The One Woman (Dixon, 1903)/Chapter 11
When Gordon reached his study and locked the door, he turned the bundle of cards over nervously, afraid to look at them.
He untied the package, read the first, and ran rapidly through the pile. The total subscriptions reached only twenty thousand dollars. He had asked for a million.
A sickening sense of failure crushed him. How weak and puerile the eloquence of words or the beat of the human heart against that mysterious force gleaming at him through Van Meter's black eyes!
He sat brooding over the power wielded by a dozen men whose names were linked with the Deacon's in Wall Street. This group of men had personal fortunes of more than eight hundred millions and controlled as much more. He believed that they dictated the policy of railroads, banks, trade, the State, the Nation, and that no king or emperor of the world wielded such despotism over men as these uncrowned monarchs of money. He felt as though he had collided with the stars in their courses and been crushed to dust.
In the middle of the pile of cards he found one signed by Kate Ransom. She had written across the printed form in her smooth, flowing hand:
He knew that she would make a liberal gift, but her fortune could not be more than a million, perhaps not half so large. Her generosity could not save the day even if she gave half of all she possessed, a supposition of course preposterous.
He could not summon courage to go in the bitterness of his defeat. He scrawled a note and sent it by the sexton.
There was but one forlorn hope left. He had written personal letters to several millionaires he knew in town. They might respond.
He sat in his study in the afternoon, dull, stupid and sick, feeling an iron band around his brain. He could not think. He gave up the work on his evening sermon and determined to repeat an old one.
As he sat in an aching stupor the sexton announced a gentleman who insisted on seeing him on important business.
"I told him you would see no one at this hour, but he says he must see you."
"Show him in," Gordon said, with a frown.
The man entered, gazed at the preacher with curious interest, and stood with his silk hat in hand, smiling.
"This is Doctor Gordon?"
"Leave off the doctor and you have it right."
"I am the bearer of good news. A client of mine has instructed me to call and say that the sum of one million dollars will be placed to your credit in the Garfield National Bank within two years, and that you will be its sole trustee for the building of your projected Temple. One-third of it will be available within three months. I am sorry, I am forbidden to disclose the name."
Gordon sprang to his feet, pale as death, overwhelmed with awe. To have the answer of his prayers, the agonising of his soul for years, answered in the hour of utter defeat thrilled him with a sense of solemnity he had never felt. The man was not a man. He was the messenger swift and beautiful from the courts of heaven, for whose coming his eyes had long strained and his ears listened. Not a doubt of its truth shadowed his mind. He knew it was true. It was the fulfilment of life. It had been ordained from eternity. He had seen it always. Now he saw with his eyes. A paean of exaltation welled within him.
With dimmed eyes he grasped the lawyer's hand and fairly crushed it in his iron grip.
"My friend, your face will always be beautiful to me, and your name a song of joy. You have come to lift me from the gulf of despair and renew my faith."
"With all my heart I congratulate you," he warmly responded.
He left his card, and Gordon locked his door, walked back to his desk and fell on his knees. In transports of childlike gratitude he poured out his soul. All the old faith in prayer was in him again, the breath he breathed. He talked to God as to a loving father, promising in broken accents to cleanse his heart of every selfish thought and consecrate anew every energy to his work.
And then he caught the perfume of flowers, and saw the face of a woman, and she was not the wife of his youth or the mother of his children.
"God forgive me for the drifting of the past," he cried. "I will tear this madness out of my heart and love only Thee. I will be true to the vows taken at Thy altar. I have been wayward and sinned in Thy sight in heart and thought. Wash me in Thy love and I shall be clean, and though my sins be as scarlet they shall be like wool."
He rose from his knees determined to go immediately to Kate Ransom, tell her the news, make a clean breast of his love for her, beg her to put the ocean between them, and for all time end their dangerous relationship.
She greeted him with reserve, and seemed embarrassed.
With impetuous rush he told her the tidings.
"I've been lifted from the depths of Sheol to the highest heaven. Every hope and dream of my struggle is a living reality. An unknown millionaire has given the whole sum needed—a million dollars—and our Temple will rise in grandeur!"
She smiled timidly, and said: "I knew it would be so. You were glorious this morning."
He felt her embarrassment and wondered if she could have divined his grim purpose of separation.
"You do not seem so glad as I thought you would be," he said, with something of reproach in his voice.
"Some joys are too intense for speech. The scene this morning and your burning message went too deep for words."
"I understand," he said softly.
"I wonder if you do?" she asked, dropping her eyes.
"Yes, and I have come to the hardest task of my life, one of the bitterest and one of the sweetest," he said, with deliberation.
She glanced at him quickly and began to tremble.
"Not another hour must pass without a confession to you."
He moved across the room and sat down as if by an effort to put distance between them.
"What is it?" she asked, colouring.
He was silent a moment and then said with low, deliberate tenderness:
"I love you."
She sobbed, and he looked steadily out of the window.
"I dare not sit by your side when I tell you this," he continued passionately. "I have felt it growing in spite of reason or will. I know it's tragedy and sealed my lips with bolts of steel. I have been too weak to keep away from you, strong enough to keep silent. But God has sent his messenger to-day to recall me to duty. There is truth in the old faith. He has heard and answered the prayer of my heart. Somewhere in this Mammon-cursed city there is one beautiful disinterested soul that gives and asks nothing. I have seen, as in a flash of lightning, my danger. I must tear this passion out of my life, though it kill me. I must be true to my vows. I must live without scandal or shame. And you," he paused and his voice sank to a tense whisper—"my beautiful darling, glorious love of my manhood—you must help me!"
He buried his face in his great hands, convulsed with emotion.
"I will, my dearest," she tenderly answered.
"If I had failed to-day," he went on tremblingly, "perhaps in reckless fury I might have forgotten duty, dashed the cup of this martyrdom from my lips, and drowned conscience in the sweetness of your kiss. But God sent success, not failure. And I must be worthy. I have sinned a thousand times as I have gloated over your beauty, heard the music of your voice, touched your soft hand and looked into your soul through those dear blue eyes. It must end. One hour thus face to face we will speak, and never again by word or deed recall that we are aught to one another. I have not asked if you love me. How well I know the tragic truth! But you will tell me once, that my ears may never forget the words on your lips."
"I love you, I love you, I—love—you!" she sobbed in anguish.
"We must never be together alone again," he sighed.
"No."
"We must not see each other any more."
"It is best," she said, with despair.
"I dare not touch your hand—good-by!" he cried, staggering to his feet.
"Good-by, Frank, my hero, my love—my God!"
He took one step toward the door, but his feet carried him to her side.
He trembled, hesitated, and then slowly drew her to his heart. Her arms stole around his neck and her head drooped on his breast, the perfume of her hair was in his nostrils, and their lips met in burning kisses.
"God forgive us! It was more than mortal flesh
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could bear to go without one moment of love's sweet life!" he cried. "And now we must part."
He took her hands in his and gently kissed them, while she looked away seeing only his face, for it had long since filled the world.
He turned abruptly into the hall, and, moving to the door with swift step, he saw lying on the silver tray the card of the lawyer he had met an hour ago. In a moment it flashed over him that Kate was the unknown messenger. He had not dreamed her fortune of such magnitude.
He seized the card and rushed back into the room.
"Is that your lawyer's name?" he gasped.
She smiled and nodded her head in assent.
"And I never dreamed it possible!"
He looked at her as though in a trance.
"Yes, I will confess now. You have confessed to me. My fortune came direct from my grandmother, who willed me her farm on which the oil was discovered. My father's fortune is worth perhaps five hundred thousand dollars. Mine was worth about two million dollars. I have given one to you. I may give you the other if you ask it. One was all you asked."
Again he took her to his heart.
"I have misread the message. Such love is in itself divine, and its own defense. You are mine by the higher law of life. I will not give you up—you are mine, mine! I will defy the world. I loved my child-wife. I was honest then. I will be honest now. I loved as a boy loves. Now I am a man, with a man's fierce passions, and you are the answer—strength calling to strength, deep answering unto deep! Your eyes, my darling, flash the beauty of every flower that blooms and every star of the sky; in your hair is the rose's breath and the golden glory of the sun! I will not live with one woman and love another."
And the twilight deepened into night while they held each other's hands and smiled into each other's faces.