CHAPTER XXVIII
MRS. MERTON'S REQUEST
"VARGE, Mrs. Merton is very ill."
Varge laid down the phial in his hand and looked up gravely into the face of Doctor Kreelmar, who had just entered the little prison laboratory.
"I did not know," he said in a low voice. "I did not know that she was even sick."
"Been failing," said Doctor Kreelmar brusquely, "ever since—hum!—all summer."
Varge's eyes, still grave, but questioning now, held on the doctor.
There was a long pause.
"She's asked to see you," said the little doctor. "The district attorney endorsed her request and sent it to the governor. The governor has granted it with the proviso that you go without coercion—of your own free will. It is your right to refuse. Do you want to go?"
Varge turned to the barred window at his side and stood silently looking out. The prison yard was dotted here and there with grey-and-black striped forms, some moving hurriedly, some with slouching gait, as they went about the errands upon which they were engaged. His eyes fixed for an instant on a gang of fifty or more convicts who were busy on an excavation at the corner of the power-house, which was to be enlarged—then swept to the grey walls, topped by guards with carbines on their arms pacing ceaselessly to and fro, that bounded his range of vision.
The horror, the agony, the hopelessness of the three days since he had been back, the torture of his thoughts through the black of sleepless nights, had been a hell of madness sapping at his reason, his strength, his resolution, like unto which the prison days before had been as a deep, still peace. Mind and body, soul and spirit had been in torment—and the face of Mrs. Merton, that in the days gone by had risen so vividly before him, bringing comfort and a new courage, now had come not at all, or, if it came, came only as some blurred, indefinite, misty thing, almost meaningless—whose power was gone. If he could see her again—fix that face, every lineament, in his mind anew—restore the power to this talisman!
His glance shifted to a little group just below the window. A visitor, being shown through the prison, lagged a few steps behind the guard who was conducting him and furtively passed a piece of tobacco to a convict. The convict looked up, met Varge's eyes and grinned.
Why did Mrs. Merton want to see him? What was her reason for the strange request? Why—but what, after all, did it matter? If he could see her again—restore the efficacy of that sweet old face that he needed now as he had never needed it before! He swung slowly from the window and faced the doctor.
"I will go," he said quietly.
"Hum!" said the doctor. His eyebrows lifted a little, and he stared at Varge curiously. "I had an idea you'd refuse." Then bluntly: "What's your reason for wanting to go?"
A smile, gently satirical, played over Varge's lips and crept into his eyes, as he looked at the doctor.
"Did the governor specify that, too—that I must give my reasons?" he asked dryly.
Doctor Kreelmar's face puckered up instantly, ferociously.
"Confound you!" he snapped. "Sometimes I'd like to wring your confounded neck!—and sometimes—hum!—I wouldn't! Well, well go at once, this afternoon; and if the warden says so, I'll drive you over in my buggy."
Without waiting for any reply. Doctor Kreelmar strode out of the laboratory and down the corridor. A guard opened the steel gates for him and he passed through into the entrance hallway beyond, and turned into the warden's office.
"He'll go!" he announced tersely, halting before the warden's desk; then, with a glance toward Stall, the clerk: "Better give him some ordinary clothes to wear, hadn't you? There's no use making him conspicuous over there in the town or in front of her—what?"
"Yes," said Warden Rand. "Stall, get what's necessary." He waited until the clerk had gone out of the room, then he looked searchingly at the doctor. "I didn't think he'd be willing to go," he said suggestively.
"Nor I," said Doctor Kreelmar.
"Did you tell him Mrs. Merton was dying?"
"No—that she was very ill."
"Did he ask why she wanted to see him?"
"No," replied the doctor; "and I didn't tell him. He just looked out of the window for a moment with his back turned to me after I told him she wanted to see him, but that he could go or not as he chose, and then he said he would go."
The warden's chair squeaked suddenly, as he swerved a little sideways.
"I wonder why he wants to go," he said, with a perplexed frown.
"I was fool enough to ask him," confessed the little doctor, with a grimace. "Wasted breath! That's what I'd like to know myself. I've about lived over in Berley Falls since the other night—you know what I've done—not much—not enough to make us turn up our noses at any straw that blows our way—that story of Mart Robson's is rather interesting—interesting enough to make me especially anxious to find out Varge's reason for this—if I can. It may not mean anything, but I'd like to find out—if I can. I'll drive him over in my buggy—what? As far as his trying to get away is concerned, it would be safe enough to send him over alone."
"Anything," said the warden, rising abruptly from his chair, and his voice caught a little. "Anything, Kreelmar. I—I think her heart is breaking."
"You might send her away for a while," advised the doctor, a little helplessly.
"She won't go"—Warden Rand shook his head wearily.
"No," said Doctor Kreelmar, with sudden and suspicious gruffness. "No; I suppose she won't." He pressed the warden's shoulder sympathetically, then wheeled around and walked quickly to the door. At the threshold he halted for an instant. "You can send Seven-seventy-seven out to the buggy," he called back. "I'll be ready in ten minutes,"