Part 71

"Only that he is here in New York."

Mr. Van Ostend looked startled. "Here? Since when? My latest advice was this afternoon from the Maine detectives."

"I heard yesterday from headquarters that he had been traced here, but he must be in hiding somewhere; thus far they've found no trace of him. I felt sure, from the very first, he would return; that is why I came down. He couldn't avoid detection any longer in the country, nor could he hold out another week in the Maine wilderness--no man could stand it in this weather."

"How long have you been here, Father Honore?"

"Three days. I promised Mrs. Googe to do what I could to find him; the mother suffers most."

"I know--I know; it's awful for her; but, for God's sake, what did he do it for!"

"Why do we all sin at times?"

"Yes, yes--I know; that's your point of view, but that does not answer me in this case. He had every opportunity to work along legitimate lines towards the end he professed to wish to attain--and he had the ability to attain it; I know this from my experience with him. What could have possessed him to put himself in the place of a sneak thief--he, born a gentleman, with Champney blood in his veins?"

Father Honore did not answer his question which was more an indignant ejaculation.

"You spoke of my 'point of view,' Mr. Van Ostend. I think I know what that implies; you mean from the point of view of the priesthood?"

The man on the opposite side of the fire-lighted hearth looked at him in surprise. "Yes, just that; but I intended no reflection on your opinion; perhaps I ought to say frankly, that it implied a doubt of your powers of judgment in a business matter like the one in question. Naturally, it does not lie in your line."

Father Honore smiled a little sadly. "Perhaps you may recall that old saying of the Jew, Nathan the Wise: 'A man is a man before he is either Christian or Jew.' And we are men, Mr. Van Ostend; men primarily before we are either financier or priest. Let us speak as man to man; put aside all points of view entailed by difference of training, and meet on the common ground of our manhood, I am sure the perspective and retrospective ought to be in the same line of vision from that standpoint."

Mr. Van Ostend was silent. He was thinking deeply. The priest saw this, and waited for the answer which he felt sure would be well thought out before it found expression. He spoke at last, slowly, weighing his words:

"I am questioning whether, with the best intentions as men to meet in the common plane of our manhood, to see from thence alike in a certain direction, you and I, at our age, can escape from the moulded lines of our training into that common plane."

"I think we can if we keep to the fundamentals of life."

"We can but try; but there must be then an absolutely unclouded expression of individual opinion on the part of each." His assertion implied both a challenge and a doubt. "What is your idea of the reason for his succumbing to such a temptation?"

"I believe it was the love of money and the power its acquisition carries with it. I know, too, that Mrs. Googe blames herself for having fostered this ambition in him. She would only too gladly place anything that is hers to make good, but there is nothing left; it all went." He straightened himself. "What I have come to you for, Mr. Van Ostend, is to ask you one direct question: Are you willing to make good the amount of the embezzlement to the syndicate and save prosecution in this special case--save the man, Champney Googe, and so give him another chance in life? You know, but not so well, perhaps, as I, what years in a penitentiary mean for a man when he leaves it."

"Are you aware that you are asking me to put a premium on crime?" Mr. Van Ostend asked coldly. He looked at the priest as if he thought he had taken leave of his senses.

"That is one way of putting it, I admit; but there is another. Let me put it to you: if you had had a son; if he were fatherless; if he had fallen through emulation of other men, wouldn't you like to know that some man might lend a hand for the sake of the mother?"

"I don't know. Stealing is stealing, whether my son were the thief or another man's. Why shouldn't a man take his punishment? You know the everyday argument: the man who steals a loaf of bread gets nine months, and the man who steals a hundred thousand gets clear. If the law is for the one and not for the other, the result is, logically, anarchy. Besides, the man, not he of the street who steals because he is hungry, but the one who has every advantage of education and environment to make his way right in life, goes wrong knowingly. Are we in this case to coddle, to sympathize, to let ourselves be led into philanthropic drivel over 'judge not that ye be not judged'? I cannot see it so."

"You are right in your reasoning, but you are reasoning according to the common law, man-made; and I said we could agree only if we keep to the fundamentals of life."

"Well, if the law isn't a fundamental, what is?"

"I heard Bishop Brooks once say: 'The Bible was before ever it was written.' And perhaps I can best answer your question by saying the law of the human existed before the law of which you are thinking was ever written. Love, mercy, long-suffering were before the law formulated 'an eye for an eye,' or this world could not have existed to the present time for you and me. It is in recognition of that, in dealing with the human, that I make my appeal to you--for the mother, first and foremost, who suffers through the son, her first-born and only child, as your daughter is your only--" Mr. Van Ostend interrupted him.

"I must beg you, Father Honore, not to bring my daughter's name into this affair. I have suffered enough--enough."

"Mr. Van Ostend, pardon me the seeming discourtesy in your own house, but I am compelled to mention it. After you have given your final decision to my importuning, there can be no further appeal. The man, if living, must go to prison. Mrs. Champney positively refuses to help her nephew in any way. She has been approached twice on the subject of advancing four-fifths of the hundred thousand; she can do it, but she won't. She is not a mother; neither has she any real love for her nephew, for she refuses to aid him in his extremity. I mentioned your daughter, because you must know that her name has been in the past connected with the man for whom I am asking the boon of another chance in life. I have felt convinced that for her sake, if for no other, you would make this sacrifice."

"My daughter, I am glad to inform you, never cared for the man. She is too young, too undeveloped. It is the one thing that makes it possible for me to contemplate what he has done with any degree of sanity. Had he won her affections, had she loved him--" He paused: it was impossible for him to proceed.

"Thank God that she was spared that!" Father Honore ejaculated under his breath. Mr. Van Ostend looking at him keenly, perceived that he was under the influence of some powerful emotion. He turned to him, a mute question on his lips. Father Honore answered that mute query with intense earnestness, by repeating what, apparently, he had said to himself:

"I thank my God that she never cared for him in that way, for otherwise her life would have been wrecked; nor could you, who would lay down your life for her happiness, have spared or saved her,--her young affections, her young faith and joy in life, all shattered, and Life the iconoclast! That is the saddest part of it. It is women who suffer most and always. In making this appeal to you, I have had continually in mind his mother, and you, the father of a woman. I know how your pride must have suffered in the knowledge that his name, even, has been connected with hers--but your suffering is as naught compared with that mother's who, at this very moment, is waiting for some telegram from me that shall tell her her son is found, is saved. But I will not over urge, Mr. Van Ostend. If you feel you cannot do this, that it is a matter of principle with you to refuse, there is no need to prolong this interview which is painful to us both. I thank you for the time you have given me." He rose to go. Mr. Van Ostend did likewise.