The Air Trust Part 30

Stumbling blindly, he turned and staggered out of the room. She watched him go, nor tried to steady his uncertain steps. In the hallway, outside, she heard him ring for Slawson, heard the valet come, and both of them ascend the stairs.

"Father," she whispered to herself, a look of great and pure spiritual beauty on her n.o.ble face, "father, this had to come. Sooner or later, it was inevitable. Whatever you have done, I forgive you, for you _are_ my father, and have surely acted for what you think my interest.

"But none the less, the end is here and now. Between you and me, a great gulf is fixed. And from tonight I face the world, to battle with it, learn from it, and know the truth in every way. Enough of this false, easy, unnatural life. I cannot live it any longer; it would crush and stifle me! Enough! I must be free, I shall be free, to know, and dare, and do!"

That night, having had no further speech with old Flint, Kate left Idle Hour, taking just a few necessities in a suit-case, and a few dollars for her immediate needs.

Giving no explanation to maid, valet or anyone, she let herself out, walked through the great estate and down Englewood Avenue, to the station, where she caught a train for Jersey City.

The midnight special for Chicago bore her swiftly westward. No sleeping car she took, but pa.s.sed the night in a seat of an ordinary coach. Her ticket read "Rochester."

The old page of her Book of Life was closed forever. A new and better page was open wide.

CHAPTER XXV.

THROUGH STEEL BARS.

True to her plan, Catherine ended her journey at Rochester. She engaged a room at a second-rate hotel--marvelling greatly at the meanness of the accommodations, the like of which she had never seen--and, at ten o'clock of the morning, appeared at the Central Police Station. The bundle of papers in her hand indicated that she had read the latest lies and venom poured out on Gabriel's defenseless head.

The haughty, full-fed sergeant in charge of the station made some objections, at first, to letting her see Gabriel; but the tone of her voice and the level look of her gray eye presently convinced him he was playing with fire, and he gave in. Summoning an officer, he bade the man conduct her. Iron doors opened and closed for her. She was conscious of long, ill-smelling, concrete-floored corridors, with little steel cages at either side--cages where hopeless, sodden wrecks of men were standing, or sitting in att.i.tudes of brutal despair, or lying on foul bunks, motionless and inert as logs.

For a moment her heart failed her.

"Good Lord! Can such things be?" she whispered to herself. "So this--this is a police station? And real jails and penitentiaries are worse? Oh, horrible! I never dreamed of anything like this, or any men like these!"

The officer, stopping at a cell-door and banging thereon with some keys, startled her.

"Here, youse," he addressed the man within, "lady to see youse!"

Catherine was conscious that her heart was pounding hard and her breath coming fast, as she peered in through those cold, harsh metal bars. For a minute she could find no thought, no word. Within, her eyes--still unaccustomed to the gloom--vaguely perceived a man's figure, big and powerful, and different in its bearing from those other cringing wretches she had glimpsed.

Then the man came toward her, stopped, peered and for a second drew back. And then--then she heard his voice, in a kind of startled joy:

"Oh--is it--is it _you_?"

"Yes," she answered. "I must see you! I must talk with you, again, and know the truth!"

The officer edged nearer.

"Youse can talk all y' want to," he dictated, hoa.r.s.ely, "but don't you pa.s.s nothin' in. No dope, nor nothin', see? I'll stick around an' watch, anyhow; but don't try to slip him no dream powders or no 'snow.' 'Cause if you do--"

"What--what _on_ earth are you talking about?" the girl demanded, turning on the officer with absolute astonishment. But he, only winking wisely, repeated:

"You heard me, didn't you? No dope. I'm wise to this whole game."

At a loss for his meaning, yet without any real desire to fathom it, Kate turned back toward Gabriel.

A moment they two looked at each other, each noting any change that might have taken place since that wonderful hour in the sugar-house, each hungering and thirsting for a sight of the other's face. In her heart, already Kate knew as well as she knew she was alive, that this man was totally innocent of the foul charges heaped upon him. And so she looked at him with eyes wherein lay no reproach, no doubt and no suspicion. And, as she looked, tears started, and her heart swelled hotly in her breast; for he was bruised and battered and a helpless captive.

"He, caged like a trapped animal!" her thought was. "He, so strong, and free, and brave! Oh, horrible, horrible!"

He must have read something of this feeling, in her face; for now, coming close to the bars, he said in a low tone:

"Girl--your name I don't know, even yet--girl, you mustn't pity me!

That's _one_ thing I can't have. I'm here because the master cla.s.s is stronger than my cla.s.s, the working cla.s.s. Here, because I'm dangerous to that master cla.s.s. This isn't said to make myself out a martyr. It's only to make you see things right. I'm not complaining at this plight.

I've richly earned it--under Capitalism. So, then, _that's_ settled.

"And now, what's more important, tell me how _you_ are! And did your wound cause you much trouble? I confess I've pa.s.sed many an anxious hour, thinking of your narrow escape and of your injury. It wasn't too bad, was it? Tell me!"

"No," she answered, still holding to the bars, for she somehow felt quite unaccountably weak. "It wasn't very bad. There's hardly any scar at all--or won't be, when it's fully healed. But all this is trifling, compared to what _you've_ suffered and are suffering. Oh, what a horrible affair! What frightful accusations! Tell me the truth, Boy--how, why could--?"

He looked at her a moment, in silence, noting her splendid hair and eyes and mouth, the firm, well-moulded chin, the confident and self-reliant poise of the shapely head; and as he looked, he knew he loved this woman. He understood, at last, how dear she was to him--dearer than anything else in all the world save just his principles and stern life work. He comprehended the meaning of all, his dreams and visions and long thoughts. And, caring nothing for consequences, unskilled in the finesse of dealing with women, acting wholly on the irresistible impulses of a heart that overflowed, he looked deep into those gray eyes and said in a tone that set her heart-strings vibrating:

"Listen! The truth? How could I tell you anything else? I know not who you are, and care not. That you are rich and powerful and free, while I am poor and in captivity, means nothing. Love cares not for such trifles. It dares all, hopes all, trusts all, believes all--and is patient in adversity."

"Love?" she whispered, her face paling. "How do you dare to--?"

"Dare? Because my heart bids me. And where it bids, I care not for conventions or consequences!" He flung his hand out with a splendid gesture, his head high, his eyes l.u.s.trous in the half-light of the cell.

"Where it leads, I have to follow. That is why I am a Socialist! That is why I am here, today, outcast and execrated, a prisoner, in danger of long years of living death in the pestilential tomb of some foul penitentiary!"

"You're here because--because you are a Socialist?" she asked.

He nodded.

"Yes," said he. "I tried to help a suffering, outcast woman--or one who posed as such. And she betrayed me to my enemies. And so--"

"There _was_ a woman in this affair, then?" Catherine queried with sudden pain. "The newspapers haven't made the story _all_ up out of whole cloth?"

"No. There _was_ a woman. A Delilah, who delivered me into the hands of the Philistines, when I tried to help her in what she lied in telling me was her need. Will you hear the story?"

Still very pale, she formed a half-inarticulate "Yes!" with her full lips. Then, seeming to brace herself by a tighter clasp on the hard steel grating, she listened while he spoke.

Earnestly, honestly and with perfect straightforwardness, omitting nothing, adding nothing, he gave her the narrative of that fatal night's events, from the first moment he had laid eyes on the wonderfully-disguised woman, till her cudgel-blow had laid him senseless on the floor.

He told her the part that every actor therein had played; how the whole drama had been staged, to dishonor and convict him, to railroad him to the Pen for a long term, perhaps to kill him. He spoke in a low voice, to prevent the watching officer from overhearing; and as he talked, he thanked his stars that in all this network of conspiracy and crime against the Party and against himself, his captors had not yet placed him incommunicado. For some reason--perhaps because they thought their case against him absolutely secure and wanted to avoid any appearance of unfairness or of martyrizing him--this restriction had not yet been laid upon him. So now his message of the truth could reach the ears of her who, more than all the world beside, had grown dear to him and precious beyond words.

He told her, then, not only the story of that night, but also all that had since happened--the newspaper attacks on him and on the Party; the deliberate attempt to poison the community and the nation against him; the struggle to fix a foul and lasting blot upon his name, and ruin him beyond redemption.

"And why, all this?" he added, while she--listening so intently that she hardly breathed--knew that he spoke the living, vital truth. "Why this persecution, this plotting, this labor and expense to 'get' me. Do you want to know?"

"Yes, tell me!" she whispered. "I don't understand. I can't! It--it all seems so horrible, so unreal, so--so different from what I've always believed about the majesty and purity of the law! Can these things be, indeed?"

He laughed bitterly.