Chapter 2

But never mind, Georgie, we'll stand together and pull through it!"

* * * * *

Thus it came about that Georgina came more and more to rely on the
strength of the steel-firm, square-jawed governor who had been her
youthful swain, and more and more to confide in him the things she
feared. The press attacks and the epidemic were not quite all. There
were aspects of the household which she did not like. Surama, cruel
in equal measure to man and beast, filled her with the most unnamable
repulsion; and she could not but feel that he meant some vague,
indefinable harm to Alfred. She did not like the Tibetans, either, and
thought it very peculiar that Surama was able to talk with them. Alfred
would not tell her who or what Surama was, but had once explained
rather haltingly that he was a much older man than would be commonly
thought credible, and that he had mastered secrets and been through
experiences calculated to make him a colleague of phenomenal value for
any scientist seeking nature's hidden mysteries.

Urged by her uneasiness, Dalton became a still more frequent visitor at
the Clarendon home, though he saw that his presence was deeply resented
by Surama. The bony clinic-man formed the habit of glaring peculiarly
from those spectral sockets when admitting him, and would often,
after closing the gate when he left, chuckle monotonously in a manner
that made his flesh creep. Meanwhile Dr. Clarendon seemed oblivious
of everything save his work at San Quentin, whither he went each day
in his launch--alone save for Surama, who managed the wheel while
the doctor read or collated his notes. Dalton welcomed these regular
absences, for they gave him constant opportunities to renew his suit
for Georgina's hand. When he would overstay and meet Alfred, however,
the latter's greeting was always friendly despite his habitual reserve.
In time the engagement of James and Georgina grew to be a definite
thing, and the two awaited only a favorable chance to speak to Alfred.

The governor, whole-souled in everything and firm in his protective
loyalty, spared no pains in spreading propaganda on his old friend's
behalf. Press and officialdom both felt his influence, and he even
succeeded in interesting scientists in the East, many of whom came
to California to study the plague and investigate the anti-fever
bacillus which Clarendon was so rapidly isolating and perfecting.
These doctors and biologists, however, did not obtain the information
they wished; so that several of them left with a very unfortunate
impression. Not a few prepared articles hostile to Clarendon, accusing
him of an unscientific and fame-seeking attitude, and intimating that
he concealed his methods through a highly unprofessional desire for
ultimate personal profit.

Others, fortunately, were more liberal in their judgments, and
wrote enthusiastically of Clarendon and his work. They had seen the
patients, and could appreciate how marvelously he held the dread
disease in leash. His secrecy regarding the antitoxin they deemed
quite justifiable, since its public diffusion in unperfected form
could not but do more harm than good. Clarendon himself, whom many of
their number had met before, impressed them more profoundly than ever,
and they did not hesitate to compare him with Jenner, Lister, Koch,
Pasteur, Metchnikoff, and the rest of those whose whole lives have
served pathology and humanity. Dalton was careful to save for Alfred
all the magazines that spoke well of him, often bringing them in person
as an excuse to see Georgina. They did not, however, produce much
effect save a contemptuous smile; and Clarendon would generally throw
them to Surama, whose deep, disturbing chuckle upon reading formed a
close parallel to the doctor's own ironic amusement.

* * * * *

One Monday evening early in February Dalton called with the definite
intention of asking Clarendon for his sister's hand. Georgina herself
admitted him to the grounds, and as they walked toward the house he
stopped to pat the great dog which rushed up and laid friendly forepaws
on his breast. It was Dick, Georgina's cherished St. Bernard, and
Dalton was glad to feel that he had the affection of a creature which
meant so much to her.

Dick was excited and glad, and turned the governor nearly half about
with his vigorous pressure as he gave a soft quick bark and sprang
off through the trees toward the clinic. He did not vanish, though,
but presently stopped and looked back, softly barking again as if
he wished Dalton to follow. Georgina, fond of obeying her huge pet's
playful whims, motioned to James to see what he wanted; and they both
walked slowly after him as he trotted relievedly to the rear of the
yard where the top of the clinic building stood silhouetted against the
stars above the great brick wall.

The outline of lights within showed around the edges of the dark
window-curtains, so they knew that Alfred and Surama were at work.
Suddenly from the interior came a thin, subdued sound like a cry of
a child--a plaintive call of "Mamma! Mamma!" at which Dick barked,
while James and Georgina started perceptibly. Then Georgina smiled,
remembering the parrots that Clarendon always kept for experimental
uses, and patted Dick on the head either to forgive him for having
fooled her and Dalton, or to console him for having been fooled himself.

As they turned slowly toward the house Dalton mentioned his resolve
to speak to Alfred that evening about their engagement, and Georgina
supplied no objection. She knew that her brother would not relish the
loss of a faithful manager and companion, but believed his affection
would place no barrier in the way of her happiness.

Later that evening Clarendon came into the house with a springy step
and aspect less grim than usual. Dalton, seeing a good omen in this
easy buoyancy, took heart as the doctor wrung his hand with a jovial
"Ah, Jimmy, how's politics this year?" He glanced at Georgina, and she
quietly excused herself, while the two men settled down to a chat on
general subjects. Little by little, amidst many reminders of their old
youthful days, Dalton worked toward his point; till at last he came out
plainly with the crucial query.

"Alf, I want to marry Georgina. Have we your blessing?"

Keenly watching his old friend, Dalton saw a shadow steal over his
face. The dark eyes flashed for a moment, then veiled themselves as
wonted placidity returned. So science or selfishness was at work after
all!

"You're asking an impossibility, James. Georgina isn't the aimless
butterfly she was years ago. She has a place in the service of truth
and mankind now, and that place is here. She's decided to devote her
life to my work--to the household that makes my work possible--and
there's no room for desertion or personal caprice."

Dalton waited to see if he had finished. The same old
fanaticism--humanity versus the individual--and the doctor was going to
let it spoil his sister's life! Then he tried to answer.

"But look here, Alf, do you mean to say that Georgina, in particular,
is so necessary to your work that you must make a slave and martyr
of her? Use your sense of proportion, man! If it were a question of
Surama or somebody in the utter thick of your experiments it might be
different; but after all, Georgina is only a housekeeper to you in the
last analysis. She has promised to be my wife and says that she loves
me. Have you the right to cut her off from the life that belongs to
her? Have you the right----"

"That'll do, James!" Clarendon's face was set and white. "Whether or
not I have the right to govern my own family is no business of an
outsider."

"Outsider--you can say that to a man who----" Dalton almost choked as
the steely voice of the doctor interrupted him again.

"An outsider to my family, and from now on an outsider to my home.
Dalton, your presumption goes just a little too far! Good evening,
Governor!"

And Clarendon strode from the room without extending his hand.

Dalton hesitated for a moment, almost at a loss what to do, when
presently Georgina entered. Her face showed that she had spoken with
her brother, and Dalton took both her hands impetuously.

"Well, Georgie, what do you say? I'm afraid it's a choice between Alf
and me. You know how I feel--you know how I felt before, when it was
your father I was up against. What's your answer this time?"

He paused as she responded slowly.

"James, dear, do you believe that I love you?"

He nodded and pressed her hands expectantly.

"Then, if you love me, you'll wait a while. Don't think of Al's
rudeness. He's to be pitied. I can't tell you the whole thing now,
but you know how worried I am--what with the strain of his work, the
criticisms, and the staring and cackling of that horrible creature
Surama! I'm afraid he'll break down--he shows the strain more than
anyone outside the family could tell. I can see it, for I've watched
him all my life. He's changing--slowly bending under his burdens--and
he puts on his extra bruskness to hide it. You can see what I mean,
can't you, dear?"

She paused, and Dalton nodded again, pressing one of her hands to his
breast. Then she concluded.

"So promise me, dear, to be patient. I must stand by him; I must! I
must!"

Dalton did not speak for a while, but his head inclined in what was
almost a bow of reverence. There was more of Christ in this devoted
woman than he had thought any human being possessed; and in the face of
such love and loyalty he could do no urging.

Words of sadness and parting were brief; and James, whose blue eyes
were misty, scarcely saw the gaunt clinic-man as the gate to the
street was at last opened to him. But when it slammed to behind him
he heard that blood-curdling chuckle he had come to recognize so well,
and knew that Surama was there--Surama, whom Georgina had called her
brother's evil genius. Walking away with a firm step, Dalton resolved
to be watchful, and to act at the first sign of trouble.

3

Meanwhile San Francisco, the epidemic still on the lips of all,
seethed with anti-Clarendon feeling. Actually the cases outside the
penitentiary were very few, and confined almost wholly to the lower
Mexican element whose lack of sanitation was a standing invitation
to disease of every kind; but politicians and the people needed no
more than this to confirm the attacks made by the doctor's enemies.
Seeing that Dalton was immovable in his championship of Clarendon,
the malcontents, medical dogmatists, and ward-heelers turned their
attention to the state legislature; lining up the anti-Clarendonists
and the governor's old enemies with great shrewdness, and preparing to
launch a law--with a veto-proof majority--transferring the authority
for minor institutional appointments from the chief executive to the
various boards or commissions concerned.

In the furtherance of this measure no lobbyist was more active than
Clarendon's chief assistant, Dr. Jones. Jealous of his superior from
the first, he now saw an opportunity for turning matters to his liking;
and he thanked fate for the circumstance--responsible indeed for his
present position--of his relationship to the chairman of the prison
board. The new law, if passed, would certainly mean the removal of
Clarendon and the appointment of himself in his stead; so, mindful of
his own interest, he worked hard for it. Jones was all that Clarendon
was not--a natural politician and sycophantic opportunist who served
his own advancement first and science only incidentally. He was poor,
and avid for salaried position, quite in contrast to the wealthy and
independent savant he sought to displace. So with a rat-like cunning
and persistence he labored to undermine the great biologist above him,
and was one day rewarded by the news that the new law was passed.
Thenceforward the governor was powerless to make appointments to the
state institutions, and the medical directorship of San Quentin lay at
the disposal of the prison board.

Of all this legislative turmoil Clarendon was singularly oblivious.
Wrapped wholly in matters of administration and research, he was blind
to the treason of "that ass Jones" who worked by his side, and deaf to
all the gossip of the warden's office. He had never in his life read
the newspapers, and the banishment of Dalton from his house cut off
his last real link with the world of outside events. With the naïveté
of a recluse, he at no time thought of his position as insecure. In
view of Dalton's loyalty, and of his forgiveness of even the greatest
wrongs, as shown in his dealings with the elder Clarendon who had
crushed his father to death on the stock exchange, the possibility of a
gubernatorial dismissal was, of course, out of the question; nor could
the doctor's political ignorance envisage a sudden shift of power which
might place the matter of retention or dismissal in very different
hands. Thereupon he merely smiled with satisfaction when Dalton left
for Sacramento; convinced that his place in San Quentin and his
sister's place in his household were alike secure from disturbance. He
was accustomed to having what he wanted, and fancied his luck was still
holding out.

The first week in March, a day or so after the enactment of the new
law, the chairman of the prison board called at San Quentin. Clarendon
was out, but Dr. Jones was glad to show the august visitor--his own
uncle, incidentally--through the great infirmary, including the fever
ward made so famous by press and panic. By this time converted against
his will to Clarendon's belief in the fever's non-contagiousness,
Jones smilingly assured his uncle that nothing was to be feared, and
encouraged him to inspect the patients in detail--especially a ghastly
skeleton, once a very giant of bulk and vigor, who was, he insinuated,
slowly and painfully dying because Clarendon would not administer the
proper medicine.

"Do you mean to say," cried the chairman, "that Dr. Clarendon refuses
to let the man have what he needs, knowing his life could be saved?"

"Just that," snapped Dr. Jones, pausing as the door opened to admit
none other than Clarendon himself. Clarendon nodded coldly to Jones and
surveyed the visitor, whom he did not know, with disapproval.

"Dr. Jones, I thought you knew this case was not to be disturbed at
all. And haven't I said that visitors aren't to be admitted except by
special permission?"

But the chairman interrupted before his nephew could introduce him.

"Pardon me, Dr. Clarendon, but am I to understand that you refuse to
give this man the medicine that would save him?"

Clarendon glared coldly, and rejoined with steel in his voice.

"That's an impertinent question, sir. I am in authority here, and
visitors are not allowed. Please leave the room at once."

The chairman, his sense of drama secretly tickled, answered with
greater pomp and hauteur than were necessary.

"You mistake me, sir! I, not you, am master here. You are addressing
the chairman of the prison board. I must say, moreover, that I deem
your activity a menace to the welfare of the prisoners, and must
request your resignation. Henceforth Dr. Jones will be in charge, and
if you wish to remain until your formal dismissal you will take your
orders from him."

It was Wilfred Jones's great moment. Life never gave him another such
climax, and we need not grudge him this one. After all he was a small
rather than a bad man, and he had only obeyed a small man's code of
looking to himself at all costs. Clarendon stood still, gazing at the
speaker as if he thought him mad, till in another second the look of
triumph on Dr. Jones's face convinced him that something important was
indeed afoot. He was icily courteous as he replied.

"No doubt you are what you claim to be, sir. But fortunately my
appointment came from the governor of the state, and can therefore be
revoked only by him."

The chairman and his nephew both stared perplexedly, for they had not
realized to what lengths unworldly ignorance can go. Then the older
man, grasping the situation, explained at some length.

"Had I found that the current reports did you an injustice," he
concluded, "I would have deferred action; but the case of this poor man
and your own arrogant manner left me no choice. As it is----"

But Dr. Clarendon interrupted with a new razor-sharpness in his voice.

"As it is, I am the director in charge at present, and I ask you to
leave this room at once."

The chairman reddened and exploded.

"Look here, sir, who do you think you're talking to? I'll have you
chucked out of here--damn your impertinence!"

But he had time only to finish the sentence. Transformed by the insult
to a sudden dynamo of hate, the slender scientist launched out with
both fists in a burst of preternatural strength of which no one would
have thought him capable. And if his strength was preternatural, his
accuracy of aim was no less so; for not even a champion of the ring
could have wrought a neater result. Both men--the chairman and Dr.
Jones--were squarely hit; the one full in the face and the other on the
point of the chin. Going down like felled trees, they lay motionless
and unconscious on the floor; while Clarendon, now clear and completely
master of himself, took his hat and cane and went out to join Surama
in the launch. Only when seated in the moving boat did he at last give
audible vent to the frightful rage that consumed him. Then, with face
convulsed, he called down imprecations from the stars and the gulfs
beyond the stars; so that even Surama shuddered, made an elder sign
that no book of history records, and forgot to chuckle.

4

Georgina soothed her brother's hurt as best she could. He had come
home mentally and physically exhausted and thrown himself on the
library lounge; and in that gloomy room, little by little, the faithful
sister had taken in the almost incredible news. Her consolations were
instantaneous and tender, and she made him realize how vast, though
unconscious, a tribute to his greatness the attacks, persecution,
and dismissal all were. He had tried to cultivate the indifference
she preached, and could have done so had personal dignity alone been
involved. But the loss of scientific opportunity was more than he could
calmly bear, and he sighed again and again as he repeated how three
months more of study in the prison might have given him at last the
long-sought bacillus which would make all fever a thing of the past.

Then Georgina tried another mode of cheering, and told him that surely
the prison board would send for him again if the fever did not abate,
or if it broke out with increased force. But even this was ineffective,
and Clarendon answered only in a string of bitter, ironic, and
half-meaningless little sentences whose tone showed all too clearly how
deeply despair and resentment had bitten.

"Abate? Break out again? Oh, it'll abate all right! At least, they'll
think it has abated. They'd think anything, no matter what happens!
Ignorant eyes see nothing, and bunglers are never discoverers. Science
never shows her face to that sort. And they call themselves doctors!
Best of all, fancy that ass Jones in charge!"

Ceasing with a quick sneer, he laughed so demoniacally that Georgina
shivered.

The days that followed were dismal ones indeed at the Clarendon
mansion. Depression, stark and unrelieved, had taken hold of the
doctor's usually tireless mind; and he would even have refused food had
not Georgina forced it upon him. His great notebook of observations
lay unopened on the library table, and his little gold syringe of
anti-fever serum--a clever device of his own, with a self-contained
reservoir, attached to a broad gold finger ring, and single-pressure
action peculiar to itself--rested idly in a small leather case beside
it. Vigor, ambition, and the desire for study and observation seemed to
have died within him; and he made no inquiries about his clinic, where
hundreds of germ cultures stood in their orderly phials awaiting his
attention.

The countless animals held for experiments played, lively and well-fed,
in the early spring sunshine; and as Georgina strolled out through
the rose-arbor to the cages she felt a strangely incongruous sense of
happiness about her. She knew, though, how tragically transient that
happiness must be; since the start of new work would soon make all
these small creatures unwilling martyrs to science. Knowing this, she
glimpsed a sort of compensating element in her brother's inaction,
and encouraged him to keep on in a rest he needed so badly. The eight
Tibetan servants moved noiselessly about, each as impeccably effective
as usual; and Georgina saw to it that the order of the household did
not suffer because of the master's relaxation.

Study and starward ambition laid aside in slippered and dressing-gowned
indifference, Clarendon was content to let Georgina treat him as an
infant. He met her maternal fussiness with a slow, sad smile, and
always obeyed her multitude of orders and precepts. A kind of faint,
wistful felicity came over the languid household, amidst which the
only dissenting note was supplied by Surama. He indeed was miserable,
and looked often with sullen and resentful eyes at the sunny serenity
in Georgina's face. His only joy had been the turmoil of experiment,
and he missed the routine of seizing the fated animals, bearing them
to the clinic in clutching talons, and watching them with hot brooding
gaze and evil chuckles as they gradually fell into the final coma
with wide-opened, red-rimmed eyes, and swollen tongue lolling from
froth-covered mouth.

Now he was seemingly driven to desperation by the sight of the carefree
creatures in their cages, and frequently came to ask Clarendon if there
were any orders. Finding the doctor apathetic and unwilling to begin
work, he would go away muttering under his breath and glaring curses
upon everything; stealing with catlike tread to his own quarters in
the basement, where his voice would sometimes ascend in deep, muffled
rhythms of blasphemous strangeness and uncomfortably ritualistic
suggestion.

All this wore on Georgina's nerves, but not by any means so gravely as
her brother's continued lassitude itself. The duration of the state
alarmed her, and little by little she lost the air of cheerfulness
which had so provoked the clinic-man. Herself skilled in medicine, she
found the doctor's condition highly unsatisfactory from an alienist's
point of view; and she now feared as much from his absence of interest
and activity as she had formerly feared from his fanatical zeal and
overstudy. Was lingering melancholy about to turn the once brilliant
man of intellect into an innocuous imbecile?

* * * * *

Then, toward the end of May, came the sudden change. Georgina always
recalled the smallest details connected with it; details as trivial as
the box delivered to Surama the day before, postmarked Algiers, and
emitting a most unpleasant odor; and the sharp, sudden thunderstorm,
rare in the extreme for California, which sprang up that night as
Surama chanted his rituals behind his locked basement door in a droning
chest-voice louder and more intense than usual.

It was a sunny day, and she had been in the garden gathering flowers
for the dining-room. Re-entering the house, she glimpsed her brother
in the library, fully dressed and seated at the table, alternately
consulting the notes in his thick observation book, and making fresh
entries with brisk assured strokes of the pen. He was alert and vital,
and there was a satisfying resilience about his movements as he now and
then turned a page, or reached for a book from the rear of the great
table. Delighted and relieved, Georgina hastened to deposit her flowers
in the dining-room and return; but when she reached the library again
she found that her brother was gone.

She knew, of course, that he must be in the clinic at work, and
rejoiced to think that his old mind and purpose had snapped back into
place. Realizing it would be of no use to delay the luncheon for him,
she ate alone and set aside a bite to be kept warm in case of his
return at an odd moment. But he did not come. He was making up for lost
time, and was still in the great, stout-planked clinic when she went
for a stroll through the rose-arbor.

As she walked among the fragrant blossoms she saw Surama fetching
animals for the test. She wished she could notice him less, for he
always made her shudder; but her very dread had sharpened her eyes and
ears where he was concerned. He always went hatless around the yard,
and the total hairlessness of his head enhanced his skeletonlike aspect
horribly. Now she heard a faint chuckle as he took a small monkey from
its cage against the wall and carried it to the clinic, his long, bony
fingers pressing so cruelly into its furry sides that it cried out in
frightened anguish. The sight sickened her, and brought her walk to
an end. Her inmost soul rebelled at the ascendancy this creature had
gained over her brother, and she reflected bitterly that the two had
almost changed places as master and servant.

Night came without Clarendon's return to the house, and Georgina
concluded that he was absorbed in one of his very longest sessions,
which meant total disregard of time. She hated to retire without a talk
with him about his sudden recovery; but finally, feeling it would be
futile to wait up, she wrote a cheerful note and propped it before his
chair on the library table; then started resolutely for bed.

She was not quite asleep when she heard the outer door open and shut.
So it had not been an all-night session after all! Determined to see
that her brother had a meal before retiring, she rose, slipped on a
robe, and descended to the library, halting only when she heard voices
from behind the half-opened door. Clarendon and Surama were talking,
and she waited till the clinic-man might go.

Surama, however, showed no inclination to depart; and indeed, the
whole heated tenor of the discourse seemed to bespeak absorption and
promise length. Georgina, though she had not meant to listen, could
not help catching a phrase now and then, and presently became aware of
a sinister undercurrent which frightened her very much without being
wholly clear to her. Her brother's voice, nervous, incisive, held her
notice with disquieting persistence.

"But anyway," he was saying, "we haven't enough animals for another
day, and you know how hard it is to get a decent supply at short
notice. It seems silly to waste so much effort on comparative trash
when human specimens could be had with just a little extra care."

Georgina sickened at the possible implication, and caught at the hall
rack to steady herself. Surama was replying in that deep, hollow tone
which seemed to echo with the evil of a thousand ages and a thousand
planets.

"Steady, steady--what a child you are with your haste and impatience!
You crowd things so! When you've lived as I have, so that a whole life
will seem only an hour, you won't be so fretful about a day or week or
month! You work too fast. You've plenty of specimens in the cages for a
full week if you'll only go at a sensible rate. You might even begin on
the other material if you'd be sure not to overdo it."

"Never mind my haste!" the reply was snapped out sharply; "I have
my own methods. I don't want to use our material if I can help it,
for I prefer them as they are. And you'd better be careful of them
anyway--you know the knives those sly dogs carry."

Surama's deep chuckle came.

"Don't worry about that. The brutes eat, don't they? Well, I can get
you one any time you need it. But go slow--with the boy gone, there are
only eight, and now that you've lost San Quentin it'll be hard to get
new ones by the wholesale. I'd advise you to start in on Tsanpo--he's
the least use to you as he is, and----"

But that was all Georgina heard. Transfixed by a hideous dread from
the thoughts this talk excited, she nearly sank to the floor where she
stood, and was scarcely able to drag herself up the stairs and into
her room. What was the evil monster Surama planning? Into what was he
guiding her brother? What monstrous circumstances lay behind these
cryptic sentences? A thousand phantoms of darkness and menace danced
before her eyes, and she flung herself upon the bed without hope of
sleep. One thought above the rest stood out with fiendish prominence,
and she almost screamed aloud as it beat itself into her brain with
renewed force. Then nature, kinder than she expected, intervened at
last. Closing her eyes in a dead faint, she did not awake till morning,
nor did any fresh nightmare come to join the lasting one which the
overheard words had brought.

* * * * *

With the morning sunshine came a lessening of the tension. What happens
in the night when one is tired often reaches the consciousness in
distorted forms, and Georgina could see that her brain must have given
strange color to scraps of common medical conversation. To suppose her
brother--only son of the gentle Frances Schuyler Clarendon--guilty of
savage sacrifices in the name of science would be to do an injustice
to their blood, and she decided to omit all mention of her trip
downstairs, lest Alfred ridicule her fantastic notions.

When she reached the breakfast table she found that Clarendon was
already gone, and regretted that not even this second morning had
given her a chance to congratulate him on his revived activity.