The Silent Battle

her face to face in one of the paths of the Park—looked her in the face and passed on unknowing. Lik

she broke in quickly. “It can do no good.”“I must go on. I’ve got so much to say and such a little time to say it in. Perhaps, I won’t see you again. At least I won’t see you unless you wish it.”“Then you’ll not see me again.”He turned his head and examined her soberly.“That, of course, is your privilege. Don’t be too hard, if you can help it. Try and remember me, if you can, as I was before——”“I shall not remember you at all, Mr. Gallatin.”[88]He started as she spoke his name. “You knew?”“Yes, I knew. You—your name was familiar to me.”“You mean that you had heard of me?” he asked wonderingly.She knew that she had said too much, but she went on coldly.“In New York one hears of Philip Gallatin. I knew—there in the woods. I discovered your name by accident—upon your letters.”She spoke shortly—hesitantly, as if every word was wrung from her by an effort of will.“I see,” he said, “and what you heard of me—was not good?”“No,” she said. “It was not good. But I had known you two days then, and I—I thought there must—have been some mistake—until—” she broke off passionately. “Oh, what is the use of all this?” she gasped. “It’s lowering to your pride and to mine. If I have said more than I meant to say, it is because I want you to know why I never want to see you—to hear of you again.”He bowed his head beneath the storm. He deserved it, he knew, and there was even a bitter pleasure in his retribution, for her indifference had been hardest to bear.“I understand,” he said quietly. “I will go in a moment. But first I mean that you shall hear what I have to say.”She remembered that tone of command. He had used it when he had lifted her in his arms and carried her helpless to his camp-fire. The memory of it shamed her, as his presence did now, and she walked on more rapidly. Their path had been deserted, but they were now approaching the Avenue where the hurrying pedestrians and[89] vehicles proclaimed the end of privacy. A deserted bench was before them.“Please stop here a moment,” he pleaded. “I won’t keep you long.” And when she would have gone on he laid a hand on her arm. “You must!” he insisted passionately. “You’ve got to, Jane. You’ll do me a great wrong if you don’t. I’ve kept the faith with you since then—since I was mad there in the wilderness. You didn’t know or care, but I’ve kept the faith—the good you’ve done—don’t undo it now.”A passer-by was regarding them curiously and so she sat, for Gallatin’s look compelled her. She did not understand what he meant, and in her heart she knew she could not care whose faith he kept, or why, but she recognized in his voice the note of a deep emotion, and was conscious of its echo in her own spirit. Outwardly she was as disdainful as before, and her silence, while it gave him consent, was anything but encouraging. As he sat down beside her the puppy, “Chicot,” put his head upon Gallatin’s knees and looked up into his eyes, so Gallatin put his hand on the dog’s head and kept it there.“I want you to know something about my people—about—the Gallatins——”“I know enough, I think.”“No—you’re mistaken. We are not all that you think we are. Let me go on,” calmly. “The Gallatins have always stood for truth of speech and honesty of purpose, and whatever their failings they have all been called honorable men. Upon the Bench, at the Bar, in the Executive chair, no word has ever been breathed against their professional integrity or their civic pride. My great grandfather was a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, my grandfather a Governor of the State of New York, my father——”[90]Miss Loring made a gesture of protest.“Wait,” he insisted. “My father was a great lawyer—one of the greatest this City and State have ever known—and yet all of these men, mental giants of their day and generation—had—had a weakness—the same weakness—the weakness that I have. To one of them it meant the loss of the only woman he had ever loved—his wife and his children; to another the sacrifice of his highest political ambition; to my father a lingering illness of which he subsequently died. That is my pedigree—of great honor—and greater shame. History has dealt kindly because their faults were those of their blood and race, for which they themselves were not accountable. This may seem strange to you because you have only learned to judge men by their performances. The phenomenon of heredity is new to you. People are taught to see the physical resemblances of the members of a family to its ancestors—but of the spiritual resemblance one knows nothing—unless—” his voice sunk until it was scarcely audible, “unless the spiritual resemblance is so strong that even Time itself cannot efface it.”The girl did not speak. Her head was bowed but her chin was still set firmly, and her eyes, though they looked afar, were stern and unyielding.“When I went to the woods, I was—was recovering—from an illness. I went up there at the doctor’s orders. I had to go, and I—I got better after a while. Then you came, and I learned that there was something else in life besides what I had found in it. I had never known——”“I can’t see why I should listen to this, Mr. Gallatin.”“Because what happened after that, you were a part of.”“I?”“It was you who