Felix O'Day Part 34

"Bring her outside where I can talk to her," said Father Cruse, pointing to a bench in the corridor.

She followed the guard mechanically, as a whipped spaniel follows its master, her steps dragging, her body trembling, her head bowed as if awaiting some new humiliation. She had no strength to resist. Something in the priest's quiet, in the way he trod beside her, seemed to have rea.s.sured her, for as she sank on the bench beside him, she leaned over, laid one hand on his sleeve, and asked feebly: "Are they going to let me go?"

"That I cannot say, my good woman; I can only hope so." He looked toward the guard. "Better leave us for a while, Bunky." The turnkey touched his cap and mounted the narrow iron steps to the room above.

Father Cruse waited until the footsteps had ceased to echo in the corridor, and then turned to Lady Barbara. "And now tell me something about yourself; have you no friends you can send for? I will see they get your message. The captain told me you were English. Is this true?"

She had withdrawn her hand and now sat with averted face, the faint flicker of hope his presence had enkindled extinguished by his evasive answer. Only when he repeated the question did she reply, and then in a mere whisper, without lifting her head: "Yes, I am English."

"And your people, are they where you can reach them?"

She did not answer; there was nothing to be gained by yielding to his curiosity. Nor did she intend to reply to any more of his questions. He was only one of those kind priests who looked after the poor and whose sympathy, however well meant, would be of little value. If she told him how cruel had been the wrong done her, and how unjust had been her arrest, it would make no difference; he could not help her.

"There must be somebody," he urged. He had read her indecision in the nervous play of her fingers, as he had read many another human emotion in his time. "There must be somebody," he repeated.

"There is only Martha," she answered at last, yielding to his influence.

"She was my nurse when I was a child. She is as poor as I am. She will come to me if you will send word to her. They would not listen to me at Rosenthal's when I begged them to bring her to the store." She lifted her head and stared wildly about her. "Oh, the injustice of it all--and the awful horror of this place! How can men do such things? I told them the truth, Father, I told them the truth. I never stole it. How could I ever steal anything? How dared he speak to me as he did?"

She turned, straining her whole body as if in mortal anguish; then, with her shoulder against the hard, whitewashed wall, she broke at last into sobs.

The priest sat still, waiting and watching, as a surgeon does a patient slowly emerging from delirium.

"Men are seldom reasonable, my good woman, when they lose their property, and they often do things which they regret afterward. Of what were you accused?"

His tone rea.s.sured her, and, for the first time, she looked directly at him. "Of stealing a mantilla which I had taken to my rooms to repair."

"Whose was it?"

"Rosenthal's, for whom I worked."

"The large store near by here, on Third Avenue?"

"Yes."

Father Cruse lapsed once more into silence, absorbed in a study of certain salient points of her person--her way of sitting and of folding her hands, her thin, delicately modelled frame, the pallor of her oval face, with its mobile mouth, the singular whiteness of her teeth, and the blue of her eyes, shaded by the cheap, black-straw hat which hid her forehead. Then he glanced at her feet, one of which protruded from her coa.r.s.e skirt--no larger than a child's.

When he spoke again, it was in a positive way, as if his inspection had caused him to adopt a definite course which he would now follow. "This old nurse of yours, this woman you called Martha, does she know of any one who could get bail for you? You can only stay here for a few hours, and then they will take you to the Tombs, unless some one can go bail.

I know the Rosenthals, and they would, I think, listen to any reasonable proposition."

"Would they let me go home, then?"

"Yes, until your trial came off."

She shuddered, hugging herself the closer. Her mind had not gone that far. It was the present horror that had confronted her, not a trial in court.

"Martha has a brother," she said at last, "who has a business of some kind, and who might help. If you will bring her to me, she can find him."

"You don't remember what his business is?" he continued.

"I think it is something to do with fitting out s.h.i.+ps. He was once a mate on one of my father's vessels and--"

She stopped abruptly, frightened now at her own indiscretion. She had been wrong in wanting to send for Stephen, even in referring to him.

Whatever befell her, she was determined that her people at home should not suffer further on her account.

Father Cruse had caught the look, and his heart gave a bound, though no gesture betrayed him. "You have not told me your name," he said simply--as if it were a matter of routine in cases like hers.

She glanced at him quickly. "Does it make any difference?"

"It might. I do not believe you are a criminal, but if I am to help you as I want to do, I must know the truth."

She thought for a moment. Here was something she could not escape. The a.s.sumed name had so far s.h.i.+elded her. She would brave it out as she had done before.

"They call me Mrs. Stanton."

"Is that your true name?"

The Carnavons were imperious, unforgiving, and sometimes brutal. Many of them had been roues, gamblers, and spendthrifts, but none of them had ever been a liar.

"No!" she answered firmly.

Father Cruse settled back in his seat. The ring of sincerity in the woman's "No" had removed his last doubt. "You do very wrong, my good woman, not to tell me the whole truth," he remarked, with some emphasis. "I am a priest, as you see, and attached to the Church of St.

Barnabas--not far from here. I visit this station-house almost every morning, seeing what I can do to help people just like yourself. I will go to Rosenthal, and then I will find your old nurse, and I will try to have your case delayed until your nurse can get hold of her brother. But that is really all I can do until I have your entire confidence. I am convinced that you are a woman who has been well brought up, and that this is your first experience in a place of this kind. I hope it will be the last; I hope, too, that the charge made against you will be proved false. But does not all this make you realize that you should be frank with me?"

She drew herself up with a certain dignity infinitely pathetic, yet in which, like the flavor of some old wine left in a drained gla.s.s, there lingered the aroma of her family traditions. "I am very grateful, sir, to you. I know you only want to be kind, but please do not ask me to tell you anything more. It would only make other people unhappy. There is no one but myself to blame for my poverty, and for all I have gone through. What is to become of me I do not know, but I cannot make my people suffer any more. Do not ask me."

"It might end their suffering," he replied quickly. "I have a case in point now where a man has been searching New York for months, hoping to get news of his wife, who left him nearly a year ago. He comes in to see me every few nights and we often tramp the streets together. My work takes me into places she would be apt to frequent, so he comes with me. He and I were up last night until quite late. He has nothing in his heart but pity for that poor woman, who he fears has been left stranded by the man she trusted. So far he has heard nothing of her. I left him hardly an hour ago. Now, there, you see, is a case where just a word of frankness and truth might have ended all their sufferings. I told Mr.

O'Day this morning, when I left him, that--"

She had grown paler and paler during the long recital, her wide-open eyes staring into his, her bosom heaving with suppressed excitement, until at the mention of Felix's name, she staggered to her feet, and cried: "You know Felix O'Day?"

"Yes, thank G.o.d, I do, and you are his wife, Lady Barbara O'Day, Lord Carnavon's daughter."

She cowered like a trapped animal, uncertain which way to spring. In her agony she shrank against the wall, her arms outstretched. How did this man know all the secrets of her life? Then there arose a calming thought. He was a priest--a man who listened and did not betray.

Perhaps, after all, he could help her. He wanted the truth. He should have it.

"Yes," she answered, her voice sinking. "I am Lord Carnavon's daughter."

"And Felix O'Day's wife?"

"And Felix O'Day's wife," came the echo, and, with the last word, her last vestige of strength seemed to leave her.

The priest rose to his full height. "I was sure of it when I first saw you," he said, a note of triumph in his voice. "And now, one last question. Are you guilty of this theft?"

"GUILTY! I guilty! How could I be?" The denial came with a lift of the head, her eyes kindling, her bosom heaving.

"I believe you. There is not a moment to be lost." The priest and father confessor were gone now; it was the man of affairs who was speaking. "I will see Rosenthal at once, and then send for your nurse. Give me her address."

When he had written it, he stepped to the foot of the stairs, and called to one of the guards. Then he slipped his hand under his ca.s.sock, drew out his watch, noted the hour, and in a firm voice--one intended to be obeyed--said: