The Day of the Beast by Zane Grey

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"She said she would stay with a friend."

"What friend?"

"Some girl. Oh, it's all right I suppose. She's stayed away before
with girl friends.... But what worried me...."

"Well," queried Lane, as she paused.

"Lorna was angry again last night. And she told me if you didn't stop
your nagging she'd go away from home and stay. Said she could afford
to pay her board."

"She told me that, too," replied Lane, slowly. "And--I'm afraid she
meant it."

"Leave her alone, Daren."

"Poor mother! I'm afraid I'm a--a worry to you as well as Lorna," he
said, gently, with a hand going to her worn cheek. She said nothing,
although her glance rested upon him with sad affection.

Lane clambered wearily up to his little room. It had always been a
refuge. He leaned a moment against the wall, and felt in his extremity
like an animal in a trap. A thousand pricking, rushing sensations
seemed to be on the way to his head. That confusion, that sensation as
if his blood vessels would burst, yielded to his will. He sat down on
his bed. Only the physical pains and weariness, and the heartsickness
abided with him. These had been nothing to daunt his spirit. But
to-day was different. The dark, vivid, terrible picture in his mind
unrolled like a page. Yesterday was different. To-day he seemed a
changed man, confronted by imperious demands. Time was driving onward
fast.

As if impelled by a dark and sinister force, he slowly leaned down to
pull his bag from under the bed. He opened it, and drew out his Colt's
automatic gun. Though the June day was warm this big worn metal weapon
had a cold touch. He did not feel that he wanted to handle it, but he
did. It seemed heavy, a thing of subtle, latent energy, with singular
fascination for him. It brought up a dark flowing tide of memory. Lane
shut his eyes, and saw the tide flow by with its conflict and horror.
The feel of his gun, and the recall of what it had meant to him in
terrible hours, drove away a wavering of will, and a still voice that
tried to pierce his consciousness. It fixed his sinister intention. He
threw the gun on the bed, and rising began to pace the floor.

"If I told what I saw--no jury on earth would convict me," he
soliloquized. "But I'll kill him--and keep my mouth shut."

Plan after plan he had pondered in mind--and talked over with
Blair--something to thwart Richard Swann--to give Margaret the chance
for happiness and love her heart craved--to put out of Lorna's way the
evil influence that had threatened her. Now the solution came to him.
Sooner or later he would catch Swann with his sister in an automobile,
or at the club rooms, or at some other questionable place. He knew
Lorna was meeting Swann. He had tried to find them, all to no avail.
What he might have done heretofore was no longer significant; he knew
what he meant to do now.

But all at once Lane was confronted with remembrance of another thing
he had resolved upon--equally as strong as his determination to save
Lorna--and it was his intention to persuade Mel Iden to marry him.

He loved his sister, but not as he loved Mel Iden. Whatever had
happened to Lorna or might happen, she would be equal to it. She had
the boldness, the cool, calculating selfishness of the general run of
modern girls. Her reactions were vastly different front Mel Iden's.
Lane had lost hope of saving Lorna's soul. He meant only to remove a
baneful power from her path, so that she might lean to the boy who
wanted to marry her. When in his sinister intent he divined the
passionate hate of the soldier for the slacker he refused to listen to
his conscience. The way out in Lorna's case he had discovered. But
what relation had this new factor of his dilemma to Mel Iden? He could
never marry her after he had killed Swann.

Lane went to bed, and when he rested his spent body, he pondered over
every phase of the case. Reason and intelligence had their say. He
knew he had become morbid, sick, rancorous, base, obsessed with this
iniquity and his passion to stamp on it, as if it were a venomous
serpent. He would have liked to do some magnificent and awful deed,
that would show this little, narrow, sordid world at home the truth,
and burn forever on their memories the spirit of a soldier. He had
made a sacrifice that few understood. He had no reward except a
consciousness that grew more luminous and glorious in its lonely light
as time went on. He had endured the uttermost agonies of hell, a
thousand times worse than death, and he had come home with love, with
his faith still true. To what had he returned?

No need for reason or intelligence to knock at the gates of his
passion! The war had left havoc. The physical, the sensual, the
violent, the simian--these instincts, engendering the Day of the
Beast, had come to dominate the people he had fought for. Why not go
out and deliberately kill a man, a libertine, a slacker? He would
still be acting on the same principle that imbued him during the war.

His thoughts drifted to Mel Iden. Strange how he loved her! Why?
Because she was a lonely soul like himself--because she was true to
her womanhood--because she had fallen for the same principle for which
he had sacrificed all--because she had been abandoned by family and
friends--because she had become beautiful, strange, mystic, tragic.
Because despite the unnamed child, the scarlet letter upon her breast,
she seemed to him infinitely purer than the girl who had jilted him.

Lane now surrendered to the enchantment of emotion embodied in the
very name of Mel Iden. He had long resisted a sweet, melancholy
current. He had driven Mel from his mind by bitter reflection on the
conduct of the people who had ostracized her. Thought of her now, of
what he meant to do, of the mounting love he had so strangely come to
feel for her, was his only source of happiness. She would never know
his secret love; he could never tell her that. But it was something to
hold to his heart, besides that unquenchable faith in himself, in some
unseen genius for far-off good.

The next day Lane, having ascertained where Joshua Iden was employed,
betook himself that way just at the noon hour. Iden, like so many
other Middleville citizens, gained a livelihood by working for the
rich Swann. In his best days he had been a master mechanic of the
railroad shops; at sixty he was foreman of one of the steel mills.

As it chanced, Iden had finished his noonday meal and was resting in
the shade, apart from other laborers there. Lane remembered him, in
spite of the fact that the three years had aged and bowed him, and
lined his face.

"Mr. Iden, do you remember me?" asked Lane. He caught the slight
averting of Iden's eyes from his uniform, and divined how the father
of Mel Iden hated soldiers. But nothing could daunt Lane.

"Yes, Lane, I remember you," returned Iden. He returned Lane's
hand-clasp, but not cordially.

Lane had mapped out in his mind this little interview. Taking off his
hat, he carefully lowered himself until his back was propped against
the tree, and looked frankly at Iden.

"It's warm. And I tire so easily. The damned Huns cut me to pieces....
Not much like I was when I used to call on Mel!"

Iden lowered his shadowed face. After a moment he said: "No, you're
changed, Lane.... I heard you were gassed, too."

"Oh, everything came my way, Mr. Iden.... And the finish isn't far
off."

Iden shifted his legs uneasily, then sat more erect, and for the first
time really looked at Lane. It was the glance of a man who had strong
aversion to the class Lane represented, but who was fair-minded and
just, and not without sympathy.

"That's too bad, Lane. You're a young man.... The war hit us all, I
guess," he said, and at the last, sighed heavily.

"It's been a long pull--Blair Maynard and I were the first to enlist,
and we left Middleville almost immediately," went on Lane.

He desired to plant in Iden's mind the fact that he had left
Middleville long before the wild era of soldier-and-girl attraction
which had created such havoc. Acutely sensitive as Lane was, he could
not be sure of an alteration in Iden's aloofness, yet there was some
slight change. Then he talked frankly about specific phases of the
war. Finally, when he saw that he had won interest and sympathy from
Iden he abruptly launched his purpose.

"Mr. Iden, I came to ask if you will give your consent to my marrying
Mel."

The older man shrank back as if he had been struck. He stared. His
lower jaw dropped. A dark flush reddened his cheek.

"What!... Lane, you must be drunk," he ejaculated, thickly.

"No. I never was more earnest in my life. I want to marry Mel Iden."

"Why?" rasped out the father, hoarsely.

"I understand Mel," replied Lane, and swiftly he told his convictions
as to the meaning and cause of her sacrifice. "Mel is good. She never
was bad. These rotten people who see dishonor and disgrace in her have
no minds, no hearts. Mel is far above these painted, bare-kneed girls
who scorn her.... And I want to show them what _I_ think of her. I
want to give her boy a name--so he'll have a chance in the world. I'll
not live long. This is just a little thing I can do to make it easier
for Mel."

"Lane, you can't be the father of her child," burst out Iden.

"No. I wish I were. I was never anything to Mel but a friend. She was
only a girl--seventeen when I left home."

"So help me God!" muttered Iden, and he covered his face with his
hands.

"Say yes, Mr. Iden, and I'll go to Mel this afternoon."

"No, let me think.... Lane, if you're not drunk, you're crazy."

"Not at all. Why, Mr. Iden, I'm perfectly rational. Why, I'd glory in
making that splendid girl a little happier, if it's possible."

"I drove my--my girl from her mother--her home," said Iden, slowly.

"Yes, and it was a hard, cruel act," replied Lane, sharply. "You were
wrong. You--"

The mill whistle cut short Lane's further speech. When its shrill
clarion ended, Iden got up, and shook himself as if to reestablish
himself in the present.

"Lane, you come to my house to-night," he said. "I've got to go back
to work.... But I'll think--and we can talk it over. I still live
where you used to come as a boy.... How strange life is!... Good day,
Lane."

Lane felt more than satisfied with the result of that interview.
Joshua Iden would go home and tell Mel's mother, and that would surely
make the victory easier. She would be touched in her mother's heart;
she would understand Mel now, and divine Lane's mission; and she
would plead with her husband to consent, and to bring Mel back home.
Lane was counting on that. He must never even hint such a hope, but
nevertheless he had it, he believed in it. Joshua Iden would have the
scales torn from his eyes. He would never have it said that a dying
soldier, who owed neither him nor his daughter anything, had shown
more charity than he.

Therefore, Lane went early to the Iden homestead, a picturesque
cottage across the river from Riverside Park. The only change Lane
noted was a larger growth of trees and a fuller foliage. It was warm
twilight. The frogs had begun to trill, sweet and melodious sound to
Lane, striking melancholy chords of memory. Joshua Iden was walking on
his lawn, his coat off, his gray head uncovered. Mrs. Iden sat on the
low-roofed porch. Lane expected to see a sad change in her, something
the same as he had found in his own mother. But he was hardly prepared
for the frail, white-haired woman unlike the image he carried in his
mind.

"Daren Lane! You should have come to see me long ago," was her
greeting, and in her voice, so like Mel's, Lane recognized her. Some
fitting reply came to him, and presently the moment seemed easier for
all. She asked about his mother and Lorna, and then about Blair
Maynard. But she did not speak of his own health or condition. And
presently Lane thought it best to come to the issue at hand.

"Mr. Iden, have you made up your mind to--to give me what I want?"

"Yes, I have, Lane," replied Iden, simply. "You've made me see what
Mel's mother always believed, though she couldn't make it clear to
me.... I have much to forgive that girl. Yet, if you, who owe her
nothing--who have wasted your life in vain sacrifice--if you can ask
her to be your wife, I can ask her to come back home."

That was a splendid, all-satisfying moment for Lane. By his own grief
he measured his reward. What had counted with Joshua Iden had been his
faith in Mel's innate goodness. Then Lane turned to the mother. In the
dusk he could see the working of her sad face.

"God bless you, my boy!" she said. "You feel with a woman's heart. I
thank you.... Joshua has already sent word for Mel to come home. She
will be back to-morrow.... You must come here to see her. But, Daren,
she will never marry you."

"She will," replied Lane.

"You do not know Mel. Even if you had only a day to live she would not
let you wrong yourself."

"But when she learns how much it means to me? The army ruined Mel, as
it ruined hundreds of thousands of other girls. She will let one
soldier make it up to her. She will let me go to my death with less
bitterness."

"Oh, my poor boy, I don't know--I can't tell," she replied, brokenly.
"By God's goodness you have brought about one miracle. Who knows? You
might change Mel. For you have brought something great back from the
war."

"Mrs. Iden, I will persuade her to marry me," said Lane. "And then,
Mr. Iden, we must see what is best for her and the boy--in the
future."

"Aye, son. One lesson learned makes other lessons easy. I will take
Mel and her mother far away from Middleville--where no one ever heard
of us."

"Good! You can all touch happiness again.... And now, if you and Mrs.
Iden will excuse me--I will go."

Lane bade the couple good night, and slowly, as might have a lame man,
he made his way through the gloaming, out to the road, and down to the
bridge, where as always he lingered to catch the mystic whispers of
the river waters, meant only for his ear. Stronger to-night! He was
closer to that nameless thing. The shadows of dusk, the dark murmuring
river, held an account with him, sometime to be paid. How blessed to
fall, to float down to that merciful oblivion.

CHAPTER XII

Several days passed before Lane felt himself equal to the momentous
interview with Mel Iden. After his call upon Mel's father and mother
he was overcome by one of his sick, weak spells, that happily had been
infrequent of late. This one confined him to his room. He had about
fought and won it out, when the old injury at the base of his spine
reminded him that misfortunes did not come singly. Quite unexpectedly,
as he bent over with less than his usual caution, the vertebra slipped
out; and Lane found his body twisted like a letter S. And the old pain
was no less terrible for its familiarity.

He got back to his bed and called his mother. She sent for Doctor
Bronson. He came at once, and though solicitous and kind he lectured
Lane for neglecting the osteopathic treatment he had advised. And he
sent his chauffeur for an osteopath.

"Lane," said the little physician, peering severely down upon him, "I
didn't think you'd last as long as this."

"I'm tough, Doctor--hard to kill," returned Lane, making a wry face.
"But I couldn't stand this pain long."

"It'll be easier presently. We can fix that spine. Some good
treatments to strengthen ligaments, and a brace to wear--we can fix
that.... Lane, you've wonderful vitality."

"A doctor in France told me that."

"Except for your mental condition, you're in better shape now than
when you came home." Doctor Bronson peered at Lane from under his
shaggy brows, walked to the window, looked out, and returned,
evidently deep in thought.

"Boy, what's on your mind?" he queried, suddenly.

"Oh, Lord! listen to him," sighed Lane. Then he laughed. "My dear
Doctor, I have nothing on my mind--absolutely nothing.... This world
is a beautiful place. Middleville is fine, clean, progressive. People
are kind--thoughtful--good. What could I have on my mind?"

"You can't fool me. You think the opposite of what you say.... Lane,
your heart is breaking."

"No, Doctor. It broke long ago."

"You believe so, but it didn't. You can't give up.... Lane, I want to
tell you something. I'm a prohibitionist myself, and I respect the
law. But there are rare cases where whiskey will effect a cure. I say
that as a physician. And I am convinced now that your case is one
where whiskey might give you a fighting chance."

"Doctor! What're you saying?" ejaculated Lane, wide-eyed with
incredulity.

Doctor Bronson enlarged upon and emphasized his statement.

"I might _live_!" whispered Lane. "My God!... But that is ridiculous.
I'm shot to pieces. I'm really tired of living. And I certainly
wouldn't become a drunkard to save my life."

At this juncture the osteopath entered, putting an end to that
intimate conversation. Doctor Bronson explained the case to his
colleague. And fifteen minutes later Lane's body was again straight.
Also he was wringing wet with cold sweat and quivering in every
muscle.

"Gentlemen--your cure is--worse than--the disease," he panted.

Manifestly Doctor Branson's interest in Lane had advanced beyond the
professional. His tone was one of friendship when he said, "Boy, it
beats hell what you can stand. I don't know about you. Stop your worry
now. Isn't there something you _care_ for?"

"Yes," replied Lane.

"Think of that, or it, or _her_, then to the exclusion of all else.
And give nature a chance."

"Doctor, I can't control my thoughts."

"A fellow like you can do anything," snapped Bronson. "There are such
men, now and then. Human nature is strange and manifold. All great men
do not have statues erected in their honor. Most of them are unknown,
unsung.... Lane, you could do anything--do you hear me?--_anything_."

Lane felt surprise at the force and passion of the practical little
physician. But he was not greatly impressed. And he was glad when the
two men went away. He felt the insidious approach of one of his states
of depression--the black mood--the hopeless despair--the hell on
earth. This spell had not visited him often of late, and now
manifestly meant to make up for that forbearance. Lane put forth his
intelligence, his courage, his spirit--all in vain. The onslaught of
gloom and anguish was irresistible. Then thought of Mel Iden
sustained him--held back this madness for the moment.

Every hour he lived made her dearer, yet farther away. It was the
unattainableness of her, the impossibility of a fruition of love that
slowly and surely removed her. On the other hand, the image of her
sweet face, of her form, of her beauty, of her movements--every recall
of these physical things enhanced her charm, and his love. He had
cherished a delusion that it was Mel Iden's spirit alone, the
wonderful soul of her, that had stormed his heart and won it. But he
found to his consternation that however he revered her soul, it was
the woman also who now allured him. That moment of revelation to Lane
was a catastrophe. Was there no peace on earth for him? What had he
done to be so tortured? He had a secret he must hide from Mel Iden. He
was human, he was alone, he needed love, but this seemed madness. And
at the moment of full realization Doctor Bronson's strange words of
possibility returned to haunt and flay him. He might live! A fierce
thrill like a flame leaped from his heart, along his veins. And a
shudder, cold as ice, followed it. Love would kill his resignation.
Love would add to his despair. Mel Iden could never love him. He did
not want her love. And yet, to live on and on, with such love as would
swell and mount from his agony, with the barrier between them growing
more terrible every day, was more than he cared to face. He would
rather die.

And so, at length, Lane's black demon of despair overthrew even his
thoughts of Mel, and fettered him there, in darkness and strife of
soul. He was an atom under the grinding, monstrous wheels of his
morbid mood.

Sometime, after endless moments or hours of lying there, with crushed
breast, with locked thoughts hideous and forlorn, with slow burn of
pang and beat of heart, Lane heard a heavy thump on the porch outside,
on the hall inside, on the stairs. Thump--thump, slow and heavy! It
roused him. It drove away the drowsy, thick and thunderous atmosphere
of mind. It had a familiar sound. Blair's crutch!

Presently there was a knock on the door of his room and Blair entered.
Blair, as always, bright of eye, smiling of lip, erect, proud,
self-sufficient, inscrutable and sure. Lane's black demon stole away.
Lane saw that Blair was whiter, thinner, frailer, a little farther on
that road from which there could be no turning.

"Hello, old scout," greeted Blair, as he sat down on the bed beside
Lane. "I need you more than any one--but it kills me to see you."

"Same here, Blair," replied Lane, comprehendingly.

"Gosh! we oughtn't be so finicky about each other's looks," exclaimed
Blair, with a smile.

But neither Lane nor Blair made further reference to the subject.

Each from the other assimilated some force, from voice and look and
presence, something wanting in their contact with others. These two
had measured all emotions, spanned in little time the extremes of
life, plumbed the depths, and now saw each other on the heights. In
the presence of Blair, Lane felt an exaltation. The more Blair seemed
to fade away from life, the more luminous and beautiful the light of
his countenance. For Lane the crippled and dying Blair was a deed of
valor done, a wrong expiated for the sake of others, a magnificent
nobility in contrast to the baseness and greed and cowardice of the
self-preservation that had doomed him. Lane had only to look at Blair
to feel something elevating in himself, to know beyond all doubt that
the goodness, the truth, the progress of man in nature, and of God in
his soul, must grow on forever.

Mel Iden had been in her home four days when Lane first saw her there.

It was a day late in June when the rich, thick, amber light of
afternoon seemed to float in the air. Warm summer lay on the land. The
bees were humming in the rose vines over the porch. Mrs. Iden, who
evidently heard Lane's step, appeared in the path, and nodding her
gladness at sight of him, she pointed to the open door.

Lane halted on the threshold. The golden light of the day seemed to
have entered the room and found Mel. It warmed the pallor of her skin
and the whiteness of her dress. When he had seen her before she had
worn something plain and dark. Could a white gown and the golden glow
of June effect such transformation? She came slowly toward him and
took his hand.

"Daren, I am home," was all she could say.

Long hours before Lane had braced himself for this ordeal. It was
himself he had feared, not Mel. He played the part he had created for
her imagination. Behind his composure, his grave, kind earnestness,
hid the subdued and scorned and unwelcome love that had come to him.
He held it down, surrounded, encompassed, clamped, so that he dared
look into her eyes, listen to her voice, watch the sweet and tragic
tremulousness of her lips.

"Yes, Mel, where you should be," replied Lane.

"It was you--your offer to marry me--that melted father's heart."

"Mel, all he needed was to be made think," returned Lane. "And that
was how I made him do it."

"Oh, Daren, I thank you, for mother's sake, for mine--I can't tell you
how much."

"Mel, please don't thank me," he answered. "You understand, and that's
enough. Now say you'll marry me, Mel."

Mel did not answer, but in the look of her eyes, dark, humid, with
mysterious depths below the veil, Lane saw the truth; he felt it in
the clasp of her hands, he divined it in all that so subtly emanated
from the womanliness of her. Mel had come to love him.

And all that he had endured seemed to rise and envelop heart and soul
in a strange, cold stillness.

"Mel, will you marry me?" he repeated, almost dully.

Slowly Mel withdrew her hands. The query seemed to make her mistress
of herself.

"No, Daren, I cannot," she replied, and turned away to look out of a
window with unseeing eyes. "Let us talk of other things.... My father
says he will move away--taking me and--and--all of us--as soon as he
sells the home."

"No, Mel, if you'll forgive me, we'll not talk of something else,"
Lane informed her. "We can argue without quarreling. Come over here
and sit down."

She came slowly, as if impelled, and she stood before him. To Lane it
seemed as if she were both supplicating and inexorable.

"Do you remember the last time we sat together on this couch?" she
asked.

"No, Mel, I don't."

"It was four years ago--and more. I was sixteen. You tried to kiss me
and were angry because I wouldn't let you."

"Well, wasn't I rude!" he exclaimed, facetiously. Then he grew
serious. "Mel, do you remember it was Helen's lying that came between
you and me--as boy and girl friends?"

"I never knew. Helen Wrapp! What was it?"

"It's not worth recalling and would hurt you--now," he replied. "But
it served to draw me Helen's way. We were engaged when she was
seventeen.... Then came the war. And the other night she laughed in my
face because I was a wreck.... Mel, it's beyond understanding how
things work out. Helen has chosen the fleshpots of Egypt. You have
chosen a lonelier and higher path.... And here I am in your little
parlor asking you to marry me."

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