The Walking Delegate Part 46

The door opened. "Come in, Brother Keating," she said, not quite able to hide her surprise at this second visit in one evening.

A coal oil lamp on the kitchen table revealed the utter barrenness and the utter cleanness--so far as unmonied effort could make clean those scaling walls and that foot-hollowed floor--which he had seen on his first visit five months before. He was hardly within the door when her quick eyes caught the strain in his manner. One thin hand seized his arm excitedly. "What is it, brother? Have you heard from Nels?"

"Ye-es," Tom admitted hesitatingly. He had not planned to begin the story so.

"And he's alive? Quick! He's alive?"

"Yes."

She sank into a chair, clasped both hands over her heart, and turned her eyes upward. "Praise the Lord! I thank Thee, Lord! I knew Thou wouldst keep him."

Immediately her wide, burning eyes were back on Tom. "Where is he?"

"He's been very wicked," said Tom, shaking his head sadly, and lowering himself into the only other chair. "So wicked he's afraid you can never forgive him. And I don't see how you can. He's afraid to come home."

"G.o.d forgives everything to the penitent, an' I try to follow after G.o.d," she said, trembling. A sickening fear was on her face. "Tell me, brother! What's he done? Don't try to spare me! G.o.d will help me to bear it. Not--not--murder?"

"No. He's fallen in another way," Tom returned, with the sad shake of his head again. "Shall I tell you all?"

"All, brother! An' quickly!" She leaned toward him, hands gripped in the lap of her calico wrapper, with such a staring, fearing attention as seemed to stand out from her gray face and be of itself a separate presence.

"I'll have to tell you some things you know already, and know better than I do," Tom said, watching to see how his words worked upon her.

"After Petersen got in the union he held a job for two weeks. Then Foley knocked him out, and then came the strike. It's been eleven weeks since he earned a cent at his trade. The money he'd made in the two weeks he worked soon gave out. He tried to find work and couldn't. Days pa.s.sed, and weeks. They had little to eat at home. I guess they had a pretty hard time of it. He----"

"We did, brother!"

"He saw his wife and kid falling off--getting weaker and weaker," Tom went on, not heeding the interruption. "He got desperate; he couldn't see 'em starve. Now the devil always has temptation ready for a desperate man. About four weeks ago when his wife was so weak she could hardly move, and there wasn't a bite in the house, the devil tempted Petersen. He happened to meet a man who had been his partner in his old wicked days, his manager when he was a prize fighter. The manager said it was too bad Petersen had left the ring; he was arranging a heavy-weight bout to come off before a swell athletic club in Philadelphia, a nice purse for the loser and a big fat one for the winner. They walked along the street together for awhile, and all the time the devil was tempting Petersen, saying to him: 'Go in and fight--this once. It's right for a man to do anything rather than let his wife and kid starve.' But Petersen held out, getting weaker all the time, though. Then the devil said to him: 'He's a pretty poor sort of a man that loves his promise not to fight more than he loves his wife and kid.' Petersen fell. He decided to commit the sin."

Tom paused an instant, then added in a hard voice: "But because a man loves his wife so much he's willing to do anything for her, that don't excuse the sin, does it?"

"Go on!" she entreated, leaning yet further toward him.

"Well, he said to the manager he'd fight. They settled it, and the man advanced some money. Petersen went into training. But he was afraid to tell us what an awful thing he was doing,--doing because he didn't want his wife to starve,--and so he told us he was working at the docks. So it was for three weeks, and his wife and kid had things to eat. The fight came off last Wednesday night----"

"And who won? Who?"

"Well--Petersen."

"Yes! Of course!" she cried, exultation for the moment possessing her face. "He is a terrible fighter! He----"

She broke off and bowed her head with sudden shame; when it came up the next instant she wore again the tense look that seemed the focus of her being.

Tom had gone right on. "It was a hard fight. He was up against a fast hard hitter. But he fought better than he ever did before. I suppose he was thinking of his wife and kid. He won, and got the big purse. But after the fight was over, he didn't dare come home. His face was so bruised his wife would have known he'd been fighting,--and he knew it would break her heart for her to know he'd been at it again. And so he thought he'd stay away till his face got well. She needn't ever have the pain then of knowing how he'd sinned. He never even thought how worried she'd be at not hearing from him. So he stayed away till his face got well, almost--till to-night. Then he came back, and slipped up to his door. He wanted to come in, but he was still afraid. He listened at the door. His wife was praying for him, and one thing he heard was, she asked G.o.d to keep him wherever he was from wrong-doing. He knew then he'd have to tell her all about it, and he knew how terrible his sin would seem to her. He knew she could never forgive him. So he slipped down the stairs, and went away. Of course he was right about what his wife would think," Tom drove himself on with implacable voice. "I didn't come here to plead for him. I don't blame you. It was a terrible sin, a sin----"

She rose tremblingly from her chair, and raised a thin authoritative hand. "Stop right there, brother!" she cried, her voice sob-broken. "It wasn't a sin. It--it was glorious!"

Tom sprang toward the door. "Petersen!" he shouted. He flung it open, and the next instant dragged Petersen, shrinking and eager, fearful, shamefaced, and yet glowing, into the room.

"Oh, Nels!" She rushed into his arms, and their mighty length tightened about the frail body. "It--was--glorious--Nels! It----"

But Tom heard no more. He closed the door and groped down the s.h.i.+vering stairway.

Chapter XXVII

THE THOUSANDTH CHANCE

Mr. Driscoll was the chairman of the building committee of a little independent church whose members.h.i.+p was inclined to regard him somewhat dubiously, notwithstanding the open liking of the pastor. The church was planning a new home, and of late the committee had been holding frequent meetings. In the afternoon of this same Monday there had been a session of the committee; and on leaving the pastor's study Mr. Driscoll had hurried to his office, but Ruth, whom he had pressed into service as the committee's secretary, had stopped to perform a number of errands. When she reached the office she walked through the open hall door--the weather was warm, so it had been wide all day--over the noiseless rug to her desk, and began to remove her hat. Voices came to her from Mr.

Driscoll's room, Mr. Driscoll's voice and Mr. Berman's; but their first few sentences, on business matters, pa.s.sed her ears unheeded, like the thousand noises of the street. But presently, after a little pause, Mr.

Berman remarked upon a new topic: "Well, it's the same as settled that the strike will be over in two days."

Almost unconsciously Ruth's ears began to take in the words, though she continued tearing the sheets of stamps, one of her purchases, into strips, preparatory to putting them away.

"Another case in which right prevails," said Mr. Driscoll, a touch of sarcasm in his voice.

"Why, yes. We are altogether in the right."

"And so we win." Silence. Then, abruptly, and with more sarcasm: "But how much are we paying Foley?"

Ruth started, as when amid the street's thousand noises one's own name is called out. She gazed intently at the door, which was slightly ajar.

Silence. "What? You know that?"

"Why do you suppose I left the committee?"

"I believed what you said, that you were tired of it."

"Um! So they never told you. Since you're a member of the committee I'm breaking no pledge in telling you where I stand. I left when they proposed buying Foley----"

Mr. Berman made a hus.h.i.+ng sound.

"n.o.body'll hear. Miss Arnold's out. Besides, I wouldn't mind much if somebody did hear, and give the whole scheme away. How you men can stand for it is more than I know."

"Oh, it's all right," Mr. Berman returned easily.

The talk went on, but Ruth listened for no more. She hastily pinned on her hat, pa.s.sed quietly into the hall, and caught a descending elevator.

After a walk about the block she came back to the office and moved around with all the legitimate noise she could make. Mr. Driscoll's door softly closed.

In a few minutes Mr. Berman came out and, door k.n.o.b in hand, regarded her a moment as she sat at her desk making a pretense of being at work.

Then he crossed the room with a rare masculine grace and bent above her.

"Miss Arnold," he said.

Ruth rarely took dictation from Mr. Berman, but she now reached for her note-book in instinctive defense against conversation. "Some work for me?" She did not look up.

"Something for you to make a note of, but no work," he returned in his low, well-modulated voice that had seemed to her the very vocalization of gentlemanliness. "I remember the promise you made me give--during business hours, only business. But I have been looking for a chance all day to break it. I want to remind you again that the six months are up to-morrow night."