Meanwhile what of the world and the woman he had A careful study of his motives would have revealed in part his plans, and a detective had probably spent a month in a vain pursuit. The detective's report must have startled even the lawyers. All clues led to nothing. Sonia had no money to throw away, nor would she dare to appeal too strongly to Aunt Lois and Horace Endicott's friends, who might learn too much, if she were too candid. The two who loved him were not yet really worried by his disappearance, since they had his significant letter. In time their confidence would give place to anxiety, and heaven He began now to wonder at the completeness of his own disappearance. His former self seemed utterly beyond the reach of men. The detectives had not only failed to find him, they had not even fallen upon his track by accident. How singular that an Irish colony in the metropolis should be so far in fact and sympathy from the aristocracy. Sonia and her detectives would have thought of Greenland and the Eskimos, Ashanti, Alaska, the court of China, as possible refuges, but never of Cherry Street and the children of Erin, who were farther off from the Endicotts and the Livingstones than the head-hunters of Borneo. Had her detectives by any chance met him on the road, prepared for any disguise, how dumb and deaf and sightless would they become when his position as the nephew of Senator Dillon, the secretary of Sullivan, the orator of Tammany Hall, and the pride of Cherry Hill, shone upon them. This triumph he would have enjoyed the more could he have seen the effect which the gradual change in his personality had produced on Monsignor O'Donnell, for whom the Endicott episode proved the most curious experience of his career. Its interest was discounted by the responsibility imposed upon him. His only comfort lay in the thought that at any moment he could wash his hands of the affair, before annoying or dangerous consequences began to threaten. He suffered from constant misgivings. The drama of a change in personality went on daily under his eyes, and almost frightened him by its climaxes, which were more distinct to him than to Endicott. First, the pale, worn, savage, and blood-haunted boy who came to him in his first agony; then the melancholy, bearded, yet serene invalid who lay in Anne Dillon's house and was welcomed as her son; next, the young citizen of the Irish colony, known as a wealthy and lucky Californian, bid The awesome things in this process were the fading away of the Endicott and the growing distinctness of the Dillon. At first the old personality lay concealed under the new as under a mask; but something like absorption by degrees obliterated the outlines of Endicott and developed the Dillon. Daily he noticed the new features which sprang into sight between sunrise and sunrise. It was not only the fashion of dress, of body, and of speech, which mimics may adopt; but also a change of countenance, a turn of mind which remained permanent, change of gesture, a deeper color of skin, greater decision in movement; in fact, so many and so minute mutations that he could not recall one-tenth the number. Endicott for instance had possessed an eloquent, lustrous, round eye, with an expression delightfully indolent; in Dillon the roundness and indolence gave way to a malicious wrinkle at the outside corners, which gave his glance a touch of bitterness. Endicott had been gracefully slow in his movement; Dillon was nervous and alert. A fascination of terror held Monsignor as Arthur Dillon grew like his namesake more and more. Out of what depths had this new personality been conjured up? What would be the end of it? He said to himself that a single incident, the death of Sonia, would be enough to destroy on the instant this Dillon and resurrect the Endicott. Still he was not sure, and the longer this terrible process continued the less likely a change back to the normal. Morbid introspection had become a part of the young man's pain. The study of the changes in himself proved more pleasant than painful. His mind swung between bitter depression, and warm, natural joy. His moments of deepest joy were coincident with an interesting condition of mind. On certain days he completely forgot the Endicott and became the Dillon almost perfectly. Then he no longer acted a part, but was absorbed in it. Most of the time he was Endicott playing the rÔle of Dillon, without effort and with much pleasure, indeed, but still an actor. When memory and grief fled from him together, as on St. Patrick's Day, his new personality dominated each instant Sonia was bent on his not forgetting, however. His heart died within him when he read in the journals the prominent announcement of the birth of a son to the lost Horace Endicott, whose woful fate still troubled the short memory of editors. A son! He crushed the paper in his anguish and fell again into the old depression. Oh, how thoroughly had God punished the hidden crimes of this lost woman! A child would have saved her, and in her hatred of him she had ... he always refused to utter to himself the thought which here rose before his mind. His head bent in agony. This child was not his, perhaps not even hers. She had invented it as a trap for him. Were it really his little one, his flesh and blood, how eagerly he would have thrown off his present life and flown to its rescue from such a mother! Sonia did not hope for such a result. It was her fraudulent mortgage on the future and its possibilities. The child would be heir to his property; would have the sympathy and inherit the possessions of his Aunt Lois; would lull the suspicions concerning its mother, and conciliate the gossips; and might win him back from hiding, if only to expose the fraud and take shame from the Endicotts. What a clever and daring criminal was this woman! With a cleverness always at fault because of her rare unscrupulousness. Even wickedness has its delicacy, its modesty, its propriety, which a criminal respects in proportion to his genius for crime. Sonia offended all in He would not permit her to work this iniquity, and to check her he must risk final success in his plan of disappearance by violating the first principle of the art: that there be no further connection with the past. The detectives were watching the path by which he would return, counting perhaps upon his rage over this fraudulent heir. He must give them their opportunity, if he would destroy Sonia's schemes against Aunt Lois, but felt sure that they would be unprepared to seize it, even if they dreamed it at hand. He had a plan which might accomplish his object without endangering his position; and one night he slipped away from the city on a train for Boston, got off at a lonely station, and plunged into the darkness without a word for a sleepy station-master. At dawn after two hours' walk he passed the pond which had once seemed to him the door of escape. Poor old friend! Its gray face lay under the morning sky like the face of a dead saint, luminous in its outlines, as if the glory of heaven shone through; still, oh, so still, and deep as if it mirrored immensity. Little complaining murmurs, like the whimperings of a sleepy child, rose up from the reeds, sweeter than any songs. He paused an instant to compare the then and now, but fled with a groan as the old sorrow, the old madness, suddenly seized him with the powerful grip of that horrid time. In fact, every step of the way to Martha's house was torture. He saw that for him there were other dangers than Sonia and her detectives, in leaving the refuge which God had provided for him. Oh, never could he be too grateful for the blessing, never could he love enough the holy man who had suggested it, never could he repay the dear souls whose love had made it beautiful. They rose up before him as he hurried down the road, the lovable, humorous, rollicking, faulty clan; and he would not have exchanged them for the glories of a court, for the joys of Arcady. The sun and he found Martha busy with household duties. She did not know him and he said not a word to enlighten her; he was a messenger from a friend who In four weeks old Martha returned from her mission, and told this story as they sat in the pleasant kitchen near a cheery fire. "I rented a room in the neighborhood of your Aunt Lois' house, and settled myself to wait for the most natural opportunity to meet her. It was long in coming, for she had been sick; but when she got better I saw her going out to ride, and a little later she took to walking in the park with her maid. There she often sat, and chatted with passing children, or with old women like herself, poor old things trying to get life from the air. The maid is a spy. She noted every soul about, and had an extra glance for me when your aunt spoke to me, after I had waited three weeks for a word. I told her my story, as I told it to you. She was interested, and I must go to her house to take lunch with her. I refused. I was not used to such invitations, but I would call on her at other times. And the maid listened the more. She was never out of "I met her only twice after that. I told her my plan to deceive the maid. I was a shrewd beggar studying to get money out of her, with a story about going to my son in Washington. She bid the maid secretly find out if I was worthy, and I saw the maid in private, and begged her to report of me favorably, and she might have half the money, and then I would go away. And the maid was deceived, for she brought me fifty dollars from your aunt, and kept thirty. She would not give even the twenty until I had promised to go away without complaint. So I went away, and stayed with a friend in Worcester. Since I came home I have not seen or heard of any stranger in this neighborhood. So that it is likely I have not been suspected or followed. And the letter was burned. And at the first fair chance your Aunt will go to Europe, taking with her her two dearest relatives. She called them Sonia Endicott and her child Horace, and she would keep them with her while she lived. At the last she sent you her love, though she could not understand some of the things you were doing, but that was your own business. And she never shed a tear, but kept smiling, and her smile was terrible." He could believe that. Sonia might as well have lived in the glare of Vesuvius as in the enlightened smile of Aunt Lois. The schemer was now in her own toils, and only at the death of the brave old woman would she know her failure. Oh, how sweet and great is even human justice! "If I do not see you again, Martha," said Arthur as he kissed the dear old mother farewell, "remember that I am happy, and that you made me so." |