Mr. Louis too."
"Thank you, Mr. Buzzby, for these words; they do me good. And now," he said, turning to Father Honoré, "I want very much to see Mr. Googe—now that this business is settled. I have wanted to see him many times during these last six years, but I felt—I feared he might consider my visiting him an intrusion—"
"Not at all—not at all; this simply shows me that you don't as yet know the real Mr. Googe. He will be glad to see you at any time."
"I think I'd like to see him in the shed."
"No reason in the world why you shouldn't; he is one of the most accessible men at all times and seasons."
"Supposing, then, you ride up with me in the automobile?"
"Certainly I will; shall we go up this forenoon?"
"Yes, I should like to go now. Mr. Buzzby, I shall be back this afternoon for a talk with you. I want to make some definite arrangement for Ann and Hannah."
"I'll be here."
The two walked together to the driveway, and shortly the mellow note of the great Panhard's horn sounded, as the automobile rounded the curve of The Bow and sped away to the north shore highway and the sheds.
Late that afternoon Aileen, with her baby daughter, Aurora, in her arms, was standing on the porch watching for her husband's return. The usual hour for his home-coming had long passed. She began to fear that the threatened trouble in the sheds, on account of the attempted introduction of the automatic bush hammer, might have come to a crisis. At last, however, she saw him leave the car and cross the bridge over the Rothel. His step was quick and firm. She waved her hand to him; a swing of his cap answered her. Then little Aurora's tiny fist was manipulated by her mother to produce a baby form of welcome.
Champney sprang up the steps two at a time, and for a moment the little wife and baby Aurora disappeared in his arms.
"Oh, Champney, I'm so thankful you've come! I knew just by the way you came over the bridge that things were going better at the sheds. You are so late I began to get worried. Come, supper's waiting."
"Wait a minute, Aileen—Mother—" he called through the hall, "come here a minute, please."
Aurora Googe came quickly at that ever welcome call. Her face was even more beautiful than formerly, for great joy and peace irradiated every feature.
"Where's Honoré?" he said abruptly, looking about for his boy who was generally the first to run as far as the bridge to greet him. His wife answered.
"He and Billy went with Father Honoré as far as the power-house; he'll be back soon with Billy. Sister Ste. Croix went by a few minutes ago, and I told her to hurry them home.—What's the good news, Champney? Tell me quick—I can't wait to hear it."
Champney smiled down at the eager face looking up to him; her chin was resting on her baby's head.
"Mr. Van Ostend has been in the sheds to-day—and I've had a long talk with him."
"Oh, Champney!"
Both women exclaimed at the same time, and their faces reflected the joy that shone in the eyes of the man they loved with a love bordering on worship.
Champney nodded. "Yes, and so satisfactory—" he drew a long breath; "I have so much to tell it will take half the evening. He wishes to 'pay his respects,' so he says, to my wife and mother, if convenient for the ladies to-morrow—how is it?" He looked with a smile first into the gray eyes and then into the dark ones. In the latter he read silent pleased consent; but Aileen's danced for joy as she answered:
"Convenient! So convenient, that he'll get the surprise of his life from me, anyhow; he really must be made to realize that I am his debtor for the rest of my days—don't I owe the 'one man on earth for me' to him? for would I have ever seen Flamsted but for him? And have I ever forgotten the roses he dropped into the skirt of my dress twenty-one years ago this very month when I sang the Sunday night song for him at the Vaudeville? Twenty-one years! Goodness, but it makes me feel old, mother!"
Aurora Googe smiled indulgently on her daughter, for, at times, Aileen, not only in ways, but looks, was still like the child of twelve.
Champney grew suddenly grave.
"Do you realize, Aileen, that this meeting to-day in the shed is the first in which we three, Father Honoré, Mr. Van Ostend, and I, have ever been together under one roof since that night twenty-one years ago when I first saw you?"
"Why, that doesn't seem possible—but it is so, isn't it? Wasn't that strange!"
"Yes, and no," said Champney, looking at his mother. "I thought of our first meeting one another at the Vaudeville, as we three stood there together in the shed looking upwards to The Gore; and Father Honoré told me afterward that he was thinking of that same thing. We both wondered if Mr. Van Ostend recalled that evening, and the fact of our first acquaintance, although unknown to one another."
"I wonder—" said Aileen, musingly.
Champney spoke abruptly again; there was a note of uneasiness in his voice:
"I wonder what keeps Honoré—I'll just run up the road and see if he's coming. If he isn't, I will go on till I meet the boys. I wish," he added wistfully, "that McCann felt as kindly to me as Billy does to my son; I am beginning to think that old grudge of his against me will never yield, not even to time;—I'll be back in a few minutes."
Aileen watched him out of sight; then she turned to Aurora Googe.
"We are blest in this turn of affairs, aren't we, mother? This meeting is the one thing Champney has been dreading—and yet longing for. I'm glad it's over."
"So am I; and I am inclined to think Father Honoré brought it about; if you remember, he said nothing about Mr. Van Ostend's being here when he stopped just now."
"So he didn't!" Aileen spoke in some surprise; then she added with a joyous laugh: "Oh, that dear man is sly—bless him!"—But the tears dimmed her eyes.
II
"Go straight home with Honoré, Billy, as straight as ever you can," said Father Honoré to eight-year-old Billy McCann who for the past year had constituted himself protector of five-year-old Honoré Googe; "I'll watch you around the power-house."
Little Honoré reached up with both arms for the usual parting from the man he adored. The priest caught him up, kissed him heartily, and set him down again with the added injunction to "trot home."
The two little boys ran hand in hand down the road. Father Honoré watched them till the power-house shut them from sight; then he waited for their reappearance at the other corner where the road curves downward to the highroad. He never allowed Honoré to go alone over the piece of road between the point where he was standing and the power-house, for the reason that it bordered one of the steepest and roughest ledges in The Gore; a careless step would be sure to send so small a child rolling down the rough surface. But beyond the power-house, the ledges fell away very gradually to the lowest slopes where stood, one among many in the quarries, the new monster steel derrick which the men had erected last week. They had been testing it for several days; even now its powerful arm held suspended a block of many tons' weight. This was a part of the test for "graduated strain"—the weight being increased from day to day.
The men, in leaving their work, often took a short cut homeward from the lower slope to the road just below the power-house, by crossing this gentle declivity of the ledge. Evidently Billy McCann with this in mind had twisted the injunction to "go straight home" into a chance to "cut across"; for surely this way would be the "straightest." Besides, there was the added inducement of close proximity to the wonderful new derrick that, since its instalment, had been occupying many of Billy's waking thoughts.
Father Honoré, watching for the children's reappearance at the corner of the road just beyond the long low power-house, was suddenly aware, with a curious shock, of the two little boys trotting in a lively manner down the easy grade of the "cross cut" slope, and nearing the derrick and its suspended weight. He frowned at the sight and, calling loudly to them to come back, started straight down over the steep ledge at the side of the road. He heard some one else calling the boys by name, and, a moment later, saw that it was Sister Ste. Croix who was coming up the hill.
The children did not hear, or would not, because of their absorption in getting close to the steel giant towering above them. Sister Ste. Croix called again; then she, too, started down the slope after them.
She noticed some men running from the farther side of the quarry. She saw Father Honoré suddenly spring by leaps and bounds down over the rough ledge. What was it? The children were apparently in no danger. She looked up at the derrick—
What was that! A tremor in its giant frame; a swaying of its cabled mast; a sickening downward motion of the weighted steel arm—then—
"Merciful Christ!" she groaned, and for the space of a few seconds covered her eyes....
The priest, catching up the two children one under each arm, ran with superhuman strength to evade the falling derrick—with a last supreme effort he rolled the boys beyond its reach; they were saved, but—
Their savior was pinioned by the steel tip fast to the unyielding granite.
A woman's shriek rent the air—a fearful cry:
"Jean—mon Jean!"
A moment more and Sister Ste. Croix reached the spot—she took his head on her lap.
"Jean—mon Jean," she cried again.
The eyes, dimmed already, opened; he made a supreme effort to speak—
"Margot—p'tite Truite—"...
Thus, after six and forty years of silence, Love spoke once; that Love, greater than State and Church because it is the foundation of both, and without it neither could exist; that Love—co-eval with all life, the Love which defies time, sustains absence, glorifies loss—remains, thank God! a deathless legacy to the toiling Race of the Human, and, because deathless, triumphant in death.
It triumphed now....
The ponderous crash of the derrick followed by the screams of the two boys, brought the quarrymen, the women and children, rushing in terrified haste from their evening meal. But when they reached the spot, and before Champney Googe, running over the granite slopes, as once years before he ran from pursuing justice, could satisfy himself that his boy was uninjured, at what a sacrifice he knew only when he knelt by the prostrate form, before Jim McCann, seizing a lever, could shout to the men to "lift all together," the life-blood ebbed, carrying with it on the hurrying out-going tide the priest's loving undaunted spirit.
All work at the quarries and the sheds was suspended during the following Saturday; the final service was to be held on Sunday.
All Saturday afternoon, while the bier rested before the altar in the stone chapel by the lake shore, a silent motley procession filed under the granite lintel:—stalwart Swede, blue-eyed German, sallow-cheeked Pole, dark-eyed Italian, burly Irish, low-browed Czechs, French Canadians, stolid English and Scotch, Henry Van Ostend and three of the directors of the Flamsted Quarries Company, rivermen from the Penobscot, lumbermen from farther north, the Colonel and three of his sons, the rector from The Bow, a dignitary of the Roman Catholic Church from New York, the little choir boys—children of the quarrymen—and Augustus Buzzby, members of the Paulist Order, Elmer Wiggins, Octavius Buzzby supporting old Joel Quimber, Nonna Lisa—in all, over three thousand souls one by one passed up the aisle to stand with bared bowed head by that bier; to look their last upon the mask of the soul; to render, in spirit, homage to the spirit that had wrought among its fellows, manfully, unceasingly, to realize among them on this earth a long-striven-for ideal.
Many a one knelt in prayer. Many a mother, not of English tongue, placing her hand upon the head of her little child forced him to kneel beside her; her tears wet the stone slabs of the chancel floor.
Just before sunset, the Daughters of the Mystic Rose passed into the church; they bore tapers to set upon the altar, and at the head and foot of the bier. Two of them remained throughout the night to pray by the chancel rail; one of them was Sister Ste. Croix. Silent, immovable she knelt there throughout the short June night. Her secret remained with her and the one at whose feet she was kneeling.
The little group of special friends from The Gore came last, just a little while before the face they loved was to be covered forever from human gaze: Aileen with her four-months' babe in her arms, Aurora Googe leading little Honoré by the hand, Margaret McCann with her boy, Elvira Caukins and her two daughters. Silent, their tears raining upon the awed and upturned faces of the children, they, too, knelt; but no sound of sobbing profaned the great peaceful silence that was broken only by the faint chip-chip-chipping monotone from Shed Number Two. In that four men were at work. Champney Googe was one of them.
He was expecting them at this appointed time. When he saw them enter the chapel, he put aside hammer and chisel and went across the meadow to join them. He waited for them to come out; then, taking the babe from his wife's arms, he gave her into his mother's keeping. He looked significantly at his wife. The others passed on and out; but Aileen turned and with her husband retraced her steps to the altar. They knelt, hand clasped in hand....
When they rose to look their last upon that loved face, they knew that their lives had received through his spirit the benediction of God.
Champney returned to his work, for time pressed. The quarrymen in The Gore had asked permission the day before to quarry a single stone in which their priest should find his final resting place. Many of them were Italians, and Luigi Poggi was spokesman. Permission being given, he turned to the men:
"For the love of God and the man who stood to us for Him, let us quarry the stone nearest heaven. Look to the ridge yonder; that has not been opened up—who will work with me to open up the highest ridge in The Gore, and quarry the stone to-night."
The volunteers were practically all the men in the Upper and Lower Quarries; the foreman was obliged to draw lots. The men worked in shifts—worked during that entire night; they bared a space of sod; cleared off the surface layer; quarried the rock, using the hand drill entirely. Towards morning the thick granite slab, that lay nearest to the crimsoning sky among the Flamsted Hills, was hoisted from its primeval bed and lowered to its place on the car.
It was then that four men, Champney Googe, Antoine, Jim McCann, and Luigi Poggi asserted their right, by reason of what the dead had been to them, to cut and chisel the rock into sarcophagus shape. Luigi and Antoine asked to cut the cover of the stone coffin.
All Saturday afternoon, the four men in Shed Number Two worked at their work of love, of unspeakable gratitude, of passionate devotion to a sacrificed manhood. They wrought in silence. All that afternoon, they could see, by glancing up from their work and looking out through the shed doors across the field, the silent procession entering and leaving the chapel. Sometimes Jim McCann would strike wild in his feverish haste to ease, by mere physical exertion, his great over-charged heart of its load of grief; a muttered curse on his clumsiness followed. Now and then Champney caught his eye turned upon him half-appealingly; but they spoke no word; chip-chip-chipping, they worked on.
The sun set; electricity illumined the shed. Antoine worked with desperation; Luigi wrought steadily, carefully, beautifully—his heart seeking expression in every stroke. When the dawn paled the electric lights, he laid aside his tools, took off his canvas apron, and stepped back to view the cover as a whole. The others, also, brought their stone to completion. As with one accord they went over to look at the Italian's finished work, and saw—no carving of archbishop's mitre, no sculpture of cardinal's hat (O mother, where were the day-dreams for your boy!), but a rough slab, in the centre of which was a raised heart of polished granite, and, beneath it, cut deep into the rock—which, although lying yesterday nearest the skies above The Gore, was in past æons the foundation stone of our present world—the words: