The Clarion

CHAPTER XXVII

THE GREATER TEMPT­ING

Jour­nal­is­tic Wor­thing­ton ran true to type in the Mil­ly Neal af­fair. No news­pa­per pub­lished more than a para­graph about the “sud­den death.” Sui­cide was not even hint­ed at in print. But news­pa­per­dom had its own opin­ion, mag­ni­fied and col­ored by the pro­cess­es of gos­sip, over which pro­fes­sion­al cour­tesy ex­er­cised no con­trol. That the girl had killed her­self was gen­er­al­ly un­der­stood: that there had been a shoot­ing, pre­vi­ous to her death, was al­so cur­rent. Ea­ger re­port re­called and ex­ag­ger­at­ed the fact that she had been seen with Hal Sur­taine at a du­bi­ous road-​house some months pre­vi­ous. The pop­ular “in­side knowl­edge” of the tragedy was that Mil­ly had gone to the Sur­taine man­sion to force Hal's hand, fail­ing in which she had shot him, in­flict­ing an in­con­sid­er­able wound, and then killed her­self; and that Dr. Sur­taine had there­upon turned his son out of the house. Hal's re­moval to the ho­tel served to bear out this sur­mise, and the Doc­tor's strate­gic ef­fort to cov­er the sit­ua­tion by giv­ing it out that his son's part of the man­sion was be­ing re­mod­eled--even go­ing to the lengths of ac­tu­al­ly set­ting a force of men to work there--failed to con­vince the gos­sips.

Be­tween the two men, the sit­ua­tion was now most dif­fi­cult. Quite in­stinc­tive­ly Hal had fall­en in with his fa­ther's the­ory that the pri­mal ne­ces­si­ty, af­ter the tragedy, was to keep ev­ery­thing out of print. That by so do­ing he whol­ly sub­vert­ed his own hard-​won pol­icy did not, in the stress of the cri­sis, oc­cur to him. Lat­er he re­al­ized it. Yet he could see no oth­er course of ac­tion as hav­ing been pos­si­ble to him. The mere plain facts of the case con­sti­tut­ed an ac­cu­sa­tion against Dr. Sur­taine, un­think­able for a son to pub­lish against his fa­ther. And Hal still coz­ened him­self in­to a be­lief in the quack's es­sen­tial in­no­cence, per­suad­ing his own rea­son that there was a blind side to the man which ren­dered it im­pos­si­ble for him to see through the le­gal in­to the eth­ical phas­es of the ques­tion. By this method he was sav­ing his loy­al­ty and af­fec­tion. But so pro­found had been the shock that he could not, for a time, en­dure the con­stant com­pan­ion­ship of for­mer days. Con­se­quent­ly the fre­quent calls which Dr. Sur­taine deemed it ex­pe­di­ent to make for the sake of ap­pear­ances, at Hal's ho­tel, re­sult­ed in painful, ram­bling, top­ic-​shift­ing talks, de­void of any hu­man touch oth­er than the piti­ful and thwart­ed af­fec­tion of two per­son­al­ities at hope­less odds. “Least said soon­est mend­ed” was a fa­vorite apho­rism of the ex­pe­ri­enced quack. But in this tan­gle it failed him. It was he who first touched on the poi­soned theme.

“Look here, Boy-​ee,” said he, a week af­ter the buri­al. “We're both scared to death of what each of us is think­ing. Let's agree to for­get this un­til you are ready to talk it out with me.”

“What good will talk do?” said Hal drea­ri­ly.

“None at present.” His fa­ther sighed. He had hoped for a clean breast of it, a con­fes­sion of the in­trigue that should leave the way open to a read­just­ment of re­la­tions. “So let's put the whole thing aside.”

“All right,” agreed Hal list­less­ly. “I sup­pose you know,” he added, “be­fore we close the sub­ject, that I've or­dered the Re­lief Pills ad­ver­tis­ing out of the 'Clar­ion.'”

“You needn't have both­ered. It won't be of­fered again.”

Si­lence fell be­tween them. “I've about de­cid­ed to quit that line,” the char­la­tan re­sumed with an ob­vi­ous ef­fort. “Not that it isn't strict­ly le­gal,” he added, falling back up­on his re­serve de­fense. “But it's too trou­ble­some. The copy is tick­lish; I've had to write all those ads. my­self. And, at that, there's some news­pa­pers won't ac­cept 'em and oth­ers that want to ed­it 'em. Belford Couch and I have been go­ing over the whole mat­ter. He's the diplo­mat of the con­cern. And we've about de­cid­ed to sell out. Any­way,” he added, bright­en­ing, “there ain't hard­ly mon­ey enough in a side-​line like the Pills to pay for the trou­ble of run­ning it sep­arate.”

If Dr. Sur­taine had looked for ex­plic­it ap­proval of his vir­tu­ous res­olu­tion, he was dis­ap­point­ed. Yet Hal ex­pe­ri­enced, or tried to be­lieve that he ex­pe­ri­enced, a cer­tain fac­ti­tious glow of sat­is­fac­tion at this proof that his fa­ther was ready to give up an evil thing even with­out be­ing ful­ly con­vinced of its wrong­ful­ness. This helped the son to feel that, at least, his sac­ri­fice had been made for a wor­thy af­fec­tion. Still, he had no word to say ex­cept that he must get to the of­fice. The Doc­tor left with gloom up­on his hand­some face.

With McGuire El­lis, Hal's as­so­ci­ation had be­come even more dif­fi­cult than with the Doc­tor. Since his abrupt and un­cer­emo­ni­ous de­par­ture from the room of death, in the be­lief in Hal's guilt, El­lis had main­tained a pure­ly pro­fes­sion­al at­ti­tude to­ward his em­ploy­er. For a time, in his wretched­ness and tur­moil of spir­it, Hal had scarce­ly no­ticed El­lis's with­draw­al of fel­low­ship, vague­ly at­tribut­ing his si­lence to un­ex­pressed sym­pa­thy. But lat­er, when he broached the sub­ject of Mil­ly's death, he was met with a stony avoid­ance which in­spired both as­ton­ish­ment and re­sent­ment. Sub-​nor­mal as he now was in ner­vous strength and ten­sion, he shrank from hav­ing it out with El­lis. But he felt, for the first time in his life, for­lorn and friend­less.

On his part McGuire El­lis brood­ed over a deep anger. He was not a man to yield light­ly of his best; but he had giv­en to Hal, first a fine loy­al­ty, and lat­er, as they grew in­to clos­er as­so­ci­ation, a warm if rather ret­icent af­fec­tion. For the rough ide­al­ist had found in his em­ploy­er an ide­al­ism not al­ways as clear and in­tel­li­gent as his own, yet of­ten high­er and fin­er; and along with the pro­fes­sion­al pro­tec­tive­ness which he had as­sumed over the younger man's in­ex­pe­ri­ence had come an hon­est ad­mi­ra­tion and far-​reach­ing hopes. Now he saw in his chief one who had be­trayed his cause through a weak and self­ish in­dul­gence. The clear-​sight­ed jour­nal­ist knew that the news­pa­per own­er with a shame­ful se­cret binds his own pow­er in the coils of that se­cret. And fa­tal­ly in er­ror as he was as to the na­ture of the en­tan­gle­ment in which Hal was in­volved, he fore­saw the in­evitable ef­fect of the sit­ua­tion up­on the “Clar­ion.” More­over, he was bit­ter­ly dis­ap­point­ed in Hal as a man. Had his su­pe­ri­or “gone on the loose” and con­tract­ed a _li­ai­son_ with some wom­an of the out­er world, El­lis would have passed over the ab­stract moral­ity of the ques­tion. But to take ad­van­tage of a girl in his own em­ploy, and then so cru­el­ly to leave her to her fate,--there was rot at the heart of the man who could do that. The ex­ci­sion of the of­fend­ing “Re­lief Pills” ad. af­ter the cul­mi­na­tion of the tragedy, was sim­ply a sop to hypocrisy.

On­ly once had El­lis made any ref­er­ence to Mil­ly's death. On the day of her fu­ner­al Max Velt­man had dis­ap­peared, with­out no­tice. A week lat­er he re­port­ed for du­ty, shak­en and pal­lid.

“Do you want to take him back?” El­lis in­quired of Hal.

Hal's first im­pulse was to say “No”; but he con­quered it, re­mem­ber­ing Mil­ly Neal's piti­ful gen­eros­ity to­ward her lover.

“Where has he been?” he asked.

“Drunk, I guess.”

“What do you think?”

“I think yes.”

“All right, if he's sobered up. Tell him it mustn't hap­pen again.”

There was a gleam in McGuire El­lis's eye. “Sup­pose _you_ tell him that it mustn't hap­pen again. It would come with more force from you.”

Hal whirled in his chair. “Mac, what's the mat­ter with you?”

“Noth­ing. I was just think­ing of 'Kit­ty the Cutie.'”

“What were you think­ing of her?”

“On­ly that Max Velt­man would have gone through hell-​fire for her. And, from his looks, he's been through and had the heart burned out of him.”

With that he re­sumed his proof-​read­ing in a dogged si­lence.

To Hal's great re­lief Velt­man kept out of his way. The man seemed dazed with mis­ery, but did his work well enough. Ru­mors reached the of­fice that he was striv­ing to gain a refuge from his suf­fer­ings by giv­ing all his leisure hours to work in the Rook­eries dis­trict, un­der the di­rec­tion of the Rev­erend Nor­man Hale. El­lis was of the opin­ion that his mind was some­what af­fect­ed, and that he would bear watch­ing a bit; and was the more dis­turbed in that Velt­man shared the se­cret of the great epi­dem­ic “spread,” now prac­ti­cal­ly com­plet­ed for the “Clar­ion's” pub­lish­ing or sup­press­ing. El­lis held the be­lief that, now, Hal would or­der it sup­pressed. The man who had shirked his re­spon­si­bil­ity to Mil­ly Neal could hard­ly be re­lied on for the stami­na nec­es­sary to such an ex­ploita­tion.

The time was at hand for the de­ci­sion to be made. The two physi­cians, El­liot and Mer­ritt, pressed for pub­li­ca­tion. Ev­ery day, they point­ed out, not on­ly meant a fur­ther risk of life, but al­so in­creased the im­pend­ing dan­ger of a gen­er­al out­burst which would find the city whol­ly un­pre­pared. On the oth­er hand, the jour­nal­ists, El­lis and Wayne, held out for de­lay. They per­ceived the one weak point in their case, that nei­ther a dead body nor a liv­ing pa­tient had as yet come to the hands of the con­sti­tut­ed au­thor­ities for di­ag­no­sis. The sole de­ter­mi­na­tion had been made on corpses car­ried across the line and now prob­ably im­pos­si­ble of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. The com­mit­tee fund was do­ing its work of con­ceal­ment ef­fec­tu­al­ly. But Fate tripped the strat­egy board at last, us­ing the Rev­erend Nor­man Hale as its agent.

Since Mil­ly Neal's death, the Rev­erend Nor­man had tried to find time to call on Hal Sur­taine, and had failed. He wished to talk with him about Velt­man. Three days af­ter the fu­ner­al he had hauled the “Clar­ion's” fore­man out of the gut­ter, stood be­tween him and sui­cide for one sav­age night of strug­gle, and lis­tened to the re­morse of a haunt­ed soul. Be­ing a man and a broth­er, the Rev­erend Nor­man for­bore blame or ad­mo­ni­tion; be­ing a physi­cian of the in­ner be­ing, he de­vised work for the wreck in his slums, and had driv­en him re­lent­less­ly that he might find peace in the ser­vice of oth­ers. Slow­ly the man won back to san­ity. One ob­ses­sion per­sist­ed, how­ev­er, dis­turb­ing to the cler­gy­man. Velt­man was will­ing to do penance him­self, in any pos­si­ble way, but he in­sist­ed that, since the Sur­taines shared his guilt, they, too, must make amends, be­fore his dead mis­tress could rest in her grave. Ap­prised by Velt­man of the whole wretched sto­ry, Hale se­cret­ly sym­pa­thized with this view of the Sur­taines' re­spon­si­bil­ity. But he was con­cerned lest, in Velt­man, it take some form of di­rect vengeance. When he learned that Velt­man had re­turned to the “Clar­ion” com­pos­ing-​room to work, the min­is­ter, un­able to spare time for a call from his al­most sleep­less ac­tiv­ities, sent an ur­gent re­quest to Hal to meet him at the Recre­ation Club. Hal be­ing out, El­lis got the note, ob­served the “Im­me­di­ate and Im­por­tant” on the en­ve­lope, read the con­tents, and set out for the ren­dezvous.

He nev­er got there. For at the cor­ner of Sper­ry Street he was met by a mes­sen­ger who knew him.

“The back room at Mc­Maney's,” said the urchin. “He's in there, wait­in'.”

El­lis en­tered the place. At a ta­ble sat the Rev­erend Nor­man Hale, with an ex­pres­sion of ra­di­ant hap­pi­ness on his gaunt face. The bar­keep­er, who, on his own ini­tia­tive, had just brought in a steam­ing hot drink, stood watch­ing him with un­feigned con­cern. Hale wel­comed El­lis warm­ly, and drew a chair close for him.

“You sent for Mr. Sur­taine,” said El­lis.

“Did I?” asked the oth­er vague­ly. “I for­get. It doesn't mat­ter. Noth­ing mat­ters, now. El­lis, I've found out the se­cret.”

“What se­cret?”

“The great se­cret. The so­lu­tion,” replied the young min­is­ter, buoy­ant­ly. “All that is nec­es­sary is to get the bod­ies.”

“Yes, of course,” agreed the oth­er, with ris­ing un­easi­ness. “But they smug­gle them out as fast--”

“They won't when I've told them. McGuire El­lis,”--he gripped his com­pan­ion sud­den­ly with fin­gers that clamped like a burn­ing vise,--“_I can bring the dead back to life_.”

“Tell me about it. But take a swal­low of this first.” El­lis pushed the hot drink to­ward him. “You're cold.”

“Noth­ing but ex­cite­ment. The glo­ry of it! All this suf­fer­ing and grief and death--”

“Wait a minute. I want a drink my­self.”

He turned to the bar­tender. “Get an au­to,” he whis­pered. “Quick!”

“There's a rig out­side,” said the man. “I seen he was sick when he came in, so I sent for it.”

“Good man!” said El­lis. “Tele­phone to Dr. Mer­ritt at the Health Of­fice to meet me in­stant­ly at the hos­pi­tal. Tell him why. Now, Mr. Hale,” he added, “come on. Let's get along. You can tell me on the way.”

Still rapt with his vi­sion the min­is­ter rose, and per­mit­ted him­self to be guid­ed to the car­riage. Once in­side he fell in­to a se­mi-​stu­por. On­ly at the hos­pi­tal, where Dr. Mer­ritt was wait­ing to see him safe with­in the iso­la­tion ward, did he come to his right­ful sens­es, cool, and, as ev­er, thought­ful of ev­ery­thing but him­self.

“You've got your chance for a di­ag­no­sis at last, Doc­tor,” he whis­pered to the health of­fi­cer.

Half an hour lat­er, Dr. Mer­ritt came out to the wait­ing jour­nal­ist.

“Ty­phus,” he said, with grievous ex­ul­ta­tion. “Un­mis­tak­ably and of­fi­cial­ly ty­phus. We've got our case. On­ly, I wish to God it had been any of the rest of us.”

“Will he die?” queried El­lis.

“God knows. I should say his chance was worse than even. He's worn out from over­work.”

For as­sur­ance, Dr. El­liot was sent for and added his di­ag­no­sis. El­lis got au­thor­ita­tive in­ter­views with both men, and the “Clar­ion's” great, po­ten­tial sen­sa­tion was now ful­ly ripe for print. Den­ton the re­porter had done the pre­vi­ous work well. His “sto­ry,” lead­ed out and with sub­heads, ran flush to two pages of the pa­per, and ev­ery para­graph of it struck fire. It would, as El­lis said, set off a ton of dy­na­mite be­neath sleepy Wor­thing­ton. That night Velt­man “pulled” a proof, and El­lis stayed far in­to the morn­ing, past­ing up a dum­my of the ar­ti­cle for Hal's in­spec­tion and fi­nal judg­ment.

It was on Thurs­day that Nor­man Hale was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal. Fri­day noon McGuire El­lis laid be­fore his prin­ci­pal the care­ful­ly con­struct­ed dum­my with the brief com­ment:

“There's the epi­dem­ic sto­ry.”

Hal ac­cept­ed and read it in si­lence. Once or twice he made a note. When he had fin­ished, he turned to find El­lis's gaze fixed up­on him.

“We ought to run it Mon­day,” said El­lis. “We can round it all up by then.”

Mon­day is the dead day of jour­nal­ism, the day for which news ar­ti­cles which do not de­mand in­stant pro­duc­tion are re­served, both to liv­en up a dull pa­per and be­cause the sen­sa­tion pro­duced is greater. How­ev­er, the sen­sa­tion in­evitable to the pub­lish­ing of this ar­ti­cle, as Hal in­stant­ly re­al­ized, would be enor­mous on any day.

“It's big stuff,” said he, with a long breath.

El­lis nod­ded. “Shall I re­lease it for Mon­day?”

“N-​n-​no,” came the du­bi­ous re­ply.

“It's been held al­ready for ten days.”

“Then what does it mat­ter if we hold it a lit­tle longer?”

“Hu­man lives, maybe. Isn't that mat­ter enough?”

“That's on­ly a guess. I've got to have time on this,” in­sist­ed Hal. “It's the most vi­tal ques­tion of pol­icy that the pa­per has had to face.”

“Pol­icy!” grunt­ed El­lis sav­age­ly.

“Be­sides, I've giv­en my word to the Cham­ber of Com­merce Com­mit­tee that we wouldn't pub­lish any epi­dem­ic news with­out due warn­ing to them.”

“Then it's to be killed?”

“'Wait for or­ders' proof,” said Hal stoni­ly.

“I might have known,” sneered El­lis, with an in­fi­nite depth of scorn, and went to bear the bit­ter mes­sage to Wayne.

While the “Clar­ion” pol­icy trem­bled in the bal­ance, Dr. Sur­taine's Com­mit­tee on Sup­pres­sion was fac­ing a new cri­sis brought about by the strik­ing down of Nor­man Hale, of which they re­ceived ear­ly in­for­ma­tion. Should he die, as was be­lieved prob­able, the news, whether or not the full facts got in­to print, would sure­ly be­come a fo­cus for the prop­aga­tion of alarmist ru­mors. In their dis­tress, the pa­tri­ots of com­merce paid a hasty vis­it to their chief, crav­ing coun­sel. Hav­ing fore­seen the pos­si­bil­ity of some such con­tin­gen­cy, Dr. Sur­taine was ready with a plan. The com­mit­tee would en­large it­self, call a meet­ing of the rep­re­sen­ta­tive men of the town, or­ga­nize an Emer­gen­cy Health Com­mit­tee of One Hun­dred, and take the field against the on­set of per­ni­cious malar­ia. This show of fight­ing force would al­lay pub­lic alarm, a large fund would be raised, the news­pa­pers would be kept in thor­ough sub­jec­tion, and the dis­ease could be wiped out with­out un­due pub­lic­ity or the im­per­il­ing of Old Home Week.

“What about the 'Clar­ion'?” in­quired Hol­len­beck, of the com­mit­tee. “They're still hold­ing off.”

“Safe as your hat,” Dr. Sur­taine as­sured the ques­tion­er with a smile.

“At the meet­ing you told us you couldn't an­swer for your son's pa­per,” Stens­land re­called.

“I can now,” said the con­fi­dent quack. “Just you leave it to me.”

He went di­rect to the “Clar­ion” of­fice, re­volv­ing in his mind the im­pend­ing in­ter­view. For the first time since the tragedy he an­tic­ipat­ed a meet­ing with his son with­out em­bar­rass­ment, for now he had a def­inite top­ic to talk about, dif­fi­cult though it might be.

Find­ing Hal at the ed­ito­ri­al desk he went di­rect to the point.

“Boy-​ee, the epi­dem­ic is spread­ing.”

“I know it.”

“I'm go­ing to take hold of the mat­ter per­son­al­ly, from now on.”

“In what way?”

“By or­ga­niz­ing a com­mit­tee of one hun­dred to cov­er the city and make a sci­en­tif­ic cam­paign.”

“Are you go­ing to let peo­ple know that it's ty­phus?”

“Sh-​sh-​sh! So you know, do you? Well, the im­por­tant thing now is to see that oth­ers don't find out. Don't even whis­per the word. Malar­ia's our cue; per­ni­cious malar­ia. What's the use of scar­ing ev­ery one to death? We'll call a pub­lic meet­ing for next week--”

“Pub­lic­ity is the last thing you want, I should think.”

“Se­mi-​pub­lic, I should have said. The epi­dem­ic has gone so far that peo­ple are be­gin­ning to take no­tice. We've got to re­as­sure them and the right kind of an Emer­gen­cy Health Com­mit­tee is the way to do it, Belford Couch is work­ing up the meet­ing now. I've kept him over on pur­pose for it. He's the best lit­tle diplo­mat in the pro­pri­etary busi­ness. And Yours Tru­ly will be elect­ed Chair­man of the Com­mit­tee. It'll cost us a ten-​thou­sand-​dol­lar do­na­tion to the fund, but it's worth it to the busi­ness.”

“To the busi­ness? I don't quite see how.”

“Sim­ple as a pin! When it's all over and we're ready to let the ac­count of it get in­to print, Dr. Sur­taine, pro­pri­etor of Certi­na, will be the prin­ci­pal fig­ure in the cam­paign. What's that worth in ad­ver­tis­ing to the year's busi­ness? Not that I'm do­ing it for that. I'm do­ing it to save Old Home Week.”

“With a lit­tle prof­it on the side.”

Dr. Sur­taine deemed it politic to ig­nore the tone of the com­men­tary.

“Why not? No­body's hurt by it. You'll be on the Cen­tral Com­mit­tee, Boy-​ee.”

“No; I don't think so.”

“Why not?”

“I think I'd bet­ter keep out of the move­ment, Dad.”

“As you like. And you'll see that the 'Clar­ion' keeps out of it, too?”

“So that's it.”

“Yes, Boy-​ee: that's it. You can see, for your­self, that a news­pa­per sen­sa­tion would ru­in ev­ery­thing just now--and al­so ru­in the pa­per that sprung it.”

“So I heard from Elias M. Pierce some­time since.”

“For once Pierce is right.”

“Are you ask­ing me to sup­press the epi­dem­ic sto­ry?”

“To let us han­dle it our own way,” sub­sti­tut­ed the Doc­tor. “We've got our cam­paign all fig­ured out and ready to start. Do you know what the great dan­ger is now?”

“Let­ting the in­fec­tion go on with­out tak­ing open mea­sures to stop it.”

“You're way wrong! Start­ing a pan­ic that will scat­ter it all over the place is the re­al dan­ger. Have you heard of a sin­gle case out­side of the Rook­eries dis­trict, so far?”

Hal strove to re­call the death-​list on the proof. “No,” he ad­mit­ted.

“You see! It's con­fined to one lo­cal­ity. Now, what hap­pens if you turn loose a news­pa­per scare? Why, those poor, ig­no­rant peo­ple will swarm out of the Rook­eries and go any­where to es­cape the quar­an­tine that they know will come. You'll have an epi­dem­ic not lo­cal­ized, but gen­er­al. The sit­ua­tion will be ten times as dif­fi­cult and dan­ger­ous as it is now.”

Struck with the plau­si­bil­ity of this rea­son­ing, Hal hes­itat­ed. “That's up to the au­thor­ities,” he said.

“The au­thor­ities!” cried the char­la­tan, in dis­dain. “What could they do? The dam­age would be done be­fore they got ready to move. You see, we've got to han­dle this sit­ua­tion diplo­mat­ical­ly. Look here, Boy­ee; what's the worst fea­ture of an epi­dem­ic? Pan­ic. You know the Bible para­ble. The sev­en plagues came to Egypt and ten thou­sand peo­ple died. The Grand Vizier said to the plagues, 'How many of my peo­ple have you slain?' The plagues said, 'A thou­sand.' 'What about the oth­er nine thou­sand?' said the Grand Vizier. 'Not guilty!' said the plagues. 'They were slain by Fear.' Maybe it was in 'Par­adise Lost' and not the Bible. But the les­son's the same. Pan­ic is the killer.”

“But the dis­ease is in­creas­ing all the time,” ob­ject­ed Hal. “Are we to sit still and--”

“Is it?” broke in the wily con­tro­ver­sial­ist. “How do you ac­count for this, then?” He drew from his pock­et a print­ed leaflet. “Take a peek at those fig­ures. Few­er deaths in the Rook­eries this last week than in any week since March.”

This was true. Not in­fre­quent­ly there comes an in­ex­pli­ca­ble sub­si­dence of mor­tal­ity in mid-​epi­dem­ic. No com­pe­tent hy­gien­ist is de­ceived in­to mis­tak­ing this phe­nomenon for an in­di­ca­tion of the end. Not be­ing a hy­gien­ist Hal was again im­pressed.

“The Health Bu­reau's own statis­tics,” con­tin­ued the ar­gu­men­ta­tor, push­ing his ad­van­tage. “With Dr. Mer­ritt's sig­na­ture at the bot­tom.”

“Dr. Mer­ritt says that the epi­dem­ic is be­ing fos­tered by se­cre­cy, sup­pres­sion, and ly­ing.”

“All sen­ti­men­tal­ism. Mer­ritt would turn the city up­side down if he had his way. Was it him that told you it was ty­phus?”

“No. We've got a two-​page sto­ry in proof now, giv­ing the whole facts of the epi­dem­ic.”

“You can't pub­lish it, Boy-​ee,” said his fa­ther firm­ly.

“Can't? That sounds like an or­der.”

Adroit­ly Dr. Sur­taine caught at the word. “An or­der drawn on your word of hon­or.”

“If there's any ques­tion of hon­or to the 'Clar­ion,' it's to tell the truth plain­ly and take the con­se­quences.”

“Who said any­thing about the 'Clar­ion's' hon­or? This is be­tween you and me.”

“You'll have to speak more plain­ly,” said Hal with a dawn­ing dread.

“Boy­ee, I hate to do this, but I've got to, to save the city. You gave me your word that the day you had to sup­press news for your own sake, you'd quit this Don Quixot­ic busi­ness and treat oth­ers as de­cent­ly and con­sid­er­ate­ly as you treat­ed your­self.”

“Go on,” said Hal, in a half whis­per.

“Well--Mil­ly Neal.” Dr. Sur­taine wet his lips ner­vous­ly. “You saved your­self there by keep­ing the sto­ry out of the pa­pers. Of course you were right. You were dead right. You'd have been a fool to do any­thing else. But there you are. And there's your promise.”

A nau­sea of the soul sick­ened Hal. That his fa­ther, whom he had so loved and hon­ored, should make of the loy­al­ty which had, at the cost of prin­ci­ple, pro­tect­ed the name of Sur­taine against open dis­grace, a tool where­with to tear down his pro­fes­sion­al stan­dards--it was like some in­cred­ible and ma­lign jo­cos­ity of a dev­il­ish log­ic. Of what was go­ing on in the quack's mind he had no inkling. He could not know that his fa­ther saw in the sup­pres­sion of the sui­cide news, on­ly a nat­ural and suc­cess­ful ef­fort on the part of Hal to con­ceal his own guilt in Mil­ly's death. No more could Dr. Sur­taine com­pre­hend that it was the dread­ful re­spon­si­bil­ity of the Sur­taine quack­ery for which Hal had un­hesi­tant­ly sac­ri­ficed the de­clared prin­ci­ple of the “Clar­ion.” So they gazed dark­ly at each oth­er across the chasm, each see­ing his op­po­nent in the black­est col­ors.

“You hold me to that?” de­mand­ed Hal, half choked.

“I have to, Boy-​ee.”

To Dr. Sur­taine the is­sue which he had raised was but the dis­taste­ful means to a nec­es­sary end. To Hal it meant the fi­nal ca­pit­ula­tion to the forces against which he had been fight­ing since his first en­light­en­ment.

“I might as well sell the 'Clar­ion' now, and be done with it,” he de­clared bit­ter­ly.

“Non­sense! If you stuck to this fool­ish­ness you'd have to sell it or lose it. You'd be ru­ined, both in in­flu­ence and in mon­ey. How would you feel when Mac El­lis, and Wayne, and all the fel­lows that stuck by you found them­selves out of a job be­cause of your pig-​head­ed­ness? And what harm are you do­ing by drop­ping the sto­ry, any­way? We've got this thing beat­en, right now. It isn't spread­ing. It's drop­ping off. What'll the 'Clar­ion' look like when its great sen­sa­tion pe­ters out in­to thin air? But by that time the harm'll be done and the whole coun­try will think we're a plague-​strick­en city. Don't do all that dam­age and spoil ev­ery­thing just for a false delu­sion, Boy­ee.”

But Hal's mind was brood­ing on the fa­tal promise which he had so con­fi­dent­ly made his fa­ther. One way out there was.

“Since it's a ques­tion of my word to you,” he said, “I could still pub­lish the truth about Mil­ly Neal.”

“No. You couldn't do that, Boy­ee,” said his fa­ther in a tone, half sor­row­ful, half shamed.

“No. You're right. I couldn't--God help me!”

To pro­claim his own fa­ther a moral crim­inal in his own pa­per was the one test which Hal lacked the pow­er to meet. It was the world-​old con­flict be­tween loy­al­ty and prin­ci­ple--in which loy­al­ty so of­ten and so trag­ical­ly wins the first com­bat.

Af­ter all, Hal forced him­self to con­sid­er, he was not serv­ing his pub­lic ill by this par­tic­ular sac­ri­fice of prin­ci­ple. The of­fi­cial mor­tal­ity fig­ures helped him to per­suade him­self that the ty­phus was in­deed ebbing. For him­self, as the price of si­lence, there was easy sail­ing un­der the flag of lo­cal pa­tri­otism, and with ev­ery suc­cess in prospect. Yet it was with sunken eyes that he turned to the tempter.

“All right,” he said, with a half groan, “I give in. We won't print it.”

Dr. Sur­taine heaved a great sigh of re­lief. “That's horse sense!” he cried jovial­ly. “Now, you go ahead on those lines and you'll make the 'Clar­ion' the best-​pay­ing propo­si­tion in Wor­thing­ton. I'll drop a few hints where they'll do the most good, and you'll see the ad­ver­tis­ers break­ing their necks to come in. Jour­nal­ism is no dif­fer­ent from any oth­er busi­ness, Boy-​ee. Live and let live. Bear and for­bear. There's the rule for you. The trou­ble with you, Boy-​ee, has been that you've been try­ing to run a busi­ness on pink-​tea prin­ci­ples.”

“The trou­ble with me,” said his son bit­ter­ly, “is that I've been try­ing to re­form a city when I ought to have been re­form­ing my­self.”

“Oh, you're all right, Boy-​ee,” his af­fec­tion­ate and ad­mir­ing fa­ther re­as­sured him. “You're just find­ing your­self. As for this re­form--” And he was launched up­on the sec­ond mea­sure of the Pæan of Pol­icy when Hal cut him short by ring­ing a bell and or­der­ing the boy to send McGuire El­lis to him. El­lis came up from the city room.

“Kill the epi­dem­ic sto­ry, Mr. El­lis,” he or­dered.

Red pas­sion surged up in­to El­lis's face.

“Kill--” he be­gan, in a stran­gled voice.

“Kill it. You un­der­stand?” The as­so­ciate ed­itor's col­or re­ced­ed. He looked with slow con­tempt from fa­ther to son.

“Oh, yes, I un­der­stand,” he said. “Any oth­er or­ders to-​day?”

Hal made no re­ply. His fa­ther, di­vin­ing that this was no time for fur­ther speech, took his de­par­ture. McGuire El­lis went out with black de­spair at his heart, a sol­dier be­trayed by his cap­tain. And the pro­pri­etor of the “Clar­ion,” his feet now set in the path of suc­cess and prof­it, turned back to his work in sod­den dis­en­chant­ment, sigh­ing as youth alone sighs, and as youth sighs on­ly when it fore­goes the dream of ide­als which is its im­mor­tal birthright.