Part 41 (1/2)

”I'm glad you are here, Jim,” Adam said, in a shaking whisper. ”You understand these things. John is a fool--he don't believe when I tell him they are after us. But you know what to do. You have the right idea about handling these unions. Kill the leaders; and if the men won't work, turn the soldiers loose on them. You said the right thing, 'Drive them to their jobs with bayonets.' Pete Martin's boy was one of them, and he got what was coming to him to-night. And John and Helen brought him right here into my house. They've got him upstairs there now. They think I'll stand for it, but you'll see--I'll show them! What was he hanging around my place for in the night like this? I know what he was after. But he got what he wasn't looking for this time and Pete will get his too, if he--”

”Father!”

Unnoticed, Helen had come into the room behind them. In pacing the open door she had seen her father and had realized instantly his condition.

But the little she had heard him say was not at all unusual to her, and she attached no special importance to his words.

Adam Ward was like a child, abashed in her presence.

She looked at McIver appealingly. ”Father is excited and nervous, Jim.

He is not at all well, you know.”

McIver spoke with gentle authority, ”If you will permit me, I will go with him to his room for a little quiet talk. And then, perhaps, he can sleep. What do you say, Mr. Ward?”

”Yes--yes,” agreed Adam, hurriedly.

Helen looked her grat.i.tude and McIver led the Mill owner away.

When they were in Adam's own apartment and the door was shut McIver's manner changed with startling abruptness. With all the masterful power of his strong-willed nature he faced his trembling host, and his heavy voice was charged with the force of his dominating personality.

”Listen to me, Adam Ward. You must stop this crazy nonsense. If you act and talk like this the police will have the handcuffs on you before you know where you are.”

Adam cringed before him. ”Jim--I--I--do they think that I--”

”Shut up!” growled McIver. ”I don't want to hear another word. I have heard too much now. Charlie Martin stays right here in this house and your family will give him every attention. His father and sister will be here, too, and you'll not open your mouth against them. Do you understand?”

”Yes--yes,” whispered the now thoroughly frightened Adam.

”Don't you dare even to speak to Mrs. Ward or John or Helen as you have to me. And for G.o.d's sake pull yourself together and remember--you don't know any more than the rest of us about this business--you were in your room when you heard the shots.”

”Yes, of course, Jim--but I--I--”

”Shut up! You are not to talk, I tell you--even to me.”

Adam Ward whimpered like a child.

For another moment McIver glared at him; then, ”Don't forget that I saw this affair and that I went over the ground with the police. I'm going back downstairs now. You go to bed where you belong and stay there.”

He turned abruptly and left the room.

But as he went down the stairway McIver drew his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

”What in G.o.d's name,” he asked himself, ”did Adam Ward's excited fears mean? What terrible thing gave birth to his mad words? What awful pattern was this that the unseen forces were weaving? And what part was he, with his love for Helen, destined to fill in it all?” That his life was being somehow woven into the design he felt certain--but how and to what end? And again the man in all his strength felt that dread foreboding.

When Peter Martin and his daughter arrived with John at the big house on the hill, Mrs. Ward met them at the door.

The old workman betrayed no consciousness of the distance the years of Adam Ward's material prosperity had placed between these two families that in the old-house days had lived in such intimacy.