He hurried up the steps now and into her room. She was not there. He went quickly along the balcony, looking here and there, until he came to the sunrise room. She must be there, for the door was shut. He tried it—it was locked.
“Aileen,” he called. “Aileen! Are you in there?” No answer. He listened. Still no answer. “Aileen!” he repeated. “Are you in there? What damned nonsense is this, anyhow?”
“George!” he thought to himself, stepping back; “she might do it, too—perhaps she has.” He could not hear anything save the odd chattering of a toucan aroused by the light she had switched on. Perspiration stood out on his brow. He shook the knob, pushed a bell for a servant, called for keys which had been made for every door, called for a chisel and hammer.
“Aileen,” he said, “if you don’t open the door this instant I will see that it is opened. It can be opened quick enough.”
Still no sound.
“Damn it!” he exclaimed, becoming wretched, horrified. A servant brought the keys. The right one would not enter. A second was on the other side. “There is a bigger hammer somewhere,” Cowperwood said. “Get it! Get me a chair!” Meantime, with terrific energy, using a large chisel, he forced the door.
There on one of the stone benches of the lovely room sat Aileen, the level pool of water before her, the sunrise glow over every thing, tropic birds in their branches, and she, her hair disheveled, her face pale, one arm—her left—hanging down, ripped and bleeding, trickling a thick stream of rich, red blood. On the floor was a pool of blood, fierce, scarlet, like some rich cloth, already turning darker in places.
Cowperwood paused—amazed. He hurried forward, seized her arm, made a bandage of a torn handkerchief above the wound, sent for a surgeon, saying the while: “How could you, Aileen? How impossible! To try to take your life! This isn’t love. It isn’t even madness. It’s foolish acting.”
“Don’t you really care?” she asked.
“How can you ask? How could you really do this?”
He was angry, hurt, glad that she was alive, shamed—many things.
“Don’t you really care?” she repeated, wearily.
“Aileen, this is nonsense. I will not talk to you about it now. Have you cut yourself anywhere else?” he asked, feeling about her bosom and sides.
“Then why not let me die?” she replied, in the same manner. “I will some day. I want to.”
“Well, you may, some day,” he replied, “but not to-night. I scarcely think you want to now. This is too much, Aileen—really impossible.”
He drew himself up and looked at her—cool, unbelieving, the light of control, even of victory, in his eyes. As he had suspected, it was not truly real. She would not have killed herself. She had expected him to come—to make the old effort. Very good. He would see her safely in bed and in a nurse’s hands, and would then avoid her as much as possible in the future. If her intention was genuine she would carry it out in his absence, but he did not believe she would.
Chapter LVIII.
A Marauder Upon the Commonwealth
The spring and summer months of 1897 and the late fall of 1898 witnessed the final closing battle between Frank Algernon Cowperwood and the forces inimical to him in so far as the city of Chicago, the state of Illinois, and indeed the United States of America, were concerned. When in 1896 a new governor and a new group of state representatives were installed Cowperwood decided that it would be advisable to continue the struggle at once. By the time this new legislature should convene for its labors a year would have passed since Governor Swanson had vetoed the original public-service-commission bill. By that time public sentiment as aroused by the newspapers would have had time to cool. Already through various favorable financial interests—particularly Haeckelheimer, Gotloeb & Co. and all the subsurface forces they represented—he had attempted to influence the incoming governor, and had in part succeeded.
The new governor in this instance—one Corporal A. E. Archer—or ex-Congressman Archer, as he was sometimes called—was, unlike Swanson, a curious mixture of the commonplace and the ideal—one of those shiftily loyal and loyally shifty who make their upward way by devious, if not too reprehensible methods. He was a little man, stocky, brown-haired, brown-eyed, vigorous, witty, with the ordinary politician’s estimate of public morality—namely, that there is no such thing. A drummer-boy at fourteen in the War of the Rebellion, a private at sixteen and eighteen, he had subsequently been breveted for conspicuous military service. At this later time he was head of the Grand Army of the Republic, and conspicuous in various stirring eleemosynary efforts on behalf of the old soldiers, their widows and orphans. A fine American, flag-waving, tobacco-chewing, foul-swearing little man was this—and one with noteworthy political ambitions. Other Grand Army men had been conspicuous in the lists for Presidential nominations. Why not he? An excellent orator in a high falsetto way, and popular because of good-fellowship, presence, force, he was by nature materially and commercially minded—therefore without basic appeal to the higher ranks of intelligence. In seeking the nomination for governorship he had made the usual overtures and had in turn been sounded by Haeckelheimer, Gotloeb, and various other corporate interests who were in league with Cowperwood as to his attitude in regard to a proposed public-service commission. At first he had refused to commit himself. Later, finding that the C. W. & I. and the Chicago & Pacific (very powerful railroads both) were interested, and that other candidates were running him a tight chase in the gubernatorial contest, he succumbed in a measure, declaring privately that in case the legislature proved to be strongly in favor of the idea and the newspapers not too crushingly opposed he might be willing to stand as its advocate. Other candidates expressed similar views, but Corporal Archer proved to have the greater following, and was eventually nominated and comfortably elected.
Shortly after the new legislature had convened, it so chanced that a certain A. S. Rotherhite, publisher of the South Chicago Journal, was one day accidentally sitting as a visitor in the seat of a state representative by the name of Clarence Mulligan. While so occupied Rotherhite was familiarly slapped on the back by a certain Senator Ladrigo, of Menard, and was invited to come out into the rotunda, where, posing as Representative Mulligan, he was introduced by Senator Ladrigo to a stranger by the name of Gerard. The latter, with but few preliminary remarks, began as follows:
“Mr. Mulligan, I want to fix it with you in regard to this Southack bill which is soon to come up in the house. We have seventy votes, but we want ninety. The fact that the bill has gone to a second reading in the senate shows our strength. I am authorized to come to terms with you this morning if you would like. Your vote is worth two thousand dollars to you the moment the bill is signed.”
Mr. Rotherhite, who happened to be a newly recruited member of the Opposition press, proved very canny in this situation.
“Excuse me,” he stammered, “I did not understand your name?”
“Gerard. G-er-ard. Henry A. Gerard,” replied this other.
“Thank you. I will think it over,” was the response of the presumed Representative Mulligan.
Strange to state, at this very instant the authentic Mulligan actually appeared—heralded aloud by several of his colleagues who happened to be lingering near by in the lobby. Whereupon the anomalous Mr. Gerard and the crafty Senator Ladrigo discreetly withdrew. Needless to say that Mr. Rotherhite hurried at once to the forces of righteousness. The press should spread this little story broadcast. It was a very meaty incident; and it brought the whole matter once more into the fatal, poisonous field of press discussion.