Part 24

## active for good, foremost in noble works, strong in the faith, helpful

wherever help might be needed, a refuge for the oppressed of soul, a friend to all humanity because human, _his_ friend--his mother's, was suffering at this moment as he himself had suffered, but without the relief that is afforded by renunciation. Out of a great love and pity he spoke:

"What is it? Can't you tell me? Won't it help, just as man to man--as it has helped me?"

Father Honoré regained his control before Champney ceased questioning.

"I don't know that it will help; but I owe it to you to tell you, after what you have said--told me. I can preach--oh yes! But the practice--the practice--" He wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"What you have just told me justifies me in telling you what I thought never to speak of again in this world. You have done the only thing to do in the circumstances--it has taken the whole courage of a man; but I never for a moment credited you with sufficient manhood to dare it. It only goes to show how shortsighted we humans are, how incomprehensive of the workings of the human heart and soul; we think we know--and find ourselves utterly confounded, as I am now." He was silent for a few minutes, apparently deep in meditation.

"Had I done, when I was twenty years old, as you are going to do, I should have had no cause to regret; all my life fails to make good in that respect.--When I was a boy, an orphan, my heartstrings wound themselves about a little girl in France who was kind to me. I may as well tell you now that the thought of that child was one of the motives that induced me to investigate Aileen's case, when we saw her that night at the vaudeville."

He looked at Champney, who, at the mention of Aileen's name, had started involuntarily. "You remember that night?" Champney nodded. How well he remembered it! But he gave no further sign.

"I was destined for the priesthood later on, but that did not stifle the love in my heart for the young girl. It was in my novitiate years. I never dared ask myself what the outcome of it all would be; I wanted to finish my novitiate first. I knew she loved me with a charming, open, young girl's love that in the freedom of our household life--her grandfather was my great-uncle on my mother's side--found expression in a sisterly way; and in the circumstances I could not tell her of my love. It was the last year of my novitiate when I discovered the fact that a young man, in the employ of her grandfather, was paying her attention with the intention of asking her of him in marriage. The mere thought of the loss of her drove me half mad. I took the first opportunity, when at home for the holidays, to tell her my love, and I threatened, that, if she gave herself to another, I would end all--either for myself or for him. The girl was frightened, indignant, horrified almost, at the force of the passion that was consuming me; she repelled me--that ended it; I took it for granted that she loved that other. I lay in wait for him one night as he was going to the house; taunted him; heaped upon him such abuse as makes a man another's murderer; I goaded him into doing what I had intended. He struck me in the face; closed with me, and I fought him; but he was wrestling with a madman. We were on the cliff at Dieppe; the night was dark; intentionally I forced him towards the edge. He struggled manfully, trying to land a blow on my head that would save him; he wrestled with me and he was a man of great strength; but I--I knew I could tire him out. It was dark--I knew when he went over the edge, but I could see nothing, I heard nothing....

"I fled; hid myself; but I was caught; held for a time awaiting the outcome of the man's hurt. Had he died it would have been manslaughter. As it was I knew it was murder, for there had been murder in my heart. He lived, but maimed for life. The lawyer, paid for by my great-uncle, set up the plea of self-defence. I was cleared in the law, and fled to America to expiate. I know now that there was but one expiation for me--to do what you are to do; plead guilty and take my punishment like a man. I failed to do it--and _I_ preach of manhood to you!"

There was silence in the room. Champney broke it and his voice was almost unrecognizable; it was hoarse, constrained:

"But your love was noble--you loved her with all the manhood that was in you."

"God knows I did; but that does not alter the fact of my consequent crime."

He looked again at Champney as he spoke out his conviction, and his own emotion suffered a check in his amazement at the change in the countenance before him. He had seen nothing like this in the thirty-two hours he had been in his presence; his jaw was set; his nostrils white and sharpened; the pupils of his eyes contracted to pin points; and into the sallow cheeks, up to the forehead knotted as with intense pain, into the sunken temples, the blood rushed with a force that threatened physical disaster, only to recede as quickly, leaving the face ghastly white, the eyelids twitching, the muscles about the mouth quivering.

Noting all this Father Honoré read deeper still; he knew that Champney Googe had not told him the whole, possibly not the half--_and never would tell_. His next question convinced him of that.

"May I ask what became of the young girl you loved?--Don't answer, if I am asking too much."

"I don't know. I have never heard from her. I can only surmise. But I did receive a letter from her when I was in prison, before my trial--she was summoned as witness; and oh, the infinite mercy of a loving woman's heart!" He was silent a moment.

"She took so much blame upon herself, telling me that she had not known her own heart; that she tried to think she loved me as a brother; that she had been willing to let it go on so, and because she had not been brave enough to be honest with herself, all this trouble had come upon me whom she acknowledged she loved--upon her and her household. She begged me, if acquitted, never to see her, never to communicate with her again. There was but one duty for us both she said, guilty as we both were of what had occurred to wreck a human being for life; to go each _the way apart_ forever--I mine, she hers--to expiate in good works, in loving kindness to those who might need our help....

"I have never known anything further--heard no word--made no inquiry. At that time, after my acquittal, my great-uncle, a well-to-do baker, settled a sum of money on the man who had been in his employ; the interest of it would support him in his incapacity to do a man's work and earn a decent livelihood. My uncle said then I was never again to darken his doors. He desired me to leave no address; to keep secret to myself my destination, and forever after my whereabouts. I obeyed to the letter--now enough of myself. I have told you this because, as a man, I had not the face to sit here in your presence and hear your decision, without showing you my respect for your courage--and I have taken this way to show it."

He held out his hand and Champney wrung it. "You don't know all, or you would have no respect," he said brokenly.

The two men looked understandingly into each other's eyes, but they both felt intuitively that any prolongation of this unwonted emotional strain would be injurious to both, and the work in hand. They, at once, in tacit understanding of each other's condition, put aside "the things that were behind" and "reached forth to those that were before": they laid plans for the speedy execution of all that Champney's decision involved.

"There is one thing I cannot do," he spoke with decision; "that is to see my mother before my commitment--or after. It is the only thing that will break me down. I need all the strength of control I possess to go through this thing."

The priest knew better than to protest.

"Telegraph her to-day what you think best to ease her suspense. I will write her, and ask you to deliver my letter to her after you have seen me through. I want _you_ to go up with me--to the very doors; and I want yours to be the last known face I see on entering. Another request: I don't want you, my mother, or any one else known to me, to communicate with me by letter, message, or even gift of any kind during my term, whether seven years or twenty. This is oblivion. I cease to exist, as an identity, outside the walls. I will make one exception: if my mother should fall ill, write me at once.--How she will live, I don't know! I dare not think--it would unsettle my reason; but she has friends; she has you, the Colonel, Tave, Elvira, Caukins; they will not see her want, and there's the house; it's in her name."

He rose, shook himself together, drew a long breath. "Now let us go to work; the sooner it's over the better for all concerned.--I suppose the clothes I had on are worth nothing, but I'd like to look them over."

He spoke indifferently and went into the adjoining bath closet where Father Honoré, not liking to dispose of them until Champney should have spoken of them at least, had left the clothes in a bundle. He had put the little handkerchief, discolored almost beyond recognition, in with them. Champney came out in a few minutes.

"They're no good," he said. "I'll have to wear these, if I may. I believe it's one of the regulations that what a man takes in of his own, is saved for him to take out, isn't it?"

"Yes." An hour later when Father Honoré disposed of the bundle to the janitor, he knew that Aileen's handkerchief had been abstracted--and he read still deeper into the ways of the human heart....

* * * * *

Within ten days sentence was passed: seven years with hard labor.

There was no appeal for mercy, and speedy commitment followed. A paragraph in the daily papers conveyed a knowledge of the fact to the world in general; and within ten days, the world in general, as usual, forgot the circumstance; it was only one of many.

PART FIFTH

Shed Number Two

I

"It's a wonder ye're not married yet, Aileen, an' you twenty-six."

It was Margaret McCann, the "Freckles" of orphan asylum days, who spoke. Her utterance was thick, owing to the quantity of pins she was endeavoring to hold between tightly pressed lips. She was standing on a chair putting up muslin curtains in her new home at The Gore, or Quarry End Park, as it was now named, and Aileen had come to help her.

"It's like ye're too purticular," she added, her first remark not having met with any response. She turned on the chair and looked down upon her old chum.

She was sitting on the floor surrounded by a pile of fresh-cut muslin; the latest McCann baby was tugging with might and main at her apron in vain endeavor to hoist himself upon his pudgy uncertain legs. Aileen was laughing at his efforts. Catching him suddenly in her arms, she covered the little soft head, already sprouting a suspicion of curly red hair, with hearty kisses; and Billy, entering into the fun, crowed and gurgled, clutching wildly at the dark head bent above him and managing now and then, when he did not grasp too wide of the mark, to bury his chubby creased hands deep in its heavy waves.

"Oh, Maggie, you're like all the rest! Because you've a good husband of your own, you think every other girl must go and do likewise."

"Now ye're foolin', Aileen, like as you used to at the asylum. But I mind the time when Luigi was the wan b'y for you--I wonder, now, you couldn't like him, Aileen? He's so handsome and stiddy-like, an' doin' so well. Jim says he'll be one of the rich men of the town if he kapes on as he's begun. They do say as how Dulcie Caukins'll be cuttin' you out."

"I didn't love him, Maggie; that's reason enough." She spoke shortly. Maggie turned again from her work to look down on her in amazement.

"You was always that way, Aileen!" she exclaimed impatiently, "thinkin' nobody but a lord was good enough for you, an' droppin' Luigi as soon as ever you got in with the Van Ostend folks; and as for 'love'--let me give you as good a piece of advice as you'll get between the risin' of a May sun and its settin':--if you see a good man as loves you an' is willin' to marry you, take him, an' don't you leave him the chanct to get cool over it. Ye'll love him fast enough if he's good to you--like my Jim," she added proudly.

"Oh, your Jim! You're always quoting him; he isn't quite perfection even if he is 'your Jim.'"

"An' is it parfection ye're after?" Maggie was apt in any state of excitement to revert in her speech to the vernacular. "'Deed an' ye'll look till the end of yer days an' risk dyin' a downright old maid, if it's parfection ye're after marryin' in a man! An' I don't need a gell as has niver been married to tell me my Jim ain't parfection nayther!"

Maggie resumed her work in a huff; Aileen smiled to herself.

"I didn't mean to say anything against your husband, Maggie; I was only speaking in a general way."

"An' how could ye mane anything against me husband in a gineral or a purticular way? Sure I know he's got a temper; an' what man of anny sinse hasn't, I'd like to know? An' he's not settled-like to work in anny wan place, as I'd like to have him be. But Jim's young; an' a man, he says, can't settle to anny regular work before he's thirty. He says all the purfessional men can't get onto their feet in a business way till they be thirty; an' stone-cuttin', Jim says, is his purfession like as if 't was a lawyer's or a doctor's or a priest's; an' Jim says he loves it. An' there ain't a better worker nor Jim in the sheds, so the boss says; an' if he will querrel between whiles--an' I'm not denyin' he don't--it's sure the other man's fault for doin' something mane; Jim can't stand no maneness. He's a good worker, is Jim, an' a good husband, an' a lovin' father, an' a good provider, an' he don't drink, an' he ain't the slithery kind--if he'd 'a' been that I wouldn't married him."

There was a note of extreme authority in what Maggie in her excitement was giving expression to. Now that Jim McCann was back and at work in the sheds after a seven years absence, it was noted by many, who knew his wife of old, that, in the household, it was now Mrs. McCann who had the right of way. She was evidently full of her subject at the present moment and, carried away by the earnestness of her expressed convictions, she paid no heed to Aileen's non-responsiveness.

"An' I'm that proud that I'm Mrs. James Patrick McCann, wid a good house over me head, an' a good husband to pay rint that'll buy it on the insthalment plan, an' two little gells an' a darlin' baby to fill it, that I be thankin' God whiniver Jim falls to swearin'--an' that's ivery hour in the day; but it's only a habit he can't be broke of, for Father Honoré was after talkin' wid him, an' poor Jim was that put out wid himself, that he forgot an' swore his hardest to the priest that he'd lave off swearin' if only he knew whin he was doin' it! But he had to give up tryin', for he found himself swearin' at the baby he loved him so. An' whin he told Father Honoré the trouble he had wid himself an' the b'y, that darlin' man just smiled an' says:--'McCann, there's other ways of thankin' God for a good home, an' a lovin' wife, and a foine b'y like yours, than tellin' yer beads an' sayin' your prayers.'--He said that, he did; an' I say, I'm thankin' God ivery hour in the day that I've got a good husband to swear, an' a cellar to fill wid fuel an' potaters, an' a baby to put to me breast, an'--an'--it's the same I'm wishin' for you, me dear."

There was a suspicious tremble in Maggie's voice as she turned again to her work.

Aileen spoke slowly: "Indeed, I wish I had them all, Maggie; but those things are not for me."

"Not for you!" Maggie dashed a tear from her eyes. "An' why not for you, I'd like to know? Isn't ivery wan sayin' ye've got the voice fit for the oppayra? An' isn't all the children an' the quarrymen just mad over yer teachin' an' singin'? An' look at what yer know an' can do! Didn't wan of the Sisters tell me the other day: 'Mrs. McCann,' says she, 'Aileen Armagh is an expurrt in embroidery, an' could earn her livin' by it.' An' wasn't Mrs. Caukins after praisin' yer cookin' an' sayin' you beat the whole Gore on yer doughnuts? An' didn't the Sisters come askin' me the other day if I had your receipt for the milk-rice? Jim says there's a man for ivery woman if she did but know it.--There now, I'm glad to see yer smilin' an' lookin' like yer old self! Just tell me if the curtains be up straight? Jim can't abide annything that ain't on the square. Straight, be they?"

"Yes, straight as a string," said Aileen, laughing outright at Freckles' eloquence--the eloquence of one who was wont to be slow of speech before matrimony loosened her tongue and home love taught her the right word in the right place.

"Straight, is it? Then I'll mount down an' we'll sit out in the kitchen an' hem the rest. It's Doosie Caukins has begged the loan of the two little gells for the afternoon. The twins seem to me most like my own--rale downright swate gells, an' it's hopin' I am they'll do well when it' comes to their marryin'."

Aileen laughed merrily at the matrimonial persistence of her old chum's thoughts.

"Oh, Maggie, you are an incorrigible matchmaker!"

She picked up the baby and the yards of muslin she had been measuring for window lengths; leaving Maggie to follow, she went out into the kitchen and deposited Billy in the basket-crib beside her chair. Maggie joined her in a few minutes.

"It seems like old times for you an' me to be chattin' together again so friendly-like--put a finger's length into the hem of the long ones; do you remember when Sister Angelica an' you an' me was cuddled together to watch thim dance the minute over at the Van Ostends'?--Och, you darlin'!"

She rose from her chair and caught up the baby who was holding out both arms to her and trying in his semi-articulate way to indicate his preference of her lap to the basket.

"What fun we had!" Aileen spoke half-heartedly; the mention of that name intensified the pain of an ever present thought.

"An' did ye read her marriage in the papers, I guess 't was a year gone?"

Aileen nodded.

"Jim read it out to me wan night after supper, an' I got so homesick of a suddin' for the Caukinses, an' you, an' the quarries, an' Mrs. Googe--it was before me b'y come--that I fell to cryin' an' nearly cried me eyes out; an' Jim promised me then and there he'd come back to Flamsted for good and all. But he couldn't help sayin': 'What the divil are ye cryin' about, Maggie gell? I was readin' of the weddin' to ye, and thinkin' to hearten ye up a bit, an' here ye be cryin' fit to break yer heart, an' takin' on as if ye'd niver had a weddin' all by yerself!' An' that made me laugh; but, afterwards, I fell to cryin' the harder, an' told him I couldn't help it, for I'd got such a good lovin' husband, an' me an orphan as had nobody--

"An' then I stopped, for Jim took me in his arms--he was in the rockin'-chair--and rocked back an' forth wid me like a mother does wid a six-months' child, an' kept croonin' an' croonin' till I fell asleep wid my head on his shoulder--" Mrs. McCann drew a long breath--"Och, Aileen, it's beautiful to be married!"

For a while the two worked in silence, broken only by little Billy McCann, who was blissfully gurgling emphatic endorsement of everything his mother said. The bright sunshine of February filled the barren Gore full to the brim with sparkling light. From time to time the sharp crescendo _sz-szz-szzz_ of the trolleys, that now ran from The Corners to Quarry End Park at the head of The Gore, teased the still cold air. Maggie was in a reminiscent mood, being wrought upon unwittingly by the sunny quiet and homey kitchen warmth. She looked over the head of her baby to Aileen.

"Do you remember the B'y who danced with the Marchioness, and when they was through stood head downwards with his slippers kicking in the air?"

"Yes, and the butler, and how he hung on to his coat-tails!"

Maggie laughed. "I wonder now could it be _the_ B'y--I mane the man she married?"

Aileen looked up from her work. "Yes, he's the one."

"An' how did you know that?" Maggie asked in some surprise.

"Mrs. Champney told me--and then I knew she liked him."

"Who, the Marchioness?"

"Yes; I knew by the way she wrote about him that she liked him."

"Well, now, who'd 'a' thought that! The very same B'y!" she exclaimed, at the same time looking puzzled as if not quite grasping the situation. "Why, I thought--I guess 't was Romanzo wrote me just about that time--that she was in love with Mr. Champney Googe." Her voice sank to a whisper on the last words. "Wouldn't it have been just awful if she had!"

"She might have done a worse thing than to love him." Aileen's voice was hard in spite of her effort to speak naturally.

Maggie broke forth in protest.

"Now, how can you say that, Aileen! What would the poor gell's life have been worth married to a man that's in for seven years! Jim says when he comes out he can't niver vote again for prisident, an' it's ten chanct to wan that he'll get a job."

In her earnestness she failed to notice that Aileen's face had borrowed its whiteness from the muslin over which she was bending.

"Aileen--"

"Yes, Maggie."