The Way of the Strong Part 47

Frank Burton, charged in Calford as Frank Smith, a name which, to the last, he claimed for his own, was soon enough to learn something of this extraordinary, intangible power. To his horror he found himself utterly powerless before an array of evidence which conveyed a cruelly complete story of his alleged malefactions, characterized as house-breaking--with violence. Some of the witnesses against him were men whom he had never seen or heard of, and strangely enough, Alexander Hendrie did not appear against him. The charge was made by Angus Moraine.

For his defence he had only his absurdly bare declaration of innocence, a declaration made from the pa.s.sionate depths of an innocent heart, but one which, in the eyes of the court, amounted to nothing more than the prerogative of the vilest criminal.

What use to fight? His counsel, the counsel appointed by the court, did his conscientious best, but he knew he was fighting a losing battle.

There was no hope from the outset, and he knew it. However, he had his fee to earn, and he earned it to the complete satisfaction of his conscience.

In view of his client's declaration of absolute innocence this worthy man endeavored to drag from him a plausible explanation of his presence at Deep Willows, with the money taken from the open safe in his possession. But on this point Frank remained obstinately silent. He had no explanation to offer. His mother's honor was more to him than his liberty--more to him than his life. So the mockery of justice went on to the end.

In the meantime Alexander Hendrie was no nearer the scene of persecution than Winnipeg, but the six hundred odd miles was bridged by telephone wires, and he was in constant touch with those whose service was at his command.

The completeness with which the last details of his plans were executed was at once a tribute to his consummate manipulation, and the merciless quality of his hatred. The cruelty he displayed must have been indefensible except for that one touch of human--nay, animal nature, which belongs to all life. He honestly believed in this man's guilty relations with his own wife, and his blindly furious jealousy thus inspired he saw no penalty, no vengeance too cruel or too lasting to deal out to the offender.

Alexander Hendrie had no scruples when dealing with his enemies. His was the merciless fighting nature of the brute. But he was also capable of prodigal generosities, lofty pa.s.sions, and great depths of human gentleness.

No feeling of pity stirred him as he sat in his office in Winnipeg, with the telephone close to his hand, on the afternoon of his victim's trial.

He was waiting for the news of the verdict which was to reach him over those hundreds of miles of silent wire. He was waiting patiently, but absorbed in his desire that word should reach him at the earliest moment. His desk was littered with business papers which required his attention, but they remained untouched. It was an acknowledgment that paramount in the man's mind is pa.s.sionate feeling for the woman he had married.

It was a strange metamorphosis in a man of his long-cultivated purpose.

All his life success had been his most pa.s.sionate desire. Now he almost regarded his millions with contempt. Nature had claimed him at last, and the lateness of her call had only increased the force and peremptoriness of her demands.

Even now, while he waited, his thoughts were in that up-town mansion where Monica was waiting for him. Nor were they the harsh thoughts of the wronged husband for the woman in whom his faith had been shattered.

He was thinking of her as the wonderful creature, so fair, so perfect in form, so delightful in the appeal of her whole personality, around whom shone the deepest, most glowing fires of his hopes. She was to him the fairest of all G.o.d's creatures; she was to him the most desirable thing in all the world.

The fierce tempest which had so bitterly raged in his soul at the first discovery of her frailty had abated, it had almost worn itself out. Now he had taken the wreckage and deliberately set it behind him, and once more the flame of his pa.s.sion had leaped up--fanned by the breath of the strong life which was his.

Another might have cast the woman out of his life; another of lesser caliber. This man might have turned and rent her, as he had turned and rent the man who was her secret lover. But such was not Alexander Hendrie. His pa.s.sions were part of him, uncontrolled by any lukewarm considerations of right and wrong. To love, with him, was to hurl aside all caution, all deliberation, and yield himself up to it, body and soul. To have cast Monica out of his life must have been to tear the heart from the depths of his bosom.

The time crept on, and still the telephone remained silent. But the waiting man's patience seemed inexhaustible. His was the patience of certainty. So he smoked on in his leisurely fas.h.i.+on, dreaming his dreams in the delicate spirals of fragrant smoke which rose upon the still air of the room to the clouded ceiling above.

He had no thought for the innocent young life he was crus.h.i.+ng with the power of his wealth so many miles away. He cared not one jot for the ethics of his merciless actions. His thwarted love for his erring wife filled all his dreams to the exclusion of every other consideration.

A secretary entered and silently left some papers upon his desk. He retired voicelessly to wonder what fresh manipulation in the wheat world his employer was contemplating.

A junior entered with several telegrams. They, too, were silently deposited, and he vanished again to some distant corners of the offices.

Still Hendrie dreamed on, and still the telephone had no word to impart. His cigar was burning low. The aroma of its leaf was less delicate. Perhaps it was the latter that broke in on his dreaming, perhaps it was something else. He stirred at last, and dropped the lighted stump into a cuspidor, and thrust his chair back.

At that moment the bur-r-r of the telephone's dummy bell broke the silence. Without haste, without a sign of emotion he drew his chair forward again, and leisurely placed the receiver to his ear.

"Yes--Who's that?--oh!--Calford." Hendrie waited a moment, the fingers of his right hand drumming idly on his desk. Presently he went on: "Yes, yes--you are Calford. Who is it speaking?--Eh?--That you, Angus?

d.a.m.n these long-distance 'phones, they're so indistinct!--Yes. This is Hendrie speaking. Well?--Oh. Finished, is it?--Yes. And?--oh--splendid.

Five years--Good--Five years penitentiary. Excellent. Thanks. Good-bye."

He replaced the receiver and quietly began to deal with the acc.u.mulation of work which had lain so long untouched upon his desk.

PART III

CHAPTER I

THE MARCH OF TIME

In the rush of new life in Winnipeg, Monica was left with little enough time for anything but those duties which, in her husband's interests, were demanded of her. A fresh vista of life's panorama had opened out before her, making it necessary to obtain a definite readjustment of focus.

She quickly found herself tossed about amid the rapids of the social stream, and, however little the buffeting of its wayward currents appealed to her, hers was a nature not likely to shrink before it. It was her duty, as the wife of one of the richest men in the country, to make herself one of the pivots about which revolved a narrow, exclusive social circle, and toward that end she strove with her greatest might.

But the life was certainly not of her choosing. For her its glamor had no appeals. She regarded it as a splendid show, built upon the sands of insincerity, hypocrisy, self-indulgence, vulgarity, all of which were far enough removed from her true nature.

However, she was not without her compensation. She felt she was an important spoke in the wheel of fortune her husband was spinning, and, for his sake, she was glad to endure the slavery.

So, in her great mansion, in the most exclusive portion of the city, she dispensed lavish and tasteful hospitality; and, in turn, took part in all the functions that went to make up the program of the set in which she found herself something more than an ordinary star. Within three months her popularity was achieved, and in six she was voted the most brilliant hostess in the city.

She spared herself not at all. All her tact, her discretion, her mentality were exerted in the service of the man she loved, who, watching her uncomplaining efforts, saw that they were good. Whatever her feelings and longings for the peace of the golden plains of Deep Willows, her reward lay in the quiet acknowledgment, the smiling approval and systematic devotion of the man whose slave she was only too willing to be.

It would all end some day, she knew. Some day, her husband's work completed, she would find herself at his side, shoulder to shoulder, hand clasped in hand, supported always by his strong affection, completing their little journey through life in the proud knowledge that the work they had set themselves was well and truly done.

Hendrie's satisfaction with her was very apparent. Whatever his secret thoughts and feelings, whatever his bitterness of memory, no sign of these was permitted to escape him. She moved through his life an idol.

She was something in the nature of a religion which reduced him to the verge of fanaticism.

Thus Monica was absorbed during her first six months of Winnipeg. But in her moments of respite her thoughts more than frequently drifted in the direction of young Frank, and the girl he was to make his wife.

At first she recalled with satisfaction the fact that she had been able to help him, and she found herself building many castles for his occupation. Then, as the time slipped by, she began to wonder at his silence. There was no sense of alarm. She just wondered, and went on with her pictures of his future. She thought of the new home she had helped him select, and saw him in its midst, preparing it for the reception of the young wife he was so soon to take to his bosom.

Frank married! It seemed so strange. The thought carried her happily back to the picture of a blue-eyed, crumpled-faced baby as it had looked up from its cot with that meaningless stare, so helpless, yet so ravis.h.i.+ng to the mother instinct. It seemed absurd to think of Frank married. And yet----

Why had he not written? She was puzzled.

At first her puzzlement was merely pa.s.sing, as other important matters drove it from her thoughts. But, as the days pa.s.sed without any word, it recurred with greater and greater frequency. Gradually a subtle worry set in, a worry both undermining and hara.s.sing. Then she seriously began to consider the puzzle of it, and, in a moment, genuine alarm took hold of her.

She reviewed the night of her husband's sudden return to Deep Willows.

She remembered how, immediately on leaving Angus's office, she had gone straight to her library. It was empty. The safe was locked; all was in order. Even the window was closed. All this told her what she wanted to know. Frank had taken his departure safely. The final touch of the window remaining unfastened, pointed the fact that he had closed it after him.

Yes, he was safely away. Of that there was no doubt in her mind. Then, why this silence? Could an accident have occurred? Could he be ill? It did not seem likely. In either case he would have let her know. Could he be----? No, she thrust the thought of his death aside as too horrible to contemplate.

Then she thought of the money. It was a large sum. Had he been robbed?

It was a possibility, but one that did not carry conviction. It was not likely, she told herself. Knowing him as she did it seemed impossible.

No one knew of his possession, and he was not likely to proclaim it. He was quite cautious, and, besides, he knew the people he was likely to find himself among.

At length she wrote to him. This was about three months after her arrival in Winnipeg. She wrote him at the farm where he had worked, feeling that the letter would be forwarded on if he had left the place.

Days pa.s.sed; two weeks. There was no reply to her letter, and her fears increased. A month later she wrote again, this time addressing the letter to his new farm. The result was the same. His silence remained unbroken.