Again a convulsive sob shook her, and she was silent.

Gordon felt an almost resistless impulse to take her in his arms and kiss and soothe her.

Through her tears she smiled at him.

"How beautiful you are, my dear! You will not forget that I love you?

The spring, the summer, the autumn, the winter will only bring to me messages from our past. The way will be lonely, but the memory of the touch of your hand, our hours of perfect peace and trustfulness, the sweetness of your kisses on my lips, the living pictures of your face in our children, I will cherish."

He stooped to kiss her as he left, but she drew back trembling.

"No, Frank, not while your lips are warm with the touch of another and your flesh on fire with desire for her. It will be sweet to remember that you wished it--for I know, what you do not, that deep down in your soul of souls you love me. I will abide G.o.d's time."

He left her with a smile playing around her sensitive mouth and lighting the shadows of her great dark eyes.

CHAPTER XVII

THE THOUGHT THAT SWEEPS THE CENTURY

On the Sat.u.r.day following Gordon's drama with Kate and his wife, his dream of secrecy was rudely shattered. Van Meter's ferret eyes, by the aid of his detectives, had fathomed the mystery of Kate Ransom's appearance in the study and her more mysterious disappearance.

They found that Gordon had separated from his wife, after a terrific scene; that he was a daily visitor to the Ransom house; and that his great patron was none other than the young mistress of the Gramercy Park mansion.

All day long he was beseiged by reporters. Ruth was compelled to hire a man to stand on the doorstep to keep them out. The Ransom house was barred, but Gordon could not escape.

He saw at once that they knew so much it was useless to make denials, and he prepared a statement for the press, giving the facts and his plans for the future in a ringing address. He submitted it to Kate for her approval, and at three o'clock gave it out for publication.

Their love secret had not been fathomed, but it had been guessed.

He feared the reports would be so written that it would be read between the lines and a great deal more implied.

His revolutionary views on marriage and divorce and the fact that he was from Indiana, a state that had granted the year before nearly five thousand divorces, one for every five marriages celebrated,--were made the subject of special treatment by one paper. They submitted to him proofs of a six-column article on the subject, and asked for his comments. He was compelled to either deny or repeat his utterances advocating freedom of divorce, and finally was badgered into admitting that this feature was one of the fundamental tenets of Socialism.

He was not ready for the full public avowal of this principle, but he was driven to the wall and was forced to own it or lie. He boldly gave his position, and declared that marriage was a fetish, and that its basis on a union for life without regard to the feelings of the parties was a fountain of corruption, and was the source of the monopolistic instincts that now cursed the human race.

"Yes, and you can say," he cried, "that I propose to lead a crusade for the emanc.i.p.ation of women from the degradation of its slavery.

Love bound by chains is not love. Love can only be a reality in Freedom and Fellowship."

This single sentence had changed the colouring of the whole story as it appeared in the press on Sunday morning, and was the key to the tremendous sensation it produced.

The next day long before the hour of service the street in front of the Pilgrim Church was packed with a dense crowd.

The police could scarcely clear the way for the members' entrance.

Within ten minutes from the time the large doors were opened every seat was filled and hundreds stood on the pavements outside, waiting developments, unable to gain admission.

So many statements had been made, and so many vicious insinuations hinted, Gordon was compelled to lay aside his sermon and devote the entire hour to a defense of his position.

The crowd listened in breathless stillness, but he knew from the first he had lost their sympathies and that he was on trial. Unable to tell the whole truth, his address was as lame and ineffective as his outburst the Sunday before had been resistless. When he dismissed the crowd he noticed that some of his warmest friends were crying.

As he came down from the pulpit, Ludlow took him by the hand and, with trembling voice, said:

"Pastor, you know how I love you?"

What he did not say was more eloquent than a thousand words, and it cut Gordon to his inmost soul. He knew his failure had been pathetic, and that his enemies were laughing over the certainty of his ruin.

It angered him for a moment as he looked over the silent crowd filing out of his presence and out of his life.

He cursed their stolid conservatism.

"The average man does not aspire to liberty of thought," he mused with bitterness, "but slavery of thought. The mob must have its fixed formulas easy to read, requiring no thought. Well, let them go."

Suddenly a confused murmur, with loud voices mingled, came through the doors of the vestibules. The exits were blocked, and the moving crowd halted and recoiled on itself as if hurled back by the charge of an opposing army, and a cheer echoed over their heads.

The people inside, who had been halted, stretched their necks to see over the heads of those in front, crying:

"What is it?"

"What's the matter?"

"It sounds like a riot," some one answered near doors.

Gordon wedged himself through the ma.s.s that had been thrown back on the advancing stream and reached the doorway. He was astonished to find packed in the street more than five thousand men, evidently working-men and Socialists. They had been quick to recognise his position in the vigorous statement he had given to the press.

When Gordon's giant figure appeared between the two opposing forces a wild cheer rent the air.

A Socialist leaped on the steps beside him and, lifting his hat above his head, cried:

"Now again, men, three times three for a dauntless leader, a free man in the image of G.o.d, who dares to think and speak the truth!"

Three times the storm rolled over the sea of faces, and every hat was in the air.

Gordon lifted his big hand and the tumult hushed.

"My friends, I thank you for this mark of your fellowship. At the old Grand Opera House, next Sunday morning, the seats will be yours.

You will get a comrade's welcome. I will have something to say to you that may be worth your while to hear."

The crowd, who had never seen or heard him, were impressed by his magnificent presence and his trumpet voice. They liked its clear ringing tones and its consciousness of power.

The unexpected demonstration restored his self-respect and blotted out the aching sense of failure.

His few words were greeted with tumultuous applause, renewed again and again. The air was charged with the electric thrill of their enthusiasm.