CHAPTER I. The unwelcome babe—The defrauded young mother—The struggle
between life and death—“Your baby is in heaven”—A brief retrospect—A
marriage for social position—An ambitious wife and a disappointed
husband—The young daughter—The matrimonial market—The Circassian
slaves of modern society—The highest bidder—Disappearance—The old sad
story—Secret marriage—The letters—Disappointed ambition—Interview
between the parents—The mother's purpose—“Baffled, but not
defeated”—The father's surprise—The returned daughter—Forgiven—“I am
not going away again, father dear”—Insecurity and distrust
CHAPTER II. The hatred of a bad woman—Mrs. Dinneford's plans for the
destruction of Granger—Starting in business—Plots of Mrs. Dinneford
and Freeling—The discounted notes—The trap—Granger's suspicions
aroused—Forgery—Mrs. Dinneford relentless—The arrest—Fresh evidence
of crime upon Granger's person—The shock to Edith—“That night her baby
was born”
CHAPTER III. “It is a splendid boy”—A convenient, non-interfering
family doctor—Cast adrift—Into the world in a basket, unnamed
and disowned—Edith's second struggle back to life—Her mind a
blank—Granger convicted of forgery—Seeks to gain knowledge of his
child—The doctor's evasion and ignorance—An insane asylum instead of
State's prison—Edith's slow return to intelligence—“There's something
I can't understand, mother”—“Where is my baby?”—“What of George?”—No
longer a child, but a broken hearted woman—The divorce
CHAPTER IV. Sympathy between father and daughter—Interest in public
charities—A dreadful sight—A sick babe in the arms of a half-drunken
woman—“Is there no law to meet such cases?”—-“The poor baby has no
vote!”—Edith seeks for the grave of her child, but cannot find
it—She questions her mother, who baffles her curiosity—Mrs. Bray's
visit—Interview between Mrs. Dinneford and Mrs. Bray—“The baby
isn't living?”—“Yes; I saw it day before yesterday in the arms of a
beggar-woman”—Edith's suspicions aroused—Determined to discover the
fate of her child—Visits the doctor—“Your baby is in heaven”—“Would
to God it were so, for I saw a baby in hell not long ago!”
CHAPTER V. Mrs. Dinneford visits Mrs. Bray—“The woman to whom you
gave that baby was here yesterday”—The woman must be put out of the
way—Exit Mrs. Dinneford, enter Pinky Swett—“You know your fate—New
Orleans and the yellow fever”—“All I want of you is to keep track of
the baby”—Division of the spoils—Lucky dreams—Consultation of the
dream-book for lucky figures—Sam McFaddon and his backer, who “drives
in the Park and wears a two thousand dollar diamond pin”—The fate of a
baby begged with—The baby must not die—The lottery-policies
CHAPTER VI. Rottenness at the heart of a great city—Pinky Swett's
attempted rescue of a child from cruel beating—The fight—Pinky's
arrest—Appearance of the “queen”—Pinky's release at her command—The
queen's home—The screams of children being beaten—The rescue of
“Flanagan's Nell”—Death the great rescuer—“They don't look after
things in here as they do outside—Everybody's got the screws on, and
things must break sometimes, but it isn't called murder—The coroner
understands it all”
CHAPTER VII. Pinky Swett at the mercy of the crowd in the street—Taken
to the nearest station-house—Mrs. Dinneford visits Mrs. Bray
again—Fresh alarms—“She's got you in her power”—-“Money is of no
account”—The knock at the door—Mrs. Dinneford in hiding—The visitor
gone—Mrs. Bray reports the woman insatiable in her demands—Must have
two hundred dollars by sundown—No way of escape except through police
interference—“People who deal with the devil generally have the devil
to pay”—Suspicion—A mistake—Sound of feet upon the stairs—Mrs.
Dinneford again in hiding—Enter Pinky Swett—Pinky disposed of—Mrs.
Dinneford again released—Mrs. Bray's strategy—“Let us be friends
still, Mrs. Bray”—Mrs. Dinneford's deprecation and humiliation—Mrs.
Bray's triumph
CHAPTER VIII. Mrs. Bray receives a package containing two hundred
dollars—“Poor baby! I must see better to its comfort”—Pinky meets a
young girl from the country—The “Ladies' Restaurant”—Fried oysters
and sangaree—The “bindery” girl—“My head feels strangely”—Through
the back alley—The ten-cent lodging house—Robbery—A second robbery—A
veil drawn—A wild prolonged cry of a woman—The policeman listens only
for a moment, and then passes on—Foul play—“In all our large
cities are savages more cruel and brutal in their instincts than the
Comanches”—Who is responsible?
CHAPTER IX. Valuation of the spoils—The receiver—The “policy-shop” and
its customers—A victim of the lottery mania
CHAPTER X. “Policy-drunkards”—A newly-appointed policeman's
blunder—The end of a “policy-drunkard”—Pinky and her friend in
consultation over “a cast-off baby in Dirty alley”—“If you can't get
hush-money out of its mother, you can bleed Fanny Bray”—The way to
starve a baby—Pinky moves her quarters without the use of “a dozen
furniture cars”—A baby's home—The baby's night nurse—The baby's
supper—The baby's bed—How the baby's money is spent—Where the baby's
nurse passes the night—The baby's disappearance
CHAPTER XI. Reserve between mother and daughter—Mrs. Dinneford
disapproves of Edith's charitable visits—Mrs. Dinneford meets Freeling
by appointment at a hotel—“There's trouble brewing”—“A letter from
George Granger”—Accused of conspiracy—Possibility of Granger's pardon
by the governor—An ugly business—In great peril—Freeling's threats of
exposure—A hint of an alternative
CHAPTER XII. Mr. Freeling fails to appear at his place of
business—Examination of his bank accounts—It is discovered that he has
borrowed largely of his friends—Mrs. Dinneford has supplied him $20,000
from her private purse—Mrs. Dinneford falls sick, and temporarily
loses her reason—“I told you her name was Gray—Gray, not Bray”—Half
disclosures—Recovery—Mother and daughter mutually suspicious—The
visitor—Mrs. Dinneford equal to the emergency—Edith thrown off the
track
CHAPTER XIII. Edith is satisfied that her babe is alive—She has a
desire to teach the children of the poor—“My baby may become like one
of these”—She hears of a baby which has been stolen—Resolves to go
and see it, and to apply to Mr. Paulding of the Briar street mission for
assistance in her attempt—Mr. Paulding persuades her that it is best
not to see the child, and promises that he himself will look after
it—Returns home—Her father remonstrates with her, finally promises to
help her
CHAPTER XIV. Mr. Dinneford sets out for the mission-house—An incident
on the way—Encounters Mr. Paulding—Mr. Paulding makes his report—“The
vicious mark their offspring with unmistakable signs of moral depravity;
this baby has signs of a better origin”—A profitable conversation—“I
think you had better act promptly”
CHAPTER XV. Mr. Dinneford with a policeman goes in quest of the
baby—The baby is gone—Inquiries—Mr. Dinneford resolves to
persevere—Cause of the baby's disappearance—Pinky Swett's
curiosity—Change of baby's nurse—Baby's improved condition—Baby's
first experience of motherly tenderness—Baby's first smile—“Such
beautiful eyes”—Pinky Swett visits the St. John mission-school—Edith
is not there
CHAPTER XVI. Mr. Dinneford's return, and Edith's disappointment—“It
is somebody's baby, and it may be mine”—An unsuspected listener—Mrs.
Dinneford acts promptly—Conference between Mrs. Dinneford and Mrs.
Hoyt, alias Bray—The child must be got out of the way—“If it will
not starve, it must drown”—Mrs. Dinneford sees an acquaintance as
she leaves Mrs. Hoyt's, and endeavors to escape his observation—A new
danger and disgrace awaiting her
CHAPTER XVII. Mental conditions of mother and daughter—Mr. Dinneford
aroused to a sense of his moral responsibilities—The heathen in
our midst—The united evil of policy-lotteries and whisky-shops—The
education of the policy-shops
CHAPTER XVIII. News item: “A child drowned”—Another news item: Pinky
Swett sentenced to prison for robbery—Baby's improved
condition—Mrs. Burke's efforts to retain the baby after Pinky Swett's
imprisonment—Baby Andy's rough life in the street—Mrs. Burke's
death—Cast upon the world—Andy's adventures—He finds a home and a
friend
CHAPTER XIX. Mr. Dinneford visits the mission-school—A comparison of
the present with the past—The first mission-school—Reminiscences of
the school in its early days—The zealous scholar—Good effects of
the mission—“Get the burning brands apart, or interpose incombustible
things between them”—An illustration—“Let in light, and the darkness
flees”
CHAPTER XX. “The man awoke and felt the child against his bosom, soft
and warm”—Led by a little child—“God being my helper, I will be a man
again”—A new life—Meeting of an old friend—A friend in need—Food,
clothes, work—A new home—God's strength our only safety
CHAPTER XXI. Intimate relations of physical and moral purity—Blind
Jake—The harvest of the thieves and beggars—Inconsiderate
charity—Beggary a vice—“The deserving poor are never common
beggars”—“To help the evil is to hurt the good” The malignant ulcer
in the body politic of our city—The breeding-places of epidemics and
malignant diseases—Little Italian street musicians—The existence of
slavery in our midst—Facts in regard to it
CHAPTER XXII. Edith's continued interest in the children of the
poor—Christmas dinner at the mission-house—Edith perceives Andy,
and feels a strange attraction toward him—Andy's disappearance after
dinner—Pinky Swett has been seen dragging him away—Lost sight of
CHAPTER XXIII. Christmas dinner at Mr. Dinneford's—The dropped
letter—It is missed—A scene of wild excitement—Mrs. Dinneford's
sudden death—Edith reads the letter—A revelation—“Innocent!”—Edith
is called to her mother—“Dead, and better so!”—Granger's innocence
established—An agony of affection—No longer Granger's wife
CHAPTER XXIV. Edith's sickness—Meeting of Mrs. Bray and Pinky Swett—A
trial of sharpness, in which neither gains the advantage—Mr. Dinneford
receives a call from a lady—The lady, who is Mrs. Bray, offers
information—Mr. Dinneford surprises her into admitting an important
fact—Mrs. Bray offers to produce the child for a price—Mr. Dinneford
consents to pay the price on certain stipulations—Mrs. Bray departs,
promising to come again
CHAPTER XXV. Granger's pardon procured—How he receives his pardon—Mrs.
Bray tries to trace Pinky home—Loses sight of her in the street—Mrs.
Bray interviews a shop-woman—Pinky's destination—The child is gone
CHAPTER XXVI. Mrs. Bray does not call on Mr. Dinneford, as she
promised—Peril to Andrew Hall through loss of the child—Help—Edith
longs to see or write to Granger, but does not—Edith encounters Mrs.
Bray in the street—“Where is my baby?”—Disappointment—How to identify
the child if found
CHAPTER XXVII. No trace of Andy—Account of Andy's abduction—Andy's
prison—An outlook from prison—A loose nail—The escape—The sprained
ankle—The accident
CHAPTER XXVIII. Edith's visit to the children's hospital—“Oh, my baby!
thank God! my baby!”—The identification
CHAPTER XXIX. Meeting of Mr. Dinneford and George Granger—“We want you
to help us find your child”—“Edith's heart is calling out for you”—The
meeting—The marriage benediction
A BABY had come, but he was not welcome. Could anything be sadder?
The young mother lay with her white face to the wall, still as death. A woman opened the chamber door noiselessly and came in, the faint rustle of her garments disturbing the quiet air.
A quick, eager turning of the head, a look half anxious, half fearful, and then the almost breathless question,
“Where is my baby?”
“Never mind about the baby,” was answered, almost coldly; “he's well enough. I'm more concerned about you.”
“Have you sent word to George?”
“George can't see you. I've said that before.”
“Oh, mother! I must see my husband.”
“Husband!” The tone of bitter contempt with which the word was uttered struck the daughter like a blow. She had partly risen in her excitement, but now fell back with a low moan, shutting her eyes and turning her face away. Even as she did so, a young man stepped back from the door of the elegant house in which she lay with a baffled, disappointed air. He looked pale and wretched.
“Edith!” Two hours afterward the doctor stood over the young mother, and called her name. She did not move nor reply. He laid his hand on her cheek, and almost started, then bent down and looked at her intently for a moment or two. She had fever. A serious expression came into his face, and there was cause.
The sweet rest and heavenly joy of maternity had been denied to his young patient. The new-born babe had not been suffered to lie even for one blissful moment on her bosom. Hard-hearted family pride and cruel worldliness had robbed her of the delight with which God ever seeks to dower young motherhood, and now the overtaxed body and brain had given way.
For many weeks the frail young creature struggled with delirium—struggled and overcame.
“Where is my baby?”
The first thought of returning consciousness was of her baby.
A woman who sat in a distant part of the chamber started up and crossed to the bed. She was past middle life, of medium stature, with small, clearly cut features and cold blue eyes. Her mouth was full, but very firm. Self-poise was visible even in her surprised movements. She bent over the bed and looked into Edith's wistful eyes.
“Where is my baby, mother?” Mrs. Dinneford put her fingers lightly on Edith's lips.
“You must be very quiet,” she said, in a low, even voice. “The doctor forbids all excitement. You have been extremely ill.”
“Can't I see my baby, mother? It won't hurt me to see my baby.”
“Not now. The doctor—”
Edith half arose in bed, a look of doubt and fear coming into her face.
“I want my baby, mother,” she said, interrupting her.
A hard, resolute expression came into the cold blue eyes of Mrs. Dinneford. She put her hand firmly against Edith and pressed her back upon the pillow.
“You have been very ill for nearly two months,” she said, softening her voice. “No one thought you could live. Thank God! the crisis is over, but not the danger.”
“Two months! Oh, mother!”
The slight flush that had come into Edith's wan face faded out, and the pallor it had hidden for a few moments became deeper. She shut her eyes and lay very still, but it was plain from the expression of her face that thought was busy.
“Not two whole months, mother?” she said, at length, in doubtful tones. “Oh no! it cannot be.”
“It is just as I have said, Edith; and now, my dear child, as you value your life, keep quiet; all excitement is dangerous.”
But repression was impossible. To Edith's consciousness there was no lapse of time. It seemed scarcely an hour since the birth of her baby and its removal from her sight. The inflowing tide of mother-love, the pressure and yearning sweetness of which she had begun to feel when she first called for the baby they had not permitted to rest, even for an instant, on her bosom, was now flooding her heart. Two months! If that were so, what of the baby? To be submissive was impossible.
Starting up half wildly, a vague terror in her face, she cried, piteously,
“Oh, mother, bring me my baby. I shall die if you do not!”
“Your baby is in heaven,” said Mrs. Dinneford, softening her voice to a tone of tender regret.
Edith caught her breath, grew very white, and then, with a low, wailing cry that sent a shiver through Mrs. Dinneford's heart, fell back, to all appearance dead.
The mother did not call for help, but sat by the bedside of her daughter, and waited for the issue of this new struggle between life and death. There was no visible excitement, but her mouth was closely set and her cold blue eyes fixed in a kind of vacant stare.
Edith was Mrs. Dinneford's only child, and she had loved her with the strong, selfish love of a worldly and ambitious woman. In her own marriage she had not consulted her heart. Mr. Dinneford's social position and wealth were to her far more than his personal endowments. She would have rejected him without a quicker pulse-beat if these had been all he had to offer. He was disappointed, she was not. Strong, self-asserting, yet politic, Mrs Dinneford managed her good husband about as she pleased in all external matters, and left him to the free enjoyment of his personal tastes, preferences and friendships. The house they lived in, the furniture it contained, the style and equipage assumed by the family, were all of her choice, Mr. Dinneford giving merely a half-constrained or half-indifferent consent. He had learned, by painful and sometimes humiliating experience, that any contest with Mrs. Helen Dinneford upon which he might enter was sure to end in his defeat.
He was a man of fine moral and intellectual qualities. His wealth gave him leisure, and his tastes, feelings and habits of thought drew him into the society of some of the best men in the city where he lived—best in the true meaning of that word. In all enlightened social reform movements you would be sure of finding Mr. Howard Dinneford. He was an active and efficient member in many boards of public charity, and highly esteemed in them all for his enlightened philanthropy and sound judgment. Everywhere but at home he was strong and influential; there he was weak, submissive and of little account. He had long ago accepted the situation, making a virtue of necessity. A different man—one of stronger will and a more imperious spirit—would have held his own, even though it wrought bitterness and sorrow. But Mr. Dinneford's aversion to strife, and gentleness toward every one, held him away from conflict, and so his home was at least tranquil.
Mrs. Dinneford had her own way, and so long as her husband made no strong opposition to that way all was peaceful.
For Edith, their only child, who was more like her father than her mother, Mr. Dinneford had the tenderest regard. The well-springs of love, choked up so soon after his marriage, were opened freely toward his daughter, and he lived in her a new, sweet and satisfying life. The mother was often jealous of her husband's demonstrative tenderness for Edith. A yearning instinct of womanhood, long repressed by worldliness and a mean social ambition, made her crave at times the love she had cast away, and then her cup of life was very bitter. But fear of Mr. Dinneford's influence over Edith was stronger than any jealousy of his love. She had high views for her daughter. In her own marriage she had set aside all considerations but those of social rank. She had made it a stepping-stone to a higher place in society than the one to which she was born. Still, above them stood many millionaire families, living in palace-homes, and through her daughter she meant to rise into one of them. It mattered not for the personal quality of the scion of the house; he might be as coarse and common as his father before him, or weak, mean, selfish, and debased by sensual indulgence. This was of little account. To lift Edith to the higher social level was the all in all of Mrs. Dinneford's ambition.
But Mr. Dinneford taught Edith a nobler life-lesson than this, gave her better views of wedlock, pictured for her loving heart the bliss of a true marriage, sighing often as he did so, but unconsciously, at the lost fruition of his own sweet hopes. He was careful to do this only when alone with Edith, guarding his speech when Mrs. Dinneford was present. He had faith in true principles, and with these he sought to guard her life. He knew that she would be pushed forward into society, and knew but too well that one so pure and lovely in mind as well as person would become a centre of attraction, and that he, standing on the outside as it were, would have no power to save her from the saddest of all fates if she were passive and her mother resolute. Her safety must lie in herself.
Edith was brought out early. Mrs. Dinneford could not wait. At seventeen she was thrust into society, set up for sale to the highest bidder, her condition nearer that of a Circassian than a Christian maiden, with her mother as slave-dealer.
So it was and so, it is. You may see the thing every day. But it did not come out according to Mrs. Dinneford's programme. There was a highest bidder; but when he came for his slave, she was not to be found.
Well, the story is trite and brief—the old sad story. Among her suitors was a young man named Granger, and to him Edith gave her heart. But the mother rejected him with anger and scorn. He was not rich, though belonging to a family of high character, and so fell far below her requirements. Under a pressure that almost drove the girl to despair, she gave her consent to a marriage that looked more terrible than death. A month before the time fixed for, its consummation, she barred the contract by a secret union with Granger.
Edith knew her mother's character too well to hope for any reconciliation, so far as Mr. Granger was concerned. Coming in as he had done between her and the consummation of her highest ambition, she could never feel toward him anything but the most bitter hatred; and so, after remaining at home for about a week after her secret marriage, she wrote this brief letter to her mother and went away:
“My DEAR MOTHER: I do not love Spencer Wray, and would rather die than marry him, and so I have made the marriage to which my heart has never consented, an impossibility. You have left me no other alternative but this. I am the wife of George Granger, and go to cast my lot with his.
“Your loving daughter,
“EDITH.”
To her father she wrote:
“My DEAR, DEAR FATHER: If I bring sorrow to your good and loving heart by what I have done, I know that it will be tempered with joy at my escape from a union with one from whom my soul has ever turned with irrepressible dislike. Oh, my father, you can understand, if mother cannot, into what a desperate strait I have been brought. I am a deer hunted to the edge of a dizzy chasm, and I leap for life over the dark abyss, praying for strength to reach the farther edge. If I fail in the wild effort, I can only meet destruction; and I would rather be bruised to death on the jagged rocks than trust myself to the hounds and hunters. I write passionately—you will hardly recognize your quiet child; but the repressed instincts of my nature are strong, and peril and despair have broken their bonds. I did not consult you about the step I have taken, because I dared not trust you with my secret. You would have tried to hold me back from the perilous leap, fondly hoping for some other way of escape. I had resolved on putting an impassable gulf between me and danger, if I died in the attempt. I have taken the leap, and may God care for me!
“I have laid up in my heart of hearts, dearest of fathers, the precious life-truths that so often fell from your lips. Not a word that you ever said about the sacredness of marriage has been forgotten. I believe with you that it is a little less than crime to marry when no love exists—that she who does so, sells her heart's birthright for some mess of pottage, sinks down from the pure level of noble womanhood, and traffics away her person, is henceforth meaner in quality if not really vile.
“And so, my father, to save myself from such a depth of degradation and misery, I take my destiny into my own hands. I have grown very strong in my convictions and purposes in the last four weeks. My sight has become suddenly clear. I am older by many years.
“As for George Granger, all I can now say is that I love him, and believe him to be worthy of my love. I am willing to trust him, and am ready to share his lot, however humble.
“Still hold me in your heart, my precious father, as I hold you in mine.
“EDITH.”
Mr. Dinneford read this letter twice. It took him some time, his eyes were so full of tears. In view of her approaching marriage with Spencer Wray, his heart had felt very heavy. It was something lighter now. Young Granger was not the man he would have chosen for Edith, but he liked him far better than he did the other, and felt that his child was safe now.
He went to his wife's room, and found her with Edith's letter crushed in her hand. She was sitting motionless, her face pale and rigid, her eyes fixed and stony and her lips tight against her teeth. She did not seem to notice his presence until he put his hand upon her, which he did without speaking. At this she started up and looked at him with a kind of fierce intentness.
“Are you a party to this frightful things?” she demanded.
Mr. Dinneford weakly handed her the letter he had received from Edith. She read it through in half the time it had taken his tear-dimmed eyes to make out the touching sentences. After she had done so, she stood for a few moments as if surprised or baffled. Then she sat down, dropping her head, and remained for a long time without speaking.
“The bitter fruit, Mr. Dinneford,” she said, at last, in a voice so strange and hard that it seemed to his ears as if another had spoken. All passion had died out of it.
He waited, but she added nothing more. After a long silence she waved her hand slightly, and without looking at her husband, said,
“I would rather be alone.”
Mr. Dinneford took Edith's letter from the floor, where it had dropped from his wife's hand, and withdrew from her presence. She arose quickly as he did so, crossed the room and silently turned the key, locking herself in. Then her manner changed; she moved about the room in a half-aimless, half-conscious way, as though some purpose was beginning to take shape in her mind. Her motions had an easy, cat-like grace, in contrast with their immobility a little while before. Gradually her step became quicker, while ripples of feeling began to pass over her face, which was fast losing its pallor. Gleams of light began shooting from her eyes, that were so dull and stony when her husband found her with Edith's letter crushed in her grasp. Her hands opened and shut upon themselves nervously. This went on, the excitement of her forming purpose, whatever it was, steadily increasing, until she swept about the room like a fury, talking to herself and gesticulating as one half insane from the impelling force of an evil passion.
“Baffled, but not defeated.” The excitement had died out. She spoke these words aloud, and with a bitter satisfaction in her voice, then sat down, resting her face in her hands, and remaining for a long time in deep thought.
When she met her husband, an hour afterward, there was a veil over her face, and he tried in vain to look beneath it. She was greatly changed; her countenance had a new expression—something he had never seen there before. For years she had been growing away from him; now she seemed like one removed to a great distance—to have become almost stranger. He felt half afraid of her. She did not speak of Edith, but remained cold, silent and absorbed.
Mrs. Dinneford gave no sign of what was in her heart for many weeks. The feeling of distance and strangeness perceived by her husband went on increasing, until a vague feeling of mystery and fear began to oppress him. Several times he had spoken of Edith, but his wife made no response, nor could he read in her veiled face the secret purposes she was hiding from him.
No wonder that Mr. Dinneford was greatly surprised and overjoyed, on coming home one day, to meet his daughter, to feel her arms about his neck, and to hold her tearful face on his bosom.
“And I'm not going away again, father dear,” she said as she kissed him fondly. “Mother has sent for me, and George is to come. Oh, we shall be so happy, so happy!”
And father and daughter cried together, like two happy children, in very excess of gladness. They had met alone, but Mrs. Dinneford came in, her presence falling on them like a cold shadow.
“Two great babies,” she said, a covert sneer in her chilling voice.
The joy went slowly out of their faces, though not out of their hearts. There it nestled, and warmed the renewing blood. But a vague, questioning fear began to creep in, a sense of insecurity, a dread of hidden danger. The daughter did not fully trust her mother, nor the husband his wife.
THE reception of young Granger was as cordial as Mrs. Dinneford chose to make it. She wanted to get near enough to study his character thoroughly, to discover its weaknesses and defects, not its better qualities, so that she might do for him the evil work that was in her heart. She hated him with a bitter hatred, and there is nothing so subtle and tireless and unrelenting as the hatred of a bad woman.
She found him weak and unwary. His kindly nature, his high sense of honor, his upright purpose, his loving devotion to Edith, were nothing in her eyes. She spurned them in her thoughts, she trampled them under her feet with scorn. But she studied his defects, and soon knew every weak point in his character. She drew him out to speak of himself, of his aims and prospects, of his friends and associates, until she understood him altogether. Then she laid her plans for his destruction.
Granger was holding a clerkship at the time of his marriage, but was anxious to get a start for himself. He had some acquaintance with a man named Lloyd Freeling, and often spoke of him in connection with business. Freeling had a store on one of the best streets, and, as represented by himself, a fine run of trade, but wanted more capital. One day he said to Granger,
“If I could find the right man with ten thousand dollars, I would take him in. We could double this business in a year.”
Granger repeated the remark at home, Mrs. Dinneford listened, laid it up in her thought, and on the next day called at the store of Mr. Freeling to see what manner of man he was.
Her first impression was favorable—she liked him. On a second visit she likes him better. She was not aware that Freeling knew her; in this he had something of the advantage. A third time she dropped in, asking to see certain goods and buying a small bill, as before. This time she drew Mr. Freeling into conversation about business, and put some questions the meaning of which he understood quite as well as she did.
A woman like Mrs. Dinneford can read character almost as easily as she can read a printed page, particularly a weak or bad character. She knew perfectly, before the close of this brief interview, that Freeling was a man without principle, false and unscrupulous, and that if Granger were associated with him in business, he could, if he chose, not only involve him in transactions of a dishonest nature, but throw upon him the odium and the consequences.
“Do you think,” she said to Granger, not long afterward, “that your friend, Mr. Freeling, would like to have you for a partner in business?”
The question surprised and excited him.
“I know it,” he returned; “he has said so more than once.”
“How much capital would he require?”
“Ten thousand dollars.”
“A large sum to risk.”
“Yes; but I do not think there will be any risk. The business is well established.”
“What do you know about Mr. Freeling?”
“Not a great deal; but if I am any judge of character, he is fair and honorable.”
Mrs. Dinneford turned her head that Granger might not see the expression of her face.
“You had better talk with Mr. Dinneford,” she said.
But Mr. Dinneford did not favor it. He had seen too many young men go into business and fail.
So the matter was dropped for a little while. But Mrs. Dinneford had set her heart on the young man's destruction, and no better way of accomplishing the work presented itself than this. He must be involved in some way to hurt his good name, to blast his reputation and drive him to ruin. Weak, trusting and pliable, a specious villain in whom he had confidence might easily get him involved in transactions that were criminal under the law. She would be willing to sacrifice twice ten thousand dollars to accomplish this result.
Neither Mr. Dinneford nor Edith favored the business connection with Freeling, and said all they could against it. In weak natures we often find great pertinacity. Granger had this quality. He had set his mind on the copartnership, and saw in it a high road to fortune, and no argument of Mr. Dinneford, nor opposition of Edith, had power to change his views, or to hold him back from the arrangement favored by Mrs. Dinneford, and made possible by the capital she almost compelled her husband to supply.
In due time the change from clerk to merchant was made, and the new connection announced, under the title of “FREELING & GRANGER.”
Clear seeing as evil may be in its schemes for hurting others, it is always blind to the consequent exactions upon itself; it strikes fiercely and desperately, not calculating the force of a rebound. So eager was Mrs. Dinneford to compass the ruin of Granger that she stepped beyond the limit of common prudence, and sought private interviews with Freeling, both before and after the completion of the partnership arrangement. These took place in the parlor of a fashionable hotel, where the gentleman and lady seemed to meet accidentally, and without attracting attention.
Mrs. Dinneford was very confidential in these interviews not concealing her aversion to Granger. He had come into the family, she said, as an unwelcome intruder; but now that he was there, they had to make the best of him. Not in spoken words did Mrs. Dinneford convey to Freeling the bitter hatred that was in her heart, nor in spoken words let him know that she desired the young man's utter ruin, but he understood it all before the close of their first private interview. Freeling was exceedingly deferential in the beginning and guarded in his speech. He knew by the quick intuitions of his nature that Mrs. Dinneford cherished an evil purpose, and had chosen him as the agent for its accomplishment. She was rich, and occupied a high social position, and his ready conclusion was that, be the service what it might, he could make it pay. To get such a woman in his power was worth an effort.
One morning—it was a few months after the date of the copartnership—Mrs. Dinneford received a note from Freeling. It said, briefly,
“At the usual place, 12 M. to-day. Important.” There was no signature.
The sharp knitting of her brows and the nervous crumpling of the note in her hand showed that she was not pleased at the summons. She had come already to know her partner in evil too well. At 12 M. she was in the hotel parlor. Freeling was already there. They met in external cordiality, but it was very evident from the manner of Mrs. Dinneford, that she felt herself in the man's power, and had learned to be afraid of him.
“It will be impossible to get through to-morrow,” he said, in a kind of imperative voice, that was half a threat, “unless we have two thousand dollars.”
“I cannot ask Mr. Dinneford for anything more,” Mrs. Dinneford replied; “we have already furnished ten thousand dollars beyond the original investment.”
“But it is all safe enough—that is, if we do not break down just here for lack of so small a sum.”
Mrs. Dinneford gave a start.
“Break down!” She repeated the words in a husky, voice, with a paling face. “What do you mean?”
“Only that in consequence of having in store a large stock of unsalable goods bought by your indiscreet son-in-law, who knows no more about business than a child, we are in a temporary strait.”
“Why did you trust him to buy?” asked Mrs. Dinneford.
“I didn't trust him. He bought without consulting me,” was replied, almost rudely.
“Will two thousand be the end of this thing?”
“I think so.”
“You only think so?”
“I am sure of it.”
“Very well; I will see what can be done. But all this must have an end, Mr. Freeling. We cannot supply any more money. You must look elsewhere if you have further need. Mr. Dinneford is getting very much annoyed and worried. You surely have other resources.”
“I have drawn to the utmost on all my resources,” said the man, coldly.
Mrs. Dinneford remained silent for a good while, her eyes upon the floor. Freeling watched her face intently, trying to read what was in her thoughts. At last she said, in a suggestive tone,
“There are many ways of getting money known to business-men—a little risky some of them, perhaps, but desperate cases require desperate expedients. You understand me?”
Freeling took a little time to consider before replying.
“Yes,” he said, at length, speaking slowly, as one careful of his words. “But all expedients are 'risky,' as you say—some of them very risky. It takes a long, cool head to manage them safely.”
“I don't know a longer or cooler head than yours,” returned Mrs. Dinneford, a faint smile playing about her lips.
“Thank you for the compliment,” said Freeling, his lips reflecting the smile on hers.
“You must think of some expedient.” Mrs. Dinneford's manner grew impressive. She spoke with emphasis and deliberation. “Beyond the sum of two thousand dollars, which I will get for you by to-morrow, I shall not advance a single penny. You may set that down as sure. If you are not sharp enough and strong enough, with the advantage you possess, to hold your own, then you must go under; as for me, I have done all that I can or will.”
Freeling saw that she was wholly in earnest, and understood what she meant by “desperate expedients.” Granger was to be ruined, and she was growing impatient of delay. He had no desire to hurt the young man—he rather liked him. Up to this time he had been content with what he could draw out of Mrs. Dinneford. There was no risk in this sort of business. Moreover, he enjoyed his interviews and confidences with the elegant lady, and of late the power he seemed to be gaining over her; this power he regarded as capital laid up for another use, and at another time.
But it was plain that he had reached the end of his present financial policy, and must decide whether to adopt the new one suggested by Mrs. Dinneford or make a failure, and so get rid of his partner. The question he had to settle with himself was whether he could make more by a failure than by using Granger a while longer, and then throwing him overboard, disgraced and ruined. Selfish and unscrupulous as he was, Freeling hesitated to do this. And besides, the “desperate expedients” he would have to adopt in the new line of policy were fraught with peril to all who took part in them. He might fall into the snare set for another—might involve himself so deeply as not to find a way of escape.
“To-morrow we will talk this matter over,” he said in reply to Mrs. Dinneford's last remark; “in the mean time I will examine the ground thoroughly and see how it looks.”
“Don't hesitate to make any use you can of Granger,” suggested the lady. “He has done his part toward getting things tangled, and must help to untangle them.”
“All right, ma'am.”
And they separated, Mrs. Dinneford reaching the street by one door of the hotel, and Freeling by another.
On the following day they met again, Mrs. Dinneford bringing the two thousand dollars.
“And now what next?” she asked, after handing over the money and taking the receipt of “Freeling & Granger.” Her eyes had a hard glitter, and her face was almost stern in its expression. “How are you going to raise money and keep afloat?”
“Only some desperate expedient is left me now,” answered Freeling, though not in the tone of a man who felt himself at bay. It was said with a wicked kind of levity.
Mrs. Dinneford looked at him keenly. She was beginning to mistrust the man. They gazed into each other's faces in silence for some moments, each trying to read what was in the other's thought. At length Freeling said,
“There is one thing more that you will have to do, Mrs. Dinneford.”
“What?” she asked.
“Get your husband to draw two or three notes in Mr. Granger's favor. They should not be for less than five hundred or a thousand dollars each. The dates must be short—not over thirty or sixty days.”
“It can't be done,” was the emphatic answer.
“It must be done,” replied Freeling; “they need not be for the business. You can manage the matter if you will; your daughter wants an India shawl, or a set of diamonds, or a new carriage—anything you choose. Mr. Dinneford hasn't the ready cash, but we can throw his notes into bank and get the money; don't you see?”
But Mrs. Dinneford didn't see.
“I don't mean,” said Freeling, “that we are to use the money. Let the shawl, or the diamond, or the what-not, be bought and paid for. We get the discounts for your use, not ours.”
“All very well,” answered Mrs. Dinneford; “but how is that going to help you?”
“Leave that to me. You get the notes,” said Freeling.
“Never walk blindfold, Mr. Freeling,” replied the lady, drawing herself up, with a dignified air. “We ought to understand each other by this time. I must see beyond the mere use of these notes.”
Freeling shut his mouth tightly and knit his heavy brows. Mrs. Dinneford watched him, closely.
“It's a desperate expedient,” he said, at length.
“All well as far as that is concerned; but if I am to have a hand in it, I must know all about it,” she replied, firmly. “As I said just now, I never walk blindfold.”
Freeling leaned close to Mrs. Dinneford, and uttered a few sentences in a low tone, speaking rapidly. The color went and came in her face, but she sat motionless, and so continued for some time after he had ceased speaking.
“You will get the notes?” Freeling put the question as one who has little doubt of the answer.
“I will get them,” replied Mrs. Dinneford.
“When?”
“It will take time.”
“We cannot wait long. If the thing is done at all, it must be done quickly. 'Strike while the iron is hot' is the best of all maxims.”
“There shall be no needless delay on my part. You may trust me for that,” was answered.
Within a week Mrs. Dinneford brought two notes, drawn by her husband in favor of George Granger—one for five hundred and the other for one thousand dollars. The time was short—thirty and sixty days. On this occasion she came to the store and asked for her son-in-law. The meeting between her and Freeling was reserved and formal. She expressed regret for the trouble she was giving the firm in procuring a discount for her use, and said that if she could reciprocate the favor in any way she would be happy to do so.
“The notes are drawn to your order,” remarked Freeling as soon as the lady had retired. Granger endorsed them, and was about handing them to his partner, when the latter said:
“Put our name on them while you are about it.” And the young man wrote also the endorsement of the firm.
After this, Mr. Freeling put the bank business into Granger's hands. Nearly all checks were drawn and all business paper endorsed by the younger partner, who became the financier of the concern, and had the management of all negotiations for money in and out of bank.
One morning, shortly after the first of Mr. Dinneford's notes was paid, Granger saw his mother-in-law come into the store. Freeling was at the counter. They talked together for some time, and then Mrs. Dinneford went out.
On the next day Granger saw Mrs. Dinneford in the store again. After she had gone away, Freeling came back, and laying a note-of-hand on his partner's desk, said, in a pleased, confidential way.
“Look at that, my friend.”
Granger read the face of the note with a start of surprise. It was drawn to his order, for three thousand dollars, and bore the signature of Howard Dinneford.
“A thing that is worth having is worth asking for,” said Freeling. “We obliged your mother-in-law, and now she has returned the favor. It didn't come very easily, she said, and your father-in-law isn't feeling rather comfortable about it; so she doesn't care about your speaking of it at home.”
Granger was confounded.
“I can't understand it,” he said.
“You can understand that we have the note, and that it has come in the nick of time,” returned Freeling.
“Yes, I can see all that.”
“Well, don't look a gift-horse in the mouth, but spring into the saddle and take a ride. Your mother-in-law is a trump. If she will, she will, you may depend on't.”
Freeling was unusually excited. Granger looked the note over and over in a way that seemed to annoy his partner, who said, presently, with a shade of ill-nature in his voice,
“What's the matter? Isn't the signature all right?”
“That's right enough,” returned the young man, after looking at it closely. “But I can't understand it.”
“You will when you see the proceeds passed to our accounted in bank—ha! ha!”
Granger looked up at his partner quickly, the laugh had so strange a sound, but saw nothing new in his face.
In about a month Freeling had in his possession another note, signed by Mr. Dinneford and drawn to the order of George Granger. This one was for five thousand dollars. He handed it to his partner soon after the latter had observed Mrs. Dinneford in the store.
A little over six weeks from this time Mrs. Dinneford was in the store again. After she had gone away, Freeling handed Granger three more notes drawn by Mr. Dinneford to his order, amounting in all to fifteen thousand dollars. They were at short dates.
Granger took these notes without any remark, and was about putting them in his desk, when Freeling said,
“I think you had better offer one in the People's Bank and another in the Fourth National. They discount to-morrow.”
“Our line is full in both of these banks,” replied Granger.
“That may or may not be. Paper like this is not often thrown out. Call on the president of the Fourth National and the cashier of the People's Bank. Say that we particularly want the money, and would like them to see that the notes go through. Star & Giltedge can easily place the other.”
Granger's manner did not altogether please his partner. The notes lay before him on his desk, and he looked at them in a kind of dazed way.
“What's the matter?” asked Freeling, rather sharply.
“Nothing,” was the quiet answer.
“You saw Mrs. Dinneford in the store just now. I told her last week that I should claim another favor at her hands. She tried to beg off, but I pushed the matter hard. It must end here, she says. Mr. Dinneford won't go any farther.”
“I should think not,” replied Granger. “I wouldn't if I were he. The wonder to me is that he has gone so far. What about the renewal of these notes?”
“Oh, that is all arranged,” returned Freeling, a little hurriedly. Granger looked at him for some moments. He was not satisfied.
“See that they go in bank,” said Freeling, in a positive way.
Granger took up his pen in an abstracted manner and endorsed the notes, after which he laid them in his bank-book. An important customer coming in at the moment, Freeling went forward to see him. After Granger was left alone, he took the notes from his bank-book and examined them with great care. Suspicion was aroused. He felt sure that something was wrong. A good many things in Freeling's conduct of late had seemed strange. After thinking for a while, he determined to take the notes at once to Mr. Dinneford and ask him if all was right. As soon as his mind had reached this conclusion he hurried through the work he had on hand, and then putting his bank-book in his pocket, left the store.