Half a Rogue - Harold MacGrath (phonics books TXT) 📗

side. ... Could anybody be so wicked? True, her transgression had been made, according to this letter, before John had married her; but this lessened the enormity of it none in Patty's eyes.

"Oh, I was so happy, and now I am so miserable!" murmured the girl, pressing her hand to her throat, which seemed to stifle her.

She read the letter again, through blurred vision. It was horrible.

One who takes a deep interest in your future welfare finds it a duty to warn you against Richard Warrington, for whom it is being said you have developed a strong sentiment. It is well known that he drank deeply at one time and lived the life of a debauchee. Beware of the woman, also, whom you call sister. The writer does not offer anything detrimental to her married life, but it is known that she was practically Warrington's mistress before she married your splendid brother. She was seen frequently to enter his apartments at night, and the writer can furnish abundant proof that she was seen to leave his apartments one morning. This is not penned with malice. It is simply that the writer knows and admires you and can not stand passively by and see you humiliated by the attentions of a man who is unworthy to lace your shoes. As for your sister-in-law, I have no desire to meddle. Confront both her and Warrington, if the truth of the above statement is doubted by you.

Upon these last words depended Patty's attitude. It must be true. Whoever had written this abominable letter could write plain English, despite the disguised hand. Patty recognized that it was disguised. The capitals differed, so did the tails of the y's and f's; the backhand slant was not always slanting, but frequently leaned toward the opposite angle. She had but to confront them! It seemed simple; but to bring herself to act upon it! She reviewed all the meetings between Kate and Warrington. Never had her eyes discerned evidence of anything other than frank good fellowship. She searched painfully; there was not a single glance, a single smile upon which she could build a guilty alliance. And yet this writer affirmed ... Oh, it was monstrous! Those rumors she had heard months ago! The telephone call from McQuade! Ah, that telephone call! Had Kate been guilty would she have confided to her, Patty? She seemed to be pulled, now forward, now backward. McQuade knew something, the wretch! but what? This letter had never been written by him. A man would have used a pronoun, third person, masculine; he would have shown some venom back of the duplicity that affirmed an interest in her welfare.

The tears dried quickly; the heat of her renewed rage burned them up. She set about to do something she had not thought of doing before-investigating. She held the note-paper to the sun. The water-mark of a fashionable paper manufacturer was easily observable. Men did not write on that brand. So much gained. Then she recalled a French play in which a perfume had convicted a person of theft. She held the envelope to her nose; nothing, not even tobacco. She tried the letter itself. Ah, here was something tangible: heliotrope, vague, but perceptible. Who among her friends used heliotrope on her kerchief? She could not remember; in fact, any or all of them might have worn it, so far as she could recall. She would go over her invitations and visitors' cards; she would play detective; she would ferret out as a spy who took this amiable interest in her future. This determination brightened her considerably. And woe to the meddler if Patty found her! If it was a baseless lie (and she hoped against hope in her loyal little heart!) she would make a pariah of the writer of this particular anonymous letter. True or not, what was it to her? What right had she to interfere? She was cowardly; of that Patty was certain. True friends are the last in the world to inflict sorrow upon us. Kith and kin may stab us, but never the loyal friend. Now that she thought it all over, she was glad that she had repeatedly fought the impulse to lay the matter before her sister. She would trace this letter home first; she would find out upon what authority it was written; there would be time enough after that to confront Kate, or Warrington, or John. Ah, if she had stepped forward in the dark, to wreck her brother's life needlessly. ... Heliotrope! She would never forget that particular odor, never. She had a good idea of justice, and she recognized the fact that any act on her part, against either Kate or Warrington, before she found the writer of the letter, would be rank injustice. Persons can not defend themselves against anonymous letters; they can only ignore them.

She touched her horse again. She was now in feverish haste to get home. She took the turn of the road which presently brought her in the vicinity of the shops. It was practically in ruins. The courtyard walls were all down, the building itself was totally empty of ore or machinery. Bennington had disposed of these to Pennsylvanian concerns. Patty rode up in time to see half a dozen urchins throwing stones at the few window-panes that were still unbroken. She dispersed them angrily, and they gathered at the side of the road, open-mouthed and wide-eyed at the picture of this avenging angel.

"How dare you throw stones at those windows? How dare you?" she cried passionately.

After a while one of the lads found his voice.

"Why, nobody's in it. The man what owns it tored the insides outen it. 'Tain't no harm what we're doin'. Hey, fellers?"

"Naw. The cops don't say nothin'. An' my old man used to work there."

She saw that they were no more than ordinary boys to whom the panes of glass in a deserted building were legitimate prey.

"So your father was one of the strikers?" said Patty, her lips thinning. "Why did he strike?"

"I don't know; 'cause the others struck, I guess. They was an English lobster workin' without bein' in my old man's union. Mebbe that was it. Anyhow, we don't care; the old man's got another job."

With this the boys climbed the fence and moved across the field, mutely rebellious, like puppies baffled in their pursuit of a cat.

Patty's eyes, moist and shining of a sudden, roved over the grim ruins. Sparrows were chattering on the window ledges and swallows were diving into the black mouths of the towering chimneys. The memory of her father swelled her heart near to bursting. She could see his iron-grey head bending over the desk; she could hear his rough but kindly voice. Why, whenever he entered the house his splendid physical energy seemed to radiate health and cheerfulness, infecting all those about him. She could see the men, too, moving in the glow of ruddy light; she could see again the brilliant sparks flying from under the thundering trip-hammers, the cyclopean eyes that glared up at heaven at night, the great rumbling drays, the freight moving to and from the spur. Now there was no sound; nothing but silence, with the suggestion of a tomb.

The end of the strike had been a nine days' wonder, for it proved that there had actually been no strike at all, since the owner had simply closed down the shops, torn down a few walls, sold the machinery and ore, and canceled all his business obligations. No sensation, however vital, lasts very long these days; and after these nine days it turned its attention to other things, this mutable public. Employers, however, and union leaders, all over the continent, went about their affairs thoughtfully. If one man could do this unheard-of thing, so might others, now that an example had been set before them. The dispersed men harbored no ill feeling toward Morrissy; he, as they supposed, had acted in good faith for the welfare of the union. But for the man who had had the courage to make good his threats, for him they had nothing but bitterness and hate.

Patty would always remember that final night of the strike when John had come in early in the morning, his clothes torn, his hands bloody, his hair matted to his forehead, and hatless. He had been last to leave the shops, and he had, unarmed, run the gantlet of the maddened strikers who had been held at bay for six long hours. Only his great strength and physical endurance had pulled him out of the arms of violent death. There had been no shot fired from the shops. The strikers saw the utter futility of forcing armed men, so they had hung about with gibe and ribald jeer, waiting for some one careless enough to pass them alone. This Bennington did. His men had forgotten him. Bennington's injuries had been rather trivial; it had been his personal appearance that had terrified the women. He had fallen asleep half an hour after reaching home, and he had slept till nine that evening. Upon awakening he had begun at once to plan a trip to Europe, to wander from capital to capital for a year or so. No one had interrupted him; not even the mother, grown old in the past month, had demurred at his plans. He would have none near him but Kate, and she had hovered about him, ministering to his wants as a mother over a sick child. ... Kate! It all came back with a rush. Kate! Oh, what was she, Patty, to believe? That night she had loved Kate almost to idolatry. She shuddered, turned away from the ruins, and set off at a gallop till she came upon brick pavement. She rarely trotted upon pavement, but this morning she had no thought for the horse; she burned to be at work. She trotted rapidly into town, across the principal thoroughfares, this way being the short cut. By this time men were on the way to work. Many of them turned their heads to stare at her. There was only one woman in town who sat a horse like this one, and it could be no less a person than Patty Bennington. All the men recognized her instantly. She had their good wishes, for all that her brother had taken away the bread and butter of some of them. Many touched their hats from mere force of habit.

There was one man, however, who glared evilly at her from the curb. She recognized him in spite of his discolored face, the result of a long, uninterrupted debauch. It was Bolles. As he caught her eye he smiled evilly and leered at her.

"Wait, my beauty; wait. I'll kill that brother of yours one of these fine days, damn him!" Bolles gave one more look at the swiftly-moving figure on the horse, and shuffled away toward McQuade's office, to await the arrival of that gentleman. Bolles needed money, and he knew where to get it.

As she reached the foot of Williams Street Patty glanced up the hill. A horseman had just entered Warrington's. She recognized both man and horse. It was Warrington. She knew at once that he had ridden out her favorite route, perhaps in the hope of seeing her. Her heart tightened strangely as she walked her horse up the hill, and she would have passed home but for the intelligence of her animal, which turned in toward the house quite naturally. Her mother was on the side veranda.

"Patty, you have worried us all. The stableman, when he found your horse gone, came in with the cry of thieves. I was frightened,