"So you have," said Joseph. "What it is to be a politician! I am glad I am not one. Lying is not exactly my forte." The governor, sitting in the only comfortable chair in the stark study, narrowed his eyes at Joseph. Tom Hennessey was no fool. He had never liked Joseph, and had always suspected him without the slightest reason -objectively. All Joseph's later politeness and political help had not overcome Tom's memory of that night when Joseph had looked at him in the hall of this house after Katherine had died. Bernadette had told her father that Katherine had asked for Joseph. Tom always wondered why. Had it been something about Bernadette? Had Joseph already hinted so much to Katherine? Yet he had looked at Bernadette's father as if he wanted to kill him, and with such hatred, too. Of course, Katherine could have babbled to Joseph before she died-Tom had come to that conclusion. Katherine had always been a dim-witted fool. Tonight, Tom dismissed the unlamented Katherine from his thoughts. "I'll make it brief," he said, and his voice was rough with renewed agitation and now with open anger and despair. "I was informed, yesterday, by our Party that I would not receive the nomination this year. Yet, only a month ago I was assured of it by the State Chairman, himself. Who else?" Joseph had seated himself nearby in the growing dusk of the room. The early autumn gardens outside sent up a poignant strong scent of mowed grass, chrysanthemums, late lilies and roses and crisping leaves. It was still falling daylight outside. Here it was becoming dim and shadowy, for great trees loomed outside and their tops brushed against the windows. Joseph, unusual for him, had mixed himself a whiskey and soda, and he carefully sipped at it and looked at the floor, as if pondering. He said, "Now, why should they do that? What do they have against you?" Tom put down his glass with a thump on a nearby table. "Nothing!" he shouted. "Haven't I done everything they suggested? Haven't I followed all their directives? I've sewed the Party well, by God! Now they turn on me." He breathed heavily. "I've even done some things-well, they were profitable for all concerned, but I took on the possible danger, myself. They profited more than I did." Joseph shook his head. "I'm not a politician, Tom. I don't know the ways and the reasons of politicians." Tom laughed cynically. "Oh, Joe. Don't be so humble. You know damned well you are one of the big political powers in this Commonwealth. Just tell those bastards to change their minds at once or they'll hear from you. It is as simple as that. They wouldn't dare cross you." "I have heard hints," said Joseph, "that they'd prefer a younger man. Hancock, for one. After all, you aren't young any longer, Tom. And, you've made your fortune. They take all that into consideration." Tom studied him. Joseph's air was entirely too disinterested. He had never been one to shilly-shally like this, to Tom's knowledge. It was not in character. "Joe," said the governor quietly. He's an astute bastard, thought Joseph, and I am no actor. I am not even a good liar. He thought. Then he looked at Tom with an expression he hoped was concerned and disarming. "All right, Tom. What do you want me to do?" "I've told you. Tell them to change their minds-or no more funds, no more bribery." "I don't bribe," said Joseph. "I send only small gifts of appreciation. No one has any evidence of me bribing anyone." "You took care of that, you and your Philadelphia lawyers," said Tom, with mounting anger. He saw Joseph shrug his thin shoulders. He saw Joseph smile at him faintly. "Very well," said Joseph. "I will write to them tonight. I hope it will help to change their minds." "Telegraph," said Tom Hennessey. "I hear they intend to nominate Hancock on Monday. There's no time for writing." "Very well," Joseph repeated. He went to his desk and wrote for a few moments in his angular tight script. He brought the paper to Tom, who put on spectacles to read it. ALL CONTRIBUTIONS RECENTLY MADE ARE TO BE USED AS PREVIOUSLY DESIGNATED IN BEHALF OF THE CANDIDATE HERETOFORE CHOSEN. JOSEPH ARMAGH. Tom Hennessey scrutinized it. He wished it could have been warmer, more explicit, and that it had mentioned his name or referred directly to him. Then he saw that this might not be prudent. He said, with some surprise, "I see you have already made a large contribution." "Yes, very large. In August. After all, are you not the perennial candidate?" "When you made that contribution you had no idea about-Hancock?" Joseph stood up. He looked at Tom with glittering blue eyes full of cold umbrage, and Tom was so frightened that he sat up in his chair and stared. Joseph said, "When did they mention Hancock to you?" Tom's full face, so sensual and brutal, trembled. "Monday, Joe." When Joseph did not speak he cried, "Joe, I'm sorry! I am almost out of my mind. I see bogies everywhere. When will you send that telegram?" His hands had become wet and cold. "At once," said Joseph, and went to the bell rope. His whole attitude expressed rigid offense, and Tom was alarmed again. It would be fatal to antagonize Joseph Armagh, to whom he greatly owed his past elections. Tom said, with an attempt at a placating smile, rueful and affectionate, "Yes, I see bogies everywhere. Probably in Bernadette and your children, too, and Elizabeth!" He tried to laugh. Then as relief flowed through him he laughed again, with real heartiness, and took up his drink. "That telegram will settle it," he said. "I hope so," said Joseph. A maid came into the room and Joseph directed that she give the telegraph message to a groom, who was to take it to the depot at once. When the maid had left Tom said, his voice breaking, "I can't tell you what this means to me, Joe, and how grateful I am. I tell you, I've been on the verge of apoplexy since Monday. I have scarcely slept or eaten." Joseph considered him with those small hidden eyes which were so inexplicable. "Then you must make up for it tonight," he said. "In the Bosom of your Family." Joseph was unusually pleasant and amiable to. Tom Hennessey at the dinner table that night, and Bernadette marveled, for she had never seen her husband so kind to her father before, nor so-almost-intimate. There had always been a reserve in Joseph towards Tom Hennessey, but now it appeared to have disappeared. She begged her father to remain "for a little festivity." Tom, enormously relieved, flushed with wine and food, consented. Bernadette immediately began plans for a dinner party and a ball. "Very sudden," she said. "But everybody will come. I will have the invitations delivered by hand tomorrow. Everybody will be so pleased." Her round hazel eyes danced at Joseph with infinite love. Whatever her father's hasty visit had portended Joseph had settled it, and dear Papa was so relaxed now, so comforted. He sat there as if this house still belonged to him, and in a way, reflected Bernadette, with warm pleasure, it still did in spite of Elizabeth and that brat, and Mama's last instructions. Joseph thought, Let the swine enjoy himself now and in the next days. It will be the last time. The condemned man's final meal. He smiled at Tom and directed a maid to give his father-in-law more wine. Tom's light eyes sparkled with satisfaction. Joseph waited. One week. Two weeks. As he waited he inwardly grew colder, and felt his own impatient exultation. He was not surprised that on the morning of the fifteenth day he received a telegram from his father- in-law: WILL ARRIVE TONIGHT AT FIVE. MUST SEE YOU ALONE, AT ONCE. Joseph crushed the telegram in his hand and smiled. He went to see Bernadette who was having her breakfast, as usual, in bed, her coverlet covered with jars of cosmetics, and perfumes, combs and brushes, mirrors, crumbs and lace handkerchiefs. It was not often that Joseph came here during the day, and hardly more often at night, and Bernadette's flat faintly golden face flushed and shone with joy. Her maid was laying out her morning attire, and a small fire burned to offset the early chill, though the day was brilliantly blue and sparkling outside. Bernadette's curling rags were concealed by a lace cap with ribbons and she wore a bed jacket of blue silk and lace, and her plump arms lifted themselves eagerly to Joseph for a kiss. He was not sorry for his wife and what she would soon know. Bernadette, in her way, was as pragmatic as he and much more earthy and very practical. She loved her father still, and she would be greatly grieved, and I, thought Joseph, don't care a damn. He stood by the bedside and one of his hands was held by Bernadette and she was chattering, her hazel eyes darting and flashing with life and laughter, and Joseph thought how t-' immediate she was and how her plans rarely ran beyond the day and the pleasures of it. He gathered she was going to tea with some friends in Green Hills, and her malicious and tripping tongue tore the reputation
s, the wits, the motives, and the lives of all her friends apart, and with the utmost gaiety. Joseph found himself listening. She could make him laugh ; with her jokes and sallies and her witticisms, for none of them were kind 'and all of them struck very accurately on their intended targets. He could not remember Bernadette speaking gently and kindly of anyone, except 1$'her father. She found her own children boring and annoying and had, p thought Joseph, a hard hand on her in spite of her prattle about "the modern method of bringing up Our Precious Little Angels." He neither loved her nor hated her. He did not like nor dislike her. Therefore he could almost always be temperate and detached with her, with no emotion whatsoever except occasional tedium. She might have been, to him, a dog of the household of which he was not fond and yet did not resent.
Occasionally he found her body enticing, but he wanted no more children. He cared for Rory and Ann Marie hardly more than he cared for their mother, but since Regina's desertion he had begun to consider Rory and even to listen to the childish remarks of Rory's twin sister, Ann Marie. Joseph's aloofness increased rather than decreased Bernadette's devouring passion for him. She thought it genteel and aristocratic, unlike her life-loving and very coarse father. He rarely kissed her and then only when in bed with her, and then he would not remain in her arms to sleep but left her in silence. She could not quarrel with him because of his indifference to her, which she had persuaded herself was masculine strength. ("Dear Joseph is too deep for facile expressions and protestations and all the other trivialities.") Because he was too uninterested in women, Bernadette would think, she had no occasion for jealousy when he was often away for weeks at a time, and even when in Green Hills he usually remained only two days out of a week. She never knew that he preferred the expensive trollops of Philadelphia and New York to his wife, and that he was the "protector" of a beauty, a successful young actress in the latter city, an Irish girl with a delectable face and figure and a glorious singing voice. Joseph took no effort to conceal his adulteries from his wife nor did he flaunt them. He did not care if she guessed. It was nothing to him, as Bernadette was nothing to him. Once he had felt a faint compassion for her on the night of her mother's death, because she was young and abandoned and wet with tears and sweat, and frantic, but he felt no pity for her now, and never the slightest tenderness. Had she discovered any of his affairs and if she had reproached him he would not have been angered or ashamed. He would have said to her, "What is it to you? What are you to me?" She was aware of Joseph as she had never been aware of anyone before, and she had noticed how even more gaunt he had become since "that horrible Regina left here like a thief in the night." His face had become more taut, his eyes more secret, and the shadow of gray more pronounced in his thick russet hair. The planes of his face were sharp and angular, the hollows under his cheekbones deeper, his complexion paler. But he never spoke of Regina as he never spoke of Sean. It was as if they had not lived at all. He said to her when her chatter slowed a little, "I have a telegram from your father, Bernadette. He is making an unexpected visit to me, tonight, on business. He will arrive at five." Bernadette's face gleamed with delight, and her white teeth flared. "Oh, how wonderful, and he was only here a short time ago! I must send my regrets to Bertha Holleye, about the tea-" "No," said Joseph. "That would be rude, wouldn't it?" He looked about the crowded gaudy room which had once been Katherine's, and he remembered the night of her death. "Go to your tea. Your father will be here only an hour or so before you return. I think he has some very important news for me." Bernadette flapped a little fat hand. "Oh, he wants to tell you he has been nominated again! Is that such news? But, I suppose it will call for a party for our friends, to celebrate, as usual." She looked up at Joseph and there was something about him which vaguely disturbed her. "There's nothing wrong with Papa, is there, Joe?" Joseph said, "Why should there be anything wrong?" "Well, then, is it about your business-all your business matters?" Joseph looked down into her adoring eyes. "I wouldn't be surprised in the least," he said. "I am pretty sure it is my business." "There's nothing wrong with that, either, is there, Joe?" Like all the rich who had never known destitution or privation money was a tender and emotional thing with her, and wealth something to guard with all the resources of one's mind and vigilance against anything or anyone which could diminish it by a penny. So Bernadette stared at Joseph with those round and somewhat bulging eyes and she no longer smiled. "Not a thing wrong with my business, my pet," said Joseph. He looked at her curiously. "You are a very rich woman yourself, Bernadette, in your own right. And you are getting richer. Why should you worry about my affairs?" "No one is ever rich enough!" she said, with passionate emphasis, and slapped her breakfast tray so all the china jumped. "Papa once said you were the richest man in Pennsylvania. That isn't enough. I want you to be the richest man in the country!" Then she laughed. "Rich as Mr. Gould, Mr. Fisk and Mr. Vanderbilt and Mr. Morgan and Mr. Regan, and all the rest. Richer." Joseph's eyes narrowed so that there was only a glint between his lashes. "And what would that buy you?" he asked, with greater curiosity. "More jewels, more Worth gowns, more journeys to Europe, more horses, carriages, houses, servants?" "Just to have it," said Bernadette. "That's all. Just to have it." "But why?" She was fondly exasperated and took his hand again. "Joe, why do you keep on making money?" "Just to have it," he mimicked her, and then when she laughed he did not smile but left the room. She lay back on her pillows, oddly and namelessly dismayed. He had looked at her as at an enemy, or as if he had hated her or thought her ridiculous. Bernadette was not very subtle, though she was acute. She chewed thoughtfully on a little jam-covered biscuit. I *; Then she said to herself: Don't be absurd. Joe loves me. But he is very strange. I don't always understand him.
He has not been the same since that Regina went away. A new thought came to Bernadette and she sat up quickly. Would Joseph have cared that much if it had been herself who had left, she, the mother of his children? She saw Joseph's face again. Her love tried to blind and dazzle her. But she rarely lied to herself as she lied to others. She said aloud, "No, he wouldn't have cared that much." Again she felt that bleak desolation which had wounded her before. When the maid came to take away the tray Bernadette slapped her smartly on the cheek then burst into tears. All the household knew Joseph's moods, though he invariably seemed restrained, silent, never raising his voice, never speaking roughly or too quickly, never complaining. But the strength of his personality was such that he projected his mental climate without a word or a glance. So the great house was unusually quiet this day. The children stayed with their governess, the aging Miss Faulk, and Timothy Dineen found it necessary to consult with someone on a certain matter and so left the house in a trap, and the servants moved softly and spoke in subdued voices. The white mansion stood in the crisp bright air of autumn under its fading trees and every window was bright, but it seemed to be abandoned. The red calla lilies, the chysanthemums in their beds, the very late roses, bent in the shining wind, but there was no other movement outside, and no sign of any groom or gardener's boy. The only sound was the dry crackling of dying leaves and then the sudden screech of a bluejay or the shattering sound of a delayed woodpecker against a trunk, or the distant stamping of a horse in its stall. Bernadette, looking dejected, had gone to her tea. Joseph waited in his rooms. Never had time crept so slowly on sluggish feet. He kept glancing at his watch. Twenty after five. Twenty-five after. Half-past five. He heard hoofs and wheels and he stood up and looked through the window and saw the glittering black family victoria moving through the gates, drawn by two absolutely white horses. Joseph opened a cabinet, then, and laid out whiskey and glasses and soda and rang the bell for the butler. "Governor Hennessey's luggage should be taken to his room but I should like to confer with him as soon as possible, in my study." He rearranged the neatness of his plain white cuffs, and then his cravat, and rubbed his hands over his thick hair. He looked tall and black and deadly in the quiet room. There was an ice-cold exultation in him. He had destroyed worthier men than Gov
ernor Hennessey in his surge to power and money, but he had done it with no animosity at all, no feeling of vengeance or triumph. It was only business. But this was vengeance indeed, a personal vendetta, a focusing of loathing and enmity and hate long in the gestation, long in the gathering. The arrogant and swaggering governor, seemingly invulnerable, had become vulnerable and had been destroyed. Joseph made himself sit down and open a book. He heard the butler greeting the governor, heard Tom Hennessey's mumbled reply-he who never mumbled-and then heard the quick but stumbling footsteps up the stairs and down the long hall to Joseph's rooms. The governor appeared on the threshold and Joseph rose, his face shut and without expression. Tom Hennessey, large, overfleshed, flamboyant and impressive, now appeared disheveled and soiled, hasty and sweaty. All his color was gone. His face was like cracked plaster, quivering, his sensual mouth hanging loose, his chin uncertain, his forehead glazed and wet. Always immaculate, "the glass of fashion," he seemed unbuttoned and roughened now. There was a wild agitation about him, a trembling uncertainty, a desperate upheaval. His light eyes, always cynical and domineering, now had a distraught and leaping shine. His longish brown and gray hair, usually carefully combed and cajoled into waves, hung over his cheeks and neck and forehead, tangled and ungroomed. Joseph said, "How are you, Tom? Was your train late?" The governor walked unsteadily into the room. He looked about him, as if he had never seen this room or this man before, and did not know where he was. He took an aimless step or two, towards the windows, back again, then to one side. He stood at last behind a chair and gripped its back and looked at Joseph, and his breath was grating and noisy in the sunlit room. "They have ruined me," he said, and his voice was thick and unsure. Joseph saw that his eyes were deeply bloodshot as if he had been drinking. His cheeks puffed out and in as he breathed. He did not look away from Joseph. He repeated, "They have ruined me." "Who?" said Joseph and came closer to his father-in-law. The governor raised one formidable forefinger, and then it wobbled and drooped and his hand fell to his side. "I will find out, and I will cut their throats," he said with the utmost malignancy. His eyes jumped. "They haven't finished with me yet." "Please sit down, Tom," said Joseph and hoped that he was conveying solicitude. He took his father-in-law's shivering big arm and forced him into the chair he had been clutching. "Let me get you a drink. Then you must tell me about it." "A drink," said the governor, and he croaked as if choking. "That's all I have been doing for two days and two nights. But give me a drink, and a large one," and he coughed, strangling. He tried to drop his exhausted head against the back of the chair but he was so distracted that it immediately bounced forward and he clenched his fists on the arms of the chair and his breathing was very loud and audible. "God damn them," he said. "Oh, my God, curse them! But I'm not finished with them yet! No one ever got the better of Tom Hennessey!" Joseph put a glass half full of whiskey into the large white hand with its rings and its polished nails. Tom drank deeply, gluttonously, as if the glass held the elixir of life and strength. He inhaled raucously. His heavy shoulders visibly shook. He looked at the glass. Then he glanced up at Joseph with his reddened eyes, like the eyes of a tormented bull, and he said, "You haven't heard?" "No," said Joseph. "I haven't even seen any newspapers this past week. I've had too much work here in Green Hills. But, what is wrong? Who has ruined you?" The governor became still. He looked up at Joseph and those eyes fixed themselves on the younger man as if he had suddenly sensed something direful, something not quite in focus or apparent. He watched Joseph as he said, "You must know that though the Party gave out the idea that they were going to nominate me after all, they didn't. Day before yesterday they told me finally it was going to be Hancock." Joseph frowned. He sat on the edge of his desk and considered his boots. He compressed his lips, slightly shook his head. He said, "They did not tell me." "Not you? Not the biggest contributor to the Party? Not you who named the five state senators last year, and got them elected? They never told you, wrote you, telegraphed you?" The governor sat upright in his chair, and panted, but did not look away. "No," said Joseph, "they never told me." Now he turned his face to Tom and Tom saw his fierce concentrated eyes, his implacable face, the blade of his mouth and the white tension of his nose, and he misinterpreted them. He said, "I don't understand it. You, of all people." His voice was broken and rusty. "My son-in-law." He drank again, took the glass from his thick mouth and groaned. "But, you can do something, even now." "What do you suggest, Tom?" "Threaten them. It isn't too late." Then his face sagged. "Yes, it is too late." He put down his glass with a crash on the desk and rubbed his hands over and over his shaken face as if he were washing it. "It's too late. I forgot. There's worse." His shoulders heaved under his creased fawn coat. He bent his face in his rubbing hands and Joseph thought he was weeping. All the strong muscles and the fat of the great body visibly shrank, as though disintegrating. Now he was no longer the buoyant and commanding governor of the Commonwealth, the former colorful senator of the United States of America, the owner of enormous wealth and power. He was a shattered old man, wrecked, thrown down, dismantled, full of bewilderment and despair and an agony he had never known before in his life, and a sense of demented incredulity. He felt another glass being pressed against the back of one of the massaging and aimless hands. He started. Then he reached for the glass and fumbled it to his lips and the liquid went partly into his mouth and partly down his chin, dribbling. Joseph watched him and the quiet ferocity of his face deepened. He said, "You haven't told me. What is 'worse'?" The awful eyes, robbed of all humanity by anguish, disbelief, and torture, glared at Joseph. The large features were convulsed, misshapen. "Worse!" he said. "They-know everything. It isn't just Washington, though that's bad enough in their hypocritical eyes. Oh, God help me, God help me! Since I was governor-Joe, you know yourself. You profited. The state contracts, roads, bridges, right of ways, government buildings. All of it. Yes, I profited, too. But they did, more than I. More than even you. I did what they told me to. I obeyed every suggestion. I never objected. I was their man, wasn't I?" His eyes enlarged on Joseph, blood flecked, mad. "Do you know what they told me yesterday? That I was, in my way, the head of a Tweed Ring, here in this Commonwealth! They dared to tell me that! Who profited most? They did! Do you hear me, they did!" "Yes," said Joseph. "But, can you prove it?" "Prove it!" shouted the governor in a roaring voice. "Of course I can-" He stared at Joseph. "Can you? How?" "The contractors-" "The contractors are men making a living, and they can be intimidated by politicians as you know only too well, Tom. Do you think they will confess to the influence and the threats and the promises that were brought to bear on them? And so hang themselves, or at least be forced into bankruptcy and litigation and prosecution? And, perhaps, even be murdered? ji We all know what politicians are, don't we, Tom?" He regarded the governor with gravity. "But I'm sure our friends told you that, yesterday, didn't they?" Tom's big fingers smoothed themselves over and over the empty glass. :. He licked the drops of whiskey on his mouth. He was shaking as if struck by a powerful wind. "Yes," he whispered, "they did, that. But I thought "you would help me." Joseph sighed. "I'm no Samson, Tom, and neither are you. We can I make an effort to show who really profited. I have a battery of lawyers ;*in Philadelphia and they are ferrets. They could find out-though they'd put themselves into physical peril, as they'd know. We can appeal to the Attorney General, himself. We can appeal to muckrakers and zealous reformers in the Commonwealth. I can print accusations in my newspapers, and screaming editorials. And, what will it amount to? If your-friends- are indicted, so will you be, Tom. So will I. We're all in it together, robbing the people. That's what they'd call it, wouldn't they? And it would be the truth." He smiled a little. "The other Party would be out of its mind with delight -if we told them. We could testify under promised immunity. State's evidence. Corruption, malfeasance, theft, graft, spoils, intimidation of contractors to the state, looting, exploitation of labor, inferior materials at the highest prices, subornation, perjury. Everything. Of course, we could pl
ead, ourselves, that we were intimidated, threatened. Do you think the people would believe it? You, the rich governor, I, the financier and what not? Come, Tom." "I don't care-" whispered the desperate governor. "I see. Something like from Macbeth: 'I am one, my liege,' who am so incensed-or something-concerning the world that 'I am reckless what I do to spite the world.' Tom, do you want to go to jail? Or, at the very least, to be dishonored and outcast, forever? Do you think the other Party will take you to its bosom in gratitude? We all know the worth of politicians' gratitude, don't we?" The blood-hazed eyes did not leave him. But a maddened speculation had begun to gleam in them. Tom said in a clearer voice, "You do not know it all, Joe. They have told me I have to make 'recompense.' That I must return 'the money' to the Commonwealth. With interest, with 'judicial and righteous penalties.' They told me. It will take almost all the money I have, all my investments. Everything. They have even shown me documents from Washington- They have even-forged-documents showing the source of the Hennessey money. Blackbirding. Things like that. Only part of the money, they told me, will be returned to the Commonwealth. The rest-" "Is for them?" "Yes." "They were that bold?" But Tom Hennessey did not reply. He was studying Joseph as he had never studied friend nor enemy before, with all the concentration and power of his intellect, which was not small, and all his intuition, all his Irish subtlety. Still watching with the complete focusing of his mind he said, "Yes, Joe. That bold. Something, somebody, is behind it. They wouldn't be that bold without orders." Joseph looked deeply into the eyes below him. He said, "They can't take everything. They won't take everything. You still have Katherine's money. You still have your wife's money. It is enough to keep you in modest circumstances, in your house in Philadelphia. Anything is preferable to Scandal, exposure, indictment, prosecution, jail. Isn't it? Anything is preferable to living in fear, isn't it? In the end you'd be better off financially by not fighting these-atrocious-demands. Do you realize how much lawyers would demand? They'd reduce you to poverty, Tom. I know lawyers." "You are asking me to do nothing at all?" Tom was slowly rising from his chair, clutching the arms and back. "You are asking me to do that?" "I am advising you," said Joseph. "And-you will do nothing-to help me?" Neither of the two men saw Bernadette, all black velvet and lace and bangles and veiled hat and gloves, on the threshold. She had just appeared. She had run happily up the stairs to greet her father, and her face still held the fading remnants of a smile, the mouth half-open and upturned, the eyes flashing, the hand outheld. But she had come upon her husband and her father, confronting each other, and the sharp Bernadette had suddenly known that here was not a friendly family discussion but two adversaries. She felt the hatred in the room, the feral smell of deadly enmity. She had known instantly that one of these men was maddened beyond endurance, and the other was the maddener, ruthless and terrible. She had heard their last words. Her hand slowly fell to her side and she had a sensation of giddiness and terror. She could hardly recognize her father in this broken man, whose potency was dwindling before her eyes, whose hair was disheveled, whose clothes were soiled and untidy, whose head was bent like the head of a dying bull stopped in his charge. She could not recognize her husband in this lean stiff man with the vindictive smile, the narrowed eyes, the contracted muscles held as if about to strike. She put her hand to her mouth, an unusually feeble gesture for Bernadette. "I will do nothing to help you," said Joseph in the softest voice. "Not even if your life depended on it." Tom Hennessey pondered on that. He looked about him vaguely, and now Bernadette could see his inflamed and bloody eyes which did not see her at all. Tom put his hand to his head. He licked his lips. "What did you say?" he muttered. "Nothing to help you. Not to save your life, Tom." Tom put his hands to his throat and moved his big head. He gasped. He did not look away from Joseph. There was now a deep crimson flush on his forehead, a rising of thickened veins in his neck. "Why?" he asked. "Katherine," said Joseph. "Katherine," Tom repeated, in a dull low tone. "Katherine. What had she to do with you?" "Nothing. It was what you did to Katherine." Tom's gaze fixed itself with renewed intensity on Joseph. The crimson flush was deepening. He slowly raised his right hand and pointed at Joseph. "Now I remember," he said, and his voice was very choked. "You were a lad. You-you had been looking at this house. I knew I'd remember sometime. A dirty shanty Irisher. That's all you were, all you are. You wanted this house. Shanty Irish. A beggar. You plotted it all. From the beginning. You-took my daughter. It was all part of it. All part of it,. Dirty shanty Irish." He stopped and groaned and panted. He said, "Katherine. Yes, I remember. You were always- It was Katherine. You waited a long time, Irish." "I waited a long time," said Joseph. "But Katherine never knew. On the night she died she asked me to marry your daughter. It was her wish. And so I did." Tom saw his face and for the first time in his life he shuddered before another man. He lifted his arms and clenched his fists. He staggered towards Joseph beating his hands impotently, blindly, in the air. He fell forward, stumbling, reeling. Bernadette uttered a thin shriek. Tom fell upon Joseph, still flailing. Then, instinctively, for he felt the older man sagging and collapsing, Joseph caught him in his arms, staggered himself a moment, then held Tom Hennessey, fallen against his chest, arms hanging. It was then that Joseph saw Bernadette. He did not care what she had heard or what she had seen. He said to her, "Help me to put your father in a chair." But Tom was unconscious now. He slipped out of the chair in which they put him, Bernadette all the while crying and half-screaming and slapping her gloved hands together in distraction. Tom lay on the floor between them with a suffused face, breathing stertorously, his eyes half open. "You killed my father!" Bernadette shrieked. "What did you do to my father?" "Ring for someone," said Joseph. "Send for a doctor, and some of the grooms and we'll put your father to bed." His voice was cold and neutral. Bernadette stopped her crying. She stared at her husband, blinking, big tears on her smooth golden cheeks. "I heard," she said. "You never cared anything about me, did you?" "No," said Joseph, though he again felt a dim pity for her, "I never did. But there is nothing we can do about it now, is there?" The doctor, and other doctors summoned from Philadelphia and even Pittsburgh, said that the governor had had a stroke, that his whole left side was paralyzed, that he would probably never speak again nor leave his bed. It was possible that he would not be fully aware or conscious of his surroundings from this time on, and must have constant nursing.