The Mask: A Story of Love and Adventure
anxieties which preyed upon her sensitive mind with all the force of an
obsession. Was there any part of her husband's life that he had hidden
from her? Was he really as loyal as she had always fondly and blindly
believed; had his ambition led him to take grave financial risks that
might one day jeopardize their comfort and happiness, the very future
of their child?
Ray rose to put away the tea table, and she found herself sitting alone
with the lawyer. There was a moment's silence, and then, as if
thinking out aloud what was on her mind, she said:
"Thank God, he's safe; I had the most fearful premonitions----"
The lawyer laughed.
"Don't put your trust in premonitions--things happen or they don't
happen. It's absurd to believe that misfortunes are all prepared
beforehand."
"Then you are not a fatalist?"
"Decidedly not. I hope I have too much intelligence to believe in
anything so foolish."
"Do you believe in a Supreme Being who has the same power to suddenly
snuff us out of existence as he had to create us?"
"I neither believe nor disbelieve. Frankly, I do not know. What
people call God, Jehovah, Nature, according to my reasoning, is an
astounding energy, a marvellous chemical process, created and
controlled by some unknown, stupendous first cause, the origin of which
man may never understand. How should he? He has not time. We are
rushed into the world without preparation. We are ignorant, helpless,
blind. Gradually, by dint of much physical labor and mental toil, we
succeed in ferreting out a few facts regarding ourselves and the
physical laws that govern us. We are just on the verge of discovering
more--we are just beginning to understand and enjoy life--when suddenly
we find ourselves growing old and decrepit. Our physical and mental
powers fail us, and the same force that benevolently created us now
mercilessly destroys us, and we are hurled, willy-nilly, back into
eternity whence we came. Rather absurd, isn't it?"
Intensely interested Helen looked up. Eagerly she exclaimed:
"You have a whole system of philosophy in a mere handful of words,
haven't you?"
He smiled.
"It's all one needs, and perhaps as good as those more complicated and
more verbose."
More seriously and lowering her voice so Ray, who was still busy at the
other end of the room, might not overhear, she said:
"Mr. Steell--you are so clever--you know all about everything. Tell
me, do you know anything about Wall Street?"
The ingenuousness of the question amused him. With a laugh he answered:
"A little--to my sorrow."
"It's a dangerous place, isn't it?"
"Very; it has a graveyard at one end, the East River at the other, two
places highly convenient at times to those who play the game."
"If luck goes against him, a man could lose his all, then?"
"Not only his all but the all of others, too--if he's that kind of a
man."
She was silent for a moment. Then she continued:
"And sometimes even fine, honest men are tempted, are they not, to
gamble with money which is not theirs?"
"Many have done so. The prisons are full of them. There is nothing so
dangerous as the get-rich-quick fever. All the men who gamble in
stocks have it. It becomes a mania, an obsession. Their judgment
becomes warped; they lose all sense of right and wrong."
"There's something else I want to ask you. What do you think of Signor
Keralio?"
He hesitated a moment before he answered. Then, with some warmth, he
said:
"As I told you before, I think he's a crook, only we can't prove it.
I've been looking up his record. It's a bad one. The fellow has
behaved himself so far in New York, but out West he is known under
various names as one of the slickest rogues that ever escaped hanging.
At one time he was the chief of a band of international crooks and
blackmailers that operated in London, Paris, Buenos Ayres, and the City
of Mexico. The scheme they usually worked was to get some prominent
man so badly compromised that he would pay any amount to save himself
from exposure, and they played so successfully on the fears of their
victims that they were usually successful."
A worried look came into the young wife's face. Perhaps there was more
in Signor Keralio's relations with her husband than she had suspected.
Quickly she asked:
"Why do they permit a man of that character to be at large?"
The lawyer shrugged his shoulders.
"You can't proceed against a man unless there is some specific charge
made. The police have nothing now against him. He may have reformed
for all I know. But that was his record some years ago."
"I don't think he'll dare come here again," went on Helen. "He's
exceedingly offensive, and yet he has about him a certain magnetism
that compels your attention, even while his manner and look repels and
irritates. Only the other day he----"
Before she could complete the sentence, there was a loud ring at the
front door bell. Helen hastily rose, but Ray had already gone forward.
"It's Mr. Parker," she cried. "I saw him coming from the window."
The next instant the door of the drawing-room was flung open and Mr.
Parker appeared.
"Hallo, ladies! Howdy, Steell!"
The president of the Americo-African Mining Company was not looking his
usual debonair self that evening. His manner was nervous and
flustered, his face pale and drawn with anxious lines. His coat lacked
the customary boutonniere, and his crumpled linen and unshaved chin
suggested that he had come direct from his office after a strenuous day
without stopping to go through the formality of making a change of
attire.
Helen was quick to note the alteration in his appearance, and her first
instinct, naturally, was to associate it with her husband. Something
was amiss.
"There's nothing wrong, is there?" she asked in alarm.
"No, no, my dear woman!"
But his tone was not convincing. He always called her "my dear woman"
when nervous or excited, and "my dear lady" in his calmer moods. She
at once remarked it, and it did not tend to reassure her. Now greatly
alarmed she laid a trembling hand on his arm.
"Tell me, please! Don't hide anything from me. Has anything happened
to Kenneth?"
"No--no; of course not." Quickly changing the subject he asked: "You
got a message."
"Yes--a cablegram. It came just now."
"Have you got it? Let me see it."
"Yes, certainly," said Helen, looking around for the dispatch. Unable
to find it, she called to her sister.
"Ray, dear, what did you do with Kenneth's cablegram?"
Her sister came up to assist in the search, in which even Mr. Steell
joined. But the search was fruitless. The cablegram had disappeared.
"Oh, I know!" suddenly exclaimed Ray. "It must have been carried away
with the tea things."
"That's right! I never thought of that!" said Helen.
The next instant the two women hurried out of the room in the direction
of the kitchen.
The instant they had disappeared Mr. Parker turned to the lawyer. In a
whisper he said:
"There is terrible news! I don't know how to break it to the poor
woman----"
Steell sprang forward. Anxiously he exclaimed:
"Terrible news? Surely not----"
The president nodded.
"Yes--all lost, and the diamonds, too. A dispatch just received in
London says that, according to a wireless relayed from Cape Town, the
_Abyssinia_ caught fire twelve hours after sailing from that port and
all on board perished. It is shocking, and the pecuniary loss to us
disastrous. The stones were not insured. Hush! Here they come. Not
a word!"
"My God!" muttered the lawyer, as he fell back and turned away, so they
might not see the effect which the shocking news had made on him. With
an effort he managed to control himself.
The two women entered the room joyfully.
"Here it is!" cried Helen exultantly, as she brandished the missing
telegram. "You see, he's just sailed, and all's well."
The president said nothing, but, taking the dispatch from her hands,
slowly read it. Nodding his head, he said slowly:
"Yes--he's just sailed, and--all's well."
"When do you think he'll be here?" questioned the young hostess,
looking anxiously up into his face.
The president shook his head.
"That is hard to tell," he answered evasively.
Mr. Steell had gone to the window, where he stood looking out, idly
drumming his fingers on the pane. How was it possible to break such
fearful tidings as that? What a horrible calamity! He wished himself
a hundred miles away, yet some one must tell her. At that moment
shrill cries arose in the street outside--the familiar, distressing,
almost exultant cries of news-venders, glad of any calamity that puts a
few nickels into their pockets.
"_Ex-tra! Ex-tra! Special ex-tra!_"
"What's that?" exclaimed Helen apprehensively. The sound of special
editions always filled her with anxiety, especially since Kenneth's
departure.
"_Ex-tra! Ex-tra! Special edition! Ex-tra! Big steamer gone down.
Great loss of life. Extra!_"
Her face was pale, as she turned and looked at the others, who also
stood in silence, listening to the hoarse accents of distress.
"A steamer gone down!" she faltered. "Isn't that terrible? I wonder
what steamer it was."
Ray ran to the door.
"I'll get a paper," she said.
Before Mr. Parker or Mr. Steell could prevent her the young girl had
opened the front door. Now there was no way of preventing Helen
knowing. The best thing was to prepare her gently.
"My dear Mrs. Traynor--I didn't tell you the trouble just now. There
has been a little trouble. The _Abyssinia_----"
Helen gave a cry of anguish.
"I knew it! I knew it! Kenneth is dead!"
"No, no, my dear lady. These newspaper reports are always grossly
exaggerated. The _Abyssinia_ has met with a little trouble--nothing
very serious, I assure you. Everything is all right, no doubt. Your
husband is well able to take care of himself. We may hear from him any
moment, reassuring us as to his safety."
His words of comfort went unheeded. Her face white as death Helen
tottered rather than walked to the door, reaching it just as Ray,
almost as pale, entered, reading the paper she had just purchased. On
seeing her sister she instinctively made an effort to hide the sheet,
but Helen quickly snatched it out of her hand. Her hand trembling so
violently that she could scarcely make out the letters she glanced at
the big scare-head, printed in red ink, to imitate blood, a merciful
custom sensational newspapers have of making the most of the agony of
others.
S. S. ABYSSINIA GONE DOWN!
ALL PERISH!
For a moment she stood still, looking at the big type with open,
staring eyes. Then, with a low cry, like a wounded animal, she let the
paper slip from her nerveless fingers. There was a furious throbbing
at her temples: her heart seemed to stop. The room spun round, and she
fainted just as Steell rushed forward to catch her in his arms.
"Brandy! Brandy!" he shouted. "She's fainted!"
While Ray ran for the smelling salts and Mr. Parker was bringing the
brandy there came another vigorous pull at the bell. An instant later
the maid entered with a cablegram, which Mr. Parker seized and tore
open. As he read the contents, a look of the greatest surprise and joy
lit up his face.
"Look at this!" he cried.
"What is it?" demanded Steell, still on his knees trying to revive the
unconscious woman.
"This will do her more good than all your brandy."
"What is it?" cried Ray impatiently.
"He's safe!" cried Mr. Parker exultantly.
"Safe!" they all cried.
"Yes--safe." Handing the dispatch to the lawyer, he added: "Here--read
this."
Steell took the dispatch and read:
CAPE TOWN, Saturday: Miraculously saved. Sail to-morrow on the
_Zanzibar_. KENNETH.