The Miracle Man by Frank L. Packard

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And so for a little while Madison stood and stared--what had brought the
Patriarch there--the Patriarch who could neither see nor hear nor
speak--what had brought him from his own room across the hall! And
Madison stared, and his hands crept to his temples and pressed upon
them--weak he seemed as from some paroxysm of madness that had passed
over him. The sunlight streaming through the window sheened the
luxuriant mass of hair that falling over shoulders and to the waist
seemed alone to cloak the little figure in its crouched position--the
little figure that shook so convulsively with sobs--the little figure
that clung so desperately at the feet of this god-like, regal man, whose
beard was silver, whose hair was hoary white, upon whose face, marring
none its strength or self-possession, was a troubled, anxious,
questioning look.

Strange! Strange! Madison's hands fell to his sides. The Patriarch's
eyes were turned full upon him, wavering not so much as by the fraction
of an inch--full upon him. And then, as into some holy sanctuary,
fending her from harm and danger, the Patriarch turned a little to
interpose himself before Madison, and, raising Helena, held her in his
arms, her head against his bosom--and one hand lay upon her head and
stroked it tenderly. But upon Madison was still turned those sightless
eyes, that noble face, serene, commanding even in its perturbation, even
in its alert and searching look.

Madison stirred now--stirred uneasily--while the silence held. There was
a solemnity in the silence that seemed to creep upon and pervade the
room--a sense of a vast something that was the antithesis of turmoil,
passion, strife, that seemed to radiate from the saintly figure whose
lips were mute, whose ears heard no sound, whose eyes saw no sight. And
upon Madison it fell potent, masterful, and passion fled, and in its
place came a strange, groping response within him, a revulsion, a
penitence--and he bowed his head.

And then Helena spoke--but her head was turned away from him, hidden on
the Patriarch's breast.

"Once," she said, and her words were like broken whispers, for she was
sobbing still, "once, long, long ago, when I was a little girl, I read
the story of Mary Magdalen. I had almost forgotten it, it was so long
ago, but it has come back to me, and--and it is a glad story--at the
end."

She stopped--and Madison raised his head, and his face was strained as
with some sudden wonder as he looked at her.

"It is a glad story," she said presently. "It--it is my story."

"You mean"--Madison's voice was hoarse--"you mean that you've
turned--_straight_!"

"They love me here," she said. "They trust me and they think me good--as
they are. All think me that--the little children and this dear man
here--and for a little while, since I have been here, I have lived like
that. They made me believe that it was true--_true_. And there was shame
and agony--and hope. It seemed they could not all be wrong, and I have
asked and prayed that I might make it true always--and--and forgiveness
for what I was."

"You mean," he said again hoarsely, and he stepped toward her now, "you
mean that you are--_straight_!"

She did not answer--only now she turned her face toward him and lifted
up her head.

And for a long minute Madison gazed into the tear-splashed eyes, deep,
brave in chastened wistfulness, gazed--and like a man stunned walked
from the room, the cottage, and out across the lawn.

--XX--

TO THE VICTOR ARE THE SPOILS

Many were still about the lawn as he left the cottage--they were all
about him, those sick, half frantic creatures--and still they made
noises; still some of them cried and sobbed; still in their waning
paroxysms they moved hither and thither. They appealed to some numbed,
dormant sense in Madison, in a subconscious way, as things to be
avoided. And so, almost mechanically, he took the little path that,
striking off at right angles to the wagon track where it joined the
Patriarch's lawn, came out again upon the main road at the further end
of the village.

And, as he walked, like tidal waves on-rushing, emotions, utterly at
variance one with another, hurled themselves upon him, and he was swept
from his mental balance, tossed here and there, rolled gasping,
strangling in the chaos and turmoil of the waters, as it were, and,
rising, was hurled back again.

White as death itself was Madison's face; and at times his fingers with
a twitching movement curled into clenched fists, at times his open palms
sought his temples in a queer wriggling way and pressed upon them.
Doubt, anger, fear, a rage unhallowed--in cycles--buffeted him until
his brain reeled, and he was as a man distraught.

It began at the beginning, that cycle, and dragged him along--and left
him like one swooning, tottering, upon the edge of a precipice. And then
it began over again.

And it began always with a picture of the Roost that night--the vicious,
unkempt, ragged figure of the Flopper--the sickly, thin, greedy face of
Pale Face Harry, the drug fiend, winching a little as he plunged the
needle into his flesh--the easy, unprincipled gaiety and eagerness of
Helena for the new path of crime--crime--crime--the Roost exuded
crime--filth--immorality--typified them, framed them well as they had
sat there, the four of them, while that bruised-nosed bouncer had
brought them drink on his rattling tin tray. And then his own
self-satisfied, smug, complacent egotism at his own cleverness, his
unbounded confidence in his own ability to pull off the game, and--

Well, he had pulled it off--he'd won it--won it--won it--everybody had
fallen for it--the boobs had been plentiful--the harvest rich. What was
the matter with him! He'd won--was winning every time the clock ticked.
Somebody back there was probably throwing good hard coin at him this
minute--the damned fool! Madison threw back his head to laugh in
derision, for there was mocking, contemptuous laughter in his soul--but
the laugh died still-born upon his lips.

It was fear now--fear--staggering, appalling him. He was facing
something--_something_--his brain did not seem to define it--something
that was cold and stern and immutable, that was omnipotent, that
embodied awe--a condemnation unalterable, unchangeable, before which he
shrank back with his soul afraid. Before him seemed to unfold itself the
wagon track, the road to the Patriarch's cottage; and he was there
again, and whispering lips were around him, and men and women and
children were there, and in front of them, leading them, slithered that
twisted, misshapen, formless thing--and now they were upon the lawn, and
about him everywhere, everywhere, everywhere was a sea of white faces
out of which the eyes burned like living coals. What power was this
that, loosed, had stricken them to palsied, moaning things!

Madison shivered a little--and a sweat bead oozed out and glistened upon
his forehead. Hark--what was that! Clarionlike, clear as the chimes of a
silver bell, rang now that childish voice--rang out, and rang out
again--and the crutch was gone--and the lame boy ran, ran--_ran_! And
who was that, that stood before him now--that golden-haired woman beside
an empty wheel-chair, whose face was radiant, who cried aloud that she
was _cured_! And who were these others of later days, this motley crowd
of old and young, that passed before him in procession, that cried out
the same words that golden-haired woman by the wheel-chair had
cried--and cried out: "Faith! Faith! Faith!"

Madison swept the sweat bead from his forehead with a trembling hand. It
was a lie--a lie--a lie! He had taught them to say that--but it was all
bunk--and all were fools! He could laugh at them, jeer at them, mock at
them, deride them--they were his playthings--and faith was his
plaything--and he could laugh at them all!

And again he raised his head to laugh; and again the laugh was choked in
his throat, still-born--_Helena was straight_! To his temples went his
twitching hands. Anger raged upon him--and died in fear. Anger, for the
instant maddening him, that he should lose her; rage in ungovernable
fury that the game, his plans, the hoard accumulated, was bursting like
a bubble before his eyes--died in fear. No, no; he had not meant to
laugh or mock--no, no; not that, not that! What was this loosed titanic
power that had done these things--that had brought this change in
Helena; that had brought a change in the Flopper, transforming the
miserable, pitiful, whining thief into a man reaching out for decent
things; that had wrought at least a physical metamorphosis in Pale Face
Harry--that had transfigured those three who, in their ugly, abandoned
natures then, had hung like vultures on his words in the Roost that
night! What was this power that he was trifling with, that brought him
now this cold, dead fear before which he quailed! What was this
_something_ that in his temerity he had dared invoke--that rose now
engulfing him, a puny maggot--that snatched him up and flung him
headlong, shackled, before this nebulous, terrifying tribunal, where out
of nothingness, out of a void, the calm, majestic features of the
Patriarch took form and changed, and changed, and kept changing, and
grew implacable, set with the stamp of doom. What was it--in God's name,
what was it brought these sweat beads bursting to his forehead! Was he
going mad--was he mad already!

And then the cycle again--doubt, anger, fear--until his brain,
exhausted, seemed to refuse its functions; and it was as though, heavy,
oppressing, a dense fog shut down upon his mind and enveloped it; and
now he walked as a man in great haste, hurrying, and now his pace was
slow, uncertain.

And so he went on, following the little path that bordered the woods on
one hand and the fields on the other; went on until he neared the
village--and then he stopped suddenly, and turned about. Some one had
called his name.

From the field, a man climbed over the fence and came toward him. The
man's face was tanned and rugged, his form erect, and the sleeves rolled
back above the elbows displayed browned and muscular forearms. Madison
stared at the man apathetically. This was the farm of course where Pale
Face Harry boarded, and this was Pale Face Harry--but--

"Doc," said Pale Face Harry, and he shuffled his feet and looked down,
"Doc, I got something I've been wanting to say to you for a week."

Madison still gazed at him apathetically--Pale Face Harry for the moment
was as some unwarrantable apparition suddenly appearing before him.

Pale Face Harry raised his eyes, lowered them, kicked at a clod of earth
with the toe of his boot--and raised his eyes again.

"Say," he blurted out, "I'm through, Doc. I'm--I'm going to quit."

Into Madison's stumbling brain leaped and took form but one idea--and he
jumped forward, reaching savagely for Pale Face Harry's throat.

"You'd throw me, would you! You'd throw the game--would you!" he
snarled, as his fingers locked.

Pale Face Harry, twisting, wriggled free--and retreated a step.

"No; I ain't!" he gasped--and then his sentences came tumbling out upon
each other jerkily, as though he were trying to compress what he had to
say into as few words as possible and as quickly as he could, while he
watched Madison warily. "I ain't throwing nothing. I just want to quit
myself. I keeps my mouth shut--see? I don't want none of the share
what's coming. Say, I've got more'n a hundred times that out of it. Look
at me, Doc! Say, I'm like a horse. That's the Patriarch and living
honest. Say, in all me life I never knew what it was before till we
comes here. If I took the dough what's coming I'd go back to the old
hell, and I'd go down and out again. Say, it ain't worth it, there's
nothing in it. I ain't throwing you, Doc--I just blows out of here with
me trap closed. Say, look at me, Doc--don't you get what I mean?"

And then Madison burst into a peal of wild, strange laughter; and, as
though no man stood before him, started on along the path--and Pale Face
Harry sidled out of his way and stared after him.

"For--for God's sake, Doc," he called out, stammering, "what's the
matter?"

But Madison made no answer. He heard Pale Face Harry call out behind
him; in a subconscious, mazed way, he sensed the other following him,
gropingly, hesitantly, for a few yards, then hold back--and finally
stop.

The path swerved. Madison went on--blindly, mechanically, as though,
once set in motion, he must go on. Some ghastly, unnatural thing was
clogging his brain; not only in a mental way, but clogging it until
there was physical hurt and pain, an awful tightness--something--if he
could only reach it with his fingers and claw it away! There was black
madness here, and a pain insufferable--a damnable impotence, robbing him
of even the power, the faculty to think or reason, or to make himself
understand in any logical degree the meaning or the cause of this thing
that sent his brain swirling sick.

He halted. His lips were working; the muscles of his face quivered. And
suddenly, snatching his hat from his head, he flung himself on the
ground and plunged face and head, feverishly, tigerishly, into the
little brook that ran beside the path. Again and again he buried his
face in the cold, clear, refreshing water--and then, still on hands and
knees, he raised his head to listen. Softly, full of a great peace, full
of a strange sweetness that knew no discord, no strife, the notes of the
chapel bell floated across the fields. Evening had come; the day's work
was done--it was benediction time. It was the call of the faithful--the
Angelus of those who believed.

It came, the revulsion, to Madison in a choked sob--and he stood up. The
day's work was done--here. Here they would go in quiet thankfulness each
from the farm to his little cottage, each to his simple, wholesome meal,
each to the twilight hours of gentle communion as they talked to one
another from their doorways, each to his bed and his rest, tranquil in
the love of God and of man.

Madison flung back the dripping hair from his forehead. Strange, the
contrast that, unbidden, came insistently to him now: The liquid notes
of the bell wafted sweetly on the evening breeze; the howling, jangling
turmoil of the city slums, of his familiar haunts where, in mad chaos,
reigned the hawkers' cries, the thunder of the elevated trains, the
noisome traffic of the street, the raucous clang of trolley bells--the
sweet perfume of the, fields, the smell of trees, of earth, of all of
God's pure things untouched, unsoiled; the stench of Chatham Square,
the reek of whiskey spilled with the breath of obscene, filthy lips--the
little village that he could see beyond him, the tiny curls of blue
smoke rising like the incense from an altar over the roofs of houses
whose doors had no locks, whose windows were not barred, where plain,
homely folk, unsullied, lived at peace with God and the world; the
closed areaways of the Bowery, the creaking stairs, the dim hallways
leading to dens of vileness and iniquity where, safe by bolts from
interruption, crime bred its offsprings and vice was hatched. What did
it mean!

And so he stood there for a little space; then presently he started
forward again; and presently he reached the village street, walked down
its length, greeted from every doorway with hearty, unaffected
sincerity, and after a little while he came to the hotel, and to his
room--and there he locked the door.

Helena was straight--the words were repeating themselves over and over
in his brain. He began to pace up and down the room. The words seemed to
take form and shape in fiery red letters, being scrawled by invisible
hands upon the walls--_Helena was straight_. Straight with Thornton,
straight with any man--straight with her Maker. He knew that now--he had
read it as a soul-truth in those brave, deep, tear-dimmed eyes. And he
had _lost_ her! It seemed as though he had become suddenly conscious
that he was enduring some agony that was never to know an end, that
from now on must be with him always. He had lost her--lost Helena.

From his pocket he drew out his keys and opened his trunks, and took out
the trays and spread them about. There were very many trays, they nested
one upon the other--and they were exceedingly ingenious
trays--false-bottomed every one. And now he opened these false-bottoms,
every one of them, and stood and looked at them. The surest, safest,
biggest game he had ever played, the game that had known no single
hitch, the game that had brought no whispering breath of suspicion flung
its tribute in his face. Money that he had never tried to count, notes
of all denominations, large and small, glutted the receptacles--jewels
in necklaces, in rings, in pendants, in brooches, in bracelets,
diamonds, rubies, emeralds, winked at him and scintillated and glowed
and were afire.

And he stood and looked upon them. What was it the Flopper had said when
they had brought the Patriarch back--he did not remember. What was it
that Pale Face Harry had said a little while ago--he did not remember.
These were jewels here and money--wealth--and he had won the greatest
game that was ever played--only he had lost her--lost Helena. And he
stood and looked upon them--and slowly there crept to his face a
white-lipped smile.

"I'm beat!" he whispered hoarsely. "Beat--by the game--I won."

--XXI--

FACE VALUE

It was evening of the same day--and there came a knock at the outer door
of the cottage porch.

The Flopper answered it, and came back to the Patriarch's room; where
the Patriarch sat in his armchair; where the lamp, turned low, throwing
the little room into half shadow, burned upon the table; where Helena,
far away from her immediate surroundings, quite silent and still, her
own chair close beside the other's, nestled with her head on the
Patriarch's shoulder.

Helena looked up as the Flopper returned.

Upon the Flopper's face was a curious expression--not one that in the
days gone by had been habitual--it seemed to mingle a diffidence, a
kindly solicitude and a sort of anxious responsibility.

"It's Thornton askin' fer youse," announced the Flopper.

Helena rose from her chair, and started for the door--but the Flopper
blocked the way. Helena halted and looked at him in astonishment.

The Flopper licked his lips.

"Say, Helena," he said earnestly, "if I was youse I wouldn't go--say,
I'll tell him youse have got de pip an' gone ter bed."

"Not go?" echoed Helena. "What do you mean?"

The Flopper scratched at his chin uneasily.

"Oh, you know!" he said. "De Doc let youse down easy ter-day. Say, if
youse had piped his lamps when you drives up in de buzz-wagon dis
afternoon youse wouldn't be lookin' fer any more trouble. Say, I'm
tellin' youse straight, Helena. When I was out dere in de kitchen an'
youse was in yer room wid him me heart was in me mouth all de time.
Youse can take it from me, Helena, he let youse down easy."

Helena's brown eyes, a little wistfully, a little softly, held upon the
Flopper.

"Yes?" she said quietly.

"Youse had better cut it out ter-night, Helena," the Flopper went on.
"Y'oughter know de Doc by dis time--de guy dat starts anything wid de
Doc gets his--dat's all! Remember de night he threw Cleggy down de
stairs in de Roost?--an' he was only havin' fun! Say, you go out wid
Thornton again ter-night an' de Doc finds it out--an' something'll
happen. Say, Helena, fer God's sake, don't youse do it--de Doc was bad
enough dis afternoon when he let youse down easy, but he's worse now,
an'--"

"Worse?" Helena interrupted, smiling a little apathetically. "In what
way is he worse? And how do you know? You haven't seen Doc, have you?"

"No," the Flopper answered, circling his lips with his tongue again.
"No; I ain't seen de Doc since--but I seen Pale Face. Say, Helena"--the
Flopper's words came stumbling out now, agitated, perturbed, not
altogether coherent--"wot's de answer I dunno; I dunno wot's de matter
here. Say"--he pointed suddenly to the Patriarch, whose face was turned
toward them as he stroked thoughtfully at his silver beard--"he's got me
fer fair--dere ain't no fake here--dis way ter live is de real t'ing--he
ain't like you an' me--he's _more'n_ dat--look at him now--youse'd t'ink
he could see us, an' was listenin' ter wot we said. I dunno wot's de
end--I dunno wot's de matter wid me. I was scared more'n ever out dere
dis afternoon on de lawn, an' I thought mabbe God 'ud strike me
dead--but 'tain't only dat I'm scared ter buck de game any more, 'tain't
only dat--I don't _wanter_ any more, an' it don't make no difference
about de dough--I wanter live straight, same as him, same as de guys
around here, same--same as Mamie. Say, Helena, say, do youse believe in
love--in--in de _real_ t'ing?"

Helena's apathy was gone now--a flush dyed her cheeks. She was not
startled at what the Flopper had said--she had seen it coming,
subconsciously, vaguely, mistily, for days now, only she had been
immersed in herself--she was not startled, and yet, in a way, she was.
The end! She too had been thinking about that--and she too did not know.
What _was_ the end?

"You were going to say something about Pale Face," she said, prompting
the Flopper. "Something about Pale Face and Doc."

"Yes," said the Flopper, and again the tip of his tongue sought his lips
nervously. "Dat's why I don't want youse ter go out wid Thornton
ter-night. Pale Face has got it de same as me, an' he told de Doc dis
afternoon, out in de path dere, after de Doc left de cottage here. Dere
was a showdown--see? De Doc 'ud kill youse an' Thornton ter-night if he
caught youse ter-gether. He's like a wild man. When Pale Face tells him
he was goin' ter quit, de Doc makes a grab fer him by de t'roat like a
tiger, only Pale Face gets away, an' den de Doc goes off widout a word,
laughin' like he'd escaped out of a dippy-house. An' Pale Face was
shakin' like he had a fit when he gets here. Say, Helena, don't youse go
ter-night."

Helena made no answer for a moment. Thoughts, a world of them, confused
her, crowded upon her, as they had ever since Madison had left her room
a few hours ago--and the future was as some dread, bewildering maze
through which she had tried to stumble and grope her way--and had lost
herself ever deeper. How full of utter, miserable, bitter irony it was
that this thing, unscrupulous and shameful, that they had created in
their guilt should have brought the beauty and the glory and the
yearning of a new life to her--and yet should chain her remorselessly
to the old! True, she had broken with Madison, irrevocably, forever, she
supposed, it could not be other than that, for the ugly bond between
them was severed--but the game still went on! In repentance, on her
bended knees, sobbing as a tired and worn-out child, she could ask for
forgiveness; but the double life, the duplicity, by reason of the very
nature in which they had fashioned this iniquitous monster, still went
on, and like some hideous octopus reached out its waving, feeling
tentacles to encircle her--the Patriarch there; the world-wide
publicity, those poor creatures upon whose misery and whose suffering,
upon whose frantic, frenzied snatching out at hope they had preyed and
fed and gorged themselves; the life itself that she had taken up, in its
minutiae, in its care of this great-souled, great-hearted man so dear to
her now, the life itself because it was what it was, changed though she
herself might be, though her soul cried out against it in its new-found
purity--all this still held her fast! The end--she could not see the
end. What would Madison do--and there was Thornton. Thornton! She caught
her breath a little. Yes; she had promised Thornton she would see him
to-night--she knew well enough why he wanted to see her--last night had
told her that--he loved her. Her face softened. Last night--it seemed a
thousand years ago, and it seemed but as an instant passed--last
night--she had learned what love was, and--

The Flopper stirred uneasily.

"Wot'll I tell him?" asked the Flopper. "He's waitin' out dere by de
porch."

"Why--why nothing," said Helena, and she smiled a little tremulously at
the Flopper. "Nothing. I'll--I'll go and see him."

"Say, Helena," protested the Flopper, "don't youse--"

But Helena stepped by him now.

"Don't leave the Patriarch," she cautioned, turning on the threshold.
"I--I won't be late."

She passed down the little hall, through the still, quiet room beyond,
empty now, through the porch, and out into the night--and then from out
the shadows by the row of maples, Thornton came hurriedly toward her,
holding out his hands.

"It's good of you to come, Miss Vail," he said, in his grave, quiet way.
"You must be nearly dead with weariness after last night, and I am
afraid I am not very thoughtful--only I--" he broke off suddenly. "Shall
we sit here on the bench for a little while, or would you rather
walk--I--I have something to say to you."

It was very dark--the storm of the night before still lingered in a
wrack of flying clouds, scurrying one after the other, veiling the
stars--and the moon was hidden--and hidden too was the sudden whiteness
of Helena's face. She knew what he had to say, knew it before she had
come to him--and yet she was there--and she had come resolutely
enough--only now she was afraid.

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