"He's gone for a couple of days," observed Vicot bluntly, as he opened the door of Andrew's apartment to Radwalader, about noon of the following day. "He left a note for you. It's on his desk."

"I'll come in and read it," answered Radwalader, with his customary lack of manifest surprise. "It may require an answer."

He pulled off his gloves in a leisurely manner, as he entered the little salon, and stood looking down at the note addressed to him.

"Perhaps," he added, "you'll save me the trouble of opening this by giving me a brief epitome of its contents."

"He didn't honour me with his confidence," said Vicot. "And he left the note sealed."

Radwalader turned the envelope, flap up.

"I see you've been careful to restore it to its original condition," he remarked. "You're skilful at this kind of thing, my friend – uncommonly skilful. I fail to perceive the slightest evidence of your tampering."

"Then why not give me the benefit of the doubt?" demanded the other sullenly.

"Because, with the best will in the world, it's quite impossible to give you the benefit of something which doesn't exist. A sealed letter and a corked bottle, you see, are two things which habit has long since made it impossible to resist."

"Not a drop of liquor has touched my lips to-day!" exclaimed Vicot.

"And it's past noon!" retorted Radwalader lightly. "Is this a miracle of which you are informing me, or have you been taking it through a tube?"

He took up the note, and seated himself deliberately in Andrew's chair. Vicot watched him alertly, gnawing his lip.

"Am I to know what it's about?" he demanded presently.

"There's no conceivable reason why you should," was the answer; "but, on the other hand, there seems to be no conceivable reason why you shouldn't. Only pray don't stand upon ceremony, my good Jules. If you know the contents, do be kind enough to say so, and spare me the effort of useless recapitulation."

"I've practically told you already. I haven't touched it."

"Curiously enough," said Radwalader, "I believe you."

He threw the note upon the table, and Vicot, picking it up, scanned it eagerly.

"'I've gone back,'" he read slowly, "'for another try.'"

"Well?" inquired Radwalader pleasantly. "Are you any the wiser?"

"What does it mean?" asked Vicot, looking down at him.

"It means," said Radwalader, "that the game is up."

"Damnation!"

"My good Jules!" protested Radwalader, "pardon the license of an old friend, who begs to suggest that your interruption is in most execrable taste!"

"What are you driving at?" exclaimed Vicot impatiently. "What does it mean, all this palaver? There's something back of it. You can't hoodwink me, Radwalader."

"Far be it from me to attempt the impossible, my astute Jules. Quite justly, you demand what I'm driving at, and, quite frankly, I've told you. The game is up. Mr. Vane has outplayed us. He's managed to get out of this pretty little tangle in a fashion at once ingenious and unexpected. I confess myself beaten. He's gone back to the girl he intends to marry."

Radwalader paused for an instant, as a thought struck him.

"And he would have gone back long ago," he added, "if he had received a certain telegram which was sent to him three weeks ago. If that particular telegram was not intercepted en route, it should have reached him; if that particular telegram was intercepted en route, it should have reached me. Well?"

Vicot stared at him blankly, his hand groping in his pocket.

"A telegram?" he repeated, and then drew out the blue missive which had arrived, almost simultaneously with Mirabelle, three weeks before.

"I forgot," he stammered.

"You ass!" exclaimed Radwalader. "It's lucky enough for you that your carelessness didn't interfere with my plans. As it is, I don't see that it makes much difference. Vane has been too sharp for us, all around. For once in my life, I've made a miscalculation. He's out of the net, right enough, and the best we can do is to abandon the chase and apply ourselves to something more profitable. I'm glad to think that, however unsatisfactory, from a financial point of view, the venture may have proved to me, at least you have not suffered – "

"Enough of that!" broke in Vicot. "Get to the point!"

"Why, the point is simply this. On the return of Mr. Vane, you will present, in due form, your resignation from his employ, and resume your careful surveillance of my window in the Rue de Villejust. When you shall observe it to be ornamented with a certain unpretentious blue jar, you will know that I am once more at home to you. I think I can promise you that the next case deserving of our joint attention will not be so barren of result as this one, which we are now with reluctance forced to relinquish. You might go back to driving a cab, meanwhile."

"I'm to leave Mr. Vane's employ," said Vicot, less in the tone of inquiry than in that of reflection. "I'm to leave Mr. Vane's employ."

"Quite so, my perspicacious Jules."

"Well, then – I won't!" said Jules Vicot.

He seated himself upon the edge of Andrew's desk and folded his arms.

"Radwalader," he added, "many's the time I've listened to you. Now it's your turn to listen to me."

Radwalader, following the impulse of a momentary whim, folded his arms in turn.

"Mon cher confrère," he said amusedly, "I shall listen with reverent attention to whatever you may have to say."

"I know too well," continued the other, "that I can't appeal with any hope of success to your sense of pity – because you haven't any. Wilfully or otherwise, you have contrived to stifle the promptings of feeling which weaken – or is it strengthen? – other men. You're trained to perfection. But there must be one thing which even you are unable to forget – I mean the time when we were young and clean, when we smiled by day as we dreamed of what lay before us, instead of shuddering by night, as now, as we dream of what lies behind."

Radwalader nodded. "I'm not addicted, myself, to the unpleasant habit of shuddering," he said, "but I think I know what you mean by the other part of your preamble. 'When all the world was young, lad, and all the trees were green: and every goose a swan, lad, and every lass a queen!' Isn't that it? Yes, I seem to remember something of the sort, and with a not unpleasurable emotion. Continue, my good Jules."

"Sometimes," said Vicot, moistening his lips, "the thought of that time must come back even to you. Sometimes even you, with all your callousness, must contrast what you might have been with what you are. Sometimes a face, among all those we meet, must recall to you the days when better things were possible. But if you have never been thrust back thus upon your own youth, and grown sick at thought of it, I have! There's nothing more awful."

"We've been over all this before," put in Radwalader, with a suggestion of weariness.

"You said you'd hear me out! I'm not talking religion, or even morality. I'm trying to spare you the cant to which you once objected. I don't care about the future. I'm like you in having no more dread of hell than love of heaven. No, it's not the future which hits me. But the past – ! The world – the world which, long since, I ran to meet so eagerly – has made me rotten, rotten, rotten to the core!"

"Severe," commented Radwalader, "but strictly accurate. Continue, my Jules."

"You can't make me angry, Radwalader. I'm changed a good bit in these past few weeks. I've been going easy on the drink for one thing, which may account for the fact that my head has cleared, and that I see a number of things in a very different light."

For an instant his eyes gleamed with a kind of eagerness.

"I wish you were easier to talk to, Radwalader," he added, his voice suddenly grown timorous with a hint of the old whimper. "With all your cold-bloodedness, you're the only – "

"When you've anything worth saying, I'm as easy to talk to as the next man," said Radwalader. "It's only when you begin to lament through your nose about the past, and remorse; and 'I remember, I remember the house where I was born,' that I'm not the pink of polite attention. I confess I can't stand that kind of thing; but, for this once, let it go. I'll hear you out."

"Well," continued the other, "one thing I've found out is that there is less tragedy than comedy about an old man looking back shamefacedly upon the past."

"That's the first sensible thing you've said," observed Radwalader.

"The tragic spectacle," added Vicot, "is that of the young man looking forward hopefully upon the future. Now the old man and the young man I describe have been in close proximity for several weeks, and the old man has learned that his own security isn't worth much, one way or another, when compared with the young man's security."

"The old man gets ten in modesty." Radwalader carefully entered the mark in an imaginary report-book.

"The old man sees," pursued Vicot, "that a certain person whom he has been fearing is really of infinitely minor importance, after all."

"Grand merci!"

"This person has been jumping out of dark corners and shouting 'Boo!' – that's all. Even if he should tell all he knows about the old man – but he won't, no matter what happens: that's another thing the old man has learned – it wouldn't make any difference. Do you see? It wouldn't make any difference at all!"

He peered at Radwalader triumphantly, but the latter noted that under his folded left arm Vicot's right thumb twitched ceaselessly against his sleeve. He hugged himself upon perceiving this, and nodded.

"Shrewd old man!" he said. "Pity he didn't find all this out sooner."

"Well, soon or late," went on Vicot, "the knowledge is his now, and it's bound to be useful – not to himself, mind you, but to the young man! Do you begin to see? If this person is going to hound this young man, and ruin his life as he has ruined others, it will have to be by new tricks. The old man knows all the old ones – he would recognize them in their earliest stages – he would be able to checkmate this – this person, before he had fairly made the first move!"

"Is that all?" inquired Radwalader.

"All? Yes – it's all until I hear what you have to say."

"Oh, I'm expected to take part in the conversation, am I? I thought I was only to listen. Well, then, my good Jules, if you will allow me to dispense with the thin disguise of the old man and the young man and the certain person – as the phrases are becoming wearisome – suppose I were to say to you that all this is entirely without interest, so far as I'm concerned? We've fought over all this ground of my hold upon you; and you know as well as I that you're at liberty to test its efficacy whenever your courage is equal to the ordeal. We've also wasted some time upon your maunderings over your past probity, youthful innocence, and present degeneration. I'm sorry, but I can't get up the faintest gleam of enthusiasm on this subject. Indeed, it bores me intolerably, and I beg you'll spare me from it in the future. As regards Mr. Andrew Vane, whom you see fit to think in danger of being 'ruined,' I've already stated that I've no further designs upon him. Altogether, my good Jules, I consider that I've done no more than shamefully waste my time by giving you my undivided attention for the past ten minutes."

Vicot revolved these remarks in silence for a few moments, glancing up covertly once or twice from under his heavy lids, as if in hope of surprising the other in an expression indicative of some idea at variance with his words. But in each instance Radwalader met his eyes with his quiet, non-committal smile.

"It seems you were right," continued the latter presently, "in saying you have changed. If it pleases you to imagine that the alteration is in the nature of a great moral awakening, by all means consider it so. To my way of thinking, it's more like one of the transient panics of a Louis XI., praying to the little images in his cap, and ready, the next moment, to resume his misdoing at the point where he left off. Only one thing is made clear by what you've said, and that is that you're no longer fit for the kind of work I've thus far found for you. From to-day we part company."

He rose slowly to his feet, and was about to move towards the door, when he was checked by a movement on the other's part. Following his old habit, Vicot had thrust his hands into his pockets.

"That suits me," he answered. "But please to remember this. I've been cleaning and loading your weapons for you so long that I know their uses as well as yourself. I'm able to turn them effectively against you, and I'll do it if need be. I would be resigning the little hold I have upon security, perhaps; but I'd not be doing it uselessly. Some men fling themselves into the sea, simply to be rid of life: others save the life of another by quietly slipping off a log that won't keep two afloat. Both acts are suicide, but, somehow, there's a difference."

"Ah, I begin to see," said Radwalader. "Sidney Carton all over again – eh? I, in the leading rôle of guillotine, come down upon you and chop off your head, while Mr. Vane goes free. 'It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done,' and all that. It's a pity that Mr. Vane, by his own shrewdness, has already obviated the danger which threatened him, and that you no longer have the opportunity of exercising your lofty purpose."

"If I could believe that!" observed Vicot.

"Believe what?"

"Why, believe that the smallest part of what you've told me is true – that the game's up – that you're beaten – that Mr. Vane is free. But I can't. What have you often said to me? – that you never turn back, never give up. And yet, knowing you're defeated, I find you smiling, careless, ready to chuck the game and begin on something else. Does that ring true? You know whether it does or not. You know whether I've any reason to trust you? No! And so I refuse to leave Mr. Vane's employ."

"Might one inquire," asked Radwalader, "what you expect to gain?"

"Nothing," replied Vicot, "which you would appreciate or even understand. I expect to gain self-respect."

"Indeed! May I ask whose?"

"If I cannot be anything myself," continued Vicot, disregarding the sneer, "I can at least be of use to this boy. I can show him my life, teach him how insignificant slips are the beginnings of moral avalanches, and how bitter are the dregs when one has had the wine."

"You're an authority on that point, at all events," commented Radwalader dryly. "But what insensate delusion is this, my eloquent, disreputable Jules? What can you possibly be to him, or he to you? How can you even begin to speak to him upon this personal plane? At the first symptom of such insolent effrontery, he'd give you a week's wages in lieu of notice, and show you the door. Faugh! Why, man, he's your master, your employer, your – "

"He's my son!" said Jules Vicot.

CHAPTER XVII
A DOG AND HIS MASTER

For a long moment after this announcement, Radwalader stared at the speaker curiously. Vicot had straightened himself, and met his eyes with a kind of boldness which he had never shown before.

"He is my son!" he repeated presently. "Sit down, Radwalader. You may as well hear the whole story. My name's no more Vicot than yours is. It's John Vane, and twenty-five years ago it was as respected as any in Boston. I'd everything to live for, as the saying is, and I might have realized it all; but, except for about a year, just after I left college, I never seemed to get a grip on things. I had money – perhaps that was the trouble. Everything came my way for a time, but I mixed myself up in speculation, and it wasn't long before I found myself ruined. I – I was married. My wife stuck to me, even after I began to drink, but after the liquor'd had a chance to make me about what I've been ever since you've known me, and I saw that she was beginning to despise me, I grew – or thought I grew – to hate her. We were living in a wretched little house in Kingsbridge, the drink was gaining on me every day, and things got worse and worse. I expect I was brutal to her, though half the time I didn't know what I was saying. Anyhow, she drew farther and farther away from me, till after a few months the fact that we were man and wife was nothing more than a hideous burlesque. She wouldn't let me touch her, she'd hardly answer when I spoke to her, and that made me furious. The conditions were intolerable, maddening: and when another woman came into my life, who flattered me and seemed fond of me and had enough money for us both, I saw a way of escape. I deserted my wife, soothing what little conscience I had left, with the thought that she'd go back to her father, be cared for, and think herself well rid of me. I sailed for Liverpool with the other. That was twenty-one years ago – on Thanksgiving Day, 1879. For a little, I reformed, but the old habits came back, of course, and, the first I knew, I was done by as I'd done. My – my companion left me, with a small monthly allowance and the information that this would be continued so long as I made no attempt to see her. She knew me pretty well by then, you see! And she was right. I accepted, and for fifteen years I managed to live on this pittance, drifting all over Europe and turning my hand to whatever job came my way. Then she died, and the allowance came to an end. I was here in Paris, strapped; and it was then you caught me in what was, for me, too bold an attempt at swindling – the case of Mr. Rutherford, of course. You knew me for a thief and a forger, and I was fully prepared to have you turn me over to the police, when I discovered that you were no better than myself, and that your knowledge was to be used not to betray, but merely to intimidate me. You know the rest – up to the moment when you told me that I was to become the servant of Mr. Vane.

"All this time I had never so much as heard of his existence. Indirectly, I'd learned of my wife's death, but that it was because of the birth of a child – that I never knew. Even when I heard the name I wasn't more than momentarily startled. It's not an uncommon one, and nothing was farther from my mind than the thought that I might have a son. But it was only a few days before I guessed. The name 'Andrew' gave me the first clue. It's his grandfather's. Then, when I began to probe into his letters, as you'd told me to, I soon learned the truth. And, from the moment I was sure, my mind was made up. I'd made a botch of my own life, and here I was engaged in an attempt to make a botch of his. Well, then, I wouldn't. The time didn't seem right for saying anything to you. I thought I could do more good by keeping mum, and watching. If you'll look back – " and Vicot's voice took on a new note of pride – "you'll find that I haven't given you a scrap of information which would tend to damage him in any way, or put him in your power."

"That," observed Radwalader, "appears, from my knowledge of the case, to have been simply because you didn't know anything worth telling. I thought I was going to need your services, but, as it happened, I didn't. Things went very well by themselves."

"But it was only last night," continued Vicot, after a moment, "that I realized what this boy meant to me. After you'd gone out to dinner, I picked up what was lying on that table. I'd never seen it before. Either it had just come, or else he's kept it locked up. Do you remember what it was? It was that picture – there!"

He flung out one hand passionately, pointing at the miniature on the mantel behind Radwalader.

"Look! I found that– the picture of my wife and the mother of my son!"

Radwalader rose slowly, turned, walked across to the mantel, and bent forward to examine the picture. As Vicot continued, the vague expression of interest on the other's face deepened to one of eager scrutiny. His eyebrows came together, as of one who strives to recollect, and then a small, sneering smile began to curl the corners of his lips.

"That settled the question. As I say, I've made a rotten failure of everything, but there's one chance left! When I saw her picture, I saw my duty, and I was glad – my God! how glad I was! So now I'm resolved. You can do as you please. You can say what you will. You can flay me alive, if you like, or send me to the galleys, or ruin me in any fashion in your power. I've seen the picture of the woman I wronged, and I've seen my way to make good. From somewhere, perhaps, she'll see and understand. He's my son! Do as you think best – you'll never harm him. He shall marry this girl he loves, and that without a word out of your mouth – curse you! I'm not afraid for myself. My life's over. But the sins of the fathers shall not be visited upon the children! God Almighty Himself won't deny me this chance. And there is my highest trump, Master Radwalader. Can you take the trick?"

"Yes, by God!" exclaimed Radwalader, wheeling full upon him, "and with the ace! I knew that face last night, though at the time I couldn't place it. So that is the woman you deserted at Kingsbridge twenty-one years ago – your wife – the mother of Andrew Vane! Oh, don't assure me! I know you're telling the truth, right enough, but I know more than that. Shall I tell you? Well, then, what you rejected I picked up; what you were fool enough to desert I was wise enough to appreciate. Your wife– ho! You tell me that she wouldn't answer you when you spoke to her, that for months she wouldn't let you touch her, that your marriage was a farce. Here is what I tell you. I found no such difficulty. She answered me readily enough she took my hand before I'd known her five minutes, and everything she denied you, she gave to me! Do you understand what that means? It means that if the father of Andrew Vane is alive to-day, he's not alive in the person of Jules Vicot or of John Vane, but in that of Thomas Radwalader!"

He threw himself violently into the chair again, and his nervous tension snapped in a shrill laugh. As the last words left his lips, it was as if an unseen hand had snuffed out the light in the eyes of the man who had been John Vane. His exaltation left him, and he braced himself rigidly against the desk, leaning far back, and staring, staring through the singular, dull film which had come across his pupils. He gave no audible evidence, until Radwalader had spoken again, that he had understood or even heard.

"What a witch Fate is! What hands she deals! A moment since, you were nearer to having me in a tight place, Jules – er – Mr. Vane, than you ever have been, or than you're ever likely to be again. There's just one thing against which I've never been able to secure myself, and that is the possibility of some sudden, overmastering emotion in those whom I'm forced to trust. I've never been so unfortunate as to run foul of it before, but when you were trumpeting remorse, and self-sacrifice, and atonement, and so forth, a moment ago, I confess I thought you had the odd trick. With hysteria, all things are possible, and a majority probable. If Andrew Vane had been in reality your son, and you'd not chosen to believe that I'd no further plans in regard to him, you might have done me an infinite deal of harm. You disturbed me – you disturbed me considerably, Mr. Vane. But, lo and behold! a turn of the wheel, a throw of the dice, a deal of the cards, and I am able, with extreme relish, to snap my fingers in your face – because, since he is not your son, but mine, you're going to keep your mouth shut even more tightly in the future than you have in the past! If you'd not been an idiot, as well as a coward, you'd have known long ago that my hold over you hasn't been worth the paper on which it was written. My very silence about what I knew of the Rutherford swindle made me an accessory after the fact. Strange you didn't think of that! But now – things are very different. You'll keep your mouth shut, my dear Mr. Vane, because, while nothing but shame could have come to the boy by the revelation that he was your son, the shame would be multiplied a thousand-fold by the public admission that he is mine!"

As he paused, the other blinked, and strove in vain for an instant before he could find his voice.

"A lie!" he murmured hoarsely. "All a damned lie!"

"Let's see if it is," answered Radwalader. "I don't deal in that dangerous commodity if I can avoid it. There never was a lie yet which it wasn't possible, sooner or later, to nail: and that in itself is enough to make me fight shy. I never take unnecessary risks. Besides, in the present instance, the truth fits my needs to a nicety. So I think you'll believe what I'm going to tell you."

Vicot gave a short, bewildered nod, seeming to ask him to continue.

"The facts, then, are these: After having disgraced, and, presumably, maltreated, the woman who had the misfortune to be your wife, you deserted her, by your own confession, and thereby, as no doubt you will concede, relinquished whatever claim you had upon her, and all right of supervision or control over what she chose to do. You left her in poverty and wretchedness – and I found her. You sought escape and consolation: she did the same. You found them in the company of another woman: she found them in the company of another man. I was so happy as to be that man. Voilà! It's quite simple."

"Lies – all lies!" broke in Vicot passionately. "She was not that kind. She was a saint on earth!"

"Ah, you've learned to appreciate her!"

"Never in God's world would she have stooped to you – unless you brought deceit to bear."

Vicot was picking feverishly at the edge of the desk, his filmed eyes shifting and shifting in their sockets.

"Well, then – yes!" said Radwalader. "If I'm nothing else, at least I'm loyal to the women who – er – have, as you courteously put it, stooped to me. I did bring deceit to bear. I was interested in mesmerism in those days, and highly adept. When I came upon her, by merest chance, she was desperate, unstrung, and, I think, on the point of collapse. In a very natural attempt to calm her, I put forth an influence which had already been proved considerable. To my surprise she yielded completely to it, and passed, almost before I realized what I'd done, into a state of profound trance, in which I found her wholly subject to my will. Up to that moment – believe me or not, as you choose – I had no ulterior motive. But when I found her walking, talking as I desired, interest led me on. I directed her back to the town – we met on a hill-road back of it – willing her to lead me to her home. I'd some thought of explaining matters to her family, but when I found that she apparently had none, when I saw the squalor and dreariness in which she lived, curiosity impelled me to question her, and from her unconscious answers I gained enough to confirm my present knowledge of who she was. Then – I was but human – she was very beautiful – the circumstances – "

"Stop!" broke in Vicot. "I understand what you're going to say."

"So much the better: we're saved the necessity of going into unpleasant details. Suffice it to say that what happened, happened. Already, as we walked together, I'd said enough to impress my mentality upon hers, to make her mind my property, and her will subject to mine. When I left her I meant to go back, to help and uplift her, to marry her, perhaps. Who knows? I was very young then and a good deal of a pedant."

"So you never went back," said Vicot. "You left her —like that!"

"Just as you'd left her, the same day," retorted Radwalader, his complacency quite restored. "Don't let's get to recriminations. I fancy it's a case of pot and kettle."

"All this doesn't prove that the boy's not mine," exclaimed the other, with sudden energy.

Radwalader rose, came quite close to him, and said with a little sneer:

"Do you think it's likely? It's a question of the simplest arithmetic. Vane's not yet twenty-one – and what have you told me? Look back – calculate."

Vicot made no reply. He was peering at Radwalader's face, and presently he whispered:

"My God! He's even got your eyes!"

"From the sublime to the ridiculous," said Radwalader. "A moment since, you were spouting heroic sentiments, and had me so obviously at a disadvantage that I – yes, I was almost afraid of you. Now we're parties to a dénouement which would seem to have come from the pen of Alfred Capus."

"What do you mean to do?" asked Vicot lifelessly.

"Do? Why, nothing. What is there to do, except to be thankful that a discerning Providence has put it out of your power to injure me. The boy's mine – there can't be a doubt of it – and if you so much as open your lips on the subject, you not only disgrace yourself and me, but Andrew as well, and, most of all, the memory of your wife. That's enough: I'm satisfied. Sheer common-sense will show you, as it shows me, that silence is the only course. Andrew believes, as does every one else, that his father is dead. We alone, of all men, know the truth – and we agree to hold our tongues."

"If I could trust you!" exclaimed Vicot, "but I can't – I can't! You've laid a trap for him – you know you have! – just as you did for the others, because he's young, and reckless, and rich! You called me in to help you, and probably the Tremonceau girl as well. Oh, I know how it's worked! Well, that's why I must stick by him, and guard him, and see to it that he can marry the girl he wants to – "

Suddenly Radwalader laughed.

"Why, what an ass it is!" he said. "Look here, you mountebank! The only person who has brought Andrew Vane into trouble, from the very beginning of all this, is you! I couldn't make him compromise himself: I could only set the bait. He nibbled at it, to be sure, but he was never in my power or Mirabelle Tremonceau's for a moment. He loved another girl. He went to her and asked her to marry him, and she refused him, but he'd no sooner left her than she thought better of it and sent for him. If that message had reached him, he would never have seen Mirabelle again; but it didn't reach him, and, quite naturally, he took the next best thing. Now she's his mistress, and he's just where I've wanted to have him all along. For all this, Mr. Vane, I have only you to thank!"