The Foolish Virgin

T >> Thomas Dixon >> The Foolish Virgin

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He saw now that she was leaning heavily against it.

He raised his head and faced her with a sudden,
bold stare, and his voice rang in tones of sharp
command.

"Well?"

She tried to speak and failed. She had not yet
sufficiently mastered her emotions.

"What's the matter?" he growled.

"Jim----" she gasped.

He took a step toward her with set teeth.

"You've been in that bag--Well?"

Her face was white, her voice husky.

"Those jewels, Jim----"

A cunning smile played about his mouth and he shook
his head.

"I tried to keep my little secret from you till
Christmas morning; but you're on to my curves now,
Kiddo, and I'll have to 'fess up----"

"You bought them for me?" she asked with trembling
eagerness.

"Who else do you reckon I'd buy 'em for? I was
going to surprise you, too, tomorrow morning. You've
spoiled the fun."

She had slipped close to his side and he could hear
her quick intake of breath.

"That's--so--sweet of you, Jim. I'm sorry--I--
spoiled the surprise--you'd--planned----"

"Oh, what's the difference!" he broke in
carelessly. "It's all the same five minutes after,
anyhow. Well, don't you like 'em? Why don't you say
something?"

"They're wonderful, Jim. Where--where--did you buy
them?"

He held her gaze in silence for an instant and
fenced.

"Isn't that a funny question, Kiddo?" he said in
low tones. "I once heard the old man I worked with in
the shop say that you shouldn't look a gift horse in
the mouth."

"I just want to know," she insisted.

"I'm not going to tell you!" he said with a dry
laugh.

"Why not?"

"Because you keep asking."

"You wish to tease me?"

"Maybe."

"Please!"

"Why do you want to know? Are you afraid they're
fakes?"

"No, they're beautiful--they're wonderful."

"Well, if you don't want them," he broke in
angrily, "I'll keep them. I'll sell them."

"Don't tease me, Jim!" she begged. "I don't mind
if you bought them at a pawn-shop--if that's why you
won't tell me. That is the reason, isn't it?
Honestly, isn't it?"

She asked the question with eager intensity. She
had persuaded herself that it was so and the horror had
been lifted. She pressed close with smiling, trembling
lips:

"I don't mind that, Jim! You got them from a pawn-
broker, of course, didn't you?"

He looked at her with a puzzled expression and
hesitated.

"Didn't you?" she repeated.

"No--I didn't!" was the curt answer.

"You didn't?" she echoed feebly.

"No!"

With a quick breath she unconsciously drew back and
he glared at her angrily.

"Say, what'ell's the matter with you, anyhow? Have
you gone crazy?"

"You--won't--tell me--where you bought them?" she
asked slowly.

He faced her squarely and spoke with deliberate
contempt:

"It's--none--of your business!"

She held his gaze with steady determination.

"That string of pearls belongs to the man who once
lived in the front room of my old building in New York.
He moved uptown with my landlady. A few months ago a
burglar robbed and shot him----"

She stopped, seized his arm and cried with
strangling horror:

"Jim! Jim! Where did you get them?"

"Now I know you've gone crazy! You don't suppose
that's the only string of pearls in the world, do you?
Did you count 'em? Did you weigh 'em?"

"Where did you get them?" she demanded.

"What put it into your head that that string of
pearls belonged to your old boarder?"

"I saw him write the stanza of poetry on the satin
lining of that case. I've heard him recite it over and
over again in his piping voice: `Each bead a pearl--my
rosary!' I KNOW that they belonged to him!"

His mouth twitched angrily and he faced her,
speaking with cold, brutal frankness.

"I might keep on lying to you, Kiddo, and get away
with it. But what's the use? You've got to know.
It's just as well now--I did that job----Yes!"

Her face blanched.

"You--a--burglar--a murderer!"

Jim followed her with quick, angry gestures.

"All I wanted was his money! He fought--it was his
life or mine----"

"A murderer!"

"I just went after his money--I tell you--besides,
he didn't die; he got well. If he'd kept still he
wouldn't have lost his pearls and he wouldn't have been
hurt----"

"And I stood up for you against them all!" she
answered in a dazed whisper. "They told me--Jane
Anderson with brutal frankness, Ella with the heart-
rending, timid confession of her own tragic life--they
told me that you were bad. I said they were liars. I
said that they envied our happiness. I believed that
you were big and brave and fine. I stood by you and
married you!"

She paused and looked at him steadily. In a rush
of suppressed passion she seized his arm with a
violence that caused his heavy eyelids to lift in
amused surprise.

"Oh, Jim--it's not true! It's not true--it's not
true! For God's sake, tell me that you're joking!--
that you're teasing me! You can't mean it! I won't
believe it--I won't believe it!"

Her head sank until it rested piteously against his
breast. He stood with his face turned awkwardly away
and then moved his body until she was forced to stand
erect.

He touched her shoulder gently and spoke
soothingly:

"Come, now, Kid, don't take on so. I'll quit the
business when I make my pile."

She drew back instinctively and he followed:

"I'll never touch another penny of yours. There's
blood on it!"

"Rot!" he went on soothingly. "It's good Wall
Street cash--got it exactly like they got theirs--got
it because I was quicker and smarter than the fellow
that had it. I use a jimmy, they use a ticker--that's
all the difference."

She drew her figure to its full height.

"I'm going--Jim----"

"Where?"

His voice rasped like a file against steel.

"Home!"

"Your home's with me."

"I won't live with a thief!"

He stepped squarely before her and spoke with
deliberate menace.

"You're--not--going!"

"Get out of my way!" she cried defiantly.

His big jaw closed with a snap and his figure
became rigid. The candle's yellow light threw a
strange glare on his face, convulsed. The blue flames
of hell were in the glitter of his steel eyes.

Her heart sank in a dull wave of terror. She tried
to gauge the depth of his brutal rage. There was no
standard by which to measure it. She had never seen
that look in his face before. His whole being was
transformed by some sinister power.

She was afraid to move, but her mind was alert in
this moment of supreme trial. She hadn't used her last
weapon yet. The fact that he held her with such
terrible determination was proof of the spell she had
cast over him. She might save him. He couldn't have
been a criminal long. She formed her new battle-line
with quick decision.

CHAPTER XVII

THE SURRENDER

How long she gazed into the convulsed face of the man
who had squared himself before her, mattered little
measured by the tick of the watch in her belt. Into
the mental anguish endured a life's agony had been
pressed. It could not have been more than twenty
seconds, and yet it marked the birth of a new being
within the soul of a woman. She had been searching
only for her own happiness. The search had entangled
another in the meshes of her life. Too much had been
lived in the past two weeks to be undone by a word and
forgotten in a day. She had attempted, coward-like, to
run.

She saw now in the consuming flame of a great
sorrow that the man before her had some rights which
the purest woman must reckon with. He might be a
burglar. At least it was her duty to try to save him
from himself. Her surrender of the past weeks was a
tie that would bind them through all eternity.
There was no chemistry of earth or heaven or hell that
could erase its memories. Her life was no longer her
own--this man's was bound with hers. She must face the
facts. She would make one honest, brave effort to save
him. To do this she would give all without
reservation--pride must be cast to the winds.

Her voice suddenly changed to tears.

"Oh, Jim, you do love me, don't you?"

His body slowly relaxed, his eyes shifted, and he
shrugged his square shoulders.

"What'ell did I marry you for?"

"Tell me--do you?" she demanded.

"You know that I love you. What do you ask me such
a fool question for? I love you with a love that can
kill. Do you hear me? That's why you're not going
anywhere without me."

There was no mistaking the depth of his passion.
She trembled to realize its power and yet it was the
lever by which she must move him.

"Then you've got to give this life up. You're
young and brave and strong. You can earn an honest
living. You haven't been in this long--I feel it, I
know it. Have you?"

"No!"

"How long?"

"Eight months."

"Oh, Jim, dear, you must give it up now for my
sake. I'll work with you and work for you. I'll
teach, I'll sew, I'll scrub, I'll slave for you day and
night--if you're only clean and honest."

He turned on her fiercely.

"Cut it, Kid--cut it! I'm out for the stuff now.
I'm going to get rich and I'm going to get rich
QUICK--that's all that's the matter with me!"

"But, Jim," she broke in tenderly--"you did earn an
honest living. Your workshop proves that."

"I've used that to improve my tools and melt the
swag the past year. The shop's all right."

"But you did make a successful invention?"

"You bet I did," he answered savagely, "and that's
why I quit the business. Three years ago I took down a
big automobile and worked out an improvement in the
transmission that settled the question of heavy draft
machines. I took it to a lawyer in Wall Street and he
took it to a man that had money. Between the two of
'em, they didn't do a thing to me! They were going to
put my patent on the market and make me a millionaire.
God, I was crazy----"

He paused and squared his shoulders with a deep
breath.

"They put it on the market all right and they made
some millionaires--but I wasn't one of 'em, Kiddo!
They got me to sign a paper that skinned me out of
every dollar as slick as you can pull an eel through
your fingers. I hired another lawyer
and gave him half he could get to beat 'em. He fought
like a tiger and two days before I met you he got his
verdict and they paid it--just ten thousand dollars.
Think of it--ten thousand dollars! And each of them
got a million cash. They sold it outright for two
millions and a half. My lawyer got five thousand
dollars, and I got five thousand dollars. That's mine,
anyhow. It's in that bag there. I'm working on a new
set of tools now in my shop. I'm going to get that
money back from the two thieves who stole it from me by
law. I'll take it by force, the way they took it. If
I can croak them both in the fight--well, there'll be
two thieves less to rob honest men and women, that's
all."

"Oh, Jim!" Mary gasped, lifting a trembling hand to
her throat as if to tear open her collar. "You're mad.
You don't know what you're saying----"

"Don't fool yourself, Kiddo," he interrupted
fiercely. "My eyes are open now, and I've got a
level head back of 'em, too. I've doped it all out.
You ought to 'a' heard that lawyer give me a few
lessons in business when he'd skinned me and salted
my hide. He was good-natured and confidential. He
seemed to love me. `Business is war, sonny,' he piped,
between the puffs of the big Havana cigar he was
smoking--`war! war to the knife! We got you off your
guard and put the knife into you at the right minute--
that's all. Don't take it so hard! Invent something
else and keep your eyes peeled. You ought to love us
for giving you an education in business early in life.
You're young. You won't have to learn your lesson
again. Go to work, sonny, in your shop, and turn out
another new tool for the advancement of trade!'"

He paused and smiled grimly.

"I've done it, too! I've just finished a little
invention that'll crack any safe in New York in twenty
minutes after I touch it."

He broke into a dry laugh, sat down and
deliberately lighted a fresh cigarette.

She studied his face with beating heart. Was he
lost beyond all hope of reformation? Or was this the
boyish bravado of an amateur criminal poisoned by the
consciousness of wrong? She tried to think. She felt
the red blood pounding through her heart and
beating against her brain in suffocating waves
of despair.

In vivid flashes the scene of her marriage but two
weeks ago, came back in tormenting memories. The
solemn words she had spoken kept ringing like the throb
of a funeral bell far up in the star-lit heavens----

"I, MARY ADAMS, TAKE THEE, JAMES ANTHONY, TO MY
WEDDED HUSBAND, TO HAVE AND TO HOLD . . . FOR BETTER
FOR WORSE, FOR RICHER FOR POORER, IN SICKNESS AND IN
HEALTH, TO LOVE, CHERISH, AND TO OBEY, TILL DEATH DO US
PART, ACCORDING TO GOD'S HOLY ORDINANCE; AND THERETO
I GIVE THEE MY TROTH."

The last solemn prayer kept ringing its deep-toned
message over all----

"GOD THE FATHER, GOD THE SON, GOD THE HOLY GHOST,
BLESS, PRESERVE, AND KEEP YOU; THE LORD MERCIFULLY
WITH HIS FAVOR LOOK UPON YOU, AND FILL YOU WITH ALL
SPIRITUAL BENEDICTION AND GRACE; THAT YE MAY SO LIVE
TOGETHER IN THIS LIFE, THAT IN THE WORLD TO COME
YE MAY HAVE LIFE EVERLASTING. AMEN."

In a sudden rush of desperate pity for herself and
the man to whom she was bound, she dropped on her
knees by his side, slipped her arms about his neck and
clung to him, sobbing.

"Oh, Jim, Jim, man," she whispered hoarsely. "I
can't see you sink into hell like this! Have you no
real love in your heart for the woman who has given
all? Have mercy on me! Have mercy! You can't mean
the hideous things you've just said! You've been
crazed by your losses. You're just a boy yet. Life is
all before you. You're only twenty-four. I'm just
twenty-four. We can both begin anew. I've never lived
until these past weeks--neither have you. You couldn't
drag me down into a life of crime----"

Her head sank and her voice choked into silence.
He made no movement of his hand to soothe her. His
voice was not persuasive. It was hard and cold.

"I'm not asking you to help me on any of my jobs,"
he said. "I'm the financier of the family. You can
say the prayers and keep house."

"Knowing that you are a criminal? That your hands
are stained with human blood?"

"Why not?" he snapped, the blue blaze flashing
again in his eyes. "Suppose you were the wife of the
gentlemanly lawyer-thief who robbed me, using the law
instead of a jimmy--would you bother your little head
about my business? Does his wife ask him where he
got it? Does anybody know or care? He lives on Fifth
Avenue now. He bought a palace up there the day after
he got my money. We passed it on the way to the Park
the day I met you. A line of carriages was standing in
front and finely dressed women were running up the red
carpet that led down the stoop and under the canopy to
the curb. Did any of the gay dames who smiled and
smirked at that thief's wife ask how he got the money
to buy the house? Not much. Would they have cared if
they had known? They'd have called him a shrewd
lawyer--that's all! Do you reckon his wife worries
about such tricks of trade? Why should mine worry?"

She gripped his hand with desperate pleading.

"Oh, Jim, dear, you can't be a criminal at heart!
I wouldn't have loved you if it had been true. I can't
believe it! I won't believe it. You're posing. You
don't mean this. You can't mean it. You're going to
return every dishonest dollar that you've taken."

"You don't know what you're talking about!"

He closed his jaw with a snap and leaned close in
eager, tense excitement.

"Do you know how much junk I've piled into a little
box in my shop the past three months?"

"I don't care--I don't want to know!"

"You've got to care--you've got to know now! It's
worth a hundred thousand dollars, do you hear? A
hundred thousand dollars! It would take me a life-time
to earn that on a salary. In two weeks after we get
back to New York with my new invention that lawyer
advised me to make, I'll go through his house--I'll
open his safe, I'll take every diamond, every pearl and
every scrap of stolen jewelry his wife's wearing. And
I won't leave a fingerprint on the window sill. I've
got two of his servants working for me.

"In six months I'll be worth half a million. In a
year I'll pull off the big haul I'm planning and I'll
be a millionaire. We'll retire from business then--
just like they did. We'll build our marble palace down
at Bay Ridge and our yacht will nod in the harbor.
We'll spend our summers in Europe when we like and
every snob and fool in New York will fall over himself
to meet me. And every woman will envy my wife. I'm
young, Kiddo, but I've cut my eye teeth. You've just
been born. I'm running the business end of this thing.
You think you can reform me. You can--AFTER I'VE MADE
OUR PILE. I'll join the church then and sing
louder than that lawyer. But if you think you're going
to stop my business career at this stage of the
game--forget it, forget it!"

He sprang up with a quick movement of his tense
body and threw her off. She rose and watched his
restless steps as he paced the floor. Her mind was
numb as if from a mortal blow. She brushed the tangled
ringlets of brown hair back from her forehead, drew the
handkerchief from her belt and wiped the perspiration
from her brow.

Before she could gather the strength to speak, he
wheeled suddenly and confronted her:

"I've known from the first, Kiddo, that you're not
the kind to help in this business. I don't expect it.
I don't ask it. I need a ranch like this down here for
storage. I'm going to take the old woman into
partnership with me."

She started back in an instinctive recoil of
horror.

"Your MOTHER?"

He nodded.

"Yep!"

She drew a step nearer and peered into his set
face.

"YOU WILL MAKE YOUR OWN MOTHER A CRIMINAL?"

"Sure!" he growled. "That's what I came down here
for."

"She won't do it!"

"She won't, eh?" he sneered. "Look at this hog
pen!"

He swept the bare, wretched cabin with a gesture of
contempt and shrugged his shoulders.

"Look at the rags she's wearing," he went on
savagely. "When we talk it over tonight with that five
thousand dollars in gold shining in her eyes--I'm going
to show her a lot o' things she never saw before,
Kiddo--take it from me!"

She answered in slow, even tones:

"I can't live with you, Jim."

The blue flames beneath the drooping eyelids were
leaping now in the yellow glare of the candle's rays.
The muscles of his body were knotted. His voice came
from his throat a low growl.

"Do you know who you're fooling with?"

The blood of a clean life flamed in her cheeks and
nerved her with reckless daring. Her figure stiffened
and her voice rang with defiant scorn:

"Yes. I know at last--a thief who would drag his
own mother down to hell with him!"

Not a muscle of his powerful body moved; his face
was a stolid mask. He threw his words slowly through
his teeth:

"Now you listen to me. You're my wife. I didn't
invent this marriage game. I played it as I found
it. And that's the way you're going to play it.
You're good and sweet and clean--I like that kind, and
I won't have no other. You're mine. MINE, do you
hear! Mine for life--body and soul--`FOR BETTER FOR
WORSE, FOR RICHER FOR POORER, IN SICKNESS AND IN
HEALTH, TO LOVE, CHERISH'----"

He paused and thrust his massive jaw squarely into
her face:

"`----AND OBEY!'" he hissed, "`UNTIL DEATH DO US
PART, ACCORDING TO GOD'S HOLY ORDINANCE'--you
said it, didn't you?"

"Yes----"

"Well?"

She turned from him with sudden aversion:

"I didn't know what you were----"

"Nobody ever knows BEFORE they're married!" he
broke in savagely. "You took your chances. I took
mine--`FOR BETTER FOR WORSE.' We'll just say now
it's for worse and let it go at that!"

The little body stiffened.

"I'll die first!"

He held her gaze without words, searching the
depths of her being with the cold, blue flame in his
drooping eyes. If she were bluffing, it was easy. She
could talk her head off for all he cared. If she meant
it, he might have his hands full unless he
mastered the situation at once and for all time.

There was no sign of yielding to his iron will. An
indomitable soul had risen in her frail body and defied
him. His decision was instantaneous.

"Oh, you'll die sooner than live with me--eh?"

There was something hideous in the cold venom with
which he drawled the words. Her heart fairly stopped
its beating. With the last ounce of courage left, she
held her place and answered:

"Yes!"

With the sudden crouch of a tiger he drew his
clenched fist to strike.

"Forget it!"

She sprang back with terror, her body trembling in
pitiful weakness.

"You snivelling little coward!" he growled.

"Oh, Jim, Jim," she faltered,--"you--you--couldn't
strike me!"

A step nearer and he stood over her, his big, flat
head thrust forward, his eyes gleaming, his muscles
knotted in blind rage.

"No--I won't STRIKE you," he whispered. "I'll
just KILL you--that's all!"

With the leap of an infuriated beast he sprang on
her and his sharp fingers gripped her throat.

The world went black and she felt herself sinking
into a bottomless abyss. With maniac energy she tore
his hands from her throat and the warm blood streamed
from the gash his nails had torn.

Jim! Jim! For God's sake!" she moaned in abject
terror.

With a sullen growl, his fingers, sharp as a
leopard's claw, found her neck again and closed with a
grip that sent the blood surging to her brain and her
eyes starting from their sockets.

The one hideous thought that flashed through her
mind was that he was going to plunge his claws into her
eyes and blind her for life. He could hold her his
prisoner then. She made a last desperate struggle for
breath, her hands relaxed, she drooped and sank to the
couch toward which he had hurled her in the first rush
of his assault.

He lifted her and choked the slender neck again to
make sure, loosed his hands and the limp body dropped
on the couch and was still.

He stood watching her in silence, his arms at his
side.

"Damned little fool!" he muttered. "I had to give
you that lesson. The sooner the better!"

He waited with contemptuous indifference until
she slowly recovered consciousness. She lay motionless
for a long time and then slowly opened her eyes.

Thank God! They had not been gouged out as poor
Ella's. She didn't mind the warm blood that soaked her
collar and ran down her neck. If he would only spare
her eyes. Blindness had been her one unspeakable
terror. She closed her eyes again and silently prayed
for strength. Her strength was gone. Wave after wave
of sickening, cowardly terror swept her prostrate soul.
She could feel his sullen presence--his body with its
merciless strength towering above her. She dared not
look. She knew that he was watching her with cruel
indifference. A single cry, a single word and he might
thrust his claw into her eyes and the light of the
world would go out forever.

Her terror was too hideous; she could endure it no
longer. She must move. She must try to save herself.
She lifted her head and caught his steady, venomous
gaze.

A quick, sliding movement of abject fear and she
was erect, facing him and backing away silently.

He followed with even step, his gaze holding her as
the eyes of a snake its victim. She would not let him
know her terror of blindness. She preferred death
a thousand times. If he would only kill her outright
it was all the mercy she would ask.

"You--won't--kill--me--Jim!" she sobbed. "Please--
please, don't kill me!"

He lifted his sharp finger and followed her toward
the shed-room door, his voice the triumphant cry of an
eagle above his prey.

"`FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE--UNTIL DEATH DO US PART!'"

Her heart gave a bound of cowardly joy. He had
relented. He would not blind her. She could live.
She was young and life was sweet.

She tried to smile her surrender through her tears
as she backed slowly away from his ominous finger.

"Yes, I'll try--Jim. I'll try--`UNTIL DEATH DO
US PART--UNTIL DEATH--UNTIL DEATH----'"

Her voice broke into a flood of tears as she
blindly felt her way through the door and into the
darkened room.

He paused on the threshold, held the creaking board
shutter in his hand and broke into a laugh.

"The world ain't big enough for you to get away
from me, Kiddo. Good night--a good little wife now and
it's all right!"

CHAPTER XVIII

TO THE NEW GOD

Jim closed the door of the little shed-room with a
bang, and stood listening a moment to the sobs inside.

"`UNTIL DEATH DO US PART,' Kiddo!" he laughed grimly.

He turned back into the room and saw Nance standing
at the opposite entrance between the calico curtains,
an old, battered, flickering lantern in her hand. A
white wool shawl was thrown over the gray head and fell
in long, filmy waves about her thin figure. Her deep-
sunken eyes were exaggerated in the dim light of
lantern and candle. She smiled wanly.

He stopped short at the apparition; a queer shiver
of superstitious fear shook him. The white form of
Death suddenly and noiselessly appearing from the
darkness could not have been more uncanny. He had
wondered vaguely while the quarrel with his wife was
progressing, what had become of his mother. As
the fight had reached its height, he had forgotten her.

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