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The mansion is as brilliant with gas as on the evening Esther Wandrell put her hands in David Lockwin's and listened rapturously to his praise of the beautiful child. Is that a shadow skulking about this corner! Probably it is some night policeman employed by the widow. Certainly it is a faithful watch the figure keeps on the great house where the decorators toil.
It is the seven thousand dollars that gives him this lion-like courage. Esther needs him. He has come. The door opens. A pleasant-faced lady appears. "Call Mrs. Lockwin, please." "Mrs. Lockwin? Oh, yes. I believe she did live here. I do not know where she lives now, but it is on Prairie avenue. After her father died she went home to live." Is Judge Wandrell dead?
"Your friend, H. M. H. Wandrell," answers the same man. It is easy for David Lockwin to answer to the name of Robert Chalmers. He has found it totally impossible to become Robert Chalmers in fact. He is David Lockwin, disinherited a picture of the prodigal son -but David Lockwin in every bone and muscle no one else. Esther Lockwin has refused to know David Lockwin.
"He is naturally an unhappy man," she says, "but Davy and I are making him happier." "Of all the men I have ever known," says one of the guests to his wife, as they walk the few steps they must take, "I think David Lockwin is the most blessed. All that money could do was dedicated to his education. He is a brilliant man naturally. He has married Esther Wandrell.
That is what this party is for. I've seen them together, and I know what's in the air." "Is that so?" says David Lockwin. "Yes, it is so, and you know you don't like Harpwood any too well since he got your primary in the Eleventh." "I should say I didn't!" says Lockwin, half to himself. At a distance, Esther Wandrell passes on Harpwood's arm. "Who is Harpwood?" asks Lockwin.
She does not love him, or she would have called to him as they passed. So thinks David Lockwin, for he cannot see himself except as he once was. People call him Chalmers when they address him, which is not more than once a day, but it is like the salutation to Judge Wandrell. He does not call himself "Judge" nor sign himself "Judge." "My dear judge," writes a friend.
As the goal is neared, this swift runner grows weary. The David Lockwin Annex never seemed so unpleasant before. It has taken longer to rearrange his linen and secure a faultless appearance than he would have believed. He hastens to don his overcoat. He smiles as he closes the door of his little bedroom at the hotel. He goes to take the vast Wandrell mansion. Why is his coachman so careless?
She too is terrified by the ordeal through which the child is passing. "Go to the head-quarters, David," she says. "You are needed. Pa says so. I will stay all day," "Oh, Mother Wandrell, what do you think?" "Here is your Dr. Floddin, ask him." The doctor speaks sadly. "He is much worse. What has happened?" "The fires went out," answers Lockwin. "Get some flaxseed at once. Get a stove in here.
"TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD. This sum of money will be paid for the recovery of the body of the Hon. David Lockwin, lost in Georgian Bay the morning of Oct. 17. When last seen the body was afloat in the yawl of the propeller Africa, off Cape Croker. For full particulars and suggestions, address H. M. H. Wandrell, Chicago, Ill." This advertisement may be seen everywhere.
In this coigne of vantage it turns out that David Lockwin eventually comes to know the family life at the mansion. The servants at the Wandrell home have long stood behind the prescription counter while their orders were in course of serving. The confinement of the business the eternal hours of vigil these matters feed the hungry love of the husband. "Without this I should have died," he vows.
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