An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

questions.” And he gazed at Titus earnestly and

sympathetically. “How long has it been since you last saw

your daughter?”

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“Why, she left here last Tuesday morning to go back to

Lycurgus. She works down there for the Griffiths Collar &

Shirt Company. But——?”

“Now, one moment,” insisted the district attorney

determinedly, “I’ll explain all in a moment. She was up here

over the week-end, possibly. Is that it?”

“She was up here on a vacation for about a month,”

explained Titus, slowly and meticulously. “She wasn’t

feeling so very good and she came home to rest up a bit.

But she was all right when she left. You don’t mean to tell

me, Mr. Mason, that anything has gone wrong with her, do

you?” He lifted one long, brown hand to his chin and cheek

in a gesture of nervous inquiry. “If I thought there was

anything like that——?” He ran his hand through his

thinning gray hair.

“Have you had any word from her since she left here?”

Mason went on quietly, determined to extract as much

practical information as possible before the great blow fell.

“Any information that she was going anywhere but back

there?”

“No, sir, we haven’t. She’s not hurt in any way, is she?

She’s not done anything that’s got her into trouble? But, no,

that couldn’t be. But your questions! The way you talk.” He

was now trembling slightly, the hand that sought his thin,

pale lips, visibly and aimlessly playing about his mouth. But

instead of answering, the district attorney drew from his

pocket the letter of Roberta to her mother, and displaying

only the handwriting on the envelope, asked: “Is that the

handwriting of your daughter?”

“Yes, sir, that’s her handwriting,” replied Titus, his voice

rising slightly. “But what is this, Mr. District Attorney? How

do you come to have that? What’s in there?” He clinched

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his hands in a nervous way, for in Mason’s eyes he now

clearly foresaw tragedy in some form. “What is this—this—

what has she written in that letter? You must tell me—if

anything has happened to my girl!” He began to look

excitedly about as though it were his intention to return to

the house for aid—to communicate to his wife the dread

that was coming upon him—while Mason, seeing the agony

into which he had plunged him, at once seized him firmly

and yet kindly by the arms and began:

“Mr. Alden, this is one of those dark times in the lives of

some of us when all the courage we have is most needed. I

hesitate to tell you because I am a man who has seen

something of life and I know how you will suffer.”

“She is hurt. She is dead, maybe,” exclaimed Titus, almost

shrilly, the pupils of his eyes dilating.

Orville Mason nodded.

“Roberta! My first born! My God! Our Heavenly Father!” His

body crumpled as though from a blow and he leaned to

steady himself against an adjacent tree. “But how? Where?

In the factory by a machine? Oh, dear God!” He turned as

though to go to his wife, while the strong, scar-nosed district

attorney sought to detain him.

“One moment, Mr. Alden, one moment. You must not go to

your wife yet. I know this is very hard, terrible, but let me

explain. Not in Lycurgus. Not by any machine. No! No—

drowned! In Big Bittern. She was up there on an outing on

Thursday, do you understand? Do you hear? Thursday.

She was drowned in Big Bittern on Thursday in a boat. It

over-turned.

The excited gestures and words of Titus at this point so

disturbed the district attorney that he found himself unable

to explain as calmly as he would have liked the process by

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which even an assumed accidental drowning had come

about. From the moment the word death in connection with

Roberta had been used by Mason, the mental state of

Alden was that of one not a little demented. After his first

demands he now began to vent a series of animal-like

groans as though the breath had been knocked from his

body. At the same time, he bent over, crumpled up as from

pain—then struck his hands together and threw them to his

temples.

“My Roberta dead! My daughter! Oh, no, no, Roberta! Oh,

my God! Not drowned! It can’t be. And her mother speaking

of her only an hour ago. This will be the death of her when

she hears it. It will kill me, too. Yes, it will. Oh, my poor,

dear, dear girl. My darling! I’m not strong enough to stand

anything like this, Mr. District Attorney.”

He leaned heavily and wearily upon Mason’s arms while the

latter sustained him as best he could. Then, after a

moment, he turned questioningly and erratically toward the

front door of the house at which he gazed as one might

who was wholly demented. “Who’s to tell her?” he

demanded. “How is any one to tell her?”

“But, Mr. Alden,” consoled Mason, “for your own sake, for

your wife’s sake, I must ask you now to calm yourself and

help me consider this matter as seriously as you would if it

were not your daughter. There is much more to this than I

have been able to tell you. But you must be calm. You must

allow me to explain. This is all very terrible and I sympathize

with you wholly. I know what it means. But there are some

dreadful and painful facts that you will have to know about.

Listen. Listen.”

And then, still holding Titus by the arm he proceeded to

explain as swiftly and forcefully as possible, the various

additional facts and suspicions in connection with the death

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of Roberta, finally giving him her letter to read; and winding

up with: “A crime! A crime, Mr. Alden! That’s what we think

over in Bridgeburg, or at least that’s what we’re afraid of—

plain murder, Mr. Alden, to use a hard, cold word in

connection with it.” He paused while Alden, struck by this—

the element of crime—gazed as one not quite able to

comprehend. And, as he gazed, Mason went on: “And as

much as I respect your feelings, still as the chief

representative of the law in my county, I felt it to be my

personal duty to come here to-day in order to find out

whether there is anything that you or your wife or any of

your family know about this Clifford Golden, or Carl

Graham, or whoever he is who lured your daughter to that

lonely lake up there. And while I know that the blackest of

suffering is yours right now, Mr. Alden, I maintain that it

should be your wish, as well as your duty, to do whatever

you can to help us clear up this matter. This letter here

seems to indicate that your wife at least knows something

concerning this individual—his name, anyhow.” And he

tapped the letter significantly and urgently.

The moment the suggested element of violence and wrong

against his daughter had been injected into this bitter loss,

there was sufficient animal instinct, as well as curiosity,

resentment and love of the chase inherent in Titus to cause

him to recover his balance sufficiently to give silent and

solemn ear to what the district attorney was saying. His

daughter not only drowned, but murdered, and that by

some youth who according to this letter she was intending

to marry! And he, her father, not even aware of his

existence! Strange that his wife should know and he not.

And that Roberta should not want him to know.

And at once, born for the most part of religion, convention

and a general rural suspicion of all urban life and the

mystery and involuteness of its ungodly ways, there sprang

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into his mind the thought of a city seducer and betrayer—

some youth of means, probably, whom Roberta had met

since going to Lycurgus and who had been able to seduce

her by a promise of marriage which he was not willing to

fulfill. And forthwith there flared up in his mind a terrible and

quite uncontrollable desire for revenge upon any one who

could plot so horrible a crime as this against his daughter.

The scoundrel! The raper! The murderer!

Here he and his wife had been thinking that Roberta was

quietly and earnestly and happily pursuing her hard, honest

way in Lycurgus in order to help them and herself. And from

Thursday afternoon until Friday her body had lain beneath

the waters of that lake. And they asleep in their comfortable

beds, or walking about, totally unaware of her dread state.

And now her body in a strange room or morgue

somewhere, unseen and unattended by any of all those

who loved her so—and to-morrow to be removed by cold,