Part 69 (1/2)

”Tell me, then. I ought to know,” he demanded.

”There is just one right by which you can ask,” she began. ”But if you refuse me this--by what other right can you ask? Oh, daddy, daddy,” she sobbed. ”In my dreams I call you that. Did you ever hear that name, daddy, daddy--I want you--for my sake, to save this man, daddy.”

The Judge heard the words that for years had sounded in his heart. They cut deep into his being. But they found no quick.

”Well, daughter,” he answered, ”as a father--as a father who will help you all he can--I ask, then, who is Kenyon Adams's father?”

”Grant,” answered the girl simply.

”Then you are going to marry an illegitimate--”

”I shall marry a n.o.ble, pure-souled man, father.”

”But, Lila--Lila,” he rasped, ”who is his mother?”

Then she shrank away from him. She shook her head sadly, and withdrew her hands from his forcibly as she cried:

”O father--father--daddy, have you no heart--no heart at all?” She looked beseechingly up into his face and before he could reply, she seemed to decide upon some further plea. ”Father, it is sacred--very sacred to me, a beautiful memory that I carry of you, when I think of the word 'Daddy.' I have never, never, not even to mother, nor to Kenyon spoken of it. But I see you young, and straight and tall and very handsome. You have on light gray clothes and a red flower on your coat, and I am in your arms hugging you, and then you put me down, and I stand crying 'Daddy, daddy,' after you, when you are called away somewhere.

Oh, then--then, oh, I know that then--I don't know where you went nor anything, but then, then when I snuggled up to you, surely you would have heard me if I had asked you what I am asking now.”

The daughter paused, but the father did not answer at once. He looked away from her across the years. In the silence Lila was aware that in the doorway back of her father, Margaret Van Dorn stood listening. Her husband did not know that she was there.

”Lila,” he began, ”you have told me that Kenyon's father is Grant Adams, why do you s.h.i.+eld his mother?”

The daughter stood looking intently into the brazen eyes of her father, trying to find some way into his heart. ”Father, Grant Adams is before your court. He is the father of the man whom I shall marry. You have a right to know all there is to know about Grant Adams.” She shook her head decisively. ”But Kenyon's mother, that has nothing to do with what I am asking you!” She paused, then cried pa.s.sionately: ”Kenyon's mother--oh, father, that's some poor woman's secret, which has no bearing on this case. If you had any right on earth to know, I should tell you; but you have no right.”

”Now, Lila,” answered her father petulantly--”look here--why do you get entangled with those Adamses? They are a low lot. Girl, a Van Dorn has no business stooping to marry an Adams. Miserable mongrel blood is that Adams blood child. Why the Van Dorns--” but Lila's pleading, wistful voice went on:

”In all my life, father, I have asked you only this one thing, and this is just, you know how just it is--that you keep my future husband's father from a cruel, shameful death. And--now--” her voice was quivering, near the breaking point, and she cried: ”And now, now you bring in blood and family. What are they in an hour like this! Oh, father--father, would my daddy--the fine, strong, loving daddy of my dreams do this? Would he--would he--oh, daddy--daddy--daddy!” she cried, beseechingly.

Perhaps he could see in her face the consciousness that some one was behind him, for he turned and saw his wife standing in the doorway. As he saw her, there rose in him the familiar devil she always aroused, which in the first years wore the mask of love, but dropped that mask for the sneer of hate. It was the devil's own voice that spoke, quietly, suavely, and with a hardness that chilled his daughter's heart. ”Lila, perhaps the secret of Kenyon's mother is no affair of mine, but neither is Grant Adams's fate after I turn him back to the jailer, an affair of mine. But you make Grant's affair mine; well, then--I make this secret an affair of mine. If you want me to release Grant Adams--well, then, I insist.” The gray features of his wife stopped him; but he smiled and waved his hand grandly at the miserable woman, as he went on: ”You see my wife has bragged to me once or twice that she knows who Kenyon's mother is, Lila, and now--”

The daughter put her hands to her face and turned away, sick with the horror of the scene. Her heart revolted against the vile intrigue her father was proposing. She turned and faced him, clasping her hands in her anguish, lifted her burning face for a moment and stared piteously at him, as she sobbed: ”O dear, dear G.o.d--is this my father?” and shaking with shame and horror she turned away.

CHAPTER L

JUDGE VAN DORN SINGS SOME MERRY SONGS AND THEY TAKE GRANT ADAMS BEHIND A WHITE DOOR

After arguments of counsel, after citation of cases, after the applause of Market Street at some incidental _obiter dicta_ of Judge Van Dorn's about the rights of property, after the court had put on its tortoise-sh.e.l.l rimmed gla.s.ses, which the court had brought home from its recent trip to Chicago to witness the renomination of President Taft, after the court, peering through its brown-framed spectacles, was fumbling over its typewritten opinion from the typewriter of the offices of Calvin & Calvin, written during the afternoon by the court's legal _alter ego_, after the court had cleared its throat to proceed with the reading of the answer to the pet.i.tion in habeas corpus of Grant Adams, the court, through its owlish gla.s.ses, saw the eyes of the pet.i.tioner Adams fixed, as the court believed, malignantly on the court.

”Adams,” barked the court, ”stand up!” With his black slouch hat in his hand, the pet.i.tioner Adams rose. It was a hot night and he wiped his brow with a red handkerchief twisted about his steel claw.

”Adams,” began the court, laying down the typewritten ma.n.u.script, ”I suppose you think you are a martyr.”

The court paused. Grant Adams made no reply. The court insisted:

”Well, speak up. Aren't you a martyr?”

”No,” meeting the eye of the court, ”I want to get out and get to work too keenly to be a martyr.”