Clarence Budington Kelland

“ If Abner Fownes, for some purpose of his own, with Machiavellian intelligence, had set out to create for himself a personality which could be described only by the word fatuous, he could not have done better. Every detail seemed to have been planned for the purpose of impressing the world with the fact that he was a man with illusions of grandeur, motivated by obstinate folly, blind to his silliness; perfectly contented in the belief that he was a human being who quite overshadowed his contemporaries. ”

“ He did not know them as human beings at all. They had never troubled him in the least. Nothing had ever troubled him greatly. He had always considered them in the mass, as a genus, to be studied, perhaps, as all created things should be studied. But never until Carmel’s advent had he entertained the idea that one of them might become personally important to him. Evan would have been no more astonished to find himself involved with a diplodocus than he now was to discover his throbbing personal interest in an individual woman. ”

“ Churchill, solemnly, “He has marked you out and set you apart as His instrument.”
“I want to think. I want to consider.” Carmel got to her feet. “I—— Oh, this is a wicked, cruel, cruel thing!...”
She omitted, in her emotion, any word of parting, and walked from the house, eyes shining, lips compressed grimly. In her ears a phrase repeated itself again and again—“Mebby He has set you apart as His instrument....”
On the Square she met Prof. Evan Bartholomew Pell, who first peered at her through his great beetle glasses and then confronted her. ”

“ Such a garment is only to be worn when there is none in all the world to recognize that it is a disguise. Once a single soul lifts the mask and gazes upon the reality lurking within, and the thing is done. Abner Fownes knew Carmel saw him as he was—not by sure knowledge, grounded upon fact, perhaps, but by intuition. ”

“ He sprang to his feet, wholly forgetful of his spectacles, and leaped upon Deputy Jenney, uttering a cry of rage. Now Evan had not the least idea what was needful to be done by a man who went into battle; he lost sight of the fact that a man of his stature could not reasonably expect to make satisfactory progress in tearing apart a man of Jenney’s proportions. Of one thing alone he was conscious, and that was a desire to strew the deputy about the road in fragments. ”

“ The blow glanced off Evan’s skull and the young man seized Jenney’s throat with both hands. Jenney tore him loose and hurled him away. Again Pell came at him, this time to be knocked flat and bleeding. He arose slowly, swaying on his feet, to rush again. Carmel stood with gripped fists, scarcely breathing, unable to move or to speak. The sight was not pleasant. Again and again the big man knocked down the little man, but on each occasion the little man, more and more slowly, more and more blindly, got to his feet and fell upon his antagonist. ”

“ Carmel called. “Next time I’ll shoot higher.”
The shot, the suddenness, the unexpectedness of it, had cleared tipsy brains. It had created angry, dangerous men.
“’Tain’t nothin’ but bird shot. All rush her to wunst,” shouted a voice. But before they could resolve into action Carmel fired again, and then again.... It was rather more than such a collection of humanity could endure. With shouts and cries of pain they broke and ran. Carmel advanced, ready for another discharge, when, suddenly, there was a diversion. The attackers were taken in the rear, by whom Carmel could not determine. ”

“ It would be idle to state that Carmel had never considered Evan as a possible husband. It is doubtful if any unmarried woman ever encounters an available man without considering him as a possible husband—or if any married woman, no matter how virtuous, ever passes an hour in the society of a gentleman without asking herself if this is the individual with whom she may have the great love affair of her life. Love, being the chief business of all women from six to sixty, this is natural and proper. ”

“ Carmel proceeded rapidly; too rapidly for such precautions as she should have observed. She was without plan; her mind was in such chaos as to render planning futile. Instinct alone was not inactive.... No matter how shaken the objective faculties may be, those superior subjective intuitions and inhibitions and urgings never sleep. Their business is so largely with the preservation of the body which they inhabit that they dare not sleep.
Quite without thinking; without a clear idea why she did so, Carmel turned off the road and took to the woods. Self-preservation was at work. ”

“ She had taken the word of bystanders for her impulsiveness; it was no discovery of her own. And now that she was schooling herself in repression, she did not perceive in the least that she failed to repress. When she wanted to do a thing, she usually did it. The deliberation only postponed the event. When she forced herself to pause and scrutinize a desire, she merely paused and scrutinized it—and then went ahead and did what she desired.
It may be considered peculiar that a girl who had inherited a newspaper, as Carmel had done, should have paid so cursory a first visit. ”

“ He turned from her abruptly and became much occupied with the papers upon his desk.
As for Carmel, she was in a state of mind. The thing manifestly was an outrage, an indignity, a humiliation, and she was angry. On the other hand, it was absurd, impossibly absurd, inhumanly absurd, [159] and the laughter which struggled to come was only repressed by a wave of pity. The pity engulfed both anger and laughter. Poor, dryly crackling man! What must his life be without human warmth and human emotions! ”

“ Carmel Lee had constituted a threat, but she was powerless to threaten now. At any moment word would arrive that she was in Jenney’s hands, her reputation in Gibeon would be destroyed, and she would be powerless. Public opinion would drive her from the place.
Abner sat back comfortably in his chair and looked forward to a life of quiet and importance. He would continue to live in security as Gibeon’s first citizen. He might even seek political preferment. In a year there would be a senatorial election. Why should he not stand for the position. ”

“ She had pitied him for his inadequacy, for his dry pedantry.... Step by step she reviewed the changes which had taken place in him, dating these changes from that brutal scene before her door, when Jenney had beaten him to insensibility.... Her sympathy had commenced there; admiration had dawned, for it had been given her to see that a man who could conduct himself as Evan Pell conducted himself on that day contained in himself the elements which made up a man. ”

“ If the body cannot be produced, or its disposal established, there can be no conviction for the crime. In short, a murder requires the fact of a dead man, and until the law can be shown a veritable body it is compelled, I imagine, to presume the victim still alive. Here, you will perceive, the effort is to raise a presumption that Sheriff Churchill is not a corpus delicti. ”

“ Bookkeeping is a science. It is the science of translating simple financial facts into abstruse cipher in order that nobody may understand them except an individual highly trained in cabalistics. The reason for this is clear. It is a conspiracy among bookkeepers to make bookkeepers necessary and thus to afford themselves with [162] a means of livelihood.... Carmel was reading the cipher in order to determine if the Free Press were in worse or better case for her ownership of it.
Love and bookkeeping are subjects which do not blend, for, as anybody knows, love is not an exact science. ”

“ You study for the sake of increasing your own store, not with the hope of being able to use all your knowledge to do something for the world. You are a miser. You fill your mind with all sorts of things, and keep them there. It is utterly selfish, utterly useless. Think of the great men whose work you study, the great thinkers and scientists of all ages. ”

“ Pell, the greatest source of grief and of happiness is love. I do not know how I know this, but you may take it as the truth. I have never loved, but if I felt I never should love, I think I should despair. I want to love some man, to give him my life, to make him my life. ”

“ Churchill! For her sake I hope it is true.”
“H’m!... If I were you, Miss Lee, I would not inform Mrs. Churchill of this—without substantiation.”
“You are right. Nor shall I print it in the paper. You believe some one is deliberately imposing upon us?”
“My mind,” said Evan Pell, “has been trained for years to seek the truth. I am an observer of facts, trained to separate the true from the false. That is the business of science and research. I think I have made plain my reasons for doubting the truth of this message.”
“So much so,” said Carmel, “that I agree with you.”
Evan smiled complacently. ”