The Unhallowed Harvest/Chapter 20
It was Friday afternoon that the riot took place. It was now Sunday morning, and the first day of April. The sun was shining gloriously. Birds were chirping in the bare trees. The first springing green was giving life to the rectory lawn. But the rector of Christ Church, looking out from his window toward the street, neither saw nor heard these signs of the wakening season. The sound of the tolling church bell struck upon his ears. He knew that the hour for morning service was approaching, but the knowledge gave him little concern. His children were playing in the hall. He paid no heed to them. It was not that he was ill in body, but that he was sick in soul. His wound had been severe, but it had not placed his life in jeopardy. A glancing blow from a flying brick that had crashed through the glass panel of the door behind him had first laid his scalp open to the bone. He was still weak from the shock of the blow and from loss of blood. But prompt and skilful surgical attention, and a robust constitution, were bringing him rapidly back into his customary form. It was not the result of the violent and brutal assault upon his body from which he was suffering to-day; it was rather the awakening knowledge of what that assault implied. The toilers for whose sake he had dared the displeasure of the powerful, the oppressed for whom he had pleaded and fought, the poverty-stricken whose sufferings he had relieved with his own hands and out of his own pittance, had repudiated and repulsed him, and finally had stoned him. Could ingratitude reach greater depths? Had a bitterer cup than this ever been held to the lips of any minister of that Christ who alone had felt the extreme bitterness of ingratitude?
And yet he scarcely knew the half of what these toilers thought of him to-day. He had no conception of the strong resentment—resentment without cause that burned in their hearts against him. He had preached fairly enough indeed; but what had he actually done for them? He had declaimed against the power of capital, but capital had not loosened its grip on them by so much as the breadth of a hair. He had been charitable to them, oh, yes! and had visited their sick with pious consolation, and had lured them into unwitting friendship for him and his church, and had opened his parish hall to them on a March day, and what had been the purpose of it all? Only that he might betray them, at the last, into the hands of those tyrannical masters who had hired him, and whom they had repudiated once and for all. For had he not, when the hour came to strike the final blow for victory, thrown himself across their path, besought them to surrender to their oppressors, and when they would not, called them to their faces fools and cowards and murderers? One brick against his pious skull? He should have had a thousand. Curses on him and his sinister religion with its meaningless sop to socialism, and its cloven hoof hidden under its clerical robes!
Ah! but the denunciation of the poor was as nothing to the condemnation of the rich. By the teaching of his social heresies he had led the ignorant and the thoughtless into an attitude toward society that was bound to result in violence and bloodshed, as it had resulted. He had disgraced the religion he was supposed to preach. He had degraded his Church, and debased his high calling. He had opened their sacred buildings to a profane and howling crowd. The walls of their parish hall had echoed with incendiary speeches, with appeals to the worst passions of the heart, with jeers and curses and the crack and crash of churchly furniture. And out from the doors of this profanated house had issued a riotous and bloodthirsty mob, bent on destroying the property if not the lives of some of the most law-abiding and God-fearing citizens of the city or the state. What degradation! What unheard of sacrilege!
And in the midst and at the height of this disgraceful riot which he had done so much to precipitate, what a spectacle this discredited priest had made of himself! Alternately appealing to and denouncing the reckless mob that surrounded him, he had aroused only their scorn and resentment, until one of them, more daring than his companions, had felled the offending minister with a common brick. Disgusting enough, indeed! But that was not the worst of it; oh, by no means! For, as he lay sprawling and unconscious on the steps, surrounded by rioters and ruffians, had not a woman of the lower class, a socialist, an anarchist, an atheist, a consorter with desperate characters, a woman whose vulgar husband had been scarce six months dead, had not she rushed to his side, and embraced him, and kissed him, and wept over him, and shrieked to the crowd that he was the only man she had ever loved?
But when they reached this dramatic climax of the clergyman's degradation, the scandalized gossips spoke in whispers lest some one, overhearing them, should charge them with spreading unclean tales.
Had the rector of Christ Church known the things that loose tongues were saying of him, had he known what had happened after he fell unconscious on the office steps—for no one had yet had the hardihood to tell him, and the newspapers, with becoming decency, had failed to publish the incident—would he have gone into his pulpit that April morning to preach to his people the gospel of a sinless Christ? It is not to be doubted. For he would have felt in his heart that he was guiltless and without stain, and, as yet, he had not known fear. Indeed, he had not yet acknowledged his defeat. He was hurt, grieved, humiliated, but not conquered. His spirit was not that of the Hebrew psalmist pouring out his soul in the de profundis. It was rather that of Henly's hero thundering his pagan defiance at fate. The lines came into his mind now as he stood gazing from his window into the sunlight on the lawn, and brought to him a strange and unchristian consolation.
"Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
"In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody but unbowed."
At the hour for service he entered the church, robed himself, and followed the poor remnant of his choir to the chancel in reverent processional. But when he looked out upon his congregation he experienced a shock more painful to him than that caused by the rioter's brick. There was but a handful of worshipers in the church. Pew after pew was empty. Great sections of pews were wholly devoid of occupants. Men and women whose devotion to the Church had led them, up to this time, against their inclinations, to continue their attendance on its services, were unwilling to-day, after the events of the past week, to hear the prayers and lessons read, or a sermon preached, by a priest who had so forgotten the duty and the dignity of his sacred calling. And of the toilers who had crowded the pews and overflowed into the aisles scarcely more than a month before, only a beggarly few were here to-day. Rich and poor alike had deserted and repudiated him. Even Ruth Tracy was not in her accustomed place, nor could his searching eyes discover her anywhere in the church. Mary Bradley, too, was absent. Had both these women, from whom he had drawn so much comfort and inspiration in the past, on whom he had leaned in absolute confidence, of whose supreme loyalty he had never had the shadow of a doubt; had they too fallen by the wayside, too weak and skeptical to follow him to the end of the heaven-ordained path he had chosen to tread? Would God Almighty be the next to desert him?
For the first time in all his hapless crusade his heart began to fail him, a strange and insidious weakness crept in upon him. His hand trembled as he lifted the book and read:
"The Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him."
The sound of his voice came back to him in dull echoes from the waste of vacant pews.
"Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moveth us in sundry places" His voice failed him, and he paused. But it was only for a moment. With stern resolution he fought back his weakness, gathered new strength, and went on with his service.
His sermon that morning—he had prepared it early the preceding week—was based upon the parable of the householder and the tares.
"God help us," he said in closing, "if we have mistaken the command of our Lord, and have gone out to gather up the tares, and, inadvertently and foolishly, have rooted up also the wheat with them. It were doubtless better that they should have grown together till the harvest time, when the Lord of the harvest, himself, would have gathered and separated them."
Then he sent out the alms-basins, and they came back to him to be presented at the altar, lined with a pathetic pittance.
As it was the first Sunday in the month he proceeded with the administration of the Holy Communion. He uncovered the bread and the wine and set them out on the Lord's table. But there were few to partake of them. The chancel rail which, in other days, had been filled many times in succession with devout communicants, had room enough now and much to spare to accommodate all who had remained for the passing of the consecrated elements.
Soberly, devoutly, with a tenderness he had never felt before, he performed the office of the communion. It was only at the benediction that his heart and voice again failed him, and the last "Amen" came almost with a sob from his lips.
After the service was ended a few of his friends, men and women, remained to clasp his hand, to inquire about his wound, and to give him sympathy and encouragement. They were those who had stood by him and would still stand by him, even though they saw the church falling into wreck about his feet, because they believed in him and loved him. But not much was said. The feeling on the part of both priest and people was too deep to find ready expression in words. And when they came out into the open air they found that dark clouds had obscured the sun, and that the wind was blowing cold across the flying buttresses of the gray stone church.
As for Ruth Tracy, she could not have done otherwise than absent herself from the morning service. Her cheeks were still burning because of the revelation made to her by Mrs. Farrar, and because of Westgate's disclosure of the gossip of the town. After those things had come the riot with its tragical incidents, the murderous assault on the rector, the scandalous outcry of Mary Bradley. What wonder that she felt the solid ground of faith sinking beneath her feet, and that, frightened and dismayed, she dared not leave her home, and almost feared to look the members of her own household in the face. And what wonder that, in her distress, her mind and heart turned, half-unconsciously, toward the lover whom she had dismissed, as being the one person in all the world who had soul and strength enough to rescue her from herself.
It was not greatly different with Mary Bradley. If the public, by reason of Friday's incident, had learned the secret of her heart, it would not find her so bold and shameless on the Sunday following as even to be seen outside her door. Indeed, from the hour when she had been thrust out from his presence, and had crept moaning home with her blood-stained garments on her, she had held herself in strict seclusion. Lamar had come, demanding an interview. The old woman with the wrinkled face had opened the door an inch, and had told him that Mary would not see him. He came again the following day and made his demand insistent. The old woman obeyed her instructions.
"You can't see her," she said. "Nobody can't see her."
"But I've got to see her. There's a thing I've got to settle with her."
"You can't settle with her to-day."
"To-morrow, then?"
"No, not to-morrow, nor next week, nor next year. She's through with ye."
"You infernal hag! What do you know about it? You go tell her to come out or I'll drag her out."
The old woman slammed the door in his face and locked and bolted it, and he went away cursing.
There were other callers—the sympathetic, the curious, the evil-minded. There was one answer at the door to all of them: Mrs. Bradley would see no one.
On Sunday evening, at dusk, Barry Malleson came. In response to his knock the old woman opened the door a crack.
"You can't see her," she said, before Barry had even a chance to speak. "She don't see nobody."
"Maybe," replied Barry, deprecatingly, "if she knew who it was she might be willing."
"Don't make no difference who it is," responded the old woman. "She wouldn't see the Lord from heaven."
Without further ado she closed the door and bolted it, and Barry turned sadly away.
But Mary Bradley, sitting alone in her room, thought she caught the sound of a familiar voice.
"Mother," she said, "was that Barry Malleson?"
And, without waiting for a reply, she swept across the room, unbolted the door, flung it open and called out to him:
"Barry!"
"Yes, Mary."
"Come back! I want you."
He came gladly. She took him into the little sitting-room. The shades at the windows were drawn close, and the lamp on the table burned dimly. Barry remembered the time when he came there and saw, through a partly opened doorway, the sheeted body of John Bradley lying in an adjoining room. It was not a pleasant memory.
In the half-light of the place the woman's face looked ghastly. Perhaps it was due to the way in which the shadows fell on it. Her eyes were still large and luminous indeed, but under them were dark crescents, and the fine curve of her lips was lost in a pathetic droop. Barry, looking on her, pitied her.
"I didn't come to bother you," he said. "I just wanted to see you. I wanted to tell you"
She interrupted him: "I know. You are so good. I don't deserve it. I couldn't blame you if you hated me."
"I don't hate you, Mary. I love you. I don't care what they say. I don't care what you said on the office steps that day. I love you."
"You mustn't talk that way any more, Barry. I mustn't let you. I ought never to have let you talk that way, or think that way. I did you a wrong. In my eagerness for revenge on others I did you a great wrong. I am sorry now. It was wicked in me to deceive you."
"Yes, that's what they say to me. They always told me you were deceiving me. It doesn't matter if you were. I harbor no resentment nor jealousy. I'll start in all over again. I'll begin my courtship anew, if you'll let me. And I'll teach you to outlive your love for the other fellow. That's what I came to tell you to-night."
"Barry, you have a heart of gold."
"Yes. You know that other fellow is impossible, Mary. He has a wife and children. And he's a good man. No better man ever lived."
"That's true, Barry. Oh, that's very true. He's too good to have been made the victim of my reckless folly. But I thought they had killed him. I thought they had killed him, and I was wild. I know he wasn't killed, but I haven't heard from him for two days. The suspense has been terrible. Barry, tell me what you know about him. Have you seen him?"
Her hands, lying on the table, were clasped tightly together, and she looked across at him as though she were ready to devour his anticipated words.
"Why, yes," replied Barry. "I went to see him Saturday. He had a bad wound on his head, but the doctor fixed him up all right, and he'll get over it in a few days. In fact he held service yesterday as usual."
She gave a great sigh of relief.
"I'm so glad!" she exclaimed, and repeated: "I'm so glad!"
"I don't think," added Barry, "that the brick-bat hurt him nearly as much as the fact that it came from the ranks of those whom he had befriended."
"I know. They were cowards; ingrates! They had murder in their hearts. As for me I'm through with them—forever."
The old blaze of indignation came into her eyes, and the ghost of a flame crept into her cheeks.
"I'm beginning to feel the same way about it," replied Barry. "You know I can't stand for what those fellows did to Farrar."
Her mind turned to another phase of the catastrophe.
"Barry," she asked, "does he know" She paused, but he divined the question that was in her thought.
"I don't believe," he replied, "that he knows a thing. He was knocked insensible, and there isn't anybody who would go and tell him such a thing—unless it might be"
"Who?"
"Jane Chichester."
After that, for a moment, neither Mrs. Bradley nor her visitor spoke. Both appeared to be deeply immersed in thought. Finally the woman looked up at him.
"Barry," she said, "I'm going away."
"Going away?"
"Yes. I can't stay here. It's impossible. I must go. For his sake I must go. I've thought it all out. I've begun to get ready."
"When are you going?"
"To-morrow, maybe. Next day, surely. I shall slip quietly away. No one but you will know it till after I've gone."
"Where are you going?"
"Out to my brother Jim's ranch. He has written for mother and me to come to him. We'll go now."
"And I'll go with you."
"You must not do that, Barry."
"Then I'll come later."
"No, Barry. I would only destroy your peace of mind and all your opportunities. Some day, very soon I hope, this dreadful trouble will be over, and then you'll get back into the old life again, and be happy."
"I shall never be happy without you."
"Oh, yes, you will. You will forget me. You must forget me. I have been a traitor to you. I have been willing to sacrifice you to satisfy a passion for revenge. I have used you as a mere instrument to carry out my desires. I can atone for my wickedness only in one way: by compelling you to blot me out of your memory."
Barry looked at her in dumb incredulity. He had no conception of what lay in her mind, he could not fathom the meaning of the words she spoke to him. After a moment he said:
"I don't know anything about it, Mary. I don't understand it at all. I only know that if you go away and leave me—like that, it will break my heart."
She reached across the table and took both his hands in hers, as she had done once in her office in the Potter Building, and she looked into his eyes with a look vastly more tender and confident than she had given him on that day.
"Barry," she said, "you believe in me?"
"With all my heart."
"And you believe I am trying to do what is best for both of us?"
"I suppose you are."
"Then, for my sake, do what I ask of you. Don't follow me. Don't try to find me. Don't try to learn anything about me. And if the day or the hour should ever come when I feel that your true happiness can be promoted, even by one little jot, through any word or act of mine, I shall give it to you. There, you must be satisfied with that, Barry; you must."
As in the old days he had been unable to deny her anything she chose to ask, so now, under the spell of her gaze, he had no power to refuse her request. She rose from the table, still holding his hands in hers, and moved with him toward the door. He hardly knew that he was being led.
"And, Barry," she added, "you will do me one more favor? You have been my friend, my brother, my loyal and devoted helper in everything. You will do me one more favor?"
"A hundred."
"If—if he should learn what I said and did that day, will you tell him, Barry—will you tell him that it is true that I love him, and that because I love him I have dropped out of his life forever? Will you tell him, Barry?"
"Sure; I'll tell him."
"Thank you! You are the dearest friend I ever had, the most loyal and unselfish. There, good-night!"
She released his hands, put her arms up about his neck, drew down his face to hers, and kissed him.
"There," she said again, "good-night! Good-bye!"
Amazed, thrilled, speechless, Barry found himself on the porch of the house, the door closed behind him, darkness, silence and the distant lights of the city before him as he stood.
Back of the closed door, again locked and bolted, Mary Bradley resumed her preparation for flight. Emotions, whispering and thundering by turns, followed each other in quick succession across her mind. Ah, but they were right who charged her with having a romantic fondness for the minister! It was more than a fondness. It was the one blinding passion of her pinched and sunless life, and it mattered little to her now who knew it. Time was when she had hoped, in some unknown way, in some ideal social state, by means of which she had but a dim and dream-driven conception, to gratify her longing. That was when, as a modern, scouting law, flouting religion, decrying the social order, she had deluded herself with the belief that she had a moral right to seek happiness where she could find it. Born in penury, reared to toil, trained to godlessness, steeped in a philosophy that taught her that love should never be restrained by man-made barriers, she had had neither the will nor the conscience to curb or master her imperious desire. But now the end had come. The cup from which she would have drunk had been struck from her lips. It lay shattered at her feet, the red wine spilled and lost. So she must take herself away, out of his life. Not that she loved him less, but rather more; and so, loving him more, she was ready, for his sake, to sacrifice herself in order that reproach might never again fall upon him.
Through half the night, toiling and tempest-driven, she prepared for her departure. But when Monday came the desire to linger for yet another day overpowered her will, and she yielded. She ate little, slept little, talked little, but moved unceasingly about her narrow rooms. To the queries and protests and misgivings of her querulous old mother she turned, for the most part, a deaf ear. At dusk, on Monday evening, as if through some sudden impulse, she put on her hat and coat.
"Where you goin'?" inquired the old woman.
"I don't know, mother."
"How long you goin' to be gone?"
"A few minutes maybe; maybe forever."
"You talk queer; you act queer. I don't want you to go out."
"No harm will come to me, mother."
"I don't know about that. You might meet Steve."
"I'm not afraid of him."
"And if you meet him he might kill ye."
"Mother, you're crazy."
She bent over and kissed the wrinkled old face, unbolted the door, and went out into the night. The full moon was rising. Houses where poverty dwelt and desolation reigned were gilded on the east by the softest and most beautiful of all lights that ever rest on the dwelling-places of men. Westerly the shadows were deep and forbidding. Cloaked and veiled, the woman moved alone along the deserted street. Near the foot of the hill she reached the lane that led to the foot-bridge across the stream above the mill. She turned in at the entrance and came presently to the bridge. She stood by the railing and looked out across the moonlit roofs of the factory buildings to the twinkling lights of the city that lay below her. Her eyes saw them, indeed, but to her mind they were invisible. It was on this bridge that she had once felt the touch and pressure of his supporting arm. And thereafter life had held no dearer hope for her than that she might once again experience such exultant joy. The very memory of it was sweeter than stolen waters on the lips of youth. After a few minutes she passed on, retracing, street after street, the path by which they had come that night. Midway of a certain block she paused. It was here that he had met her. But she did not turn back. She continued her journey until she reached Ruth Tracy's door. Not that she thought of entering here; she had no desire to do that. But it was here that he had found comfort and help in his arduous work, and so the very place was precious in her sight. It had never occurred to her to be jealous of Ruth Tracy. She had never conceived that the rector could stain his soul by falling in love with any other woman. But it came into her mind now, suddenly, that if her own desire for his love had been fulfilled, he would have proved himself equally as weak and wicked as though his affection had been centered on another than herself; some woman not his wife. Perhaps his God had saved him from debasement. Perhaps her passion for him, even though he should know of it, would excite in him only pity and disgust.
She did not tarry at the Tracy house, but turned back at once toward the center of the city. The warm, clear night had brought many people into the streets. It was not a careless nor a merry crowd. Sober and sullen looking men stood listlessly on corners, or strolled aimlessly along the pavement. Sad-eyed women, with shawls covering their heads, passed by. Children, thinly clad, with soiled faces and stockingless feet, gazed hungrily in at the shop windows. She knew many of these people by sight and name, but she did not stop to speak to any of them, and, heavily veiled as she was, they did not recognize her.
At the corner by the Silver Star saloon she met Stephen Lamar. Hoping that he would not recognize her she bowed her head and hurried on. But he was not to be deceived nor passed by. He thrust himself across her path.
"Wait!" he said; "I want a word with you."
"I can't wait," she replied. "I am in haste. I have an errand to do."
"You have no errand half so important as is my business with you."
"But I don't choose to talk with you."
She made as if to pass on, but again he blocked her path.
"I know you don't," he replied, "but I choose to talk with you, and I'm going to do it—now."
His voice rose at the end, and he moved nearer to her. It was plain that he was both angry and determined. It was plain too that he had been drinking. His utterance was hoarse and thick, and he slurred an occasional word, as half-drunken men do. The controversy attracted the attention of people passing by, and they stopped to look and listen. She dreaded a scene. It would doubtless be wiser to humor him.
"Very well," she said. "You may walk with me. I am going toward home."
"No," he replied, "I'll not walk with you. We'll go in here to the Silver Star, and sit down quietly, and have it out alone."
He took her arm, turned her about, and moved with her to the side door of the saloon. She did not demur. So long as he must talk with her it might as well be there as elsewhere. They entered, crossed the hall, and went into the private room, scene of many conferences between the labor leader and Bricky Hoover the workmen's champion.
An aproned waiter came in and stood at attention.
"Bring a glass of vermouth for this lady," said Lamar, "and the usual whiskey for me; and be quick about it."
He sat at the table and held his head in his hand, but he did not speak to her again until the drinks had been served.
Now that she saw him clearly in the light of the hanging electric lamp, she saw that he was changed. His face was gray, haggard and unshaven, and when his blood-shot eyes were open they rolled strangely. It was no wonder that his appearance gave evidence of the strain and suffering he had undergone. He had passed three terrible days and nights since that moment when he had seen this woman pillow the blood-stained head of the preacher on her breast, and had heard her declare her love for him. He had scarcely given a second thought to the fact that his position as a labor-leader was in jeopardy if it was not entirely lost; that the workingmen who had followed him blindly and confidently in times past had now turned upon him, denounced him and repudiated him. But that the woman with whom, as the whole city knew, he was desperately in love should publicly, shamelessly, in his very presence, declare her passionate fondness for this discredited priest, that was more than human nature could endure. It roused every bitter, hateful, malignant passion of which his heart was capable. He had sought her at her home and she had refused to see him. The refusal had made him desperate. So, without sleep, without food, torn with jealousy, consumed by rage, his brain fired by constant and deep potations, he had waited and watched his chance to settle with her. Now he had it.
She did not drink her wine, but he drained his glass of whiskey at a gulp. Then he got up and went over and turned the key in the lock of the door leading into the hall.
"Steve," she said, "unlock that door."
"I don't want to be interrupted," he explained. "This is a private interview."
"Unlock that door!"
He looked into her eyes to see how determined she might be, and it was evident that he saw. The corners of his mouth twitched in a curious smile, but he unlocked the door, and came back and sat down again at the table opposite her.
"Now," she asked, "what is it that you want to say to me?"
"I want to know why you treat me like a dog."
"Why should I treat you like a man?"
"Because I've done a man's work for you. I brought on this strike because you wanted it brought on. When you came and begged me to have it called off I moved heaven and earth to carry out your will, but it couldn't be done. It was too late. I told you it was too late. But I did my best. And what happened? A riot. A bloody, dirty riot. I blasted my own career. These workingmen are through with me. They are cursing me to-night for a coward and a traitor. They can go to hell cursing for all I care. But as for you, I want pay for what I've done for you. Do you hear? I want my pay!"
"What kind of pay?"
"I want you."
"You can't have me."
She straightened up in her chair and looked him resolutely in the eyes. She saw his lips working but no sound came from them. It was a full minute before he regained the use of his voice. Then he asked, calmly enough:
"Why can't I have you?"
"Because I don't love you. No other reason is necessary."
"I'll make you love me; if not to-night, then to-morrow; if not to-morrow, then next day. Oh, I can do it. You know I can do it."
He leaned across the table toward her and continued:
"We'll go away from here. This is only a pest-hole anyway. We'll go away. We'll live in luxury. Oh, we can do it. I have enough. These fools don't know it, but I haven't worked for 'em all these years just for the love o' the thing. There's been money in it."
He laughed a little, mechanically, as though at his own shrewdness, and again continued:
"So it's all right. You'll go. You've got to go. I can't live without you. I won't live without you."
Again his voice rose excitedly, his mouth twitched, his face took on a strange and evil expression. She began to fear him. She decided that she must, for her own safety, bring the interview to a close, and do it in so peremptory a manner as to silence him. Rising to her feet she said:
"It's only a waste of breath to discuss it, Steve. I cannot and shall not do what you wish. I don't want to see you again nor talk to you again. And I don't want you ever again to come near me. Now, I'm going home."
"Not yet. Just a moment. It happens, for instance, that you're in love with some one else?"
"That is none of your business."
"By God, it is my business! Oh, I know! I saw you. I heard you, when you thought his damned skull was cracked, and you whined over him as if he were a sick baby. What right have you got, anyway, to love this married priest?"
He was bellowing like a mad beast now; but she did not cower, nor tremble, nor show any sign of fear. In the face of danger it was her place to be resolute.
"A right," she answered him, "that requires no permission from you."
"You don't deny it, then?"
"I don't deny it."
"And you're not ashamed of it?"
"I'm not ashamed of it. I glory in it."
He had not risen with her, but he pulled himself, now, unsteadily to his feet.
"I've got only one answer to make to that," he said. "You fondle that black-coated, white-livered priest just once more, and I'll send the souls of both of you straight to hell."
"Steve, you coward, what do you mean?"
"Mean? I mean what I say. I'll have what belongs to me or I'll kill the man that robs me, and the woman that lets him. He had his kisses last Friday. I haven't had mine yet. But I'm going to have 'em—to-night."
He started toward her, staggering as he went. She backed away from him and tried to reach the door, but he blocked her path.
"Let me pass!" she cried. "Don't you dare to stop me! Don't you dare to lay a finger on me!"
He paid no heed to her command. He lurched forward, even as she spoke, and before she could escape him he had seized her and crushed her in his arms. She cried out in terror, and tried to free herself, but she was helpless. Half-drunken as he was, he seemed, nevertheless, to be possessed of maniacal strength. Men in the barroom adjoining heard the cry and the struggle, and burst into the room and released her from his grasp, and held her assailant while she hurried away. When he saw that she was gone he became suddenly calm, self-possessed, genial. He showed no resentment toward those who had caught and restrained him. He simulated good-nature as shrewdly and cleverly as do the criminal insane. His captors, now his companions, lent themselves readily to the deception. Now that the incident was closed it was of small moment to them. It was not a thing of rare occurrence, anyway, to have the sodden hangers-on at the Silver Star aroused by a woman's scream.
So Steve went out and mingled familiarly with the men at the bar; laughed at their questionable jokes about his gallantry, tossed dice with them, drank with them, and bade them good-night with as much ease and carelessness as though his heart were not a seething whirlpool of murderous thought.
As for Mary Bradley, she hastened through the streets toward her home, her face burning with anger and humiliation. If she had disliked and hated Stephen Lamar before, she loathed him now. Then, suddenly, she remembered his threat against her and the rector. What did he mean by it? Murder? She paused in her swift pace, overcome by fear. Not fear for herself. It mattered little what vengeance he might choose to inflict on her. But was the man whom she loved in danger? Would this desperate, drink-crazed monster seek to carry out his threat against the rector of Christ Church? Was it not her duty to warn the intended victim? For one moment she stood irresolute, then she turned in her tracks and hastened back toward the center of the city.