A Man of Two Countries Part 32

"What are you saying?" came from Eva, sharply. She went from fear to fury. "You've been listening to some malicious gossip," she screamed; "and now you come home to frighten me into spasms!" The rage covered her fright. "There's not a word of truth in it!"

"Tell me the truth!" The G.o.d on high could not have been more mandatory.

The woman dared not lie again. Her anger, rather than her self-respect, brought the truth like a charge of dynamite from the muddy waters of her soul.

"Well, then, it _is_ the truth! I was engaged to Philip Danvers at Fort Macleod. I threw him over afterwards, because he had no money and you had. Now are you satisfied?" The cruel desire to hurt gave this added thrust. "No? Then let me tell you that I have never loved you, never!

I've always loved Philip Danvers--always--always--always!" Her voice rose in crescendo.

At last it was spoken. Eva stood at bay, her jewels glittering on bare shoulders and arms as balefully as her eyes flashed hate.

"G.o.d!" Latimer reeled, and put his hand on his heart, but recovered himself. "And Philip"--the words came in a chill whisper--"did he love--you?"

"You'd better ask him!" Eva was wholly beside herself, in the reaction of a weak woman's fear.

"Phil--my friend!" he choked, started and winced, putting his hand again over his heart; then fell heavily.

The woman screamed in fright and knelt beside him.

"Arthur, he never cared--after I dismissed him. He despised me. He despises me now--more than you ever can. Oh, G.o.d in heaven! What have I done?" Remorse followed swiftly on her anger.

Latimer was conscious as his wife raised his head. He had understood her confession, and although he could not speak he motioned for her to seek a.s.sistance; but the effort was too much, and he again sank back, moaning.

Eva laid him gently down, and flew to the door. As she opened it she fell against Danvers, coming from Winifred's side.

"You've killed him, at last!" Philip flayed her with word and look as she sped for other help; but he forgot her as he knelt and raised Latimer's head to his knee. He would have carried him to a couch, but Arthur motioned that he could not endure that pain. The look of trust that greeted Danvers was returned with one of love and fidelity.

With a sigh of utter content Latimer, by a supreme effort, raised his hands to Philip's shoulders.

"Arthur!" Danvers groaned, holding him close as he looked into the glazing eyes.

"Did I doubt you?" whispered the judge. "Forgive me--my dear--friend--Phil!"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Chapter XIV

The Keystone

When Senator Blair learned of Judge Latimer's death he thought himself its prime cause and suffered as only a man can who is not wholly heartless. How poorly he had rewarded the friendship which had relieved him in his need at Fort Macleod! All his pa.s.sion for Mrs. Latimer had died in that fearful moment when he looked on the curiously pa.s.sive husband in the doorway; remorse bit like acid into the depths of his heart. The meaning glances and the interrupted conversations that met him everywhere the morning after the judge's death drove him to solitude. He even avoided his sister, Danvers and the doctor; but most of all he shunned the Honorable Mr. Moore. He had had enough of temptation! He would not allow himself again to be approached!

His belief that in the sight of G.o.d he was a murderer made Blair collapse during the day. He was confined to his room; and it was then that he told the Fort Benton physician all that was haunting him, hour by hour. Blair did not attempt to palliate his sin, and although the doctor had known much and suspected more, he could hardly find it in his heart to forgive either Winifred's brother or the woman who had led him on. The only ray of mercy he felt was that matters were not so bad as he had feared between these old friends of his; but in his bitterness at Arthur's death, he would not give Blair the consolation of knowing that it was only a question of a short time, at best, when the judge's weak heart must have failed. Let him suffer! Arthur had! For the first time the lenient doctor did not want to relieve pain. Neither he nor Blair knew of what had taken place between Eva and her husband after Charlie had left their rooms.

The doctor's bitterness, however, was as nothing to the inward storm which shook Danvers when Eva, in the height of her hysterical remorse and fear of exposure, told him the sorry tale of her first flutterings around the arc-light of Mr. Burroughs' ambition; of her consent to aid Mr. Moore in his efforts to influence uncertain legislators to vote for Burroughs, and that gentleman's acceptance thereof; of the clandestine meetings in her apartments with the Honorable William, and of the more open but far less harmless friendship with Senator Blair, pursued until she was singed with the flame of her own kindling and nearly consumed by its fires. And lastly, her husband's reproaches; her miserable evasions and the hurt that she had deliberately given him. When she told her silent listener of that last half hour Danvers held himself forcibly in his fear of doing the woman bodily harm. That she should have done this cruel thing! Her indiscretions had been bad enough, but they had been prompted by an ambition second only to Mr. Burroughs'. But to turn the knife wantonly in Arthur's heart of gold!... How nearly his friend had gone from him, believing that he was false!... And now he was dead!...

dead!

Philip's agony broke its restraint, and Mrs. Latimer never forgot his scathing denunciation.

"You killed Arthur," he concluded, white to the lips, "as surely as if you used a stiletto! So that was what Arthur meant." For a few moments Danvers could not speak as the recollection of that look of love and trust came surging back. "No one must ever know the truth," he went on, huskily. "Let it be buried with poor Arthur. There will be more or less gossip; but we will stand by you for the judge's sake--and for Miss Blair's as well. She, of all persons, must know nothing of what you have told me."

Mrs. Latimer's sobs only roused his wrath at all the misery she had wrought. He knew her tears were for herself, not for her husband. As he turned to leave the room she caught at his hand.

"I did not mean----" she began in weak defense. "You are too hard," she protested, feeling him recoil.

"Hard!" Philip laughed harshly in his pain. "You did not expect me to condole with you on the outcome of your folly? All that I can say is, may G.o.d forgive you!" and he was gone.

So resolutely did Latimer's friends ignore all previous conditions that the ready tongue of rumor was silenced immediately. Surely if Senator Danvers and the doctor from Fort Benton, as well as Miss Blair, were ever at Mrs. Latimer's side, there could have been no breath of wrong in her sudden cultivation of Senator Blair.

Only three persons--Danvers, the doctor and Moore--knew of the hidden octopus of Burroughs' insatiable vindictiveness, whose tentacles, first fastening on Eva, had finally crushed Latimer. Moore knew, if the others did not, that Blair was doomed if he once again came within its radius.

Then for the others! But he made no immediate move, and decorously gave regard to the proprieties, both for himself and as a subst.i.tute for Mr.

Burroughs. His chief was almost as hysterical as Eva herself over the judge's untimely death, for he thought his prospects endangered thereby.

His panic made him hasten to leave Helena for a few days.

Moore had tried to secure some other man to change to Burroughs, someone who did not hold himself as high as Blair had done on the night of the club dinner; but he had finally been obliged to report his non-success.

He suggested to Burroughs that he approach Senator Blair once more, offering twenty thousand dollars. He felt sure that Charlie would take less--now!

Just before Burroughs ordered a special train to hurry him away from the prevailing gloom, the two conspirators had their final word on the subject of Senator Blair.

"We've got to get this thing over," said Burroughs, savagely. "There's too much talk. We'll be hung as high as Haman or sent to the pen for twenty years if we don't get a move on. And there are but six days more of the session. Give Charlie Blair his price--and be d.a.m.ned to him!"

"That's all right, Bob," retorted Moore, angrily. "I'll give him the money if you say so. But I don't think the whole business of being a United States senator is worth thirty thousand dollars. And if I do get it to him (and the Lord knows how I can)--what then? He is sick in bed, and who can tell when he can get to the capitol?"

"_Get_? We'll _take_ him, alive or dying! Thirty thousand! It's my money, isn't it? You are nothing out of pocket. Get it to him while the rest of his folks are at the--the funeral!" The word chilled them both.

Were they responsible for this death? "Get it to him! He'll keep it!

Montana'll be too hot for him from now on, let me tell you! He'll take the money, vote for me, and skip--all in the same day. There's been too much talk to be agreeable to a man who's never before been mixed up with a woman--except that squaw!" Burroughs walked nervously back and forth, then: "You wire me when you've given the money to him and I'll come back. It'll all be clear sailing then."

This delay! As Burroughs reviewed the results of his schemes he felt that he had been hardly used. Not so had fortune treated him in the past. Most of all he bewailed the inclusion of a woman in the necessary chicanery of diverting votes. Catch him again being over-persuaded by Bill Moore's sophistry!

In truth Senator Blair had begun to think that he should have to take Burroughs' money. How could he ever face his sister, his world again?

He made sure that he was not only called a murderer, but that he was one. He might as well be other things. No appellation could be so terrible as that first. He would take the thirty thousand dollars if it should be forthcoming, vote and take the first train west the same day.

In the Orient he could lose his ident.i.ty as a bribe-taker and a murderer. The torture never relaxed during the days preceding the judge's funeral.

Late on the afternoon of the day of the burial of the man whom he had so nearly wronged the senator's attention was drawn to a low rustle near the door opening from his room to the hall outside. Something white and long was being cautiously pushed under the door. Charlie was alone, and he weakly pulled himself to that mysterious package. The soft _feel_ of it thrilled him like brandy. Burroughs had come to his terms! He could get away! But he must previously acknowledge before all men that he had been bought at a price. The odium.... A flirt of the devil's tail brought a new thought to his fevered brain--fevered by remorse and the effects of long-continued and unwonted alcoholic stimulants. Suppose that he did not vote? Suppose that he kept this fortune (he counted it over to a.s.sure himself of its reality), pleading his sickness until the last day of the session, and go ... go.... The thought swung him to uneasy sleep.

While he slept the doctor and the senator from Chouteau came into the room as they returned from the cemetery. Blair had been too much occupied in his dizzy thought to remember to hide his ill-gotten money, and on the white counterpane lay those proofs of Burroughs' infamy.

"Thirty thousand dollars!" gasped the doctor, in undertones, counting the large bills and sheafing them in one trembling hand. "What shall we do?"

"Nothing," responded Danvers, very quietly. "When Charlie wakes I will talk with him. I do not believe that he will keep that money or vote for Burroughs."

"How fortunate that Winifred did not come in with us!" said the older man. "You stay here, Phil, and I will keep her away for an hour. He will not sleep long. He is too feverish." Danvers nodded acquiescence, and the physician tiptoed away.

Before many minutes the sick man awoke. Danvers sat near the bed, reading the evening paper. Blair looked around with the impersonal eyes of the sick, then saw the pile of bank notes on the stand beside his bed. He started and gave a furtive look at Philip. Their eyes met squarely.

"You will send that money back, Charlie." The words were not so much query as certainty. Blair, shamed, was long in replying.