The house, a three-story red-brick residence, was on Walnut Street, near Beacon. Its narrow front faced the state Capitol with its gold-sheeted dome; from its stoop one could look down on the Common and, from the corner of the street, see the Public Gardens. It was a Sunday morning and the Browne family were at breakfast in the dining-room in the rear of the first floor, just back of the drawing-room. The two rooms were separated by folding-doors painted white, as was the wainscoting of the dining-room. There was a wide bay window at the end, the sashes of which were up, and the spring air and sunshine came in, feeding the plants which stood in pots on the sill.
William Browne, the head of the family, a banker of middle age, slender, sallow of complexion, partially bald, and of a nervous temperament, his mustache and hair touched with gray, sat reading the Transcript of the evening before.
Opposite to him sat his wife, Celeste, a delicate woman somewhat under thirty years of age. She had once been beautiful, and might still be considered so, for her face was a rare one. Her eyes were deeply blue, and now ringed with dark circles which added to the beauty of her olive skin. The hand filling her husband's coffee-cup was thin, tapering, and almost as small as a child's. Her lips had a drawn, sensitive expression when she spoke as he lowered his paper to take the coffee she was holding out to him.
You have not told me how your business is, she said.
Why do you want to know? His irritation was obvious, though he was trying to hide it, as he dropped his paper at his side and all but glared at her over his cup.
I think I ought to know such things, she answered. "Besides I worry considerably when—when I think you are upset over financial matters."
Upset? He stared, it seemed almost fearfully, at her, and then began to eat the brown bread and fish-cakes on his plate. "Why do you think that I am upset?"
I can always tell, she faltered. "When you are disturbed over business you don't notice Ruth when you come in. You almost pushed her from your lap last night when she went to you in the library. It hurt the little thing's feelings. She did not know what to make of it."
A position like mine is full of responsibility, he said, doggedly. "Hundreds of things go wrong. Mistakes are made sometimes. We are handling other people's money. The directors are harsh, puritanical men, and they are very hard to please. They want me to do it all, and they think I am infallible, or ought to be."
You didn't sleep well last night, Celeste continued, still timidly. "I heard you walking to and fro. I smelled your cigars. I couldn't sleep, for it seemed to me that you were unusually disturbed. You may not remember it, but you ate scarcely anything at supper, and, although I asked you several questions, you did not hear me."
He bolted the mouthful of bread he had broken off. His eyes flashed desperately. "Oh, I can't go into all the details of our ups and downs!" he blurted out, shrugging his shoulders with impatience. "When I leave the bank I try to shut them in behind me. If I go over them with you it is like living through them again."
Then—then it is not your brother this time, Celeste ventured. "I thought perhaps the directors had spoken of his conduct again."
Oh no. On my account they allow him to go and come as he likes. When he is not drinking he does splendid work—as much, often, as two men. The directors know he is worth his pay even as it is. Sometimes he gets behind with his work, but soon catches up again. In fact, they all seem to like him. They think he can't help it. It is hereditary, you know. Both of his grandfathers were like that.
You knew that he was drinking yesterday, did you? Celeste inquired, with concern in her voice and glance.
Oh yes. He wasn't at his desk at all. I heard him come in and go to his room about three this morning. I knew by his clatter on the stairs that it was all he could do to get along. I think he came home in a cab; I heard wheels.
Yes, he came in a cab, Celeste said. "Some friend brought him. I was awake. I heard them saying good night to each other. So it was not that that worried you?"
William shrugged his shoulders. "I have given him up," he said. "I almost envy him, though—he has so little to worry about."
How can you say such things? his wife demanded. "I shall never give him up. He has such a great heart. He is absolutely unselfish. He has given away a great deal of money to people who needed it. You know that he helped Michael send funds to his mother in New York last month. Michael worships him—actually worships him."
Browne took up his paper again. It was plain that he had dismissed his younger brother from his mind. At this moment the servant just mentioned, Michael Gilbreth, came to remove the plates. He was a stout, red-faced Irishman of middle age and wore the conventional, though threadbare, jacket of a family butler.
Have you inquired if Mr. Charles wants any breakfast? Mrs. Browne asked him, softly, as he bent beside her for the coffee-urn.
Yes, m'm, he said. "I was up just this minute. He wants coffee and eggs and toast. He said to say that he would not be down to breakfast."
Is he sober? Is he at himself? the banker asked, in a surly tone, from behind his paper.
For a bare instant the servant hesitated. His entire bent body seemed to resent the question. "Yes, sir, he is all right; a little sleepy, I think, but that is all. He'll be around later. He is a fine young man, sir; he has a big heart in 'im, sir. He is a friend to the poor as well as the rich."
A very poor one to himself, and us, Browne retorted, irritably. "But it can't be helped. He is done for. He will keep on till he is in the gutter or a madhouse."
Take the coffee and warm it again, Michael, Celeste said, a subtle stare of resentment in her eyes. "He was to go to church with Ruth and me, but say to him, please, that we are not going this morning."
Very well, madam, I'll tell him, though he will be ready to go, I'm sure. He always keeps his engagements. He intended to go, I know, for he had me get out his morning suit and brush it.
Tell him I have other things to do and won't have time to get ready this morning, Celeste said, firmly. "Remember to say that, Michael."
The butler had just left when a child's voice, a sweet, musical voice, came from the first landing of the stairs in the hall.
Mother, please let me come as I am. I have my bathrobe on, and my slippers. I have bathed my face and hands and brushed my hair.
Well, come on, darling—this time!
When will you stop that, I wonder? The banker frowned as he spoke. "What will she grow up like? What sort of manners will she have? You are her worst enemy. A habit like that ought not to fix itself on her, but it will, and it will foster others just as bad."
Leave her training to me, Celeste said, crisply. "You don't see her once a week. She is getting to be afraid of you. You are upset now by some business or other, and it is making you as surly as a bear."
Do you think so—do you really think that? He laid the paper down and gave her a steady, almost anxious look. "I don't want to get that way. I know that hard, mental work and worries do have a tendency to spoil men's moods."
Oh, it is all right, Celeste said, her eyes on the doorway through which her daughter, a golden-haired, brown-eyed child of five years, was approaching. She was very graceful, in the long pink robe—very dainty and pretty. She had her mother's slender hands and feet, the same sensitive lips and thoughtful brow. She ran into her mother's arms, was fondly, almost passionately embraced, and then she went to her father, timidly, half shrinkingly kissed his lowered cheek, and then pushed a chair close to her mother's side.
Shall I have coffee this morning? she whispered.
Yes, but not strong, dear. Celeste's lips formed the words as they played over the brow of the child. "I must put a lot of milk in it."
Browne bent forward tentatively. It was as if the sight of his child had inspired him with a softer mood, as if her sunlight had vanquished some of the clouds about him. He smiled for the first time that morning.
Don't you think you could have dressed before you came down? he gently chided the child, reaching out and putting his hand on her head caressingly. "Naughty, careless little girls act as you are doing."
I didn't have time, the child said, leaning against her mother's shoulder and causing his hand to fall from her head. "If I had dressed, both of you would have been gone from the table before I got ready, and I don't like to eat alone; besides, Uncle Charles was talking to me."
Talking to you? Where? Celeste asked, surprised.
In my room. What is the matter with him, mother?
Matter? Why do you ask that? Celeste inquired, her face grave, her voice sinking low.
Because, mother, he acts so strangely. He came in while I was asleep. I don't know how long he was there. When I waked up he was seated on the foot of my bed. He didn't see me looking at him, for he had his hands over his face, pushing his fingers into his eyes, this way. The little girl put her hands to her face, the wide sleeves of her robe falling down to her shoulders and baring her beautiful dimpled arms. "He was talking to himself in the strangest way, almost ready to cry. 'I'd like to be a child!' I heard him say that, mother—I'm sure I heard him say that. I closed my eyes, for I didn't know what to do. Then I think—I think he must have been praying or something. He bent down a minute, and then sat up. I could feel him moving and I heard him groaning. Presently he was still and I peeped at him. He was looking at me with tears in his eyes, mother—great big tears. They came on his cheeks and fell down on his hands. He saw that I was awake, and put his hand on my head and brushed back my hair. Oh, I was so sorry for him, and I don't know why! He kissed me. He took me in his lap and hugged me, holding my face to his. Then he put me back, and I heard him say: 'I have no right to touch her. She is pure, and I am'—he said some word that I do not know. He got my robe and slippers and helped me put them on, awfully sweet and nice, mother. Then I told him I was going down to breakfast. I offered to kiss him, and at first he wouldn't let me. He stood shaking his head and looking so sad and strange. 'You ought not to kiss me, if you are my little niece,' he said. 'I am not a good uncle, Ruth. You will be ashamed to own me when you are a young lady and go to balls and parties. People will not mention me to you. But I will go away and never come back. Mother, is he going off? I hugged him and begged him not to leave, and he began to cry again. He was trying not to, and he shook all over. Presently he said he might not go away if I wanted him to stay. Oh, mother, what is the matter with him? What is the matter with you? Why, you are crying, too! Don't, mother, don't!"
Celeste, her handkerchief to her eyes, had turned her face aside.
Oh, why do you do this? Browne asked, impatiently. "Don't you see how emotional the child is? All this can't be good for her. Charles ought to be kicked, the rascal! Why doesn't he keep his remorse to himself? He is like this after every spree, and he will do it all over again."
Celeste, as if regretting her show of emotion, wiped her eyes, straightened up, and forced a smile. "You must eat an egg this morning, darling," she said to her daughter. "Don't worry about your uncle. He is not very well, but he will be all right soon."
And he won't go away? Ruth asked, anxiously.
No, he won't go away, dear, Celeste said. "We'll keep him. You must love him and be kind to him."
With a tray holding the breakfast of the other member of the family, Michael ascended the stairs, the heavy carpet muffling his steps. In a room at the end of the house, on the second floor, he found the younger brother of his master nervously walking to and fro across the room. He was tall, strongly built, and had a well-shaped head. He was clean-shaven, blue-eyed, and had a fine shock of brown hair through which he was constantly pushing his splaying fingers.
Come in, come in! Thank you, Mike! he said, drawing his long gray robe about him and retying the silken cord at the waist. "I can't eat a bite, but I want the coffee. Wait; I'll clear the table."
He made an effort to move some books from the small table, but he fumbled them and they slid from his trembling hands to the floor, where he let them lie in a heap. The servant heard him sigh dejectedly and then he said:
I'm all in, Mike; I'm done for.
Oh no, sir! Michael said, with emotion, as he put the tray on the table and proceeded to gather up the books. "You feel bad, I know, sir, but it will wear off by to-morrow."
A low groan escaped the young man's lips. "No, it is too late now, Mike. Give me a cup of coffee, please—strong and hot. Oh, Mike, you can't imagine how I feel. Mike, I am at the end of my rope. I am the greatest failure in Boston. My old college friends shun me. Ladies I used to know drop their eyes when I pass, as if they are afraid of me. The other day I insulted one by staring in her face, not conscious of what I was doing. Her brother resented it yesterday in a café before several people. He struck me—I struck him. We went to the police court. I was fined, and scolded like a dirty street loafer."
Here is your coffee, sir, Michael said, sympathetically. "Drink it right down, sir. You are nervous again."
Charles obeyed, as a child might. "Thank you. You are too good to me, Mike," he said, returning the empty cup and beginning to stride back and forth again. The butler was about to leave, but he stopped him. "Don't go yet," he pleaded. "Oh, I must talk to somebody—I must get it out. It is killing me. I've been awake here since three o'clock. I can't sleep. Yesterday they turned me out of my club. I'm no longer a member. I am the only man who has ever been expelled. I've been a gambler, Mike. I've been everything except dishonest. I'm rotten. I don't blame the club. I deserved it long ago. I ought to have had the common decency to send in my resignation."
You need money, I'm sure, Michael broke in, "and I owe you five hundred dollars. I've been hoping—"
Don't mention that, Charles broke in. "I'm glad I lent it to you. If I'd had it it would have been thrown away, and, as it was, it helped your mother, you say. No, no, never bring it up again. Let it go."
I'll never let it go, the servant gulped. "I'll pay that debt if I work my fingers to the bone to do it. Everybody else refused to let me have it; even your brother didn't have it to spare. My oldest and best friends turned me down."
Cut it out! cut it out! Charles frowned. "Give me another cup of coffee. Yes, I thought it all out here this morning, Mike. I am imposing on William. They keep me at the bank only on his account. He used to protest against the way I am acting, but he has given me up—actually given me up."
I've heard him say you did a lot of work, objected the servant. "Don't underrate yourself. It isn't right."
Oh yes! I work when I am at it, Charles admitted. "Remorse is a great force at times, but it is the other thing, Mike. The damnable habit gets hold of me. For hours, days, and weeks I fight against it. I've even prayed for release, but to no purpose. Last night I was consorting with the lowest of the low. I had the money and they had the rags, the dirt, and the thirst. A friend found me and brought me home, or God only knows where I would have been by this time. They say it is in my blood; two grandfathers fell under it—one killed himself. Yes, I've decided—at last I've decided."
Decided what, sir? anxiously questioned Michael, as he took the empty cup and placed it on the tray.
I've decided to be man enough to leave Boston forever. I shall not inflict myself longer on William and his wife and that angel child. Listen to me, Mike. There is such a thing as a conscience, and at times it burns in a man like the fires of hell itself. Do you know—you must know it, though—I practically killed my mother? She used to spend night after night awake on my account. Worry over me actually broke her down. She was always awake when I was out like I was last night. Mike, I was drunk the day she was buried—too drunk to go to the service. Yes, I am going to leave Boston before I am discharged from the bank, and I shall go away never to return. I want to—to blot my name from the memories of all living men. I am a drunkard and I may as well live like one. I am a disgrace to every one of my family. Uncle James, when he was here last, told me that he had cut me out of his will and was praying for my death. Great God! I was drinking at the time and I told him I didn't want his money, and I don't, Mike, for I am unworthy of it. He is a harsh old Puritan, but he is nearer right than I am or ever can be. Yes, don't be surprised if you miss me some day. This cannot go on.
Surely—surely you can't be in earnest, sir—
Oh yes, I am. Mike, do you believe in dreams—in visions, or anything of that sort?
I think I do, sir—to some extent, at least. Have I never told you? Well, when I was trying to get the money for my mother, and was so miserable about it, I went to bed one night and prayed to the Lord to help me, and do you know, sir, I dreamed that a young girl all dressed in pure white, and shining all over with light, came and handed me the money. And it seemed to come true, for you gave me the money at breakfast the very next morning. Do you have dreams, sir?
Always, always, Mike. I am always dreaming that I am alone among strangers, away from kindred and friends, but always happy and care-free. I can't describe the feeling; it is wonderful! I know what I want to say, but I can't express it. Say, Mike, William is a good old chap. You may not believe it, but I love him. He has other troubles besides me. I don't know what they are—financial, I think. He never speaks to me of his ventures. In fact, I think he tries to keep me from knowing about them. I find him at the bank late in the night, sometimes. Yes, he is all right, Mike. I would have been kicked out of my job long ago but for him. Yes, Mike, I'll turn up missing one of these days. I've had enough.
You'll feel differently by to-morrow, sir, the servant said, gently. "You are nervous and upset now, as you always are after—"
After making a hog of myself, Charles said. "No, I'll not feel better, Mike. It is my very soul that is disgusted. I know that I'll never change, and I shall not inflict myself on my family any longer. Don't speak of this, Mike—it is just between you and me. Oh, they will be glad that I've left! Ruth will miss me for a little while, maybe, for the child seems to love me, but children soon forget, and I don't want her to grow up and know me as I really am. If I stay she will hear about me and blush with shame. Think of what a crime that would be, Mike—killing the ideals of a sweet, innocent child. Yes, I'm going, old man. It will be best all around. I'll be dead to everybody that has ever known me. I've lacked manhood up till now, Mike, but I'll use all I have left in trying to make restitution. Obliteration—annihilation! that is the idea, and somehow a soothing one."
The kind-hearted servant was deeply moved and he turned his face toward the open window, through which the cries of the newsboys came from the streets below.
Anything I can do for you before I go down? he asked.
Nothing, thank you, was the answer. "I shall stay here all day, Mike. I don't want to show myself in town. The news of my expulsion from the club will be known everywhere. I don't want to look in the faces of my old friends. Some of them have tried to save me. This will be the last straw. They will give me up now—yes, they will be bound to."
You will be all right by to-morrow, sir, Michael said, huskily. "Lie down and sleep. You need it. You are shaking all over."
When the servant had left the room, closing the door behind him, Charles began to walk to and fro again. Presently he paused before the old mahogany bureau and stood hesitating for a moment. "I must—I must," he said. And opening a drawer, he took out a flask of whisky and, filling a glass, he drank. Then holding the flask between him and the light, he muttered, "Oh, you yellow demon of hell, see what you have done for one spineless creature!"
Restoring the flask to the drawer, he sat down in an easy-chair, put his hands over his face and remained still for a long time.
He threw himself on his bed. He was lying with his dull stare on the white ceiling when he heard the voices of his sister-in-law and her child in the hall below. The front door opened. They were going out—out into the open air with free consciences, he told himself, with a pang of fresh pain. He stifled a groan with the end of a pillow into which he had turned his face. Then he sat up to listen. It was a step on the stair—a step he had known from childhood. It was that of his brother William.
He is coming! He is coming up here, Charles muttered, aghast. "Well, it is his right. He waited till the others went out so that he can rave and storm to his heart's content. Yes, he is coming. He has heard about the club, and all the rest. This time he will kick me out. He has stood me long enough, in God's name."
Charles sat erect and adjusted his dressing-gown with nervous hands. The step was now near. The top of the flight of stairs was almost reached. Charles stood up as a gentle rap was sounded on the door.
Come in, he called out, his husky voice cracking in his parched throat. The door was slowly opened and William Browne, pale, haggard, and trembling nervously, entered.
Sit down, old man, Charles said, indicating a chair. "Sit down. I thought you'd come."
Thank you. The movement toward the chair conveyed an idea of almost helpless groping.
I am sorry I wasn't fit to come down, Charles faltered. "I don't show your house much respect, Billy, but at least I can hide myself when I have sense enough left."
The banker groaned as he sank into the chair and sat staring at the floor. His brother took another chair close to the table. He lowered his tangled head to the table and waited. But no further sound came from his companion.
Oh, I've hit him hard—I've hit him hard this time! Charles thought to himself. "He has lost all hope of me now. It is hard for him to say what he has to say, but he is going to say it. He looks like Uncle James now, with those grim lines about his mouth. Poor Billy! he deserves a better deal from me, for God knows he has been a good brother. No one else would have borne with me as he has all these years. But he has reached his limit. His endurance is ended. In the first place, I must leave the bank. Yes, that is first—then, then, yes, I must leave this house. He will say I have turned it into a hog-pen. He is calm. God! how calm he is! He is choosing his words. He has determined to speak gently. I can see that."
Lessie and Ruth have gone out, William presently said, without raising his eyes. "Michael said you were here, and I took this opportunity to—to—"
I know; I expected you, Charles heard his own voice as from a great distance, so faint was his utterance. He cleared his throat. "Yes, I knew you'd come. There was nothing else for you to do."
William's head rocked to and fro despondently.
I don't think you know why I've come, he said, grimly, and he raised his all but bloodshot eyes and fixed them on his brother's lowered head.
Oh yes, you have heard of this last debauch of mine, and the damnable acts that went with it—my expulsion from the club, the trial at the police court, along with other common loafers, and—
I hardly know whether I heard of them or not, William said, his stare now on his brother's face. "You speak of yourself. What about me? My God! Charlie, what about me?"
Oh, I know that you've gone the limit.
Gone the limit? Then you know, William broke in, his lower lip hanging helplessly from his gleaming teeth. "You know about me—but how could you know? It is my own private matter, and—"
I know that your patience is exhausted, Billy. I know that you are sensible enough to see that I am no fit occupant of your house. Your wife is a sensitive, delicate woman. Your child is—
Oh, that is what you think I mean! William broke in. "Great God! you think that I am worried about that! Listen to me, Charlie. You sit there accusing yourself, perhaps feeling that you have committed unpardonable sins, but look straight at me. As God is my judge, I'd be the happiest man alive if I could exchange places with you this morning. You have done this, and you have done that, but you have been honest—honest—honest—honest! I've seen you tried. I've seen you need money badly, but you have never touched a penny that was not your own. Charlie, I am a thief!"
Charles straightened up in his chair. He laid his slender hand with the long fingers and curving nails on the table and stared, as if bewildered by what he had heard.
I don't know what you mean, Billy, he said, slowly shaking his head. "You can't be in earnest."
But I am, the banker groaned. "I have wanted to tell you for a week past, and I would have done so if you hadn't begun to drink again. Do you remember when I came to your desk Friday afternoon? I wanted then to ask you into my office, but I saw you had been drinking, and I knew that you'd not understand. I've taken money from the vaults, Charlie. I'm short sixty thousand dollars, and there is no chance now to avoid detection."
It was as if the declaration had completely sobered the younger man. He rose to his feet, towering above the shrunken form in the chair.
You can't mean that seriously, he faltered, his drink-flushed face paling. "Oh, you can't, Billy!"
But I do. My transactions have been secret; through a broker in New York I bought copper on a margin. It kept going against me till all my funds and available collateral were used up. I was sure it would win. All hell told me it would win. I couldn't stand the disgrace of failure. It meant losing my position, too. I struggled with it all one night in the bank, and the next morning, when the time-lock opened the vaults, I took the money and, with it in my pocket, I went to New York and put it up.
You did? You did? My God! Billy, and lost it!
Within twenty-four hours. Charlie, you have been a drunkard, but your soul has remained clean. But I'm lost—I'm lost. I'll be sent to jail. My wife will shrink in shame from the public gaze. My child will grow up to see that I have set her, by my own act, into a despised class. Great God! that little trusting thing will have to bear my just punishment! So—so you thought I'd come here to reproach you, eh? You say you have been turned out of a club. I am being turned into a prison. Charlie, I was a coward when I took that money. I am a coward now, and I cannot face this thing. You must not object to what I have to do. It is dishonorable, but it is more honorable than the other.
You don't mean—you can't mean—
There is nothing else to do, Charlie. Don't you see that in this way it will be all over at once? Think of the arrest, the long trial, the certain conviction, the parting, the stripes, the clipped hair! No, no, you must not oppose me. Ruth will forget me then, but, alive and in jail, I'd be a canker on her young soul. Lessie could marry again. God knows I'd want her to do so. Yes, it is the only way out, Charlie.
The drunkard seemed a drunkard no longer. He might have been an impassioned young priest full of a holy desire to comfort as he stood before the wilted man and clasped his hands. He knelt at his brother's knees, he caught the tense fingers in his.
You shall not kill yourself! he cried. "God will show you a way to avoid it. I feel it within me. There must be a way—there must!"
There is no other way! William groaned. "I've thought of everything under heaven till I'm crazed with it all." He stood up. He put his limp arm about the shoulders of his brother.
Will it be known at once? Do the directors suspect? Charles asked.
Not yet, but you know the bank examiner will be here Thursday. It can't be kept from him. If I were unmolested for three months I could replace the money. I'm sure more than that amount will come out of the Western mining lands I hold. The sale is made, and only a legal technicality holds back the final settlement.
Ah, then if you confessed the truth to the directors, and promised to replace the money, would they—
They would send me to jail, just the same, William answered. "They are that sort, every man of them. In their eyes a man who will steal once will steal again, and they may be right—they may be right."
Nevertheless, you must not think of—the—the other thing, Billy. For God's sake, don't! Charles pleaded.
What else can I do? William swayed in his brother's embrace and turned toward the door. Charles released him, and stood speechless in sheer helplessness as his brother stalked to the door, opened it, and went slowly down the stairs.
Left alone, the younger man turned to a window and stood staring blankly out into the sunshine. Presently he went to the bureau, opened a drawer, and took out the flask of whisky. Taking a glass, he poured some of the fluid out and then stood staring at it in surprise. A strange thing had happened. It was like a miracle, and yet psychologists have said that it belongs to the regular order of nature. Charles was conscious of no desire for the drink before him; in fact, he was averse to it. He was under the sway of a high spiritual emotion, which the thing in his hand seemed vaguely to oppose. He marveled over the change in himself as he held the glass up to the light.
I'm asking poor Billy to be a man, he said, "while I am less than one myself. Strange! strange!" he muttered, wonderingly, "but I feel as if I shall never drink again—never, never!" With a hand that was quite steady he took the glass to the window and emptied its contents on the grass in the little plot below. Then he began to shave himself, and after that was done he dressed himself carefully.
The church-bells were ringing.
Oh, I must save him—I must save them all! he kept saying. "Something must be done. But what?"
It was Wednesday night. William Browne had not come home to dinner. Charles looked into the dining-room. Celeste and Ruth were in their places at the table.
William telephoned that he could not come up, Celeste said, as he sat down. "He says he has work to do at the bank to-night."
Yes. I'm going back myself at once, Charles answered. "In fact, I am not a bit hungry. I had something late this afternoon—sandwiches and tea. If you will excuse me, I won't stay."
As he rose, Celeste lifted an odd stare to his face, but simply nodded as he was leaving the room.
Don't go, Uncle Charlie, the child protested. "Stay for your dinner."
No, I must go. He came back, bent over her chair, and kissed her on the cheek, and then hurried away.
It was eight o'clock when he reached the bank. The outer doors were closed, but a dim light could be seen through a plate-glass window in front. Softly inserting his key, he turned the bolt and entered.
My God! he may not be here, after all! Charles thought, as he shut the door noiselessly. Then he saw a light in the direction of his brother's private office and went toward it, now more hopefully. He was near the office door when he heard a sound like the hurried closing of a desk drawer.
Who is that? a startled voice called out.
It is I, Billy. May I come in?
There was no reply, and Charles pushed the door open. The banker sat at his desk in the glare of a green-shaded electric lamp. His face was ghastly pale, and rendered more so by the greenish light that fell upon it.
What did you come for? he asked, almost doggedly, and yet without a trace of impatience or anger.
Because you didn't come to dinner, and because—
Because you are still watching me. Say it and be done with it, broke in William, in a tone which was scarcely audible as it rose from his husky throat.
Yes, Billy. That's it. You have scarcely been out of my sight since Sunday morning. The examiner will be here to-morrow. I know how you feel about that, you see. You told me what you wanted to do. I have seen the thought in your eyes often since then. But it shall not be so, Billy. I love you. You are the only one in the world whom I do love very much. You shall not kill yourself, Billy.
William lowered his head. His chin rested on his chest. "There is nothing else to do," he groaned. "I cannot face this thing. They say men are always insane who do such things, but it is not so. I am mentally sound. I see all that lies ahead of me—everything, even the thoughts that will spring to life in the minds of my wife and child. Go away and leave me, Charlie. I want to be alone."
What did you put into that drawer just as I entered? Charles asked, leaning forward.
Never mind, William said. "Go away."
I want to know what it was, Charlie protested. He reached down and caught the handle of the drawer.
William made a slight movement as if to stop him, but desisted, uttering a low groan as he did so. Charles opened the drawer. A long revolver lay on the papers within. He took it out, and shuddered as he held it behind him.
You are not going to shoot yourself, Billy, he said, firmly. "I am not going to permit it."
William made no reply, and with the revolver in his hand, Charles went into the adjoining counting-room and turned on the light at his own desk. For twenty minutes he sat resting his head on his hand, his elbow on the desk, the weapon before him. Presently his eyes began to glow, his face was flushed, his pulse was throbbing. "I have it," he said. "I have it."
Laying the revolver on the desk, he turned back to his brother's office. William sat as he had left him, his limp hands on the arms of his chair, his disheveled head lowered.
Listen, Billy, listen! Charles began. "I want to tell you something about myself first, and then about you. You must listen. It is important. It is your chance, and a splendid one."
My chance? echoed the banker. "What chance?"
Billy, I am down and out. I've lost all my friends and social standing. I don't want to remain here longer. I want to go away off somewhere among strangers and begin life over again.
Well, well, why tell me about it when you see that I—
Because it concerns you, Billy. Listen, it is both your chance and mine. I want to live a decent, sober life, and you say if you could stave this thing off for a few months you could replace the missing money.
I could, but—
Then it will be done, and I'll tell you how. It is very simple. I am just now the talk of the town on account of the life I have been leading. People will not be surprised at anything reported of me, the directors least of all. You know they would have discharged me long ago but for your relation to me.
I don't understand. I can't see what you are driving at, William stared with his bloodshot eyes. "You say you see a way. For God's sake, for God's sake—"
Yes, but you are not listening. I am coming to it. I am going away to-night, Billy. I'm going away never to return. I am going out of your life as completely as if I'd never been in it. I'll never write back. You will never know whether I'm dead or alive.
You are going away? Why are you going? I thought of it myself, but I couldn't stand it. No, there is no other way than to end it all.
Don't you see what I mean, Billy? It is known that I have access to the vaults during business hours, and when I turn up missing to-morrow the examiner will logically couple me and my bad record with the money that is gone. Now you understand.
With his hands on the arms of his revolving-chair the banker drew himself to his feet. A wild look of hope was in his eyes and on his ghastly face. He groped his way to his brother, his hands outstretched as if to prevent himself from falling.
You—you can't mean it, Charlie! he said in his throat. "And if you do mean it I can't let you—I can't, I can't!"
You must, because I wish it. I want to be of some use to you and to Lessie and the baby. Oh, I owe you a lot—a lot! Think how you have borne with me—how I have disgraced you.
I can't let you—I can't, William cried, and yet he was panting with a vast new joy. His eyes bored into those of his brother. "What, let you do that? No, no. I could not permit it."
Billy, you see, I want to do it as much for myself as you. I want to be absolutely free from old associations. You can replace the money. You can claim that you are doing it, you see, because you were responsible for my staying on when I ought to have been discharged. It will all seem so—so plausible—so very natural.
Turning, his eyes on the floor, William stalked back to his desk. He drew his chair around. "My God! My God!" his brother heard him muttering as he lowered himself into it. Dropping his head to the desk, he was still for a moment. Charles went to him.
You have nothing to do with it. He touched his brother's bowed head. "I am going, whether you consent or not. I am going to-night. When I am missed in the morning that will tell the tale. You won't even have to explain. They will sympathize so much with you that they will not ask you many questions. Oh, it is all right now! You will have a chance to pay a just debt and I'll have a chance to make a new life for myself. They can't catch me, Billy. I know how to dodge the slickest detectives on my trail. The world is big and full of adventures. Do you know, Billy, I have always been haunted with the idea of freedom like this? Don't you worry. I'll be all right, whatever happens. And listen, Billy. I swear to you by the memory of our mother that I'll never tell a living soul of this agreement of ours. Never!"
William raised his head. He clasped his brother's hands and pressed them convulsively. "Oh," he gulped, "if I want to escape my just punishment, forgive me—forgive me, Charlie, for I am afraid of death. I have faced it for more than a week. It is an awful thing to think of all that it means, its effect on Lessie and the baby. Oh, Charlie, Charlie!" His lower lip was twisted by suppressed emotion. His eyes were filling with tears.
I am going. That is settled, Charles said, with feeling. "And there is no time to lose. I'll hurry home and pack a few things. There is a train for New York at midnight. I can hide there safely enough for a while. I know the ropes. Good-by, old chap."
William stood up. He clung to his brother's hands for a moment, then put his arms around him. "Good-by," he gulped. "I hate to let you do it, but I am a coward—not only a thief, but a weakling and a coward. You must have money. Wait. I'll—"
No, no, Billy. The other shook his head. "I sha'n't take a cent from the bank, under any consideration. You must begin anew as I am going to begin anew. You will owe to these men every cent you can get till that debt is paid. Besides, I have a little money and I shall not need much, for I am going to work for my living. I'll find something to do. It won't be an indoor job like this, for I am tired of it. I want to use my body instead of my brain. I want to tramp from place to place in the open sunlight and free air. I want to be a hobo. I want to put myself down on the level of the most unfortunate of men. I want to wring the poison of my past out of me. This chance seems a godsend to me. It will save Lessie and little Ruth from great sorrow and humiliation, and you from a desperate act. Life is a short thing, anyway, isn't it, Billy? Don't ever expect to hear from me again. In addition to the risk, it will be best for your state of mind. Think of me as dead."
William made a feeble effort to detain him, but he was gone. The banker heard him softly closing the big front door, and he sank back into his chair, tingling under a growing sense of vast relief. To be sure, he was losing his only brother, but he was retaining countless other things. He told himself that the plan was a marvelous one. Every flagrant act of his dissipated brother gave color to the implied charge against him, while his own high standing and the agreement of restitution he was to make would lift him above all possible suspicion.
Outside, the sky was clear. The stars were coming out. Their light was pale by contrast to the street-lamps. A cool breeze fanned Charles's hot face as he made his way with a step that was almost buoyant toward the Common. Some students on one of the walks were singing a college song he used to love in those gay days which now seemed so far away.
He was passing a little wine-room where he had been fond of going with certain friends, and almost by habit he paused and faced its lighted windows. Then he was conscious again of that strange experience which had immediately followed the tragic revelation his brother had made to him. He had no desire to drink. He laughed as he turned and strode onward across the street to the Common. Was there really such a thing as a new birth in which, under stress of some rare spiritual experience, a man was completely changed? It might really be so, he told himself, for nothing like this had ever come to him before. He was happy. Indeed, something like ecstasy had come upon him; it was in his very veins, hovering over him like indescribable light. He thought of William's dumb look of relief, and a joyous sob rose and hung in his throat. It was pain and yet it was not pain. How wonderfully beautiful the whole world seemed! There was really nothing out of order. Till a few minutes ago all was meaningless chaos and tragic despair, and yet now—now—he could not put it into words. He thought of the action of the club which had turned him out, and smiled. Why, the officials were merely puppets of convention, and he had been a naughty child. The police court! How funny the grave, fat judge looked as he delivered that fatherly lecture and imposed that fine! Oh, it was all in life, and life was a mosaic of rare beauty!
When he reached Beacon Street a night policeman was on the corner. Charles saluted him and gave him a cigar. "Fine night, fine night!" he said.
It is indeed, the man answered.
Charles found the house dark, save for the gas which was turned low in the hall. He let himself in softly, and ascended the thickly carpeted stairs to his room. Turning on the electric light, he looked about him. He must hurry.
Yes, I'll write a note and leave it here for William, he reflected. "It will help him explain to-morrow. He need only direct the examiner's attention to it, and they will understand, or think they understand."
He sat down at a little table, drew some paper toward him, and began to write.
My Dear Brother [ran the note],—When you get this I shall be gone. I need not explain. When the examiners get to the vaults they will see why I had to leave. I have been going from bad to worse, as every one knows. I have abused your confidence, love, and hospitality. You will never see me again. Sixty thousand dollars is a large amount, I know, but on my honor I am not taking all of it with me. Most of it is gone already. Good-by.
C.
He put the note into an envelope, sealed it, and directed it to his brother. He had just done so when he heard a soft step on the stairs leading down from the servants' rooms above. There was a rap on the door. He opened it. It was Michael.
I thought I heard you come in, Michael said, lamely. "I was about to go to bed, sir. But is there anything I can do for you to-night—a cup of something to drink—coffee or tea?"
Not to-night, Mike, Charles answered. "The truth is that I am off for Springfield—on a little business of my own. I must get away at once. I may have to stay there a short while—several days, in fact, and I want to pack a few things. Pull out my dress-suit case from the closet, will you, and dust it off. Then put in half a dozen shirts and underwear."
Your evening suit, sir?
No, oh no, not that, Charles smiled. "I'm not going into society on this trip. I'll get out what I need."
Taking the articles from a drawer of the bureau, Charles tossed them on the bed near the suitcase which the servant had brushed and opened. "Put them in, please, Mike. It will save time."
The suitcase was packed and locked. Charles suddenly observed that Mike was eying the addressed envelope curiously.
Oh, that note? the young man said, averting his eyes oddly. "That is for my brother. Will you hand it to him—not to-night, I mean—at the breakfast-table in the morning? Don't fail, Mike. It is rather important."
The servant took it up. He held it tentatively. He hesitated. "He does not know that you are going, sir?" he asked.
Charles stared straight at the floor. "This will tell him all that he need know, Mike."
Putting the note into his pocket, Michael stolidly faced his companion. "Of course it does not concern me," he faltered, "but somehow you talk and act like—?" He went no further.
Oh, you are afraid I'm off on another spree, eh? Charles laughed. "But I'm not, Mike. It is business, this time, and serious business at that."
The servant was not satisfied, as was evident from his unsettled glances here and there, now on the young man's face, again on the suitcase or the floor.
You may have forgotten it, sir, but only the other day you spoke of wanting to go away for a long stay, and the little unpleasantness at your club and the police court—
I see, I see, you don't forget things. You put two and two together, Charles interrupted. "What is that?"
It was a child's startled scream from Mrs. Browne's room, followed by the assuring tones of the mother.
It is Ruth, Michael explained. "She screams out like that now and then when she is dreaming."
I wish I could see the little thing, Charles seemed to be speaking to himself now. "They are a beautiful pair—that mother and child. Ah, and they have been sweet and good to me!"
Now, I am afraid, sir. Indeed, I am, Michael said, with feeling.
Afraid of what, Mike?
I am afraid it is not Springfield you are going to, sir.
Ah, you are suspicious! Charles said, in ill-assumed lightness.
I haven't known you from boyhood up for nothing, sir, Mike said, with emotion. "Ever since your talk Sunday I have been afraid you'd leave."
Well, then, what if I am going, Mike? The world is big and full of opportunities, and I am tired of this—I really am.
But why leave like this, sir? Mike demanded, gently. "Surely you won't go without telling your folks of it and saying good-by! Why, this note to your brother looks as if—as if—"
Well, I do want to slip away, Mike, and I'm going like a thief in the night. You will understand to-morrow. Everybody in Boston will. As for that, Mike, a drinking-man will do many things that he ought not to do, and—and I handle money at the bank. Don't push me further now. Let's drop it. I have to go, and that settles it.
Michael failed to understand, for he was thinking of something else. "You will need the money I owe you, sir, and I've been trying to get it up. I see a chance now, sir. My sister out West feels that she owes at least half of that debt to you, and her husband has been doing well. She wrote me—"
drop that, Mike, Charles cried. "I don't need that money. You shall never pay it—never. I've given that to your mother, do you understand, not to you, but to her?"
It shall not be that way, sir, the other pleaded. "I will send it to you. But as for your doing anything wrong at the bank"—Charles's statement was dawning on him slowly—"nobody on earth could make me think so."
Well, never mind about that, Mike. The fact is that I must go—now and at once. Let me out at the front door.
Do you want a cab, sir?
A cab? Charles smiled. "Not to-night. In fact, I am going through the darkest streets I can get into. I know every alley in this old town. Good-by, Mike. Deliver the note to my brother in the morning."
It was near midnight when he reached the station. He had met no one on the way whom he knew. He was tired and his arm ached from the weight of the bag, for he had taken a long, roundabout way to avoid being seen. Few persons were at the station, for it was not a popular train that he was to take. He bought his ticket at the little window, glad that the clerk was too busy to look up as he pushed the exact fare in to him. This done, he took up his bag and hastened for the train. He sought the smoking-car, feeling that he would be less conspicuous there than in the coaches set aside for the accommodation of women and children. He had the car almost to himself and was glad of the fact. Seated in one corner, he lighted a cigar. Somehow he was impatient for the train to move. He was not guilty of the crime he had shouldered, but he had a guilty man's fear of detection at that moment. He almost felt as if he and William were identical, for, after all, would not William's arrest and exposure have been quite as painful to him? The train did not start. He was becoming seriously alarmed now. He went to a window and looked out. An attendant with a lantern stood close by.
What is the delay? Charles asked.
Accident ahead, the man answered. "Train off the track ten miles away. The wrecking-train has gone on. They will have the road clear before long. May as well wait here as farther on."
Charles went back to his corner. Why was he nervous? he argued. What was there to fear, since the exposure would not be made till the following morning after the bank opened? Why, nothing—nothing at all. He puffed at his cigar. The only thing was to avoid being seen by any passing acquaintance; but his face was known to many of all classes and he must be careful. He pulled the brim of his cap down over his eyes; he raised the collar of his light overcoat above his ears, and crouched down as low as possible. The train still lingered. His watch told him that it was two o'clock. He stretched his legs out on the seat in front of him and tried to sleep. He was quite fatigued, and yet his brain was too active to permit it. He thought of little Ruth. Again he heard her startled cry and pictured the child as lying in his arms and being soothed back to sleep. A sob filled his throat. Was it possible that she was going out of his life forever? Was it possible that he was actually renouncing home and home ties and going out into a new world in which he would be absolutely unknown, a veritable babe of mature age born among strangers? A mood of deep dejection was on him and it seemed to thicken and become more depressing as the hours stretched along. Then terror filled him, for he had a facile imagination which reached out for the disagreeable as well as the pleasant. What if the train were not to go for hours? What if the dawn of day found him still in Boston? He sat up. He rose and went to the platform of the car. The brakeman with the lantern was chatting with a man at a trunk-truck several car-lengths away. He descended and sauntered up to them.
Any news? he asked the man with the light.
Yes. We will move soon, was the answer. "I see you are sticking to it. Most of the passengers went home, to take a morning train. You could take it yourself, if you are bound for New York, and get there almost as soon as by this train."
Oh, I'm here now and will go this way, Charles answered. He turned away, for he realized that he had made his first serious mistake in talking to the man about his destination. The fellow might remember it later. He might even give the information to the police when they got on his trail. If the train were delayed between Boston and New York a telegram might be sent on and he would be arrested upon his arrival. He shuddered—not for himself, but for his brother. How the news would stagger William! He would confess, then. He would tell it all rather than permit the punishment to fall where it was not merited. Poor haggard, nerve-torn William! He would kill himself, and the black tragedy would settle upon the old home. Charles went back to his seat in the corner. His brain was whirling and pounding like that of a madman capable of half reasoning. Another hour passed. It was three o'clock. A desperate idea flashed into his mind. What if he should leave the train and take to the country roads? Might he not escape arrest in that way? He was about to resort to it when he heard a shout outside:
All aboard! A bell on the locomotive rang. Steam was heard escaping. The cars began to jerk one against the other, then to move steadily and to pick up speed. He looked through the open window. Through a shower of fine cinders and wisps of steam and smoke he saw the street-lamps dancing past, whirling, waltzing to the roar and clatter of the cars. Soon they were left behind. Fields and country roads lay dimly visible in the darkness. He was now conscious of a feeling of boundless elation. It amounted almost to ecstasy. He chuckled. After all, his brother and the others would escape the thing William had dreaded. They would live in happiness, and why should not he manage to exist in the new life before him? There must be a God, and a God of love and pity and mercy; surely some one, something, was holding the black curtain of fate aside for both William and himself, that he might enter upon a further probation and have one more chance to make good.
The conductor was coming, his ticket-punch in hand.
What time shall you arrive in New York? Charles asked, as casually as was in his power.
About eight o'clock, the conductor answered, punching the ticket and handing it back. "That is the best we can do now."
Reclining on the two benches, Charles managed to fall asleep, and in spite of his worries he slept soundly. The gray morning light crept in at the open window and swept his dust-coated face, but still he did not wake. The light grew yellow and warm as the sun rose, but still he slept. He waked and sat up as the train was entering the suburbs of New York.
Safe—still safe! was his first thought, as he looked about him. The car was now half-full of passengers, many of them commuters going in to work. How fresh, clean, and contented they looked with their cigars and damp papers, and what a dismal tramp was he, at least in his own eyes! There was a little lavatory at the end of the car, and his first impulse was to go to it, wash the dust from his face and hands, and brush off his clothing; then it occurred to him that, as he was, he was less recognizable than otherwise, and he gave up the idea.
Slowly the long train clattered over the switches and crossings and pulled into the station at Forty-second Street. The vast roof cut off the direct rays of the sun and the forms and faces of the passengers became indistinct in the shadow. He followed the others down the packed aisle and joined the stream of passengers on the platform, all forging their way to the street. Covertly, as he hurried along, holding his bag in his right hand, he watched the crowd of bystanders to see if any one wore a police uniform. He was gratified to notice that the way seemed clear in that respect. And then he smiled at his imagined fears, for how could the police be on his track before the opening of the bank? No, no, he was safe so far, and he would soon be hidden from sight in the slums of the great city, for it was the slums that were to shelter him. There no one would look for a man of his type.
He was soon out in the crowded thoroughfare. Somehow it appealed to him to-day more than ever before. He walked along the street until he reached Fifth Avenue, and then he realized that he was not going in the direction he desired and turned back. He walked on till the buildings began to look more antiquated and shabby, and then he turned south. He pursued this direction till he had reached Twenty-eighth Street, and then turned east again. The surroundings were now decidedly squalid. The street was unclean and thronged. The houses were old three-story-and-basement residences, the ground floors of many having been turned into shops, the upper floors being rented as sleeping quarters at a very low rate as was shown by the soiled cards placed against the window-panes to catch the eye of passers-by.
Suddenly he became aware that he was hungry, and he looked about him for a place to break his fast, for he had eaten scarcely anything since noon the day before. Presently he descried a restaurant. It was located on the first floor immediately above a delicatessen shop. The street in front of it was unclean, ash-cans and garbage-pails flanking the crumbling brownstone steps to the entrance; and yet his aversion to these unsavory surroundings was conquered by his hunger and the security that such a place afforded him.
He went in and was surprised at the inviting appearance of the room. It was clean. The walls were snow white. White-clothed tables stood close together, some small, some long and narrow. He put down his bag and hung his hat and overcoat on an upright rack. The tables were nearly all filled with a motley assortment of human beings. The table near his bag had a single occupant, a young man of about his own age. Charles sat down opposite him. The fellow's face appealed to him vaguely, as reminding him of some countenance he had once seen and forgotten. It was a rather round face, blue-eyed, clean shaved, and crowned by light-brown curly hair.
A waitress in spotless apron and cap came to Charles. "You forgot to get your check," she said.
Check? What is that? he asked.
Oh, I'll get it for you, the girl said, hurriedly, and she went to the glass-inclosed desk by the door at which another girl sat.
The stranger across the table held up his own check and smiled. "It's like this," he explained. "You see the prices, from five cents up to one dollar, are printed on it. The girl who waits on you punches the amount you order, and that is what you pay as you turn the check over at the desk when you go out."
Oh, I see! Thank you! Charles liked the face more than ever. Its underlying humor and good nature at once soothed and attracted him. The waitress came back with the check, and with it brought a printed bill of fare which she gave to Charles. While he was looking it over she bent near the man across the table.
You can't keep this up, she said, gently. "It will kill you. I've been watching you for a week."
Oh, leave that to me, he answered, with a smile that Charles now saw was drawn and twisted by manly embarrassment. "I've been this way before and pulled through."
The waitress sighed. "I wish I could manage it," she said in an undertone, "but I can't. That woman at the desk is a cat. She has it in for me."
You don't think I'd let you do anything like that for me, I hope, he said, sensitively. "I appreciate it very much, but no working-girl shall lose through me."
Without replying she came around and bent over Charles. "Ready to order?" she asked.
Eggs and bacon and coffee with cream, he said. As he spoke he noticed that his table companion had apparently ordered nothing but the few slices of bread and butter which he was slowly eating. A goblet of water was all the man had to drink. Charles now understood the situation and he wanted to assist, but Boston men of his class are not as free with strangers as Western and Southern people, and he found himself unable tactfully to accomplish what he desired.
You are not quite on to the ropes, the stranger remarked, his eyes on the dress-suitcase which Charles had put down. "It was all new to me when I came here, but it doesn't take long to get the run of things. God knows it is simple enough if you have the money to do it with."
I suppose so, Charles responded. "I've just come in."
The waitress was bringing his breakfast. She placed it before him, handing him a paper napkin and leaving spoons and knife and fork. "Anything else?" she asked.
Nothing now, thank you, Charles answered.
Instead of going on to the next table at which a man and a woman with drink-flushed faces were seating themselves amid the soiled dishes left by others, she leaned again over the shoulder of the young man opposite Charles.
You must let me help, she whispered. "I know you are all right, and you will never get work if you are underfed. You see, I know because I've been there myself."
Please, please, don't mention it, the young man said, his face drawn and flushed with chagrin. "I assure you I am all right. That's a good girl—let it drop."
She said nothing, but moved on to the new arrivals and began to place the soiled things onto a tray preparatory to taking their order.
Do you intend to stop in the city awhile? the young man asked Charles.
I may, the Bostonian returned. "I am looking for a room in this neighborhood."
Oh, there are plenty of them, the other smiled, "but you don't always run across clean ones. I've tried several places and left. The house where I am now is clean and cheap, and I think there are plenty of vacancies. I have the landlady's card, if you care to look her up."
Thank you, I'd like to do so. Charles had the feeling that he would like to see more of the stranger, and living in the same house might afford him the opportunity. The young man took a card from his pocket, and as he got up he laid it before Charles. "I hope you will find a room you like," he said, wearily, as he reached up for his hat, which Charles noticed was dented and frayed on the edges of the brim. As he went out Charles watched him, and saw him push a five-cent piece across the desk to the cashier. He looked very thin and his step seemed uncertain, like that of a convalescent.
The waitress came back to Charles. "He is in bad shape," she sighed. "He has been coming here for two weeks and eating like that. He is silly. He won't take help from any one. He has been well brought up, I'll bet."
I wanted to help him, but I didn't see an opening for it, Charles said. "It was kind of you to offer it."
Oh, I'd break if I owned this joint, she laughed. "I see things like that every day. Our cook used to make pancakes in the window. It was pitiful to see the people stand watching him with their poor mouths open."
Her voice shook and she suddenly turned away. As he was leaving the restaurant a wonderful sense of peace and quiet was on him. Already his new life was full of attractive novelty. How could he account for it logically? He was a fugitive from law, without any income to provide for his needs; he had renounced every tie of blood and former associate; he was a man without a home, without a prop to lean upon, and yet an inexpressible content was his. Was it due to his disgust over his past life and the sense of having put it behind him, or was it on account of the sacrifice he had made for his brother? He could not have said.
Glancing at the card, he saw that the rooming-house was quite near, and he turned toward it.
The house was a red-brick building like all the others in the block. The steps were of the conventional brownstone with rusty iron railings. The front door over the basement entrance was open, and he rang a jangling bell, the handle of which was so loose in its socket that it was drawn almost out of place. While he waited he looked into the hall. It was clean, though the carpets on the floor and visible stairs were worn and the massive hat-rack of walnut leaned forward from the wall as if about to fall. The basement door was opened and a portly woman with a red face and tousled yellow hair climbed the stair to the sidewalk and approached him.
I understand you have rooms to rent, Charles said.
The woman eyed him curiously, evidently surprised at the elegance of his clothing and the politeness of his attitude, for he had taken off his hat in greeting her.
Top floor back, three a week; hallroom back, next to it, two, she answered, wiping her fat hands on a white apron. "Want to see 'em?"
If you please, Charles said.
No trouble. That's what I'm here for, she smiled pleasantly. She came up the steps and led him into the hall. "Three flights up," she explained. "Will you leave your bag? If you do I'll have to lock the door. Roomers can't leave overcoats or hats on the rack now. Thieves are as plentiful as mosquitoes in Jersey—some in the house, as for that. My folks keep their rooms locked."
I'll take the bag up with me, he said, feeling that, no matter what the rooms were like, he would take one.
The stairs were dark. A wire hanging down the shaft was attached to a bell at the top in order that it might be rung from the basement by the landlady as a signal to her few servants who might be working above when needed below. Immediately over the stairs in the roof was an oblong skylight of variegated glass through which the tinted rays of sunlight came. The woman pushed open the door of the larger room.
The girl hasn't had a chance to get at it yet, she apologized. "The bed hasn't been made up, and the man that is in it has left his things lying around. He is going away this afternoon. If you like the room I'll put his things out. He is unable to pay and I can't run my house on nothing."
Charles saw an open unpacked trunk of very cheap quality in the center of the room. The sight of the chamber in its disorder was decidedly unpleasant, and Charles did not enter it. "What is the other like?" he asked.
I'll show you, said the woman, and she opened the door of the adjoining room. It was very small, and it had only a single chair and one window with a torn shade and cheap cotton-lace curtains. The only place to hang clothing was the back of the door, into which hooks had been screwed. There was a tiny wash-stand with a bowl in which a pitcher stood, and a rack holding two thin cotton towels.
This will do very well, he said. "It is large enough for me. I want to cut down expenses. I am out of work at present."
Oh, I see! the landlady said, sympathetically. "A good many young men are out of work. That is what is the matter with the fellow next door!"
Charles paid for a week in advance, and when she was about to leave she said:
Is your trunk coming? If it is, I'll send it up.
No, I don't happen to have one, he said, trying to summon a casual smile.
Oh, she exclaimed, avoiding his eyes, "I make a rule to insist on that. I've had trouble with some roomers, and it was always them that just had hand-baggage."
I can pay you more in advance, if you wish, he proposed, anxiously. "I don't want you to break any rules on my account."
Oh, never mind! she said. "I know you are all right. I'm a pretty good judge. The Lord knows I see all sorts of folks in my business, and most of them will do me whenever they can. I've had thugs and counterfeiters in my house. One man that said he was studying to be a minister had six wives scattered over the country. They arrested him one afternoon while I was giving him a cup of tea down-stairs—the smoothest talker that ever lived, by all odds. I missed some trinkets, but, being a widow, I never mentioned it to the officers. You see, it was all in the papers and any little thing like that might have put my name on the list of his victims; as it was, the number of my house was all that got into print."
When she had left him Charles closed the door and softly locked it. He sat down in the chair and leaned back. The little walled space gave him an odd sense of security. It was his own, for the time being, at least. The window was open and a cooling breeze came in, fanning back the white curtains. He took out his cigarettes and began to smoke, and as he smoked his mind became very active in dealing with recent events. Two marvelous things had taken place. He was free from future contact with his Boston friends and acquaintances, who knew of his recent escapades and their humiliating consequences, and he had released his brother from conditions that were even worse. The memory of William's open-mouthed stare of hope as he clutched at life anew drenched his soul with joy inexpressible. What did it matter that he was never again to see William, or his wife or child, or that he was never again to walk the historic streets of his native city? What was to become of him he knew not. Somehow it did not seem to matter. For the first time in his existence life had taken on a meaning that was worth consideration. It meant that by his persistent self-obliteration another man might reach readjustment, and a woman and a child would escape pain and disgrace.
Good! good! Charles exclaimed, and slapped his knee. "I haven't lived in vain, after all—that is," was his afterthought, "if I am not caught; but I shall escape. The infinite powers could not will it otherwise. William shall be a new man, and—why, I am already one! It is strange, but I am. This room"—he swept the walls with exultant eyes—"seems as natural to me as one in a fashionable club or hotel. It is all owing to one's point of view. I now live on this plane, and it is good. How amusing that woman was just now! How remarkable that I should feel inclined to laugh at her drollery! Another week and she would have been the seventh wife. The tea in the basement proves it. She is funny. I like her."
Then his facile mood changed. What was happening at the bank at that very moment? He looked at his watch. It was ten o'clock. The bank examiners were at work. The discovery was made. Poor, crushed William at his desk had only to say that the brother he had trusted had fled, and, understanding all, they would leave him alone.
At nine o'clock that morning William Browne came down to breakfast. Celeste was already in her place, and smiled as he bent down and kissed her. As he drew out his chair he noticed on his plate the envelope in his brother's handwriting. He was not expecting any communication from Charles, and the sight of the letter startled him. What could it mean, his morbid fears suggested, unless it was that Charles had changed his mind, after all, and had not left the city? Perhaps he was now in his room, sleeping late, as usual. The thought was unbearable, for it brought back all the terrors which had beset him during the weeks just past. He sat down, and for a moment let the envelope lie on the plate untouched. Celeste was busy pouring his coffee.
Michael came in bringing toast. He indicated the note with a wave of his pudgy hand. "Mr. Charles asked me to hand it to you," he said, in a grave tone which caught the attention of Celeste and caused her eyes to linger on his face inquiringly.
Is he coming down? she asked.
For the first time in his experience as a family servant Michael deliberately decided not to answer. He pretended not to have heard and turned from the room.
William took grim notice of the failure on the man's part. He tore off the end of the envelope, drew out the note, and read it. A thrill of joyous relief went over him. With tingling fingers he folded it and put it back into the envelope, and then placed it in his pocket. The rays of the sun falling in at the window on the plants and flowers held a beauty he had never seen before. Life—life! After all, he was to live! Charles was gone and all would yet be well. His wife was looking straight at him now.
Good news of some sort, she smiled, as she spoke.
Why, why do you think that? he inquired, his beaming eyes steadying into an uneasy stare.
Because I saw it in your face just then, she answered. "But why is he writing you when he could have come down and seen you? Is—is he all right?"
William wondered what he could now say. Why had it not occurred to him that he must be as adroit in his explanations to his wife as to the bank examiners, the directors, the public in general?
His brain seemed too heavy to deal adequately with a situation so delicate and fraught with pitfalls, for Celeste had a subtle intuition.
Yes, he is all right, William said. "That is, he is not—was not drinking yesterday or last evening when I saw him at the bank. In this note he tells me that he has left town. I don't think he slept here last night. Did he, Michael?" The butler was entering with the eggs and bacon. "Did my brother sleep in his room last night?"
I think not, sir, Michael answered, stiffly, avoiding the straight gaze of his mistress as he put the platter down by his master. "At least he was not there half an hour ago."
But he gave you the note, Celeste put in, insistently.
That was last night, Michael said. "He gave it to me when he came in. I was to hand it to you, sir, at breakfast."
It is all right, William said, evasively. He took up a spoon to help himself to the eggs, but awkwardly dropped it. Michael served him with steady hands and unruffled mien. "Yes, he is all right. He says he wants to leave Boston for a while. You know he has had some troubles of late."
Gone without saying anything to me or Ruth? Celeste said, her thin lips twitching. "Why, I can't understand it! Is there anything in the note about the length of time he will be away?"
I can't explain now, William returned, frowning over his coffee-cup. "Perhaps later to-day I may tell you more. I—I don't want to talk about it now. I have hard work before me to-day at the bank—a meeting of the directors, and other things of importance."
Celeste stared stolidly. She sat a moment erect in her chair, then said, crisply, "If you will excuse me, I'll go attend to Ruth."
William half rose as she got up, and then with a limp attitude of relief he sank back into his chair. He had not touched his eggs and toast. He drank his coffee rapidly and signaled the butler to fill his cup again. "Strong," he said; "no cream or sugar."
Very well, sir. Michael obeyed with sympathetic deliberation. He evidently wanted to talk to his master about his brother, but he could find no plausible excuse for so doing. William bolted a few mouthfuls of the food on his plate, finished his third cup of coffee, and rose.
I shall not be here to lunch, he said. "We'll have something served in the bank."
Very well, sir. Michael drew his chair back and bowed as his master left the room.
William was getting his hat from the rack in the hall when Celeste came to the top of the stairs. "Do you want to see Ruth before you go?" she called down. "She is awake, but not quite dressed."
Not now, dear. I am in an awful hurry, he said, impatiently. "I have no time to lose."
Very well, Celeste coldly replied, and disappeared.
Outside the sun was shining brightly; the air was invigorating with its bare hint of dewiness on the trees and sward of the Common which he was crossing. A wondrous haze draped the Public Gardens some distance away on his right. On his left, the golden dome of the State House blazed under its reflected fire. The city's dull hum fell upon his ears, punctuated by the far-off peal of a bell.
Was Charles safely away? he asked himself. If only he had one more day between him and discovery how much better it would be! But that was out of the question. The thing that was to be done must be done at once. After all, what was there so terrible about it? Charles would make his way in some fashion, and the family disgrace would be avoided. Suicide? Nothing could be worse than suicide. Ah, but Charles might be followed and detained! In that case he would be put on trial for the crime, and of course he could no longer play the part he had undertaken. Then it would be suicide for himself; yes, suicide was even yet a possible contingent. He shuddered; the sunlight lost its charm, the air its bracing quality. He plunged on now, glancing neither to the right nor to the left, and his step was heavy as he entered the bank. It was open for business, and very active in the counting-rooms. Typewriting and adding machines were clicking. In the office of the president, a raised voice could be heard dictating a letter in studied paragraphs. William hung up his hat in the little anteroom and sat down at his desk. Automatically he felt in his pocket for the note Charles had written. He understood the afterthought which had inspired its writing, but he shrank from availing himself of it. He must appear to be busy, he told himself, and yet what could be done by a man in his state of suspense? Could one dictate a letter or add a column of figures while momentarily expecting the verdict of a jury as to whether he should live or die? The bank examiners would soon come. The ordeal of meeting their experienced scrutiny would be impossible in his present state of mind. How could he escape it? The note! Ah yes, the note! With the revelation once made to the president, his privacy would be respected. It was a terrible thing for a brother to do, but as a matter of sheer self-preservation, it had to be done. The dictating in the president's office had ceased. The girl stenographer, with her notes in hand, was hurrying past his open door. Now was the time, but he must first set the scene for the drama. He got up, went to the vault, drew open the massive door, busied his distraught brain over a combination, opened an inner safe. He remained there for a moment and then came out. A clerk glanced up from a big book of commercial reports, bowed respectfully, and then stared almost in alarm at his superior.
My God! he heard the banker say. "My God!"
With Charles's note in his hand William moved on to the office of the president. The door was partially open. He pushed it aside and entered. A heavy-set gentleman past sixty years of age, with a reddish face and iron-gray hair, raised a pair of frank blue eyes. "Well, Browne, we've got to show a clean record to-day," he began, jestingly. "This fellow McCurdy thinks he is a regular Sherlock Holmes. You know he was the slick chap that exposed—" He suddenly checked himself. The jovial smile left his facile mouth, for William was now in the full light of the electric lamp on the desk.
I have bad news, Bradford, William gulped, putting his bloodless hand on the roll-top of the mahogany desk, the hand clutching his brother's note.
Bad news? Bradford repeated, in slow amazement. "Why, what's happened? You look—look—"
The safe has been robbed! William's words tripped over one another, as they tumbled from his pallid lips. "I found this note, and went to see if—if what it says could be true. See! Look!"
William spread out the crumpled note, and laid it before Bradford's widening eyes, and then stepped back and stood still and silent behind him. There was only a moment's pause. Bradford whirled around in his revolving-chair.
My God! he cried. "Your brother! I was afraid something might go wrong. Several of us were; but on your account—"
I understand, William leaned forward. There was almost unexpected support in the president's tone and phrasing, laden as it was with sympathy. "I have made a great, great mistake, Bradford, and I will do all in my power to make up for it. In a short while—a month, six weeks—I can replace that money out of my own funds, and I want to do it—I must do it. I want the directors and you to understand that. Will you tell them? Will you do that for me? The money is almost in sight. I'm sure it is coming. I only need a little time."
That will be considered later. Bradford stood up. His hand was extended to the limp man before him. "I sympathize with you, Browne. I have been sorry for you all along on account of your brother's conduct, and of course I am more so now. You need not fear that the matter will impair your own standing with us. The fact that you propose to return the money is sufficient proof of your personal integrity. Now—now, leave everything to me. You are in no shape for business. Why, you have gone all to pieces! Leave it all to me. If I were you I'd go home. This will create a sensation—it can't be avoided—and why should you be in the midst of it?"
William heard himself muttering subdued words of thanks. He felt his hand warmly pressed; the arm of a friend and old associate was around his shoulders as he turned away.
Reaching his office, William entered, closed the door, and sat down at his desk, his fixed stare on the large, spotless green blotting-pad. What ailed him? Why was he so filled with excruciating agony? A better way of escape than he had hoped for had opened out before him. The bank examiners, the directors, the depositors would respect his feelings and think nothing prejudicial to him for absenting himself from the scene. They would regard him as a well-meaning man impoverished by the irresponsible acts of a drunkard relative. If anything, their respect would be heightened by his generous offer of reimbursement. He told all this to his benumbed consciousness, but it failed to revivify the soul within him.
Sixty thousand dollars! It was a voice from a telephone-booth near by, a voice unwittingly raised too high, through excitement. It was Bradford speaking to one of the directors at his suburban home.
Yes, Davis, you must hurry in. We'll wait for you. Here some words became indistinct in the tread of hurried feet in the counting-room and corridors, then: "Oh yes, poor fellow! he is all broken up over it. Surprised him like all the rest. I must say I didn't think it of Charlie. I loved the boy, in a way, but I presume he got entangled in some—Well, you know what I mean. It will get the best of 'em down sooner or later. Yes. All right. Good-by. Oh, say, hurry in. We must decide what we are going to do about the police. We must be quick about that. Unpleasant as it will be for Browne, the boy must be caught. At least that is my opinion, and I think we ought to offer a reward. Think it over and hurry in. We need you. Good-by."
William, his stare still on the green pad before him, heard Bradford closing the door of the booth. He recognized the voice of one of the directors who had just come in and had met the president in the corridor.
It has taken me off my feet, the man said, angrily. "What a bunch of fools we were! The young villain! What other bank would have allowed him to be around, after—"
'Sh! Through the very walls and closed door William saw the president's considerate thumb jerked in his direction. "'Sh! He'll hear. There'll be no permanent loss to us, you know. The newspapers must put that in. It will prevent a run on us. McCurdy is in my office. We'll get together soon."
Their voices died down. The telephone-bells were jingling from all directions.
Is that police headquarters? Well, this is—
William would have stood up, his ear to the door, had he not known so well all that was flying over the wires. The clerk at the 'phone in the nearest booth was now in communication with the editorial office of a leading daily.
Yes, you can send him around, the clerk said. "I'll tell him all I know about it."
William clasped his hands between his gaunt knees. He had once deliberately planned suicide to avoid facing his accusers. Yet now, with safety in his grasp, how could he face the defamers of his innocent brother? Strange, but this was agony—even greater agony than the other situation. He told himself that he must get away from it, for the moment, anyway. Bradford had suggested a loophole. No man of refinement would want to be present during the investigation of his own brother's ill conduct. No, he would go out, home, for a walk—somewhere, anywhere. He had left Charles's note with Bradford. That was sufficient in all reason to absolve William from any suspicion whatever. Yes, he would go. There were situations under which a man's leaving such a scene would suggest complicity, but this would imply naught else than broken-hearted innocence burdened beyond physical endurance. Taking his hat, he went out into the street. As he passed the main counting-room many eyes were lifted from ponderous tomes and machines. Curiosity and sympathy combined were in the awed and stealthy glances. Outside, at the door, a group had gathered. It was as if a telepathic sense of the tragedy within had permeated the walls.
There he goes! That's his brother! reached William's ears as he elbowed his way to the pavement. "Hey! there comes the chief of police!" the same voice said. "Quick action, if he is fat, eh?"
William did not care to see the official in question even at a distance. He kept his eyes on the ground and hurried away. Home? he asked himself. No, not now—not now. Celeste would wonder. She would have to be told, and how could he tell her the thing that his reason assured him she would never believe? A woman's intuition! Ah, it was to be dreaded! It did not lend itself readily to practical subterfuge. Business men, bank examiners, skilled detectives would be led by mere physical evidence—a man's written confession, his open flight, his reckless past and inebriety, but a woman's faith was too deep and well-informed for that. What was to be done—what? He crossed the Common; he plunged into the Public Gardens; he strode through into Commonwealth Avenue, and on and on. He knew not where he was going or with what object in view, but he must keep in motion. He wanted to put a certain thing behind him, but that thing was in his brain and it was producing a thousand pictures—pictures of his boyhood with Charles as a toddling infant beside him; of his later young manhood with Charles, a careless school-boy shirking his studies for open-air sport; Charles as he entered the bank under his protection; Charles in the beginning of his reckless career; Charles as he had last seen him, drawing the accumulated burthen of another man's folly upon his sturdy, repentant shoulders. Great God! How could he go through with it? And yet it must be done. The terrible game must be played to a finish. After all, was the whole thing not right? Through this sacrifice were not a good woman and a helpless child escaping shame and misery? True, he had made a misstep, but so had Charles. It would be comforting to know that, in a sense, he and Charles were on a sort of level. Ah, but they were not—they were not! Pragmatically tested, they were different. Charles was now living in the joyful consciousness that a great good was to come out of his self-renunciation; but it was vastly different with the man for whom the renunciation had been made. William had never loved his brother so much as now. He had never before been capable of such a love. From the depths of the pit into which he had fallen Charles appeared as a far-off superman. William might have wept, but men do not weep while in terror, and William was afraid. After all, he asked himself, with a start, how could he be sure that his secret transactions in stocks might not be ferreted out by this same McCurdy, or some one else? These facts brought to light and the authorities would readily see through the thin ruse that was being perpetrated.
For more than two hours he walked, here and there. He crossed the bridge to Cambridge. His dull stare swept the various college buildings and stately clubs, but they only reminded him of Charles and what Charles was doing for him. Why, the day Charles was graduated his friends had honored him with—But why think of trivialities? Perhaps at the bank some further discovery was being made. Had he covered his tracks completely? How could he tell? He turned abruptly homeward. He would plead a headache; he would shut himself in his room; he would explain nothing to Celeste. She would wonder, but the newspapers would tell her all.
Alone in his little room, Charles became conscious of a vast sense of fatigue, induced, no doubt, by the fact that his fears concerning his brother's fate were now allayed. Removing his coat and shoes, he threw himself on the hard, narrow bed and was soon soundly asleep. He did not awaken till three o'clock in the afternoon, and might have slept longer but for the harsh sound of a truck delivering coal through a sheet-iron chute into the basement of a house next door. He lay for several minutes trying to recall some vaguely delectable and flitting dreams he had just been enjoying. Somehow, by sheer contrast to their evanescent quality, the sordid little room and its meager furnishings produced a depression that had not come to him since the beginning of his flight. His thoughts were on his home, and he was all but faint under the sharp realization that it was his home no longer.
Presently he heard a step on the stairs. It was a slow, discouraged one, and the man who made it opened the room adjoining his and went in, leaving the door open. Feeling the need of fresh air, Charles got up and opened his own door. And as he did so he saw the inmate of the other room standing over the open trunk. To his surprise he recognized him as the man whose acquaintance he had made at the restaurant. Their eyes met.
I see you got fixed, the stranger said, with a smile that seemed forced. "Well, you will like it, all right, I think. As for me, I'm bounced. I've had my walking-papers. Mrs. Reilly is a good soul, but she has to live, and I don't blame her. Do you know, she was awfully good about it—tried to let me down easy, says I can take my trunk and all that, and forget what I owe her. Take my trunk! Huh! as if I'd carry it out on my shoulder, which I'd have to do or cheat the expressman out of his dues."
I'm sorry you are going, Charles said. "I wish we could be neighbors."
Well, so am I, the other responded, listlessly, "but we can't have everything our way. After all, the sleeping is good in the parks such weather as this. I've done it, and I can do it again, but I sha'n't need a trunk. I'll leave it. And I'll pay Mrs. Reilly some day. I've always paid my way."
Some one was coming. It was the landlady herself. Her face was very grave and full of feeling. She seemed slightly surprised at finding the two men together. Charles explained how they had met at breakfast.
And he sent you to me? she said. "He recommended me?"
Yes, that is how I got the address, Charles returned.
She turned on the young man suddenly. She was trying to smile, though her face was full of contradictory emotions. "Mr. Mason," she faltered, as she touched him on his arm, "I must tell you the truth, and I'll do it right here, facing this gentleman. I hardly slept a wink last night, tired as I was from house-cleaning and beating carpets, because I said what I did yesterday about you leaving. And now I hear in this roundabout way that you have been trying to help me. Humph!" she laughed, making a sound in her throat like a suppressed sob, "do you think I'm going to let you go? Not on your life. I've never had a young man under my roof that I liked better. I'd rather keep you here for nothing than to get money for the room from some of the scamps that are floating about."
You are very good, Mrs. Reilly, Mason said, with emotion on his part, "but I don't think, owing you for three weeks already, that—"
Three weeks nothing! Cut that out! she exclaimed. She strode to a window and examined the tattered shade. "There is no demand for rooms now, anyway. Do you hear me, you are going to stay? I've got to have new shades here, that's all there is about it. Yes, I want you to stay, Mr. Mason, and that settles it. You will find work, I'm sure of it. It is a dull season, that's all. Business will pick up later. It always does."
Mason was blandly protesting, his color high in his cheeks, when she suddenly whirled from the room.
You are to stay! she called back from the head of the stairs. "You talk to him, sir," she added to Charles. "He is a nice young man and needs a home of some sort."
The situation being embarrassing, Charles went into his own room. Mason, now without his coat and his shirt-collar open, stalked in after him.
Sorry you had to hear all that, he said with wincing, tight-drawn lips. "Great God! do you know, sir, that the hardest thing on earth for an able-bodied man to do is to receive help from a working-woman? God! it stings like fire—it kills me!"
I see, I see, Charles answered. "Your feeling is natural to your particular temperament. In your case you'd better owe it to a man. I want to be frank with you, Mr. Mason. You can do me a favor. I have the money to spare, and I want you to let me advance it for you."
You? You? Great God! man, you are not in earnest! You don't mean it!
But I do, Charles said, firmly. "It is selfish on my part, too, for I don't want you to go away. I'm a stranger here and I'm lonely. I'm out of work myself; I want your companionship; strangers though we are to each other, I feel as if we were old friends. I can't tell why this is, but I do."
I know, I guess, said the astounded man as he sank into the chair near the window. "I suppose we are both troubled to some extent. I thought you looked bothered a little at breakfast this morning. I'd like to be with you, too, but I couldn't start out in any stranger's debt like that, you know. It is—is almost as bad, you see, as owing a woman."
You mustn't feel as you do in regard to me, at least, Charles said. "I am without a home. I don't want to be alone. I would love to share the little I have with you. Something draws me to you like ties of blood."
It was significant that Mason made no reply. He leaned forward, clasping his big freckled hands between his knees. He dropped his head, his reddish-brown curls lopped over his wide brow. He was silent. Charles saw his shoulders rise and fall convulsively, as if he were trying to suppress a tumult of feeling. Presently he raised his head. His hunger-pinched lips were twisted awry.
My God! he gulped, "I didn't know I'd ever run across a fellow like you. I thank you! I thank you! I thank you!" He got up; his knees, in his frayed, bulging trousers, shook visibly. He moved to the door, passed through it, and went into his own room. From his position near the door Charles saw him reel past the trunk, totter, and clutch a post of the old-fashioned bed. Holding it, he stood swaying back and forth, his head hanging low on a limp neck. Charles ran to him, caught his arm, and made him lie down on the bed. Mason was ghastly pale.
It is nothing, he said, trying to smile carelessly. "It will pass over. I had it once yesterday in the street."
I know what it is. Charles bent over him tenderly. "You are weak from hunger."
Do you think that is it? Mason asked, resignedly, doggedly.
Yes, and it has to end right here and now. We are friends, aren't we? I'm going down and bring you something this minute. It is not a woman that is offering it, Mason. It is a friend who knows what suffering is. Wait! Lie still. I'll hurry back.
From the restaurant where he had breakfasted that morning Charles secured some hot chicken broth with bread and coffee. As he was hurrying back, he met a newsboy selling afternoon papers. The thought darted through his brain that the papers might contain an account of his flight which had been telegraphed from Boston, and he bought a paper and thrust it into his pocket. He met Mrs. Reilly as he was entering the front door. Hurriedly he explained the reason for his bringing the food.
Good gracious! she cried. "I thought he looked bad. One of my roomers said it was dope, but I didn't believe him. And I was turning him out in that condition! Think of it—just think of it!"
I am to pay the back rent he owes, Mrs. Reilly, Charles said, putting the things down on a step of the chair and taking out his purse.
You? Not on your life! she threw back, warmly. "Do you think I'll let a stranger come and do more for that poor boy than I've done, when he was going about drumming up trade for me after what I said to him? Not on your life! I'll feed him, too, from this on. I'll bring him his breakfast if he ain't able to come down in the morning."
Seeing that she would not receive the money, Charles took up the things and ascended the stairs. He found Mason seated at the window in the cooling breeze from the open space in the rear.
His eyes held the eager gleam of a starving man shipwrecked on a raft. He tried to make light of his hunger as Charles hurriedly placed a small table near him and filled a soup-plate with the rich broth, which contained tender fragments of chicken.
Here, tackle this, you chump! said Charles, and he laughed as he used to laugh in his school-days. "The idea of your letting yourself starve in this great, enlightened, Christian city!"
Mason obeyed. A warm look of reviving health was in his face as he drank the soup. The plate was soon empty. Charles filled it again, and poured out the hot coffee. As he did so he felt the folded newspaper in his pocket, and a sudden cool shock of dismay went through him. What might not the paper say? Some one might have seen him take the train in Boston. Some one might have watched him on his arrival in New York. The very house he was in might already be shadowed by instructed officials. Men nowadays were captured easily enough in the vast network of the detective system.
As he crumbled his bread into the broth Mason's satisfied glance swept the face of his companion. "What are you worried about?" he asked. "I saw you change all at once like you was thinking of something unpleasant. I hope it ain't me. My God! I don't want to be a burden on a man as kind as you are!"
You? No, no! But I have my little troubles, Mason, Charles admitted, frankly. "I try to keep my mind off of them, but they will sneak back at times. Don't think it is money; it is not that, and instead of being a burden you are just the reverse. You are a great help to me."
I'm sorry you have worries, Mason responded, with a sigh. "But it seems to me that every one I meet has some trouble or other. The thing has its funny side, too. I could dance and sing with this feed in me, thanks to you. This morning, after I left you, I went looking for a job, as usual. I had failed to see the firms I had in view in Wall Street, and was standing in front of an old church down there when a shabbily dressed man with a red nose came up to me.
"'Say, boss,' he began, 'can you give a feller a dime to pay his carfare home? I'm stranded here and got to get back.' It struck me as funny—his wanting money to get booze with, and me without bread, and I laughed in his face. 'Say,' I said, 'I was about to ask you the same question, but I've never begged in my life, and I don't know how to go about it.'
" "'Oh, is that it? New hand, eh?' he said, very cordially. 'Well, young feller, I don't mind giving you a tip or two to start you out. I was green at it once myself. Now look here. You are too timid. Brace up. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Pick 'em out as they come along. Take the best-dressed first. Learn to know the labels on cigars and make a break for the costly smokers. If you see a feller smiling, he's your game. If you see two prosperous-looking guys chatting in a friendly way, strike 'em both. One will try to outdo the other. I won a dollar in a game like that once out of two fellers getting in a fine auto. Women are all right, too, but when you see one coming you'd better just hang your head and look sadlike, especially if you are at the lead-pencil game.' I thanked him,"" Mason finished, ""but I never profited by his advice. I simply can't beg. Say, is that an afternoon paper in your pocket? I wonder if it carries want ads?""
"I don't really know, Charles replied, drawing the paper out slowly and awkwardly, for in some way it seemed to cling to his pocket and his fingers were not apt as usual. He spread it out, and as he held it toward his companion some large head-lines on the first page caught his attention and a cold wave of despair swept over him.
Robbery of a Boston Bank! Absconding Clerk Makes Away with Sixty Thousand Dollars. Ten Thousand Dollars Reward Offered!
Mason was taking the paper into his extended hand. It seemed to Charles as if the dismal room were enveloped in a mist. He heard Mason saying something as if from a great height or depth as he opened the rustling sheet.
Excuse me, Charles managed to say. "I'll come back in a moment."
Mason made some reply which he did not hear, and Charles went into his own room, where he stood at the window, looking out over the back yards below. Why, he asked himself, was he so terribly alarmed all at once? Was not all this to be expected? To do him full credit, he was not even then thinking of himself. It was William. It was Celeste. It was little Ruth. They were first in his thoughts. Ah, after all, was his vicarious effort at rescue to fail totally? He stood at the window a long time, lost in a flood of reflections. It was now sundown. Lights in the rear rooms of the buildings across the court were flashing up. He heard a match being struck in Mason's room and the rustling of the tell-tale paper. He crept to the door, glanced in, and saw his new friend standing under a flaring gas-jet, with the first page of the paper before his eyes. Was he reading the Boston news? Would he couple his new friend's arrival on that particular train with the events described? Well, what did it matter? Something told him that even were he a murderer his secret would be safe with Mason; and yet, if possible to avoid it, Mason must not know, for Charles had promised his brother that no circumstances should wring the truth from him. Mason remained at the jet, reading as if wholly absorbed. There could be no doubt now that it was the Boston report that had caught his attention.
Suddenly, while he watched him, Mason lowered the paper, and Charles had barely time to step back to the window before Mason was on the threshold, the paper in his hand.
Pardon me, he said, staring through the dusk at Charles, "I did not mean to take your paper from you. I was expecting you back every minute and got to reading about—about"—there was a slight pause here as it seemed to Charles's overwrought fancy—"about a poor chap in Boston who got away with a pile of boodle. It is interesting, the whole tale. Booze, booze! The old, old story—secret speculations, and women. Family broken-hearted. Went back on his best friend, his only brother, who stands at the top socially. Gosh! I've been reckless myself, but not like that, thank God! I've been my own worst enemy, but I never hurt my people like that. I'm sorry for the poor devil! I really am sorry! This paper speaks of the chap as having had lots of friends before he got to the bottom. They are usually like that, free and easy and kind-hearted. Oh, I guess he was tempted, poor devil! And he will be caught, they think. Left for New York last night and is hiding here."
Mason was offering him the open paper and Charles took it. Before a man so genuine as his new friend had shown himself to be, he could not bring himself to play a part. Silently he dropped the paper on his bed. He sat down by it, leaving Mason standing with a sort of dumb inquiry in his eyes. It was significant that Mason was now silent. It was significant that he seemed to be studying Charles's features in the dim light from the gas, studying them with an awkward, reluctant stare.
I'll read it later—later, Charles said, faintly, taking up the paper and laying it on the pillow of his bed. "I hope you feel better since you've eaten," he went on, lamely. "I—I thought the soup would do you good, weak as you are."
The natural thing for Mason to have done would have been to reiterate his appreciation, but he only stood staring helplessly at Charles. Afterward Charles understood. The paper contained an accurate description of him—appearance, age, manner, and the very suit he was then wearing. Mumbling some excuse, Mason went back to his room. Charles heard him moving about, and now and then he saw his shadow flit across the floor of the hall.
Some one was coming up the stairs. Could it be an officer of the law? Why not? He stood up to meet whatever fate was in store. He dared not look toward the stairs. He pretended to be unconcerned. Then he saw that it was only Mrs. Reilly.
You must have fresh towels, she smiled, genially. "I almost forgot them. I hope you like your room, Mr.—Mr.—I didn't get your name. I like to know who my roomers are, for parcels and mail are always coming."
Browne, he answered, impulsively, and then bit his lip to keep the word back. But it was too late, and the situation was complicated by the sudden appearance of Mason in the doorway of his room behind Mrs. Reilly. The startled look in his face and the fact that he disappeared at once showed that he had caught the name and grasped its significance.
Brown? That's common enough, Mrs. Reilly laughed. "I've had Browns and Whites and Blacks all at the same time. How is Mr. Mason? I'm going in to see him."
Turning, she went into Mason's room, and Charles heard her laughing and talking in her voluble way. He wanted her to leave so that he might read the printed condemnation of himself from his old home. She seemed to linger unnecessarily. Presently, however, she went down the stairs, and, lighting the gas, he read the article. Mason had given him a compact summary of the whole thing, but the details lashed him like whips of fire. It is one thing to make a sacrifice for a loved brother, but it is quite another to bear calmly such consequences as he was facing. It was plain now that even if he escaped he was forever lost to his past.
He heard Mason coming back. What could the fellow want?
I see, Mason began, almost huskily, "that I am more deeply in your debt than I thought. Mrs. Reilly told me that you wanted to pay my back dues. I don't know what to say to show my appreciation. I have never, in all my knocking about, met a man with such a kind heart."
Oh, don't mention that! Charles replied. "It was nothing."
But it is—it is to me, you may be sure. I'll never forget it as long as I live. I want to serve you. I want to be your friend as you have been mine. I've come here now to tell you that—Charles knew what he meant in full—"that I will stick to you through thick and thin. I think I understand the—the trouble you spoke of just now. You will need a friend now, and I will be that friend."
Their eyes met. They both understood.
Yes, I need a friend, Charles said, thickly, "and it is good to find such a one in you. Some time I may be able to speak more freely about myself than I can now, but I will say that, as I see it, I am not—not quite as bad as one would think."
I know that. I'd bet my very life on it, Mason declared, warmly. "But let all that drop. Don't tell me anything. I know men, and I know you are pure gold. I want to help you and I will do it if it is possible."
Turning back, he entered his own room. A wonderful sense of security, blended with a sense of new-found comradeship, descended on the lonely, pursued man. He now had an adviser, a friend whom he could trust, and it was one who was capable of suffering, who even now was suffering.
That night he slept soundly, strangely free from the fear of arrest.