Part 42 (1/2)

One morning, when John had the office entirely to himself and was going over some intricate plans and estimates, his stenographer came to him.

”There is an old man at the door who wants to see you,” she announced.

”He refused to give his name or state his business.”

”Well, tell him, then, that I won't see him,” John ordered, impatiently.

The girl left and came back. ”He wouldn't give his name,” she said, ”but he said to tell you that he was an old friend and was very anxious to see you--that he hasn't seen you for about eleven years.”

”Eleven years--an old friend!” John said to himself, aghast. ”Who could it be, unless--” The girl was waiting, and he said, ”Tell him to come in, please.”

The girl went out and ushered in a gray-haired, gray-bearded old man who walked with a cane and was so bent downward that, under a broad-brimmed straw hat, John did not at once see his features. The stenographer retired to her workroom in the rear, and the visitor came to John.

It was Cavanaugh, who now removed his hat and exposed his face to view, a face gashed with deep lines, and fairly shrinking under a sort of awed timidity.

”I'm afraid I'm not welcome, John,” he faltered, his wrinkled brow mantled with red, his old, fat hand checked in its impulsive movement forward and falling at his side. ”I ought not to have come like this, but I couldn't help it. I was in the city, and wanted to see you for a lot of reasons.”

”That's all right, Sam,” John answered, extending his hand and trying to divest himself of the visible effects of the shock he had received. ”How did you find me? Sit down.”

Cavanaugh took the proffered chair. John pitied him, for his hands crossed on the top of his cane quivered with intense excitement, and his eyes swept the room with the slow awe of a beggar in the house of a prince.

”Mostly by accident,” he answered, ”and putting two and two together, and reasoning it out like a one-horse detective on his first job. John, I know I've done wrong, but--”

”Forget all that, Sam,” John said, more at ease. ”Don't think I've forgotten you. You are the one friend in the world that I really cared for down there, and it was my intention to get at you sooner or later. I thought, however, that I was considered dead to you and everybody at Ridgeville.”

”You are--you _still_ are,” Cavanaugh said. ”It is like this, John, and in a way your secret is still safe, for I won't give it away. You remember Todd Williams. He is in the firm of Williams & Chelton. They set up in dry-goods after you left. Well, last fall he was on here buying goods, and when he came back home one day after meeting--we belong to the same church--he called me off to one side like, and said, said he:

”'Sam, an odd thing happened to me on the Elevated train while I was in New York,' and with that he went on to say that while he sat reading his paper a feller got in and sat in front of him that was the exact image of you. He said the likeness was so great that he came in an inch of speaking to the feller, but, remembering the news of your death, he let it pa.s.s. Then he asked me if I thought there could have been any mistake made about you and Dora being in that wreck. I told him I thought not, and left him, but I'm here to confess, John, that from that minute my mind wasn't fully at rest. Hundreds of times I rolled it over and over in my thoughts--at night in bed, at work, in meeting, at meals with my wife--everywhere. Always, always I was wondering if you might be still alive, fighting your fight and making good away off som'ers. I told my wife how I was worried and she made light of it--said she herself often saw resemblances to folks in new faces. Then I guess I would have dropped it, but for one little, tiny thing that popped into my head one night while I was listening to a long-winded prayer during a revival.

Well, sir, like a flash of blasting-powder this thought came to me. You left our town in the dead of night, and it was reasonable to suppose that you did everything you could to keep folks from knowing who you was and where you was bound for. Didn't you?”

”Yes,” John nodded, and sat waiting.

”I thought so,” Cavanaugh continued. ”So you see, when the list of the lost was printed, and your name and Dora's, and your age and hers, and the town you was from, was given, the question come to me, who was it that reported them things so accurate after that awful disaster? You wouldn't have been handing your name and the child's about amongst strangers on the train before the accident, and if your bodies was burned up, all your belongings, papers, and the like would have been destroyed, and-- Well, you see what I mean?”

John started and stared steadily. ”I see it now, Sam, but I never thought of it before. I suppose everybody else overlooked that point but you.”

”Yes, I'm the only one,” Cavanaugh answered. ”Well, John, after that, instead of being dead to me, somehow you got alive again. I don't want to talk like a sniffling old woman, John, for you are older now, but I loved you like a son, and the hope that you was alive and doing well up here made me powerful happy. You see, until your trouble come like a clap of thunder, I was almost living for you and your interests. I wanted us to establish a business between us that you could carry on after me and my old lady was gone, so, when I began to tote about the idea of you not being dead, I could think of nothing else, till--well, till I come here and found your name in the directory. You were the only John Trott in it, and was a contractor, and I knew I'd run you to your hole.”

”I'm glad you did, Sam,” John answered. ”I've always wanted to see you again, but didn't know how to bring it about with absolute safety to my plans. I'd cut out the whole thing down there, and it seemed best to forget it--best for me and for Dora. She was so young when she was down there that she has almost forgotten the worst features of it--about--about her aunt and other things, I mean.”

”I was going to inquire about her,” Cavanaugh said. ”Is she well and all right?”

John explained briefly, and heard his old friend sighing. ”And so you are all alone now, not married--no one with you at all.”

John nodded. ”Oh, I'm all right. I'm 'neither sugar nor salt,'” he quoted an old saying. ”Don't worry about me, Sam. I'll get along some way or other.”

There was silence between the two for a few minutes. It was as if the old man were wondering what further information he might be at liberty to give pertaining to the past. Presently he cleared his throat and said:

”Your ma is still alive, John. Jane Holder is dead. Lots and lots of things that you don't know about have happened down home since you left.

As soon as Jane Holder died your ma quit living in that old house. She pulled up stakes and drifted about some. She stayed awhile in Atlanta, then in Nashville, and finally came back to our town and moved out in the country. She was--was befriended--a nice woman and her husband sort of--well, I suppose they sort of took pity on her, and--”