"But I did!" Garrison was staring blankly. "I did, Jimmie! Remember I had the cooked-up proofs. Remember that they had never seen the real nephew--"
"Oh, shucks! What"s the odds? Blood"s blood. You don"t mean to say a man wouldn"t know his own sister"s child? Living in the house with him?
Wouldn"t there be some likeness, some family trait, some characteristic?
Are folks any different from horses? No, no, it might happen in stories, but not life, not life."
Garrison shook his head wearily. "I can"t follow you, Jimmie. You like to argue for the sake of arguing. I don"t understand. They did believe me. Isn"t that enough? Why--why----" His face blanched at the thought.
"You don"t mean to say that they knew I was an imposter? Knew all along?
You--can"t mean that, Jimmie?"
"I may," said Drake shortly. "But, see here, kid, you"ll admit it would be impossible for two people to have that birthmark on them; the identical mark in the identical spot. You"ll admit that. Now, wouldn"t it be impossible?"
"Improbable, but not impossible." Suddenly Garrison had commenced to breathe heavily, his hands clenching.
Drake c.o.c.ked his head on one side and closed an eye. He eyed Garrison steadily. "Kid, it seems to me that you"ve only been fooling yourself. I believe you"re Major Calvert"s nephew. That"s straight."
For a long time Garrison stared at him unwinkingly. Then he laughed wildly.
"Oh, you"re good, Jimmie. No, no. Don"t tempt me. You forget; forget two great things. I know my mother"s name was Loring, not Calvert. And my father"s name was Garrison, not Dagget."
"Um-m-m," mused Drake, knitting brows. "You don"t say? But, see here, kid, didn"t you say that this Dagget"s mother was only Major Calvert"s half-sister? How about that, eh? Then her name would be different from his. How about that? How do you know Loring mightn"t fit it? Answer me that."
"I never thought of that," whispered Garrison. "If you only are right, Jimmie! If you only are, what it would mean? But my father, my father,"
he cried weakly. "My father. There"s no getting around that, Jimmie.
His name was Garrison. My name is Garrison. There"s no dodging that. You can"t change that into Dagget."
"How do you know?" argued Drake, slowly, pertinaciously. "This here is my idea, and I ain"t willing to give it up without a fight. How do you know but your father might have changed his name? I"ve known less likelier things to happen. You know he was good blood gone wrong. How do you know he mightn"t have changed it so as not disgrace his family, eh?
Changed it after he married your mother, and she stood for it so as not to disgrace her family. You were a kid when she died, and you weren"t present, you say. How do you know but she mightn"t have wanted to tell you a whole lot, eh? A whole lot your father wouldn"t tell you because he never cared for you. No, the more I think of it the more I"m certain that you"re Major Calvert"s nephew. You"re the only logical answer. That mark of the spur and the other incidents is good enough for me."
"Don"t tempt me, Jimmie, don"t tempt me," pleaded Garrison again. "You don"t know what it all means. I may be his nephew. I may be--G.o.d grant I am! But I must be honest. I must be honest."
"Well, I"m going to hunt up that lawyer, Snark," affirmed Drake finally.
"I won"t rest until I see this thing through. Snark may have known all along you were the rightful heir, and merely put up a job to get a pile out of you when you came into the estate. Or he may have been honest in his dishonesty; may not have known. But I"m going to rustle round after him. Maybe there"s proofs he holds. What about Major Calvert? Are you going to write him?"
Garrison considered. "No--no," he said at length. "No, if--if by any chance I am his nephew--you see how I want to believe you, Jimmie, G.o.d knows how much--then I"ll tell him afterward. Afterward when--I"m clean.
I want to lie low; to square myself in my own sight and man"s. I want to make another name for myself, Jimmie. I want to start all over and shame no man. If by any chance I am William C. Dagget, then--then I want to be worthy of that name. And I owe everything to Garrison. I"m going to clean that name. It meant something once--and it"ll mean something again."
"I believe you, kid."
Subsequently, Drake fulfilled his word concerning the "rustling round"
after that eminent lawyer, Theobald D. Snark. His efforts met with failure. Probably the eminent lawyer"s business had increased so enormously that he had been compelled to vacate the niche he held in the Na.s.sau Street bookcase. But Drake had not given up the fight.
Meanwhile Garrison had commenced his life of regeneration at the turfman"s Long Island stable. He was to ride Speedaway in the coming Carter Handicap. The event that had seen him go down, down to oblivion one year ago might herald the reascendency of his star. He had vowed it would. And so in grim silence he prepared for his farewell appearance in that great seriocomic tragedy of life called "Making Good."
CHAPTER XIV.
GARRISON FINDS HIMSELF.
Sue never rightly remembered how the two months pa.s.sed; the two months succeeding that hideous night when in paralyzed silence she watched Garrison away. The greatest sorrow is stagnant, not active. The heart becomes like a frozen mora.s.s. Sometimes memory slips through the crust, only to sink in the grim "slough of despond."
Waterbury"s death had unnerved her, coming as it did at a time when tragedy had opened the pores of her heart. He had been conscious for a few minutes before the messenger of a new life summoned him into the great beyond. He used the few minutes well. If we all lived with the thought that the next hour would be our last, the world would be peopled with angels--and hypocrites.
Waterbury asked permission of his host, Colonel Desha, to see Sue alone.
It was willingly granted. The girl, white-faced, came and sat by the bed in the room of many shadows; the room where death was tapping, tapping on the door. She had said nothing to her father regarding the events preceding the runaway and Waterbury"s accident.
Waterbury eyed her long and gravely. The heat of his great pa.s.sion had melted the baser metal of his nature. What original alloy of gold he possessed had but emerged refined. His fingers, formerly pudgy, well-fed, had suddenly become skeletons of themselves. They were picking at the coverlet.
"I lied about--about Garrison," he whispered, forcing life to his mouth, his eyes never leaving the girl"s. "I lied. He was square--" Breath would not come. "For-forgive," he cried, suddenly in a smother of sweat.
"Forgive--"
"Gladly, willingly," whispered the girl. She was crying inwardly.
His eyes flamed for an instant, and then died away. By sheer will-power he succeeded in stretching a hand across the coverlet, palm upward.
"Put--put it--there," he whispered. "Will you?"
She understood. It was the sporting world"s token of forgiveness; of friendship. She laid her hand in his, gripping with a firm clasp.
"Thank you," he whispered. Again his eyes flamed; again died away. The end was very near. Perhaps the approaching freedom of the spirit lent him power to read the girl"s thoughts. For as he looked into her eyes, his own saw that she knew what lay in his. He breathed heavily, painfully.
"Could--could you?" he whispered. "If--if you only could." There was a great longing, a mighty wistfulness in his voice. Death was trying to place its hand over his mouth. With a mighty effort Waterbury slipped past it. "If you only could," he reiterated. "It--it means so little to you, Miss Desha--so much, so much to--me!"
And again the girl understood. Without a word she bent over and kissed him. He smiled. And so died Waterbury.
Afterward, the girl remembered Waterbury"s confession. So Garrison was honest! Somehow, she had always believed he was. His eyes, the windows of his soul, were not fouled. She had read weakness there, but never dishonesty. Yes, somehow she had always believed him honest. But he was married. That was different. The concrete, not the abstract, was paramount. All else was swamped by the fact that he was married. She could not believe that he had forgotten his marriage with his true ident.i.ty. She could not believe that. Her heart was against her. Love to her was everything. She could not understand how one could ever forget.
One might forget the world, but not that, not that.
True to her code of judging not, she did not attempt to estimate Garrison. She could not bear to use the probe. There are some things too sacred to be dissected; so near the heart that their proximity renders an experiment prohibitive. She believed that Garrison loved her. She believed that above all. Surely he had given something in exchange for all that he owned of her. If in unguarded moments her conscience a.s.sumed the woolsack, mercy, not justice, swayed it.
She realized the mighty temptation Garrison had been forced against by circ.u.mstances. And if he had fallen, might not she herself? Had it not taken all her courage to renounce--to give the girl up North the right of way? Now she understood the prayer, "Lead us not into temptation."
Yes, it had been weakness with Garrison, not dishonor. He had been fighting against it all the time. She remembered that morning in the tennis-court--her first intimacy with him. And he had spoken of the girl up North. She remembered him saying: "But doesn"t the Bible say to leave all and cleave unto your wife?"
That had been a confession, though she knew it not. And she had ignored it, taking it as badinage, and he had been too weak to brand it truth.
Strangely enough, she did not judge him for posing as Major Calvert"s nephew. Strangely enough, that seemed trivial in comparison with the other. It was so natural for him to be the rightful heir that she could not realize that he was an impostor, nor apportion the fact its true significance. Her brain was unfit to grapple. Only her heart lived; lived with the pa.s.sive life of stagnation. It was choked with weeds on the surface. She tried to patch together the broken parts of her life.
Tried and failed. She could not. She seemed to be existing without an excuse; aimlessly, soullessly.
After many horrible days, hideous nights, she realized that she still loved Garrison. Loved with a love that threatened to absorb even her physical existence. It seemed as if the very breath of her lungs had been diverted to her heart, where it became tissue-searing flame.
And at Calvert House life had resolved itself into silence. The major and his wife were striving to live in the future; striving to live against Garrison"s return. They were ignorant of the true cause of his leaving. For Sue, the keeper of the secret, had not divulged it. She had been left with a difficult proposition to face, and she could not face it. She temporized. She knew that sooner or later the truth would have to come out. She put it off. She could not tell, not now, not now. Each day only rendered it the more difficult. She could not tell.
She had only to look at the old major; to look at his wife, to see that the blow would blast them. She had had youth to help her, and even she had been blasted. What chance had they? And so she said that Garrison and she had quarreled seriously and that in sudden anger, pique, he had left. Oh, yes, she knew he would return. She was quite sure of it. It was all so silly and over nothing, and she had no idea he would take it that way. And she was so sorry, so sorry.
It had all been her fault. He had not been to blame. It was she, only she. In a thoughtless moment she had said something about his being dependent on his uncle, and he had fired up, affirming that he would show her that he was a man, and could earn his own salt. Yes, it had been entirely her own fault, and no one hated herself as she did. He had gone to prove his manhood, and she knew how stubborn he was. He would not return until he wished.
Sue lied bravely, convincingly, whole-heartedly. Everything she did was done thoroughly. She would not think of the future. But she could not tell that Garrison was an impostor; a father of children. She could not tell. So she lied, and lied so well that the old major, bewildered, was forced to believe her. He was forced to acquiesce. He could not interfere. He could do nothing. It was better that his nephew should prove his manhood; return some time and love the girl, than that he should hate her for eternity.
Each day he hoped to see Garrison back, but each day pa.s.sed without that consummation. The strain was beginning to tell on him. His heart was bound up in the boy. If he did not return soon he would advertise, inst.i.tute a search. He well knew the folly of youth. He was broad-minded, great-hearted enough not to censure the girl by word or act. He saw how she was suffering; growing paler daily. But why didn"t Garrison write? All the anger, all the quarrels in the world could not account for his leaving like that; account for his silence.