The Man in the Twilight by Ridgwell Cullum

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"Well, what's the logic of it all?" he continued, after a moment's
pause. "Yes, it is the logic of it. You may argue that for seven years
I've been doing a big work and there's no reason, in spite of what's
happened, that I should now abandon it all. But there is. And in your
strong old heart you'll know the thing I say is true--if cowardly.
During seven years, or part of them, I've known a happiness that's
compensated for every terror I've endured. Nancy's been my guardian
angel, and the boy, that was to be born, was the beacon light of my
life. My poor little wife has gone, and that beacon light, the son we
yearned for, has been snuffed right out. And in the shadows left I see
only the groping hand of Hellbeam reaching out towards me. In the end
that hand will get me, and crush the remains of my miserable life out. I
know. Just as sure as God, Hellbeam's going to get me."

The sweat of terror stood on the man's high forehead, and he wiped it
away.

Bat flung a clenched fist down upon the tree stump.

"You're wrong, Les. You're plumb wrong. If it means murder I swear
before God Hellbeam'll never lay hands on you. Hellbeam? Gee! Let him
set his nose north of 'fifty' and I'll promise him a welcome so hot
that'll leave hell like a glacier. As for his darn agents? Why, say, I
want to feel sorry for 'em 'fore they start. Idepski's hating himself
right--"

"I know," cried Standing impatiently. "I know it all. Everything you've
said you mean, but--it won't save me. But we can leave all that. There's
the other things. Why should I go on living here, working, slaving,
haunted by the terror of Hellbeam? With my boy, my wife, to fight for it
was worth all the agony. But without them--why? Why in the name of
sanity should I go on? To beat the Skandinavians out of Canada's trade,
and claim it all for a country that doesn't care a curse? To build up a
great name that in the end must be dragged in the mire of public
estimation? Not on your life, Bat. No, no. I'm going to cut adrift. I'm
going to quit. I'm going to lose myself in these forests, and live the
remaining years of my life free to run to earth at the first shot of the
hunter's gun. It's all that's left me--as I see it."

"And all this?" Bat said, reaching out one great hand in the direction
of the Cove. "An' that school gal 'way down at Abercrombie, learning her
knitting, an' letters, an' crying her dandy eyes out for the mother who
had to leave her there when she passed over to you? Say, Les, you best
go on. Jest go right on an' I'll say my piece after."

Standing sat up. A deep earnestness was in the dark eyes that looked
fearlessly into Bat's. He took the other at his word and went on. He had
nothing to conceal.

"The mill? Why, I want to pass it over to your care, Bat," he said,
permitting one swift regretful glance in the direction of the grey
waters below them. Then he spoke almost feverishly. "Here's the
proposition. I'm going to hand you full powers--through Charles Nisson.
You'll run this thing on the lines laid down. If you fancy carrying on
the original proposition of extension, well and good. If not, just carry
on and leave the rest for--later. You'll be manager for me through
Nisson. I shan't remove one cent of capital. I don't want Hellbeam's
money beyond the barest grub stake. It'll remain under Nisson's
guardianship for your use in running this mill. You'll simply satisfy
Nisson. For the rest I shan't interfere. You're drawing a big salary
now. Well, seeing I go out of the work, that salary will be doubled.
That's for the immediate. Then there's the future. I've a notion. Maybe
it's a crazy notion. But it's mine and I mean to test it. Here. We
reckon to build up this enterprise for one great, big purpose. It was my
dream to break the Skandinavian ring governing the groundwood trade of
this country. It was work that appealed to my imagination. I wanted to
build this great thing and pass it on to my boy. It seemed to me fine.
Worth while. It was a man's work, and it seemed to me a life well spent.
I had the guts then--with your support, and the support the thought of
my son gave me. I haven't the guts now. The notion fired you, too. It
fired you, and it'll grieve you desperately to see it abandoned. It
shan't be abandoned. Once in the woods of this queer country I found a
man--such a man as is rarely found. He was a man into whose hands I
could put my life. And I guess there's no greater trust one man can have
in another. He was a man of immense capacity. A man of intellect for all
he had no schooling but the schooling of Quebec's rough woods. That man
was you, Bat. I'd like to say to you: 'Here's the property. You know the
scheme. Go on. Carry it through.' But I can't. I can't because one man
can't do it. Well, the woods gave me one man, and they're going to give
me another to take the place of the weak-gutted creature who intends to
'rat.' I'm going to find you a partner, a man with brain and force like
yourself. A man of iron guts. And when I've found him I'm going to send
him on to you. And if you approve him he shall be full partner with you
in this concern the day that sees the Canadian Groundwood Trust
completed, and the breaking of the Skandinavian ring. Do you follow it
all? You and this man will be equal partners in the mill, and every
available cent of its capital--the capital I made Hellbeam provide.
It'll be yours and his, solely and alone. I--I shall pass right out of
it. Hellbeam has no score against you. He has no penitentiary preparing
for you. You are not concerned with him. Whatever he may have in store
for me he can do nothing to you, and the money I beat him out of will
have passed beyond his reach."

"And this man you figger to locate? You reckon to take a chance on your
judgment?"

Bat's challenge came on the instant.

"On mine, and--yours." Standing's eyes were full of a keen confidence.
And Bat realised something of the sanity lying behind a seemingly mad
proposition. "He'll own nothing until he and you have completed the work
as we see it. To own his share in the thing he must prove his capacity.
He'll be held by the tightest and strongest contract Charles Nisson can
draw up."

Bat spat out his chew. He replaced it with a pipe, and prepared to flake
off its filling from a plug of tobacco. Standing watched him with the
anxious eyes of a prisoner awaiting sentence. With the cutting of the
first flakes of tobacco, Bat looked up.

"And this little gal-child, with the same name as the mother who just
meant the whole of everything life could hand you? This kiddie with her
mother's blood running in innocent veins? She's your Nancy's daughter
and I guess your marriage made her yours."

"She's another man's child."

Standing's retort was instant. And the tone of it cut like a knife.

Bat regarded him keenly. His knife had ceased from its work on the plug.

"That's so," he said after a while. Then his gaze drifted in the
direction of the house across the water, and the expression in the grey
depths of his eyes became lost to the man who could not forget that the
remaining child of his wife was the offspring of another man. "It seems
queer," he went on reflectively. "That woman, your Nancy, was about the
best loved wife, a fellow could think of. She was all sorts of a woman
to you. Guess she was mostly the sun, moon, an' stars of your life. Yet
her kiddie, a pore, lonesome kiddie, was toted right off to school so
she couldn't butt in on you. You've never seen her, have you? And she
was blood of the woman that set you nigh crazy. Only her father was
another feller. No, Les." He shook his head, and went on filling his
pipe. "No, Les, this mill and all about it can go hang if that pore,
lone kiddie is wiped out of your reckoning. Maybe I'm queer about
things. Maybe I'm no account anyway when it comes to the things of life
mostly belonging to Sunday School. But I'd as lief go back to the woods
I came from, as handle a proposition for you that don't figger that
little gal in it. You best take that as all I've to say. There's a heap
more I could say. But it don't matter. You're feelin' bad. Things have
hit you bad. And you reckon they're going to hit you worse. Maybe you're
right. Maybe you're wrong. Anyway these things are for you, though I'd
be mighty thankful to help you. You want to go out of it all. You want
to follow up some queer notion you got. You reckon it's going to give
you peace. I hope so. I do sure. The thing you've said goes with me
without shouting one way or the other. It grieves me bad. But that's no
account anyway. But there's that gal standing between us, and she's
going to stand right there till you've finished the things you're maybe
going to say."

For a moment the men looked into each other's eyes. It was a tense
moment of sudden crisis between them.

"Well?"

Bat's unyielding interrogation came sharply. Standing nodded.

"I hadn't thought, Bat," he said. Then he drew a deep breath. "I surely
hadn't, but I guess you're right. She's my stepdaughter. And I've a
right to do the thing you say. Yes. It's queer when I think of it," he
went on musingly. "When I married her mother the girl didn't seem to
come into our reckoning. She was at school, and I never even saw her.
Then her mother wanted her left there, anyway till her schooling was
through. Everything was paid. I saw to that. But--yes, I guess you're
right. It's up to me, and I'll fix it."

"The mill?"

"She shall have equal share when the time comes."

"When the whole work's put through?"

"Yes. And meanwhile she'll be amply provided for." Standing spread out
his hands deprecatingly. "You see, we did things in a hurry, Bat. There
was always Hellbeam. And my Nancy understood that. I wonder--"

Bat smoked on thoughtfully, and presently the other roused himself from
the pre-occupation into which he had fallen.

"Does that satisfy?" he demanded.

Bat nodded.

"I'll do the darnedest I know, Les," he said in his sturdy fashion. "Fix
that pore gal right. Hand her the share she's a right to--when the time
comes along. Do that an' I'll not rest till the Skandinavians are left
hollerin'. That kid's your daughter, for all she ain't flesh and blood
of yours, an' you ain't ever see her. And anyway she's flesh of your
Nancy, which seems to me hands her even a bigger claim."

He moved away from his leaning post and his back was turned to hide that
which looked out of his eyes.

"I'm grieved," he went on, in his simple fashion, "I'm so grieved about
things I can't tell you, Les. I always guessed to drive this thing
through with you. I always reckoned to make good to you for that thing
you did by me. Well, there's no use in talkin'. You reckon this notion
of yours'll make you feel better, it's goin' to hand you--peace. That
goes with me. Oh, yes, all the time, seein' you feel that way. But--say,
we best get right home--or I'll cry like a darn-fool kid."

CHAPTER V

NANCY MCDONALD

Charles Nisson was standing at the window. His eyes were deeply
reflective as he watched the gently falling snow outside. He was a
sturdy creature in his well-cut, well-cared-for black suit. For all he
was past middle life there was little about him to emphasise the fact
unless it were his trim, well-brushed snow-white hair, and the light
covering of whisker and beard of a similar hue. He looked to be full of
strength of purpose and physical energy.

His back was turned on the pleasant dining-room of his home in
Abercrombie, a remote town in Ontario, where he and his wife had only
just finished breakfast. Sarah Nisson was sitting beside the anthracite
stove which radiated its pleasant warmth against the bitter chill of
winter reigning outside. She was still consuming the pages of her bulky
mail.

A clock chimed the hour, and the wife looked up from her letter. She
turned a face that was still pretty for all her fifty odd years, in the
direction of the man at the window.

"Ten o'clock, Charles," she reminded him. Then her enquiring look melted
into a gentle smile. "The office has less attraction with the snow
falling."

"It has less attraction to-day, anyway," the lawyer responded without
turning. A short laugh punctuated his prompt reply.

"You mean the Nancy McDonald business?"

Sarah Nisson laid her mail aside.

"Yes." The lawyer sighed and turned from his contemplation of the snow.
He moved across to the stove. "I'm a bit of a coward, Sally," he went
on, holding out his hands to the warmth. "The lives of other people are
nearly as interesting as they are exasperating. They seem just as
foolishly ordered as we believe our own to be well and truly ordered. I
don't know who it was said 'all men are fools,' or liars, or something,
but I guess he was right. Yes, we're all fools. I really don't know how
we manage to get through a day, let alone a lifetime, without absolute
disaster. We spend most of our time abusing Providence for the result of
our own shortcomings, when really we ought to be mighty polite and
thankful to the blind good fortune that lets us dodge the results of our
follies."

"All of which I suppose has to do with the way Leslie Martin, or Leslie
Standing, as he calls himself now, is acting."

"Well, most of it."

The man's eyes had become seriously reflective again.

Sarah Nisson nodded her pretty head. She leant her ample proportions
towards the stove and emulated her husband's attitude, warming her plump
hands. Her brown eyes were twinkling, and her broad, unlined brow was
calmly serene. Her iron-grey hair was as carefully dressed as though she
were still in the twenties, moreover it was utterly untouched by any of
the shams so beloved of the modern woman of advancing years.

"The death of his poor wife almost seems to have unhinged him," she
said, with a troubled pucker of her brows. "But--but I don't wonder, I
really don't. She was the sweetest girl. Poor soul. And that bonny wee
boy. But there, I can't bear to think of it all. You mustn't blame him
too much, Charles. I guess you don't in your heart. It's just as his
attorney you feel mad about things. It's best to remember you were his
friend first, and only his adviser, and man of business, after. The
whole thing makes me feel I want to cry. And that poor girl coming to
see you to-day. The other Nancy, I mean. I don't think I'd feel so bad
about things if it wasn't for her. You know, I like Leslie. And I was as
fond of his wife as I just could be, for all she made a fool of herself
when she married that hateful James McDonald, who was no better than a
revolutionary. Thank goodness he died and got out before he could do any
harm. But I do think Leslie and poor Nancy were selfish about her
child. I don't believe it was so much him as Nancy. From the moment
Leslie came on the scene it was she who kept the poor child at college.
She never even let him see her. And she's such a bonny girl, too. Do you
know, I believe Nancy's death, and even the death of the baby boy,
wouldn't have meant half so much to Leslie if he'd had Nancy's own girl
with him. She'd have got herself right into his heart with her bonny
ways, and her hazel eyes that look like great, big smiling flowers. Then
her hair. She's a lovely, lovely child. I wish she was mine. I'd like to
have her right here always. Couldn't you fix it that way?"

The man shook his head.

"I'd like to--but--"

"But what?"

"You see there's a whole lot to think about," the lawyer went on
seriously. "Why, I don't even know how to get through my interview with
her to-day without lying to her like a politician. Now just get a look
at the position. Here's a girl, a beautiful, high-spirited girl of
sixteen, straight out from college, at the beginning of life, with her,
head full of 'whys,' and 'wherefores.' Sixteen's well-nigh grown up
these days, mind you. Her mother's dead, and curiously the fact didn't
seem to break her up as you'd have expected it to. Why?" The man
shrugged. "It's not because she lacks feeling. Oh, no. Maybe it's
because of the strength of those feelings. Remember her mother married
Leslie when the child was thirteen. A good understanding age. She was
never allowed to see her father. No. She was packed off to school and
kept there--"

"Yes, I know," Sarah broke in, with impatient warmth. "And just at the
time a girl most needs she never even saw her mother for over three
years. God doesn't give us women our babies to treat them as if they
weren't our own flesh and blood. Young Nancy was left to those maiden
dames at college, who don't know more about a child than is laid down by
highbrow officials in the text books they need to study to qualify for
their posts. They haven't a notion beyond stuffing her poor wee head
with the sort of view of life set down in fool history books. They say
she's clever and bright. Well, that's all they care about. When they've
done with her they'll have knocked all the girl out of her, and turned
her adrift on the world behind a pair of disfiguring spectacles, with
her beautiful hair all scratched back off her pretty face, and maybe
'bobbed,' and they'll fill her grips with pamphlets and literature
enough to stock a patent med'cine factory, instead of the lawn, and
lace, and silk a girl should think about, and leave her with as much
chance of getting happily married as a queen mummy of the Egyptians.
It's a shame, just a real shame. Why, if that poor, lonesome child came
right along to me, I'd--"

"Teach her all the bright tricks of hunting down a husband and--hooking
him." The lawyer shook his head and smiled. "You know, Sally, you're
almost an outrage on the subject of marriage. Sometimes I wonder the
sort of tricks I was up against when I--"

A plump warning finger and smiling threat interrupted the laughing
charge.

"You were due at the office long ago, Charles," his wife admonished. "If
you aren't careful I'll have to pack you off right away."

"That's all right, Sally," the man demurred. "I won't go further with
that. I'll get back to the things I was saying before you interrupted."
His pale blue eyes became serious again. "Do you think Nancy didn't
understand why she was packed off to school--and kept there? Of course
she did. She knew she wasn't wanted. She knew she was in the way. She
must not be permitted to intrude on this stepfather, or her mother's
new life. It was all a bit heartless, and if I know anything of the
child, she understands it that way. I felt that when she came to see her
mother, and went to her funeral. Now then, Nancy's coming to see me
to-day. Remember she's sixteen. She's got to learn from me the
settlement Leslie's made on her. She's got to learn further that she
isn't likely to ever see her stepfather. She knows I'm his business man.
She knows I'm his friend. Well, when she's financially independent, do
you think she'll feel like rushing into our arms, here, for a home,
feeling the way I believe she does about her parent? It's going to be
difficult, and--damned unpleasant. And for all I'm ready to help Leslie
anyway I know, I'd rather see anybody on his behalf than that kiddie,
with her wide, honest, angry eyes and red hair. I'm not going to press
our home on her, Sally, because, sooner or later, if she accepted it,
which I don't believe she would, she'd have to learn things of Leslie,
and--well, the affairs you know about. That must not be. She's not going
to learn these things from us. I'm going to do the best I know for the
child, and when it comes to the matter of a home she must choose for
herself. There's always her mother's folk, or even James McDonald's
folk--"

"God forbid! No. Oh, no." The woman's instant denial was horrified. "Not
the McDonald lot. They're all revolutionaries. All of them. It's--it's
unthinkable. It certainly is."

The man moved away.

"That's so," he agreed. "Well, anyway, I'll do the best I know for the
child, Sally. You can trust me."

The woman's anxiety abated, and she rose from her chair.

"I know that, Charles," she said. "But the McDonalds! They're--"

"Sure they are." The man laughed. "Well, good-bye, my dear. I'll tell
you all about it when I've fixed things. Thank goodness it's quit
snowing and the sun's shining again. I wish I felt as good as it looks
outside here."

* * * * *

Charles Nisson had become a lawyer without any marked inclination or
enthusiasm for his profession. It had been simply a matter of following
the father before him. It would have been much the same if his father
had been a farmer, or a politician, or anything else. The son was
patient, temperate, and of no great ambition. But he was also keenly
intelligent. Without impulse, or striking originality, but with a
tremendous capacity for hard work, he was bound to be moderately
successful in any career. In his father's profession his temperament was
particularly suited, and in spite of lacking enthusiasm he had become
unquestionably a better lawyer than the country attorney he had
succeeded.

Just now his mind was filled with unease. The matter of his forthcoming
interview with a child of sixteen years had only small place in the
affairs which disturbed him. His real concern was for his friend, Leslie
Standing, and the disaster, which, in a seemingly overwhelming rush had
befallen at far-off Sachigo. Again his trouble had no relation to these
things as they affected his own worldly affairs. It was of the man
himself he was thinking.

He knew it all now. He had painfully learned the complete story of
disaster. And, to his sturdy mind, it was a deplorable example of almost
unbelievable human weakness.

Standing had conveyed his final determination to abandon his Labrador
enterprise in the correspondence which had passed between them during
the three months which had elapsed since the funeral of his wife and
stillborn child. And during that time their friendship had been sorely
tested. There had been times when the lawyer's native patience had been
unequal to the strain. There had been times when his temper had leapt
from under the bonds which so strongly held it. But for all the ordeals
of that prolonged correspondence, for all he deplored the pitiful
weakness in the other, his friendship remained, and he finally accepted
his instructions. But the whole thing left him very troubled.

As the hour of noon approached, his trouble showed no sign of abatement.
It was the reverse. There were moments, as he sat in the generously
upholstered chair before his desk, in the comfortable down-town office
which overlooked Abercrombie's principal thoroughfare, that he felt like
abandoning all responsibility in the chaos of his friend's affairs. But
this was only the result of irritation, and had no relation to his
intentions. He knew well enough that everything in his power would be
done for the man who never so surely needed his help as now.

He refreshed his memory with the details of the deed of settlement for
the abandoned stepdaughter. Then, as the hands of the clock approached
the hour of his appointment, he sat back yielding his whole
concentration upon those many problems confronting him.

What, he asked himself, was going to become of Standing now that he had
cut himself adrift from that anchorage which had held him safe for the
past seven years? He strove to follow the driving of the man's curiously
haunted mind. He had declared his intention of going away. Where?
Definite information had been withheld. He was going to devote himself
to some purpose he claimed to have always lain at the back of his mind.
What was that purpose? Again there had been no information forthcoming.
Was it good, or--bad? The man who was endeavouring to solve the riddle
of it all dared not trust himself to a decision. He felt that his
friend's unstable soul might drive him in almost any direction after the
shock it had sustained.

No. Speculation was useless. The crude facts were like a brick wall he
had to face. Standing's wealth and the great mill at Sachigo were left
to his administration with the trusting confidence of a child. The
responsibility for the neglected stepdaughter had similarly been flung
upon his shoulders. And, satisfied with this manner of disposing of his
worldly concerns, Standing intended to fare forth, shorn of any
possession but a bare pittance for his daily needs, to lose himself, and
all the shadows of a haunted mind, in the dim, remote interior of the
unexplored forests of Northern Quebec. The whole thing was
mad--utterly--

The muffled electric bell on his table drubbed out its summons. One
swift glance at the clock and the lawyer yielded to professional
instinct. He became absorbed in the papers neatly spread out on his
table as a bespectacled clerk thrust open the door.

"Miss McDonald to see you," he announced, in the modulated tone which
was part of his professional make-up.

The lawyer rose at once. He moved toward the door with a smiling
welcome. The sex and personality of his visitor demanded this departure
from his custom.

Nancy McDonald stood just inside the doorway through which the clerk had
departed. She was tall, beautifully tall, for all she was only sixteen.
In her simple college girl's overcoat, with its muffling of fur about
the neck, it was impossible to detect the graces of the youthful figure
concealed. Her carriage was upright, and her bearing full of that
confidence which is so earnestly taught in the schools of the newer
countries.

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