The Chief Legatee Part 30

"False. I scrawled those lines," declared Ransom. "It was a test--"

"Which _I_ commanded you to make," put in Hazen. Then in fainter and less strenuous tones, "She's right. Georgian Ransom is doomed; no one can save her."

"False again!" This time it was Harper who interposed. "I can and will.

You forget that I know the name of your Chief. Conspiracy such as you hint at is indictable in this country. I am a lawyer. I shall protect, not only your sister, but her money."

The smile he received in return evinced no ordinary scorn.

"Try it," said he. Then with a laugh so low as to be almost inaudible, yet so full of meaning that even Harper's cheek lost color, he calmly declared: "No one knows the name of our Chief. Auchincloss is a member and a valuable one--the only one whose name Georgian positively knows; but he's but a unit in a thousand. You cannot reach the Head or even the Heart of this great organization through him, and if you did and punished it, the Cause would grow another head and you would be as far from injuring us as you are now. Georgian is right. Not even I can save her now." Then, with a steady look into each of their faces, he smiled again and one and all shuddered. "But the Cause will go on," he cried in tones ringing with enthusiasm. "Mankind will drop its shackles and we, we shall have unriveted one of its chains. It is worth dying for, I, Alfred Hazen, say it."

Slowly he sank back into his chair. The pallor which had astounded all from the first had now become the ghastly mask of a soul whose only token of life glimmered through the orbits of his fast glazing eyes. He breathed, but in great pants. Georgian became alarmed.

"What is it?" she cried, forgetting her own fears and threats in the horror which his appearance excited. "This is something more than exhaustion from the pounding of that murderous eddy. What have you done?

Tell me, Alfred, tell me."

For the first time since his entrance into the room a suggestion of sweetness crept into his tone.

"Simply forestalled the verdict of the Chief," said he. "I was under oath to leave the country to-day on no ordinary errand. I failed to keep my word, believing that the interests of the Cause could be better served by what I have here undertaken than by the fulfilment of my primal duty. But we are not allowed the free exercise of our own judgment, else what man could be depended on? With us, neglect means death, no matter what the excuse or the Cause's benefit. I knew this when I made my choice last night. I have been dying ever since, but only actually since I came into this room. When the doctors decided that I had received no mortal hurt in the eddy, I--"

"Alfred!" The sister-heart spoke at last. "Not--not poison!"

"That is what you may call it here," said he, with a return to his old imperious manner, "but later and to the world it will be kindness on your part to name it exhaustion--the effect of my battle with the water. The doctors will reconsider their diagnosis and blame my poor heart. You will have no trouble about it. It _is_ my heart--I feel it failing--failing--"

He was sinking, but suddenly his whole nature flared up. Bounding to his feet, he stood before them, with eyes aflame and a pa.s.sionate strength in his att.i.tude which held them spellbound.

"What can law, what can selfish greed, what can self-aggrandizement and the most pitiless ambition effect against men who own to such discipline as this? Nothing. The world will go on, you will try your little ways, your petty reforms, your slow-moving legislation and promise of justice to the weak, but the invincible is the ready; ready to act; ready to suffer, ready to die so that G.o.d is justified of his children and man lifted into brotherhood and equality. You cannot strive against the unseen and the fearless. The Cause will triumph though all else fails.

Georgian, I am sorry--" He was tottering now, but he held them back with a stern gesture, "I don't think I ever knew just what love was.

There is one way--only one--"

But from those lips the explanation of this one way never came. As they saw the change in him and rushed to his support, his head fell forward on his breast and all was over.

CHAPTER x.x.x

NOT YET

They had laid him on the bed and Mr. Harper, in his usual practical way, was hastening to rouse the house, when Georgian stepped before him and laid her hand upon the door.

"Not yet," said she with authority. "He said there was a way--let us find it before we give up our secret and our possible safety. Mr. Harper, have you guessed that way?"

"No, except the usual one of protection through the law which he scouts.

I do not believe, Mrs. Ransom, in any other being necessary. Your brother's threats answered a very good purpose while he was alive, but now that he is dead they need not trouble you. I'm not even sure that I believe in the organization. It was mostly in your brother's brain, Mrs.

Ransom; there's no such band, or if there is, its powers are not so unlimited as he would make you believe."

She simply pointed to the motionless form and the distorted face which were slowly a.s.suming an expression of great majesty.

"There is my answer," said she. "Men of his strong attributes do not kill themselves from fancy. He knew what he did."

"And you think--"

"That I will not live a week if I pa.s.s that door under the name of Georgian Ransom. Mr. Harper, I am sure of it; Roger, I beg you to believe what I say. It may not come here--but it will come. The mark has been set against my name. Death only will obliterate this mark. But the name--that is already a dead one--shall it not stay so?--It is the one way--the way he meant."

"Georgian!"

It was a cry of infinite protest. Such a cry as one might expect from the long-suffering Ransom. It drew her from the door; it brought her to his side. As their eyes and hands met, Harper stepped back to the bedside, and remembering the sensitiveness of the man before him, softly covered his poor face. When he turned back, Mrs. Ransom was slowly shaking her head under her husband's prolonged look and saying softly:

"No, not Georgian, Anitra. Henceforth Anitra, always Anitra. Can you endure the ordeal for the sake of the safety and peace of mind it will bring?"

"I endure it! Can you? Remember the deafness that marks Anitra."

"That can be cured." Her smile turned almost arch. "We will travel; there are great physicians abroad."

"A sister--not a wife?"

"Your wife in time--Ah, it will mean a new courtship and--Anitra is a different woman from Georgian--she has suffered--you will love her better."

"O G.o.d! Harper, are we living, awake, sane? Help me at this crisis. I do not know where I am or what this is she really asks."

"She asks the impossible. She asks what you can, perhaps, give, but not what I can. You forget that this deception calls for connivance on my part, and whatever you may think of me or my profession, deception is foreign to my nature and very repugnant to me."

"And you refuse?"

"Mrs. Ransom, I must."

The hope which had held her up, the life which had returned to body and spirit since this prospect of a possible future had dawned upon her, faded from glance and smile.

"Then good-by, Roger, we shall never have those happy days together of which we have often dreamt. I may stay with you a week, a month, a year, but the horror of a great fear will be over us, and never, never can we know joy."

She threw herself into her husband's arms; she clung to him.

"One moment," she cried, "one moment of perfect happiness before the shadow falls. Oh, how I must love you, Roger, to say such words, to think such thoughts, with the body of the brother I loved so deeply once, lying there dead before us, killed by his own hand."

Ransom softly drew her aside where her eyes could not fall upon the bed.

Harper stopped still where he was, the picture of gloom and uncertainty.

"It must be settled now," said Ransom. "As we leave this room, our relations must remain."

"I cannot but think your fears all folly," muttered Harper. "Yet the responsibility you force upon me is terrible. If it were not for that will! How can I present it to the Surrogate when I know the testator is still alive?"

"You need not. I will do that," said Ransom.

"And the property! Given to a man we none of us know. Property that is not legally his."

"I will make it so," cried Georgian with a burst of new and uncontrollable hope as she saw, as she thought, this conscientious lawyer yielding. "There is paper here; draw up a deed of gift. I will sign it and you shall hold it so that whether I live or die, Auchincloss' t.i.tle to his money shall be absolute. Thus much I wish to do, that Alfred's life should not have been sacrificed for nothing."