Part 92 (1/2)

”Have you done it in your paper?”

”But this may be her life,” argued the advocate desperately. ”Think! If it were your sister, or--or the woman you cared for.”

Dr. Merritt's fine mouth quivered and set. ”Kathleen Pierce is quarantined with Esme,” he said quietly.

The pair looked each other through the eyes into the soul and knew one another for men.

”You're right, Merritt,” said Hal. ”I'm sorry I asked.”

”I'll keep you posted,” said the official, as his visitor turned away.

Meantime, Esme had volunteered as an emergency nurse, and been gladly accepted. In the intervals of her new duties she had received from her distracted cousin, who had been calling up every half-hour to find out whether she ”had it yet,” Hal's message that he would not be able to see her that day, and, not having seen the ”Clarion,” was at a loss to understand it.

Chance, by all the truly romantic, is supposed to be a sort of matrimonial agency, concerned chiefly in bringing lovers together. In the rougher realm of actuality it operates quite as often, perhaps, to keep them apart. Certainly it was no friend to Esme Elliot on this day.

For when later she learned from her guardian of his attack upon Hal (though he took the liberty of editing out the _finale_ of the encounter as he related it), she tried five separate times to reach Hal by 'phone, and each time Chance, the Frustrator, saw to it that Hal was engaged.

The inference, to Esme's perturbed heart, was obvious; he did not wish to speak to her. And to a woman of her spirit there was but one course.

She would dismiss him from her mind. Which she did, every night, conscientiously, for many weary days.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

THE VICTORY

Nation-wide sped the news, branding Worthington as a pest-ridden city.

Every newspaper in the country had a conspicuous dispatch about it. The bulletin of the United States Public Health Service, as in duty bound, gave official and statistical currency to the town's misfortune. Other cities in the State threatened a quarantine against Worthington.

Commercial travelers and buyers postponed their local visits. The hotel registers thinned out notably. Business drooped. For all of which the ”Clarion” was vehemently blamed by those most concerned.

Conversely, the paper should have received part credit for the extremely vigorous campaign which the health authorities, under Dr. Merritt, set on foot at once. Using the ”Clarion” exposure as a lever, the health officer pried open the Council-guarded city tills for an initial appropriation of ten thousand dollars, got a hasty ordinance pa.s.sed penalizing, not the diagnosing of typhus, but failure to diagnose and report it,--not a man from the Surtaine army of suppression had the temerity to oppose the measure,--organized a medical inspection and detection corps, threw a contagion-proof quarantine about every infected building, hunted down and isolated the fugitives from the danger-points who had scattered at the first alarm, inspired the county medical society to an enthusiastic support, bullied the police into a state of reasonable efficiency, and with a combined volunteer and regular force faced the epidemic in military form. Not least conspicuous among the volunteers were Miss Esme Elliot and Miss Kathleen Pierce, who had been released from quarantine quite as early as the law allowed, because of the need for them at the front.

”We could never have done our job without you,” said Dr. Merritt to Hal, meeting him by chance one morning ten days after the publication of the ”spread.” ”If the city is saved from a regular pestilence, it'll be the Clarion's' doing.”

”That doesn't seem to be the opinion of the business men of the place,”

said Hal, with a rather dreary smile. He had just been going over with the lugubrious Shearson a batch of advertising cancellations.

”Oh, don't look for any credit from this town,” retorted the health officer. ”I'm practically ostracized, already, for my share in it.”

”But are you beating it out?”

”G.o.d knows,” answered the other. ”I thought we'd traced all the foci of infection. But two new localities broke out to-day. That's the way an epidemic goes.”

And that is the way the Worthington typhus went for more than a month.

Throughout that month the ”Clarion” was carrying on an anti-epidemic campaign of its own, with the slogan ”Don't Give up Old Home Week.” Wise strategy this, in a double sense. It rallied public effort for victory by a definite date, for the Committee on Arrangements, despite the arguments of the weak-kneed among its number, and largely by virtue of the militant optimism of its chairman, had decided to go on with the centennial celebration if the city could show a clean bill of health by August 30, thus giving six weeks' leeway.

Furthermore, it put the ”Clarion” in the position of champion of the city's commercial interests and daily bade defiance to those who declared the paper an enemy and a traitor to business. In editorials, in interviews, in educational articles on hygiene and sanitation, in a course of free lectures covering the whole city and financed by the paper itself, the ”Clarion” carried on the fight with unflagging zeal.

Slowly it began to win back general confidence and much of the popularity which it had lost. One of its reporters in the course of his work contracted the fever and barely pulled through alive, thereby lending a flavor of possible martyrdom to the cause. McGuire Ellis's desperate fight for life also added to the romantic element which is so potent an a.s.set with the sentimental American public. Business, however, still sulked. The defiance to its principles was too flagrant to be pa.s.sed over. If the ”Clarion” pulled through, the press would lose respect for the best interests and the vested privileges of commercial Worthington. Indeed, others of the papers, since the ”Clarion's”

declaration of independence, had exhibited a deplorable tendency to disregard hints. .h.i.therto having the authority of absolutism over them.