"I am, most a.s.suredly; who could pa.s.s your welcome doorway without dropping in?" young John answered, laughing.

"It's high time ye quit yer loose ways," Nancy commenced, trying to frown, but her voice had none of the harshness of her previous ill-humor.

"No preaching, now, Mistress McVeigh," young John interposed, as he flung his arm affectionately across her shoulders.

"Ye're always takin' advantage of a poor ould woman," Nancy retorted, good-naturedly, as she led the way upstairs to the parlor, where Jennie had already placed a lamp.

"I've a bad head the night, sirs, so I'll be thankful if ye make no noise," she said, before descending the stairs.

The hours pa.s.sed quietly enough, and, when it was closing time, she ordered Will Devitt to lock up the house and blow out the lights. The four young men still occupied the parlor, and the steady cadence of their voices came down to her. Will Devitt had supplied their order at the commencement, so that it was unnecessary to give them any further attention. It had been the rule for young John Keene and his companions to stay as long as it pleased them, and, when they had finished, to let themselves out with a key which he had coaxed out of the indulgent hostess. Nancy knew that young John was using her rooms for gambling purposes. At first the knowledge disturbed her peace of mind, and she had determined to speak to him about it, but after mature consideration, her theory that until his sin had lost its pleasure it would be only driving him away from under her watchful eye to interfere, made her decide to wait.

"Sin in the loikes o' young John Keene is the same as a person sufferin' from the fever, and no remedy can successfully combat its ravages until the poison has worn itself out," she declared to Jennie, who had mildly criticised the appearance of the room after a night's occupation. The night previous to the call of Miss Piper and her friend young John had held Nancy in a serious conversation. From it she gathered that his conscience was disturbed, for he had made repeated references to his losses at the game, and vowed that could he forsake his idle habits without running the gauntlet of his friends'

derision, he would be better pleased with himself.

"'Tis the work of a lady, Mistress McVeigh," he had confessed, and Nancy went to her bed with a light heart when she heard of it.

Nancy did not retire after Will Devitt had reported everything closed for the night. Instead, she went to her room and started a letter to Corney, her second effort in that direction in three months. Her correspondence was one of the sweetest trials of her existence. She took weeks of silent reflection between her busy spells to plan out what she would write before she was satisfied to take up her pen, and then her trouble began in earnest. This night it was next to impossible to compose her thoughts, as young John Keene's affairs had been thrust before her with startling vividness. The midnight hour pa.s.sed, and still she sat by her little table, with pen lying flat on the paper and a great daub spreading outward from its point. Her head dropped upon her arm, and she was dreaming of Corney. The disturbance of the party breaking up in the adjoining room made her eyes open, and she listened intently, for she had a premonition that she had not seen the last of them. The men were talking in low tones, but with evident suppressed pa.s.sion. Presently one spoke up clearly, as if in temper, and then she heard John Keene laugh, but it was a bitter, mirthless sound, as he replied, "I tell you, lads, I'm done with you all, so clear out; and I'll bide here till morning."

"Well, do as you d---- please," the one addressed answered, and then a scuffling of feet echoed in the pa.s.sage and went noisily down the stair. Nancy waited until they had closed the entrance door behind them, and then she stole out on tiptoe into the hallway. The door of the room which they left was ajar, and the lamp's rays struck out brightly from it. She stepped over and looked in cautiously. As she expected, young John was still there, seated tightly against the table, a pile of cards and some stained gla.s.ses in front of him. Something in his hand, and on which he was bestowing much attention, made her gulp down a sudden choking sensation.

"Give me that gun, Johnny," she called, softly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Give me that gun, Johnny,' she called, softly."]

"G.o.d! how you frightened me!" the young man e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, as he wheeled around, and then continued shamefacedly: "I was just thinking of my mother, and wondering if she could see me now, when you spoke. I almost thought it was her voice."

Nancy stood over him, her masterful eyes looking into his, and her great hand reaching outwards. He laughed recklessly, but he handed her the weapon.

"Now, Johnny, I want ye to tell me all about it," she said, quietly.

"Mrs. McVeigh, I don't deserve your kindness. I'm not fit. But you are the only person in the world to whom I can turn. Those cads who just left me fleece me to my face, and then tell me I'm a fool to let them do it. My father has no faith in me. He never tried to find out if there was any good in my rotten carca.s.s. And there is another who has weighed me in the balance of her judgment and found me sadly wanting."

"Now, Johnny, it's no like yerself to be talkin' like that. Haven't I told ye that yer conscience would rise up and smite ye. It's yer own fault that yer frien's are droppin' from ye like rats from a sinkin'

ship. Yer plan o' life has been wrong, an' yer friends have been a curse to ye, an' it's only yer manhood and that gal who kin save ye now." A fire burned in Nancy's eyes as she gazed at him, and John Keene felt a thrill of power, as if her strength was eating into his veins.

"You don't know the worst, Mrs. McVeigh, but I am ready to confess, and I don't expect you to pity me after I have spoken. I have cashed a forged note against my father at the bank for three hundred dollars, and the money is gone."

Nancy bent near to him and whispered as if telling her unspoken thoughts, "Ye have done wrong by yer father's money, John!"

The young man put his face in his hands and rocked to and fro for some minutes, while his body shook with suppressed emotion. A great joy surged through Nancy McVeigh's being, and her hand stole lovingly over his head and rested there. She knew that the change was upon him, and if victory came of it, John Keene of the past would be forgotten.

"Johnny, I've a letter from Corney in Chicago, and he says he could find a place fer just such a man as you. Ye must take it and work hard, and the first money ye earn ye must use it to make it right with your father."

"'Twould be sending me to h.e.l.l to go there," John replied, looking up: and then, as if his answer was not as he wished, he was about to speak again, but Nancy continued in even tones:

"There was a certain young la.s.s--I'll no tell ye her name, but she is fit fer the best man in the world--came to me to-day and asked me to speak to ye fer her sake. Man, ye must be up and doin', fer she loves ye. She told me so with her own lips. Ye can go away fer two years.

It's no time fer youngsters to abide, and when ye have proved yerself, come back an' she'll be waitin' and proud o' ye."

Young John Keene slowly rose to his feet. He took Nancy's hand in his and looked her squarely in the eye.

"You are not joking, Mrs. McVeigh?" he asked.

"As I hope to live, John Keene, I'm tellin' ye the honest truth," she replied.

"I'll do it," he muttered, hoa.r.s.ely.

When Nancy went to her bed she gazed awhile at the two photos tacked on the wall, then at the sleeping face of Katie Duncan. "I've won him, thank G.o.d!" she murmured, and fell asleep smiling.

CHAPTER IV.

_THE WRECK AT THE JUNCTION._

The widow McVeigh's face was a picture of sobriety, in fact, almost severity. The features were conspicuous because of the abrupt falling in of her cheeks, and her grey eyes were deep set and touched at the corners by plenteous crowsfeet. Yet when the world looked at her casually it saw a smiling countenance. Some thought her face hard, and the smile bold rather than a kindly one; others, that she was of coa.r.s.e intellect and smiled because she could not appreciate the daily trials and troubles of the poor. These opinions were more generally shared by the good temperance folk of the neighborhood and in the town. They only saw a tall, grey-haired woman, standing amidst the surroundings of a ramshackle inn of the country road, and taking toll from the rougher cla.s.ses that pa.s.sed to and fro. But had they probed farther into her life they might have unearthed the beautiful from the clay.

Moore, the operator at the railroad junction, was a patron of Nancy McVeigh's tavern, of ten years' duration. He was a quiet fellow, a plodder at his work, and without great ambitions. He knew his signals, the hour when trains were due, the words that the ticker in his little gla.s.s office spoke occasionally, and so far he was valuable to the Company. He never had had an accident, and because of his reliability his employers thought of him once every two or three years and added a hundred dollars to his salary. They made no allowance for illness or holidays, and it was Moore's proudest boast that he had never missed a day in all that time. One afternoon the superintendent stopped his car at the Junction and called the little man into his sanctum. Moore chatted with him for an hour or so, and that night his face was radiant as he smoked a pipe after supper and retold the conversation to Mrs.

McVeigh. "It will mean higher pay and more responsibility," he observed, with a self-satisfied smile.

"And they'll make it a reg'lar station, ye say?" Nancy asked.

"That they will, Mrs. McVeigh. A company of city men are going to buy a large portion of the point and build on it a summer hotel. Then the people will be coming by the hundreds during the hot season, and there'll be baggage to check, tickets to sell, and a great deal of extra work. I am to have a.s.sistants, and a young fellow to handle the key, and I'll be stationmaster.

"Ye'll be gettin' married, surely?" suggested Nancy, with a sly twinkle in her eye.

"Well, no saying, but it will be a sore trial for me to quit your board," Moore answered.

"Ye understand I'm becomin' fairly old fer the tavern, and if those city men build a big house an' put in a big stock of liquors I guess there'll be no more fightin' about the license."

Moore deprecated any such result, and endeavored to argue Nancy into a like belief, but in his heart he knew that she was speaking the truth, and he really felt sorry for her.

From that day Moore began to study his work with greater zeal.

Morning, afternoon and nighttime found him at his post, and the thoughts of his prospective advancement seemed to worry him. He grew thin on it, and also took a severe cold while tramping back and forth during bad weather. He would not take time to secure a doctor's advice, nor would he listen to Nancy when she scolded him for his neglect. The summer pa.s.sed and the first brush of snow had come and yet he would not give in. His chief sent a letter explaining that the planned changes would go into effect the following spring. The news only added a glitter to his eye and a stimulant to his anxiety to prove his worth, but his cough still remained.

"The man'll break down and spoil everythin'," Nancy predicted to a crowd of gossips in her bar. Her prophecy came true sooner than she expected.

Moore received orders to throw the switch over to the sidetrack at the Junction, so that a work train might leave a few cars of gravel for the section-men to use the following morning. This train was due during the half-hour which he took for his supper at the tavern. He shifted the rails ready before leaving, intending to hasten back in plenty of time to connect the main line over which the No. 4 pa.s.senger would pa.s.s about nine o'clock. It was quite a usual occurrence in his routine of work, so that the matter did not cost him a second thought.

Nancy noticed the tired look about his eyes as he sat at his meal, and she determined to talk to him seriously about his health at the first favorable opportunity. Out of doors the night was intensely black, and a drizzling rain added to its inclemency.

"It's just sich a spell o' weather as'll make his cough very much worse if he don't attend to himself," Nancy told Jennie, her adopted daughter, as they saw Moore go to his room before setting out for the Junction. The tavern settled down to its accustomed quietness, Nancy and the girls knitting in the kitchen, Will Devitt leaning over the bar and talking to a few who found it more comfortable there than in the raw dampness without. Old Donald was in the stables finishing up, and a chance wayfarer snored upon the sitting-room lounge. Katie Duncan had occasion to go upstairs, and she came down with the startling news that Mr. Moore had not left his room.

"He'll no git to be the station-master if he continues the likes,"

Nancy remarked, as she ascended to see what was the matter with him.

She found him lying on his bed apparently asleep, so she shook him, in righteous indignation at his conduct. A bottle from her bar, standing on the table, added suspicions to her wrath. Moore did not respond to her efforts as a healthy man should. Instead he turned a sickly white face to her and groaned.

"Are ye sick?" she asked.