David Lockwin--The People's Idol Part 37

David Lockwin reads the letter of Dr. Tarpion with horror.

"Heavens and earth!" he cries, and pulls at his hair, rubs his eyes and stamps on the floor. "Heavens and earth!" This, an edifice built with the patience and cunning of a lover, must fall to nothing.

He is as dead to Esther as on the day the yawl danced on the shining sands of Georgian Bay.

He is terrified to know his loss. To believe that he was in daily communication with Esther, and that she must ache to know him, has sustained David Lockwin in his penance.

The crime he committed, he feels, has been atoned in this year of lover's agony. That agony was necessary--in order that Esther might be gradually prepared for the revelation.

She has not been prepared. The labor must begin again, and on new lines.

The receiver of the Coal and Oil Trust Company's Inst.i.tution this day declares a dividend of 10 per cent. The lover may draw over $7,000--a magnificent estate. It seems greater to him than the wealth of the Indies or the Peruvians seemed to the early navigators.

He sells his belongings to a second-hand dealer. He hastens his departure. The folks at Walker street can get another book-keeper.

Robert Chalmers is going to San Francisco. Easy to lie now after the practice of nearly two years.

But to think that Esther has not read a word of all he has written!

David Lockwin hisses the name of Dr. Tarpion. Many is the time they have tented together. But how did the doctor know? He had only a type-written anonymous communication.

Nevertheless this lover curses the administrator as the cause of the fiasco.

"But for him my path would be easy."

David Lockwin thinks of Tarpion's threat about a claimant. It grows clear to him that there is a Chicagoan alive who can view his own cenotaph, his own memorial hospital, his own home--who can proclaim himself to be the husband, and yet there will be men like Tarpion who will deny all.

Lockwin's face annoys him. "Why was I such a fool to go without the proper treatment in that outlandish region! Why was I so anxious to be disguised?"

Oh, it is all on account of the letters. That busybody of an administrator and censor has undone all! Better he had never been born. Why should a doctor neglect his patients to separate husband and wife? The wise way will be to march to the house at Chicago and take possession.

"That I will do!" the man at last declares. He is maddened. He cares nothing for reputation. He cannot bear the thought that Dr. Tarpion, an old friend, should day by day burn the epistles that evinced so much scholarship, charity and sympathy. The lover is not poor. No man with $7,000 in his pocket is poor. He is not driven back to Esther by want, as it was before. That stings the man to recall it. No, he has means.

But if he were poor, he would work for the dear lady who loved him so secretly. He gloats over the letter of Esther. It is worn in pieces now, like so many cards. The train from New York enters the city of Chicago.

"That is the new David Lockwin Hospital," says a pa.s.senger.

"Why did I blunder in on this road?" the lover asks. He had not thought his situation so terrible as it seemed just now.

"I am doubtless the sorriest knave that ever lived here," he mourns, but it only increases his determination to go directly to Esther.

"I guess Dr. Tarpion will not throw _me_ in the waste-basket! Seven thousand dollars!"

David Lockwin feels as rich as Corkey.

It is a mad thing he is doing, this pulling of the door-bell at the old home. The balcony is overhead. Never mind little Davy! We can live without him, but we cannot live without Esther. Ah that Tarpion! that base Tarpion! Probably he intends to marry her! It is none too soon to pull this bell. Now David Lockwin will enter, never to be driven forth. He will enter among his books. Never mind his books. It is she, SHE, SHE! Till death part them SHE is his. It is the seven thousand dollars that gives him this lion-like courage. Esther needs him. He has come.

The door opens. A pleasant-faced lady appears.

"Call Mrs. Lockwin, please."

"Mrs. Lockwin? Oh, yes. I believe she did live here. I do not know where she lives now, but it is on Prairie avenue. After her father died she went home to live."

Is Judge Wandrell dead? The caller is adding together the mills, pineries, elevators, hotels, steamers, steel mills, quarries and railroads that Judge Wandrell owned on the great lakes.

The pleasant-faced lady thinks her caller ought to go.

He is angry at her. He shows it. He blames her as much as he does Tarpion. He retreats reluctantly. A stranger is in possession of the home of David Lockwin.

He was foolhardy a moment before. He is timid now.

He was rich. He has seven thousand. Esther is rich. She has five millions.

CHAPTER VIII

A GOOD SCHEME

The absence of love ruined David Lockwin. Love built Chicago. Love erected the David Lockwin Hospital. Love supports David Lockwin. He is a man to be pitied from the depths of the heart. Love makes him happy.

He reads the revised scriptures. To love's empire has been added the whole realm of charity. "Love," says the sacred word, "covereth a mult.i.tude of sins."

"Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."

Love has become prudent. Love has whispered in David Lockwin's ear that while it might be brave to knock at the door of one's own home, it would be rash to present one's self to Esther Lockwin, on Prairie avenue--Esther Lockwin, worth five millions!

Yet this lover, in order to bear, to believe, to hope and to endure, must enter the charmed circle of her daily life. He haunts the vicinity, he grows fertile in his plans. He discovers an admirable method of coming in correspondence with the Prairie avenue mansion.

Dr. Floddin has recently died, and a new proprietor is in possession of the drug store. It is a matter of a week's time to install David Lockwin. It could have been done in a minute, but a week's time seemed more in order and pleased the seller. You look in and you see a square stove. Rising behind it you see a white prescription counter, with bottles of blue copper water at each corner. Rising still higher behind is a part.i.tion. Peer to the right and you may see a curtain, drawn aside. A little room contains a bed, an Argand lamp, a table with a small clock, druggist's books and the revised New Testament.

You may see David Lockwin, almost any day, sitting near and under that curtain; his clothes are strangely of the color of the drapery; his legs are stretched out one ankle over the other; his hands are deep in pockets; his head is far down on his breast. Or you may see him washing his windows. He keeps the cleanest windows on lower State street.

In this coigne of vantage it turns out that David Lockwin eventually comes to know the family life at the mansion. The servants at the Wandrell home have long stood behind the prescription counter while their orders were in course of serving.

The confinement of the business--the eternal hours of vigil--these matters feed the hungry love of the husband.

"Without this I should have died," he vows. The months go by without event.

Corkey has been the earliest caller. "Saw your sign," he says; "recollected the name. Been in New York all the time? I say, old man, want a pardner? I got a clean thousand cases in gold to put in."

The druggist has difficulty in withstanding Corkey's offers of capital.

Corkey is struck with the idea of business. He has taken a strong fancy to Chalmers. Day by day the two men grow more intimate.

"Thought I'd never see you again, old man. I suppose I ought to start a saloon, but somehow I hate to do it, now I know some good people.

Bet your life I'm solid over there!"

He points with his thumb toward Prairie avenue.

"I'm a good friend of the richest woman, I guess, there is in the world!" His tongue pops like a champagne cork. "I don't like to keep no saloon."