Chapter 3

The brewery team made its way slowly up from the ferry owing to the drifting snow and icy pavements. From time to time a plough ran on the elevated, or on the trolley tracks, and sent the snow in fan-like spurts from the fender. The driver drew rein in a west-side street off lower Seventh Avenue. It was a brotherhood house where the priest had taken a room for an emergency like the present one. He knew that within these walls no questions would be asked, yet every aid given, if required, in just these circumstances. The man beneath the horse-blankets was still unconscious when they lifted him out, and carried him up to a large room in the topmost story. The detective, after removing the handcuffs, asked if he could be of any further use that night. He stepped to the side of the cot and looked searchingly into the passive face on the pillow.

"No; he's safe here," Father Honore replied. "You will notify the police and the other detectives. I will go bail for him if any should be needed; but I may as well tell you now that the case will probably never come to trial; the amount has been guaranteed." He wrote a telegram and handed it to the man. "Would you do me the favor to get this off as early as you can?"

"Humph! Poor devil, he's got off easy; but from his looks and the tussle we had with him, I don't think he'll be over grateful to you for bringing him through this. I've seen so much of this kind, that I've come to think it's better when they drop out quietly, no fuss, like as he wanted to."

"I can't agree with you. Thank you for your help."

"Not worth mentioning; it's all in the night's work, you know. Good night. I'll send the telegram just as soon as the wires are working. You know my number if you want me." He handed him a card.

"Thank you; good night."

When the door closed upon him, Father Honore drew a long breath that was half a suppressed groan; then he turned to the passive form on the cot. There was much to be done.

He administered a little stimulant; heated some water over a small gas stove; laid out clean sheets, a shirt, some bandages and a few surgical instruments from a "handy closet," that was kept filled with simple hospital emergency requirements, and set to work. He cut the shoes from the stockingless feet; cut away the stiffened clothing, what there was of it; laid bare the bandaged arm; it was badly swollen, stiff and inflamed. He soaked from a clotted knife-wound above the elbow the piece of cloth with which it had first been bound. He looked at the discolored rag as it lay in his hand, startled at what he saw: a handkerchief—a small one, a woman's! With sickening dread he searched in the corners; he found them: A. A., wreathed around with forget-me-nots, all in delicate French embroidery.

"My God, my God!" he groaned. He recalled having seen Aileen embroidering these very handkerchiefs last summer up under the pines. One of the sisterhood, Sister Ste. Croix, was with her giving instruction, while she herself wrought on a convent-made garment.

What did it mean? With multiplied thoughts that grasped helplessly hither and thither for some point of attachment, he went on with his work. Two hours later, he had the satisfaction of knowing the man before him was physically cared for as well as it was possible for him to be until he should regain consciousness. His practised eye recognized this to be a case of collapse from exhaustion, physical and mental. Now Nature must work to replenish the depleted vitality. He could trust her up to a certain point.

He sat by the cot, his elbows on his knees, his head dropped into his hands, pondering the mystery of this life before him—of all life, of death, of the Beyond; marvelling at the strange warp and woof of circumstance, his heart wrung for the anguish of that mother far away in the quarries of The Gore, his soul filled with thankfulness that she was spared the sight of this.

The gray November dawn began to dim the electric light in the room. He went to a window, opened the inner blinds and looked out. The storm was not over, but the wind had lessened and the flakes fell sparsely. He looked across over the neighboring roofs weighted with snow; the wires were down. A muffled sound of street traffic heralded the beginning day. As he turned back to the cot he saw that Champney's eyes were open; but the look in them was dazed. They closed directly. When they opened again, the full light of day was in the room; semi-consciousness had returned. He spoke feebly:

"Where am I?"

"Here, safe with me, Champney." He leaned over him, but saw that he was not recognized.

"Who are you?"

"Your friend, Father Honore."

"Father Honore—" he murmured, "I don't know you." He gave a convulsive start—"Where are the Eyes gone?" he whispered, a look of horror creeping into his own.

"There are none here, none but mine, Champney. Listen; you are safe with me, safe, do you understand?"

He gave no answer, but the dazed look returned. He moistened his parched lips with his tongue and swallowed hard. Father Honore held a glass of water to his mouth, slipping an arm and hand beneath his head to raise him. He drank with avidity; tried to sit up, but fell back exhausted. The priest busied himself with preparing some hot beef extract on the little stove. When it was ready he sat down by the cot and fed it to him spoonful by spoonful.

"Thank you," Champney said quietly when the priest had finished his ministration. He turned a little on his side and fell asleep.

The sleep was that which follows exhaustion; it was profound and beneficial. Evidently no distress of mind or body marred it, and for every sixty minutes of the blessed oblivion, there was renewed activity in nature's ever busy laboratory to replenish the strength that had been sacrificed in this man's protracted struggle to escape his doom, and, by means of it, to restore the mental balance, fortunately not too long lost....

When he awoke, it was to full consciousness. The sun was setting. Behind the Highlands of the Navesink it sank in royal state: purple, scarlet, and gold. Upon the crisping blue waters of Harbor, Sound, and River, the reflection of its transient glory lay in quivering windrows of gorgeous color. It crimsoned faintly the snow that lay thick on the multitude of city roofs; it blazoned scarlet the myriad windows in the towers and skyscrapers; it filled the keen air with wonderful fleeting lights that bewildered and charmed the unaccustomed eyes of the metropolitan millions.

Champney waited for it to fade; then he turned to the man beside him.

"Father Honore—" he half rose from the cot. The priest bent over him. Champney laid one arm around his neck, drew him down to him and, for a moment only, the two men remained cheek to cheek.

"Champney—my son," was all he could say.

"Yes; now tell me all—the worst; I can bear it."

"I can't see my way, yet." These were the first words he spoke after Father Honore had finished telling him of his prospective relief from sentence and the means taken to obtain it. He had listened intently, without interruption, sitting up on the cot, his look fixed unwaveringly on the narrator. He put his hand to his face as he spoke, covering his eyes for a moment; then he passed it over the three weeks' stubble on his cheeks and chin.

"Is it possible for me to shave here? I must get up—out of this. I can't think straight unless I get on my feet."

"Do you feel strong enough, Champney?"

"I shall get strength quicker when I'm up. Thank you," he said, as Father Honore helped him to his feet. He swayed as if dizzy on crossing the room to a small mirror above a stand. Father Honore placed the hot water and shaving utensils before him. He declined his further assistance.

"Are there—are there any clothes I could put on?" He asked hesitatingly, as he proceeded to shave himself awkwardly with his one free hand.

"Such as they are, a plenty." Father Honore produced a common tweed suit and fresh underwear from the "handy closet." These together with some other necessaries from a drawer in the stand supplied a full equipment.

"Can I tub anywhere?" was his next question after he had finished shaving.

"Yes; this bath closet here is at your disposal." He opened a door into a small adjoining hall-room. Champney took the clothes and went in. While he was bathing, Father Honore used the room telephone to order in a substantial evening meal. After the noise of the splashing ceased, he heard a half-suppressed groan. He listened intently, but there was no further sound, not even of the details of dressing.

A half-hour passed. He had taken in the tray, and was becoming anxious, when the door opened and Champney came in, clean, clothed, but with a look in his eyes that gave the priest all the greater cause for anxiety because, up to that time, the man had volunteered no information concerning himself; he had received what the priest said passively, without demonstration of any kind. There had been as yet no spiritual vent for the over-strained mind, the over-charged soul. The priest knew this danger and what it portended.

He ate the food that was placed before him listlessly. Suddenly he pushed the plate away from him across the table at which he was sitting. "I can't eat; it nauseates me," he said; then, leaning his folded arms on the edge, he dropped his head upon them groaning heavily in an agony of despair, shame, remorse: "God! What's the use—what's the use! There's nothing left—nothing left."

Father Honore knew that the crucial hour was striking, and his prayer for help was the wordless outreaching of every atom of his consciousness for that One more powerful than weak humanity, to guide, to aid him.

"Your manhood is left." He spoke sternly, with authority. This was no time for pleading, for sympathy, for persuasion.

"My manhood!" The bitterest self-contempt was voiced in those two words. He raised his head, and the look he gave to the man opposite bordered on the inimical.

"Yes, your manhood. Do you, in your supreme egotism, suppose that you, Champney Googe, are the only man in this world who has sinned, suffered, gone under for a time? Are you going to lie down in the ditch like a craven, simply because you have failed to withstand the first assaults of the devil that is in you? Do you think, because you have sinned, there is no longer a place for you and your work in this world where all men are sinners at some time in their lives? I tell you, Champney Googe,—and mark well what I say,—your sin, as sin, is not so despicable as your attitude towards your own life. Why, man, you're alive—"

"Yes, alive—thanks to you; but knocked out after the first round," he muttered. The priest noted, however, that he still held his head erect. He took fresh courage.

"And what would you say of a man who, because he has been knocked out in the first round, does not dare to enter the ring again? So far as I've seen anything of life, it is a man's duty to get on his feet as quickly as he can—square away and at it again."

"There's nothing left to fight—it's all gone—my honor—"

"True, your honor's gone; you can't get that back; but you can put yourself in the running to obtain a standard for your future honor. Champney, listen;" he drew his chair nearer to him that the table might not separate them; "hear me, a man like yourself, erring, because human, who has sinned, suffered—let me speak out of my own experience. Put aside regret; it clogs. Regret nothing; what's done is done past recall. Live out your life, no matter what the struggle. Count this life as yours to make the best of. Live, I say; live, work, make good; it is in any man's power who has received a reprieve like yours. I know whereof I am speaking. I'll go further: it would be in your power even if you had been judged and committed."

The man, to whom he was appealing, shuddered as he heard the word "committed."

"That would be death," he said under his breath; "last night was nothing, nothing to that—but you can't understand—"

"Better, perhaps, than you think. But what I want you to see is that there is something left to live for; Champney—your mother." He had hesitated to speak of her, not knowing what the effect might be.

Champney started to his feet, his hand clenched on the table edge. He breathed short, hard. "O God, O God! Why didn't you let me go? How can I face her and live!" He began to pace the room with rapid jerky steps. Father Honore rose.

"Champney Googe,"—he spoke calmly, but with a concentrated energy of tone that made its impression on the man addressed,—"when you lay there last night," he motioned towards the cot, "I thanked my God that she was not here to see you. I have telegraphed her that you are alive. In the hope that you yourself might send some word, either directly or through me, I have withheld all detail of your condition, all further news; but, for her sake, I dare not keep her longer in suspense. Give me some word for her—some assurance from yourself that you will live for her sake, if not for your own. Reparation must begin here and now, and no time be lost; it's already late." He looked at his watch.

Champney turned upon him fiercely. "Don't force me to anything. I can't see my way, I tell you. You have said I was a man. Let me take my stand on that assurance, and act as one who must first settle a long-standing account with himself before he can yield to any impulse of emotion. Go to bed—do; you're worn out with watching with me. I'll sit here by the window; I promise you. There's no sleep in me or for me—I want to be alone—alone."

It was an appeal, and the priest recognized in it the cry of the individual soul when the full meaning of its isolation from humankind is first revealed to it. He let him alone. Without another word he drew off his boots, turned out the electric light, opened the inner blinds, and laid himself down on the cot, worn, weary, but undaunted in spirit. At times he lost himself for a few minutes; for the rest he feigned the sleep he so sorely needed. The excitation of his nerves, however, kept him for the greater part of the night conscious of all that went on in the room.

Champney sat by the window. During that night he never left his seat. Father Honore could see his form silhouetted against the blank of the panes; his head was bowed into his hands. From time to time he drew deep, deep, shuddering breaths. The struggle going on in that human breast beside the window, the priest knew to be a terrible one—a spiritual and a mental hand-to-hand combat, against almost over-powering odds, in the arena of the soul.

The sun was reddening the east when Champney turned from the window, rose quietly, and stepped to the side of the cot. He stood there a few minutes looking down on the strong, marked face that, in the morning light, showed yellow from watching and fatigue. Father Honore knew he was there; but he waited those few minutes before opening his eyes. He looked up then, not knowing what he was to expect, and met Champney's blue ones looking down into his. That one look was sufficient to assure him that the man who stood there so quietly beside him was the Champney Googe of a new birth. The "old man" had been put away; he was ready for the race, "forgetting those things that are behind."

"I've won out," he said with a smile.

The two men clasped hands and were silent for a few minutes. Then Champney drew a chair to the cot.

"I'd like to talk with you, if you don't mind," he said.