The Cost

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And while this battle, precipitated by the passions of a few
"captains of industry," raged in Wall Street and filled the
nation with the clamor of ruined or triumphant gamblers,
ten-score thousand toilers in the two great enterprises directly
involved toiled tranquilly on--herding sheep and shearing them,
weaving cloths and dyeing them, driving engines, handling
freight, conducting trains, usefully busy, adding to the sum of
human happiness, subtracting from the sum of human misery.

At three o'clock Dumont sank back among his cushions and pillows.
His child, his other self, his Woolens Monopoly, was again his
own; his enemies were under his heel, as much so as those heaps
and coils of ticker-tape he had been churning in his excitement.
"I'm dead tired," he muttered, his face ghastly, his body
relaxed in utter exhaustion.

He closed his eyes. "I must sleep--I've earned it.
To-morrow"--a smile flitted round his mouth--"I'll hang their
hides where every coyote and vulture can see."

Toward four o'clock in came Doctor Sackett and Culver. The room
was flooded with light--the infinite light of the late-spring
afternoon reflected on the white enamel and white brocade of
walls and furniture. On the floor in the heaps and coils of
ticker-tape lay Dumont.

In his struggles the tape had wound round and round his legs, his
arms, his neck. It lay in a curling, coiling mat, like a
serpent's head, upon his throat, where his hands clutched the
collar of his pajamas.

Sackett knelt beside him, listening at his chest, feeling for his
pulse in vain. And Culver stood by, staring stupidly at the now
worthless instrument of his ambition for wealth and power.

XXVIII.

AFTER THE LONG WINTER.

Within two hours Langdon, in full control, had arranged with
Tavistock to make the imperiled victory secure. Thus, not until
the next day but one did it come out that the cataclysm had been
caused by a man ruined and broken and with his back against
death's door to hold it shut; that Dumont himself had turned the
triumphing host of his enemies into a flying mob, in its panic
flinging away its own possessions as well as its booty.

Perhaps the truth never would have been known, perhaps Langdon
would have bribed Tavistock to silence and would have posed as
the conquering genius, had he found out a day earlier how Dumont
had put himself in funds. As it was, this discovery did not come
too late for him to seize the opportunity that was his through
Dumont's secret methods, Pauline's indifference to wealth and his
own unchecked authority. He has got many an hour of--strictly
private--mental gymnastics out of the moral problem he saw, in
his keeping for himself and Gladys the spoils he gathered up. He
is inclined to think he was intelligent rather than right; but,
knowing his weakness for self-criticism, he never gives a
positive verdict against himself. That, however, is unimportant,
as he is not the man to permit conscience to influence conduct in
grave matters.

He feels that, in any case, he did not despoil Pauline or
Gardiner. For, after he had told her what Dumont did--and to
protect himself he hastened to tell it--she said: "Whatever
there may be, it's all for Gardiner. I waive my own rights, if I
have any. But you must give me your word of honor that you won't
let anything tainted pass to him." Langdon, judging with the
delicacy of a man of honor put on honor, was able to find little
such wealth.

He gives himself most of the credit for Gardiner's turning out so
well--"Inherited riches are a hopeless handicap," he often says
to Gladys when they are talking over the future of their
children.

Pauline--

The first six months of her new life, of her resumed life, she
spent in Europe with her father and mother and Gardiner. Late in
the fall they were back at Saint X, at the old house in Jefferson
Street. In the following June came Scarborough. She was in the
garden, was waiting for him, was tying up a tall rose, whose
splendid, haughty head had bent under the night's rain.

He was quite near her when she heard his step and turned. He
stood, looked at her--the look she had seen that last afternoon
at Battle Field. He came slowly up and took both her hands.

"After all the waiting and longing and hoping," he said, "at
last--you! I can't put it into words--except to
say--just--Pauline!"

She drew a long breath; her gaze met his. And in her eyes he saw
a flame that had never shone clearly there before--the fire of
her own real self, free and proud. "Once you told me about your
father and mother--how he cared--cared always."

"I remember," he answered.

"Well--I--I," said Pauline, "I care as SHE must have cared
when she gave him herself--and YOU."

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