The Lever Part 40

"I am tiring of this play-acting," protested Gorham. "If you have anything to say, say it, or else leave me to devote my time to matters which require it."

Covington hesitated even then. The weapon was an ugly one to handle, and there were elements in him which rebelled. Slowly he drew the bulky paper from his pocket, not meeting Gorham's steady gaze.

"More affidavits?" asked Gorham. "What is the nature of them this time?"

"I am more keenly aware of how despicable this is than you will give me credit," he said. "I have lived among gentlemen long enough to recognize that to those who know of this, my act separates me from the society of which I have been a part. But I have chosen. With the wealth and power which this will bring me, I can buy back what now I seem to forfeit."

He placed the papers in Mr. Gorham's hands, turning his pale face away, and drumming nervously on the arm of his chair with his fingers. The minutes seemed hours, and when he turned, he found Gorham's penetrating eye fixed firmly upon him. He had counted on the strength of the statements contained in the affidavits to protect him from personal violence, yet he half suspected Gorham's purpose when he rose. His host, however, walked quietly to the wall and pressed the b.u.t.ton, then noiselessly resumed his seat. The awful silence was in itself a strain on Covington. He wished Gorham would speak, even though he thought he knew the nature of what those first words would be. Presently Riley opened the door.

"Ask Mrs. Gorham and Miss Alice to come here, Riley."

"Not Alice!" Covington cried.

Again silence pervaded the room, Gorham rereading the papers, and Covington still drumming on the arm of his chair. As Eleanor and Alice entered they greeted Covington cordially, but he drew back without accepting the outstretched hands.

"We have a matter to discuss which affects us all," Gorham said, handing Eleanor one of the papers. "Please read this, but make no comment until later."

The first few words conveyed its nature to her, and she swayed for a moment as if she might fall. Alice sprang to her side.

"What is it, Eleanor,--let me read it with you. Shall I, daddy?"

Gorham nodded. When they had finished, Eleanor started to speak, but her husband checked her. The momentary faintness had pa.s.sed, and she stood erect, eager for the word from Gorham which would permit her to break the silence.

"Where did this come from?" Alice demanded.

"Mr. Covington just brought it to me."

"What did you do to the man who dared to draw it up?" she asked indignantly of Covington.

"Mr. Covington is the man who had it drawn up," her father answered.

"Now we will listen to what he has to say about it."

The man squared himself for the issue.

"You have read it," he said huskily, "and you value your wife's reputation?"

"Yes, beyond anything and everything else."

"Beyond the Consolidated Companies and the gratification of injuring me with the committee?"

"Yes."

Covington gained confidence from the ease with which all was moving. A few minutes more of this as against a lifetime of wealth and power! It was worth the degradation. "It is sometimes necessary to walk through filth and slime to attain high places," he remembered Gorham had once told him.

"Would you agree to stand one side and give me this chance, rather than have a blemish on your wife's name made public?"

"Yes," was the firm reply.

Eleanor had lived a century during the conversation. Sitting now in the shadow of the room, she turned her eyes first toward one speaker and then the other, wondering all the while how it was to end. If only she had told Robert herself before this moment! She could not understand her husband's pa.s.sive att.i.tude. She knew him to be slow to anger, yet she also knew well the strength of the pa.s.sion which lay controlled beneath his calm exterior. What Covington had said and the manner in which he had said it would, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, have aroused Gorham to stern indignation. She could only attribute his present patience to an uncertainty which lay in his own mind as to the truth of the story which he had read; but when he answered Covington's questions, indicating which choice he would make, she could endure it no longer.

Rising quickly, she stood between the two men, her face turned toward Gorham.

"Robert," she said, "what do you mean? This man is asking you to give up the Consolidated Companies."

"I understand it, Eleanor," Gorham replied. "I would prefer to do so rather than have a single breath of scandal or even suspicion attach itself to you."

Eleanor drew herself up very straight, and, paying no attention to Covington, she addressed herself pa.s.sionately to her husband.

"Look at me, Robert, look into my eyes, and tell me if you see there anything of which I need to feel ashamed. You have read this story, now you shall hear mine. It is one which you should have heard long ago, Robert, but I hesitated to speak, not because I was ashamed of anything which happened, but because I feared just the interpretation which has now been put upon it. You know all about my marriage to Ralph Buckner; you know all about Carina's death, and you shall know all which I am able to tell any one, or which I myself know, of what happened during the awful days which followed."

Eleanor's voice trembled, but the excitement of the moment kept her from breaking down.

"When I lifted that little form from the trail and pressed it to my heart I knew that she was dead. My one thought in the face of the awful blow which had come to me was to get away from the man who had inflicted it. Somehow, with Carina in my arms, I got upon the mare, and again I strained the little body to my heart and forgot all else except my overpowering grief. The mare walked on unguided, uncontrolled,--I knew not where,--I cared not where. I believe I never should have stopped her myself, but suddenly a man appeared by the side of the trail who saw that something was wrong, and he asked if he could be of help. At these first words of sympathy I lost control of myself, and made some incoherent reply. From that time on I was a child myself, and he a kind, loving, guiding father. Walking beside me and helping to support me, we soon reached the shack in which he lived. He took the dead child from my arms, and carried it tenderly into the house; then he came back and helped me to dismount. He asked no further questions, but led me inside, too, soothing my outburst of grief as the reaction came in full force.

Of what happened afterward I have no memory. For the time, I lost my reason, and he, day by day, night by night, watched over me, bathing my hot forehead, moistening my parched lips, trying to give me courage to pa.s.s through the awful ordeal.

"It was all of two weeks that I was there, so he told me afterward. As my reason returned, his first thought was to get me back to my father's ranch, having learned who I was and enough of what had happened to understand the situation. Before we left, he took me to the little mound back of the shack, where I said 'good-bye' to the one ray of suns.h.i.+ne which had entered my life during those awful years. Then he helped me on my mare and mounted his own horse. Together we rode silently back over the seven or eight miles, only to learn that my father had suddenly died, partly from the shock and partly from my unexplained absence. The old man's strength could not endure the double blow.

"In dismay I turned to my protector, and he at once answered the query which he read in my eyes. He made arrangements, and accompanied me to Denver, leaving me in a hospital there, where for two months I hovered between life and death, owing to a relapse. I saw him only once again, when he came to the hospital and told me that he had placed my affairs in the hands of a certain lawyer, who would look after what property my father left, and would advise me after I was able to leave the hospital.

Then he pa.s.sed out of my life, though I was told later that he stayed in Denver until I was out of danger, before he returned East. In my condition and because of the excitement, his name was a blank to me from the moment I left the hospital, and I have striven ever since to recall it. The lawyer to whom he referred me professed not to know it, and simply said that the man had described himself as a prospector from the East."

As Eleanor paused from weakness, Covington glanced across to Gorham.

"Her story doesn't differ much from that contained in the affidavit," he remarked.

"No," Gorham answered, shortly; "it is the same story with a different interpretation."

"What do you think of it now?"

"Just as I have from the beginning."

"You don't believe me!" Eleanor cried, half-beseechingly, half-reproachfully. "I don't wonder,--it is past belief."

"You must believe her, daddy," Alice insisted, ready to burst into tears; "she has tried so many times to tell you."

"I do believe you, Eleanor," Gorham replied. "And what is more, I know that you speak the truth."

"The public may not be so generous," suggested Covington.

"You forget that I have great faith in that same public," Gorham answered, strangely calm in the face of such great provocation.

"You know it, Robert?" Eleanor asked, scarcely believing what she heard.

"How can you know it? You mean that your faith in me is strong enough to make you believe it."

"You may tell them that story, Covington," Gorham said, rising; "but it will make it even more interesting if you add the finale which you are going to witness now."

Then he turned to his wife and took her hand in his.

"Would you know that prospector if you saw him again?" he asked.

"I am sure I should," she replied, wonderingly.