Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 91, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 February 1912 — THE MAN HIGHER UP [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE MAN HIGHER UP

By HENRY RUSSELL MILLER

CHAPTER XXVI. •<T * the prodigal. A WESTBOUND express train ■was rattling down the mountains. It was early spring even among the hills. A man on the train, dividing his attention between the panorama without and the fretful child on his knee, tt> his surprise discovered in a flickering inward glow a feeble response to the life without He was going home, with fear and little hope in his heart, yet he caught himself counting the mileposts with growing eagerness as the train Swung around the hills. “The eternal witchery of spring,” he murmured to himself, “filling our hearts with life and hope—false hope sometimes.” The train stopped. A newsboy came aboard, crying the evening papers. A passenger who occupied the seat in front of the man with the child bought one. '• “1 see Murehell’s dying,” lie remarked to his neighbor across the aisle. “A big loss to this state!” “Not so big as if we didn’t have McAdoo,” returned the other. “That’s true. They’re turning their guns on him already too. Revived that old nomination story. For my part I don’t believe it.” > “1 do believe it, but I don’t care. I’d have done the same under the circumstances. A lot of people will care, though. Funny about us Americans—the occasional slip up of a good man cuts a bigger figure with us than the continual crimes of a really dishonest one. He’ll be governor, though.” The train started, and the man with the child lost the answer. He shrank back in his chair. “How can Igo back ? How can they let me? O God, keep my courage alive!” When the train stopped he alighted, quaking inwardly. He took a cab, fearing the curious eyes of the street car passengers. He need not have feared. The people of that city had long since cast him out of their memories.

They turned into a familiar, quiet street. The prodigal’s limbs were shaking so that he could hardly hold the child. His heart beat painfully. Wild thoughts of leaving the baby on the doorstep and fleeing rushed through his brain. The cab stopped. The passenger, shivering, got tyjtHe walked slowly up the gravel path leading to the porch, ne could see into the brightly lighted library. He knew every little detail of that room. He remembered that once in that room he had sworn to be true whatever might come. To the long French window came a woman, her figure silhouetted against the bright light of the lamps. He recognized Kathleen. She was looking out at him. She opened the door, gazing gravely at the bearded, sallow faced man who stared at her strangely. “Do you wish to see Mr. McAdoo? He’s out of the city just now.’’ “Kathleen!” lie cried in a strange, croaking voice. “Don’t you know me?" “Paul!” Doubt, amazement, joy, voiced themselves in the word, and welcome shojie in her eyes as a harbor light to the storm driven seafarer. “I bring you a responsibility. Kathleen.” life held out the child. “We welcome responsibilities here,” she answered- happily. She held out her arms for the baby. “Wait! She is my sister's child'. Her father’s name I don’t know.! She has no right to be in the world. She is cursed from her birth. Will you take her?” “All the more for that reason!” She took the child from him. cuddling it close to her heart. “Come in. Pdul! Don't stand there! Don’t you know you, have come home?” .He followed her into the library, ihe warm, cozy room seemed to enfold him, to welcome him. He sank into a chair, burying his face in his hands. “Kathleen, I can’t help it. I don’t want to leave—to run away out into the loneliness again. Do you think he will let me stay?” “Have you any doubt?” She faced him proudly. “Then you don’t know oik Bob!” “It wasn’t easy, Kathleen—l was so ashamed—but it was very lonely.” “But all that is ended, Paul.” Sometimes life throws the prodigal a line. In Paul’s case the line was his sister, another astray under the curse of inherited temperament, whom he had found dying and hugging to her heart a child of passion. “She died. But I made those last weeks easier for her, I think. That should count for something—do you think so, Kathleen?” “That should count for a great deal, Paul.” “If only I could be of some use to him! Pd like to be.’* The humility sat strangely on Paul. “Ah. I see you don’t understand. He needs all the help all of us can give. For William Alurchell is dying, and Bob must take his place.”

“He hasf risen high. I am glad.” And she saw that he was sincere. He sat up suddenly, with a despairing cry: “Kathleen, it’s not possible! I can’t stay. 1 can't help him. I, can only hurt him. Don’t you see, I’ll be a reminder to him and to every one of what must be forgotten—that thing—his sham^” “But you don't understand.” she cried. “What others think doesn’t J ■ count. He has never <|enied it, partly, I think, because he wouldn’t shame you before the people. As for him, it wasn’t his shame, fle wasn’t guilty.” “He—wasn’t—guilty!” Then to the bewildered Paul she told the story of the convention as she had had it from Haggin. It was long before he answered. His hands and face twitched continuously. Evidently his nerves were gone. It was not easy, the thing required of him. At last he openedhis eyes. “It’s the only thing to do.” Nt She guessed what was in his mind. “He would never ask it. Paul.” “Let us call Haggin and do it. Now —tonight—while my courage lasts.” Carrying the baby, she left him alone in the library. When she returned, after many minutes, she had left the child asleep in the motherly arms of Norah. Paul was lying in the chair in the same attitude as when she had left him, his eyes closed. He opened his eyes and looked up at her questioningly. “They are coming now,” she answered. Then she added abruptly, almost sharply. “Paul, it's only fair to you to tell you that—that Bob and Mrs. Gilbert”— She stopped as abruptly as she had begun. lie made no answer, and after awhile she continued gently: “Is there any reason why they shouldn’t be happy—as men and women want to be happy, Paul?” Again it was a long time before he answered in a voice that was very tired:. “There is no reason. All that is dead. It has no right to live. Kathleen.” In her heart she was crying jealously to her secret. “It’s the last thing I can do for him!” Aloud she said: “You must tell him that too.” He did not notice that her voice w T as sharp and constrained. He was watching the tires of a real suffering burning out the last vestige of the self that had been Paul Remington. When Bob came home the two men met quietly. What was said then need not be set down here, but a new footing was established. Thereafter many things were ignored by them. Paul went on the staff of Bob’s' newspaper. The Bugle’s editorials are often quoted' in other newspapers of note.

Many have often tried to imitate them In vain, perhaps because they breathe a spirit that candot be simulated convincingly. lie is no longer a public figure in the Steel City. Few now remember his sensational disavowal of McAdoo, fewer si ill his equally sensational amende. Sometimes there liave been struggles with a burning appetite. At such times he has fled to Kathleen. lie tells her it is she who has conquered. Both Kathleen and Paul are happy. At least they have achieved content. The train that whirled Paul toward the Steel City was passed by another bearing Mayor McAdoo to the deathtied of a man who had come very close to him. Bob saw much of Murchell during the two years following the Steel City mayorality election. lie came to feel a mighty admiration and affection for the great general who had. created a new political era, who had shackled a nation to the service of a vast, voracious system, who had lifted at least one nonentity to the president’s chair and who in the last years of his life was struggling to undo the work of his prime. “\Mien a mail reaches his threescore years ant! ten." Murchell said to him one'day, “he has| learned that the evil or good a man does concerns himself least of all. The balance must remain heavily against me. I must strive not to atone, but to make the way ready for other men who will undo what 1 have done." Murehell's lofty self Ignoring gave him an example that he strove to emulate. Many other things of less abstract kind he learned from the master. Murchell revealed to him the secret intricate inner workings of the vast machine that gripped the state as In a vise. It was not all prettv. More than once he saw rebellious bosses enter f’he presence of the master to leave shaking, stunned by the knowledge that they were inextricably in the power of r man who seemed to kn,ow everything. Many things Murchell and Bob did of which they said naught to the gentle Dunmeade that they might save his heart from hurtling. Gradually Bob came to understand, too, why the secrets and sources of Murehell’s power were revealed to him. He was being prepared to take MurcheH's place. Upon him, not upon* Dunmeade, the master's mantle was to fall. . And now Murchell was dying. Bob knew as the train bore him swiftly to the east that he was going to assume that mantle. Years before “I will he master of the state before I die!” ambition had cried. Now he said, “1 am not yet forty, and I am master of, the state.” Master of the state! He had dreamed of power. Now power, tremendous, farreaching, almost unlimited power, would he his if he could retain 'what Murchell would very soon place in his hands. :i “l ean! I will!" His teeth clinched, his muscles tightened in the stress of his determination. “1 will be true to

my trust. I will use my power lor the good of this people. So help me ‘God!” His words were a prayer, not an ofitb. There was no exultation in his heart, neither was there humility. Self was forgotten. His task loomed large before him, self obliterating, filling his horizon as he hurried toward the governor’s mansion. In the library some one was playing the piano very softly, the gentle, soothing chords lingering in the air. Thither the servant showed Bob. On the threshold Bob halted sharply. Death, power, battle, were in an instant swept from his mind. His heart leaped convulsively. The player’s back was toward, him. She did not notice his entrance.. He did not move, lest he might disturb her. Then her voice rose, full and clear and plaintive in a song that not all th 4 street pianos, in the world can rob of its appeal. Bob listened in rapt attention. Once before he had heard her sing that song, on the night when, on that very spot, he had dealt her the crudest blow a man could give a woman. At the last line her voice shook slightly; once it faltered. “To kiss the cross, sweetheart—to kiss the cross.” Tfie last long quivering note died away. She turned and arose to face him. For a long minute they regarded each other unwaveringly. It had been two years and more since they had met. these two whose lives had so strangely crossed. They had been constantly in each other’s minds, in each .'other’s hearts. Each saw that the years had wrought changes in the other. Every time he had seen her her beauty had struck him anew. It was so different from that of.{he few women he knew. But he had loved best to remember her as he had last seen her, when she had come to him in the days of his sickness. How often, during the long months, in the secrecy of his room he had opened the book of his memory to look upon her standing there before him, her startled eyes answering the love in his. Now, in this sudtfen meeting, the picture he had carried seemed to him woefully inadequate. She was even more slender than before, yet less fragile. Her face

was marked by a new gentleness, a new patience and withal a new strength that made her to Bob’s eyes beautiful beyond dreajns. ~ She, too, saw a change. He was the same stalwart figure as before, yet a, slight stoop had come into the, big shoulders. Streaks of gray were in his hair. The thin, strongly marked, ascetic face was the same and yet not the same; the bold arrogance, the look of the all conquering viking, was gone. In its place had come the quiet matured strength of the man Who has proved himself and the great kindliness of a strong man who has suffer ed without hardening. Under his steady regard she trembled. She tried to take her eyes from his. but could not. She knew that in that moment of silence they were saying what must not be said. She tried to speak, to break the spell “I was Binging for him—he asked me,” she said unsteadily. ' 1 “I heard you sing that song for him once before, the night when I” He •cbuld not go on. “All that Is forgotten, Mr. McAdoo." He ?kook his head slowly. “It can never be forgotten, Mrs. Gilbc- t Ev erj night 1 dream of it,” he answered sadly. “It tore my heart that night, your singing.” Thh 1 words fell slowly.' “I knew that these kind people had some“thing 1 had not. They had 'learned the lesson. But I, in my ignorance, could not see how one conld learn to kiss one’s cross.” “Ah!” she answered gently. “I knew that something was hurting you that night. Otherwise”— “Otherwise I should not have been so unspeakably brutal to you?” he interrupted forcefully. “You are generous to find an excuse, for me. But that is not'true. A man such as I wa * is Apt to do such things. Mrs. Gilbert.” “A man such as you afe is apt to be too harsh with himself. Mr. McAdoo. And”- she could not help the hint of pride in her voice—“l have heard fine things of you. You have learned to kiss the cross. I think.” \

Again he shook his head. “I fear not. I have not grown so far yet. And”—his voice was losing its stead--Iness—“seeing you here, I—l realize how heavy my cross has become.” He had need of all his strength to repress the words that flooded to his lips. His. body became rigid with the effort. Yet his eyes, eloquent and compelling, held hers, crying out that she was his—his! Her own, helpless to deny him, answered. And she knew that it was true, that from the very beginning of things the force which had so strangely brought them together had intended them to be of one piece. He might cruelly hurt her—he had cruelly hurt her—yet she could not free herself from the bond that held them, could never desire release. For so do strong men and women love. Yet between them stood the barrier that could not be ignored. Fearing, she summoned her defenses against the love that was overcoming. “Mr. McAdoo, have you heard from him?” He passed his baud in a hopeless gesture across his eyes. “1 had forgotten that. I have heard nothing. I have no hope of finding him. I’m afraid something has happened”— “No. no! You mustn't say that. We mustn't lose, hope of finding him and saving him from himself. Surely, surely nothing can have happened.” He shook his head hopelessly, answering nothing. To both of them in that moment the bitter cup seemed overflowing Their eyes at last turuad away,. each fearing to look upon the other’s suffering. “Shall we go up to him?” she said. “He wants to see you before he dies. He is waiting for you.” “Yes. I—l had forgotten why I am here.” Together, in silence, they mounted the stairs to the chamber of death. Tha|t night William Mu rebel! died. And Robert McAdoo reigned in his stead. Alone in the big old library with its fragrance of memories Bob watched the night through, bracing his soul for the struggle that was coming. Until the morning, as did Jacob, Bob wrestled with his soul, hearing always the last words of the man who had died: “Your people. You must be true.” And his soul’s answer, “I must be true—in all—or in nothing!” (To be Continued.)

"TO KISS THE CROSS—SWEETHEART, TO KISS THE CROSS! ”