Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 19, 1924 — page 143: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE CONFIDENCE MAN, He stood in the doorway, and the people who filled the room murmured, cried out, burst forth, as the realization of what had been accomplished dawned upon them, in @ great shout of praise and adoration. It was for Corvan. Men pounded the table, and women exclaimed ridiculous extrava- gant praise through sobs. Corvan had done this thing. Above all, the kind and generous things he had wrought; above all his heroism and self- sacrifice, this miracle rose supreme. He had taken the lowest thing among them and touched it with the radiant spirit of a Christ. They thundered their applause and wholesome gratitude. Many would have rushed forward and surrounded the boy, but Corvan, erect and commanding, held them back. “No! Be calm! not excite him!” At his words a great hush followed. It was the hush that follows thunder. The great peace which follows storm. And in that hush, that peace, with his eyes shining in love and gratitude, the boy walked for- ward—straight as a die, directly as a hom- ing bird, to Corvan. The room stood transfixed and bound as though by a potent spell, and watched the Jad’s movement. To the people of the vil- lage it was a simple allegory; the boy’s spirit was filled with light, and that light had come home! Corvan received the light to himself with fear and wistfulness. As he took the hand of Harold Trench and answered the smile with which the boy looked into his eyes, he was terribly conscious of the many faces turned toward them; of Queritt, who, stand- ing behind his chair, leaned forward to peer across the table with a compassionate knitting of his brows; of the Trenches and old Humphrey, who stood, bound motion- less, in the doorway; of Margaret, who was close to his side, enriched with a wealth of happiness that the future could not ravish; and of Maddox, who stood at his right elbow with tense face and a steely glitter in his eye. All these people bespoke in their glances one thing with one voice, that this miracle Be quiet! You must 613 was his—and he knew it was rot his. Only Wade, sitting like a graven image at the end of the table, surveyed the scene with no hint of what was in the mind behind his hard, grim countenance. Corvan looked long into the eyes of the boy, and then glanced quickly at Margaret. An instant glimpse of her uplifted him and took out of his heart the fear and shame that touched it, and gave him courage. This thing might not be his, but he had fought for it. On the side of the angels he had fought, and he had won. With that assurance from her, he could face and defy whatever fate hovered over him; what- ever evil was in that bulky figure which sat like an idol, watching him. With a hand on the boy’s shoulder, he shot a swift, unialtering message into the eyes of Wade, and then he spoke. ““ My friends!” he said. “ My friends.” Sifting his emotion for words, he raised his hand from Harold’s shoulder and let it fall again. There was flesh and blood beneath his touch, strong, virile youth. It was a symbol of the thing he had achieved: and yet that achievement was not the praise- worthy thing for which ‘they gave him honor. He told them this, and they an- swered him with troubled eyes, not under- standing him. “The achievement—the thing I have fought for has been for myself,” he said. *“ Even this lad whom you have loved in his youth with pity, but who has come back to claim admiration and respect; even the action which has made him whole was only a means to an end intrinsically selfish. ‘Margaret Fiske inspired that action, and Lionel Humphrey has paid for it. My part was a move in a battle I have fought. “Only this much I can say to you now: That when a man turns his back on the road which has been his life and resolves to clamber to heights which that road cannot reach, he has a fight before him. You can’t erase black deeds; you must vanquish them, and the risk of your life is a small part of the battle. “You have given me a great deal of credit which I don’t deserve for the things I have done. But your words have been welcome to me. You have spoken to me of Eomichdooks:. co