The next day, in the afternoon, Charles and the boys were in the blacksmith's shop repairing a plow that was to be used immediately. Kenneth was at the bellows, and Charles at the anvil, his sleeves rolled high on his brawny arms. Martin stood in the doorway. Presently he whistled softly, and ran to Charles just as he was about to strike the red-hot plowshare which he was holding on the anvil.
Don't make any noise! he said. "I see a buggy and horse stopping at the gate. It looks like the sheriff's rig, and I think he is in it."
Charles dropped his tools, and he and his companions crept to a crack in the wall and peered through it.
That's who it is, Kenneth informed Charles, in a startled voice. "I wonder if—if Tobe has become worse, or—or—"
I couldn't stand that, Martin cried out. "Oh, don't think it!"
Charles said nothing, and there was no response from Kenneth, who was grimly peering through the crack. They saw Rowland, bareheaded, walking leisurely from the veranda to the gate. They saw him shaking hands over the buggy-wheels with the sheriff. They could not, at that distance, read his face. Of what was taking place the three watchers could form no idea. Presently they saw Mary come down the walk, pass through the gate, and shake hands with the sheriff.
Sister means to find out if anything has gone wrong, so she can warn us, Kenneth said. "Brown, this looks pretty tough on us. We were thinking everything was all right, but this looks bad."
Still Charles said nothing. His face, only half illumined by the light through the crack, which struck across his fixed eyes, was grim and perplexed.
They saw Mary at her father's side, but the hood of her sunbonnet hid her face from view. The three stood talking for several minutes; then Mary was seen leaving and turning in their direction.
She's coming to tell us, Kenneth said. "Now, we'll know. Keep still. Maybe she is afraid we'll be seen or heard at work."
Mary appeared in the doorway. She removed her bonnet and smiled reassuringly. "Frightened out of your skins, I'll bet," she jested. "I came to tell you. He is not looking for you. He said so plainly, for he saw how worried I was. In fact, he said that Tobe was still improving, and hinted—he didn't say so in so many words—but he hinted that he knew you both were about the place, and that he was not going to molest you now that Tobe is out of danger."
Charles was staring at her fixedly; the animation that should have been in his face was absent. "Then he wanted to see your father about something else?" he said.
Yes, some business, or— Mary broke off, and with a sudden shadow across her face she stood staring at him. "I don't know what he wanted to see father about. It seemed to me that it was of a private nature, and so—so that's why I came away."
Gee! what does it amount to, since he's letting us go? said Martin. He stepped to his sister's side and stood with his arm around her waist. For once she seemed unaware of the boy's presence. She was recalling something Albert Frazier had said about the sheriff's opinion of Charles. Could the present visit pertain to him?
Thank the Lord, he's off! Kenneth exclaimed. "Bully boy, that chap!"
The brothers went to the doorway, looked all around, and then hastened away to meet their father, who was slowly coming toward the shop. They joined him.
Where is your sister? he asked. They told him, and he went on, as if only partially conscious of their eager questions.
Oh, that's all right! he said, impatiently. "He is not going to bother you. Oh, Mary, where are you?"
Here, father, she answered, as she came out, accompanied by Charles. "Did you want me?" It seemed to her that he now glanced at Charles with a look of vague displeasure on his face.
Yes, I want to see you. Come to the house with me, please.
Mary was sure now that something pertaining to Charles had happened, for her father was treating him in a manner that surely indicated it; the old man had taken no notice of him, and that was most unusual.
Leaving the others in the shop, Rowland led his daughter toward the house. "I wanted to see you about a little matter that may be rather serious," he began. "The sheriff didn't come to see me about the boys at all, but about Mr. Brown."
About him! Mary said, faintly. "What about him?"
He put a lot of questions to me in regard to Mr. Brown, Rowland said, "but I couldn't answer a single one of them. He seemed surprised—astonished, in fact, for he said he didn't see how any sensible man could take in a stranger like Brown unless he had proper credentials. I couldn't even tell him where Mr. Brown came from, who he was, or anything. I tried to explain that Mr. Brown had been so gentlemanly and useful that we hadn't thought such a course necessary, but the sheriff only laughed at me for being so easily hoodwinked."
Hoodwinked! Mary protested. "He hasn't hoodwinked us, father. I'm sure he is all we have given him credit for being."
Well, it seems that the sheriff thinks there is something very suspicious about him. Warrants are out for a number of men who left the circus when Mr. Brown did. The sheriff says that Mr. Brown has been leaving our house at night, and has been seen in town on several occasions. Quite recently he met a stranger at the hotel, a queer fellow with a Northern accent who had refused to register. They were out together the night the gift was made to Mrs. Keith that everybody is talking about, and the man that turned the money over to her answered the description of the stranger that Mr. Brown was with.
But surely the sheriff is not fool enough to think that giving money away like that was a sign that Mr. Brown was—was a suspicious character! protested Mary.
The sheriff thinks that very thing is ground for suspicion, Rowland went on. "He says it may be that Tobe Keith knows more than he has ever let out. It seems that he was seen drinking with some of the circus men. The sheriff thinks that the money was paid over by persons who were afraid Tobe would make some sort of death-bed statement that would implicate Mr. Brown and others. The sheriff found out through one of his men that the same man who met Mr. Brown at the hotel was seen at the hospital in Atlanta where Keith is, and then again here with Mr. Brown. I don't want to be unfair or suspicious of innocent persons, but—now I must be plainer, daughter. I've been afraid that you and Mr. Brown—But I'm sure you know what I mean without my going into it."
I know what you mean, father, Mary faltered.
I don't want to offend you, my dear, Rowland went on, "but it seems to be my duty to bring it up. He is an educated man and has the manners of a refined gentleman. In fact, when I used to contrast him with Albert Frazier it seemed to me that a young girl like you could not fail to be impressed with him. He is a good talker and has seen something of the world, evidently. I must say I like him. I like him so much that I almost feel that it is my duty to be more open with him than I can be, for I promised the sheriff that I'd say nothing to him of this. He wants to have him watched for a week or so. In any case, he thinks that under some pretext or other he may arrest him and force him to give an account of himself."
An account of himself! Mary repeated the words to herself. Then, touching her father's arm appealingly, she said, aloud: "Do you think you ought—Surely, father, you will not let this change your manner toward Mr. Brown?"
Why do you ask that? he demanded.
Because just now in the shop you treated him coldly. I'm sure he must have noticed it. He is an unhappy, lonely, sensitive man, who—I think—has had some great trouble.
I didn't mean to treat him differently, Rowland said with regret. "Perhaps I was absorbed in what I had to tell you. But the truth is I must be careful, more careful with you than I have been. I see now that I was wrong to allow you to—to see quite so much of a stranger as you have of this one. You remember you and he were out one entire night—"
Oh, don't bring that up! Mary cried. "You know as well as I do how that came about."
Oh yes, but, nevertheless, you and he were together, and, as I said, he is an attractive man. Right now you are defending him. Think of that, daughter, you are defending a man we know absolutely nothing about, and who I must frankly say has not treated our hospitality with due respect in not producing proper credentials. The profession he was in before he came to us was a queer one for an educated gentleman. You must admit that. Your future and your happiness is in my hands, and a young lady with the ancestry you have had ought to look—
Don't mention my ancestry, father, Mary broke in. "It interests you, but it does not interest me. Life, as it is, is too grim and earnest to spend any part of it in digging up the dry bones of dead lords and ladies."
Blood will tell, Rowland frowned in sudden displeasure. "We are poor and have our troubles, but we know who we are. Yes, I must be more careful with you, my dear. And if Mr. Brown cannot show who and what he is he doesn't deserve my friendship nor your faith in him. Women are sentimental. Whatever they want to be right they think is right. The sheriff has set me to thinking. He just as good as told me that I was crazy to harbor this young man under the circumstances. I won't say anything to Mr. Brown, but I hope you will be careful. You must not let it be said—if the sheriff does arrest him—that you were ever anything more to the young man than—"
I know nothing wrong about Mr. Brown, Mary broke out, now flushed with anger, "and I know much that is good—much that I cannot tell you. I do not intend to let a coarse man like that sheriff influence my opinion in the slightest. He doesn't know Mr. Brown and I do."
Still, you must be careful, Rowland urged.
I don't know what you mean, Mary said, stubbornly. "I don't know as I want to know. I shall have to treat Mr. Brown as my conscience tells me to treat him. I know what he has done and is doing for us, and that is enough for me."
I know, but you must be careful, her father repeated. "Even the boys must be put on their guard."
On their guard, indeed! the girl sniffed. "If you haven't eyes to see that Mr. Brown is making men of them, I have. If you thought as much about your children as you do about your forefathers you would have noticed the wonderful change in their characters that Mr. Brown has brought about by his talks and his example."
I take your rebuke, my dear, because in a way it is deserved. I have been too much absorbed of late in my history, but the book is about done now, and I shall have more time for other matters. If Mr. Brown has helped the boys I shall be grateful for it; still, good deeds sometimes are done by persons who, to say the least, are unsafe. That reminds me. A letter I once wrote to a branch of the Rowland family happened to reach a man by the name who was serving a long term in prison, and the fact is that he gave me more substantial help in what I wanted than many others who had their freedom and whose respectability was not questioned.
Why not state in your book—Mary half smiled—"that the best information you could get about the Rowlands was from a prison?"
I call that flippant, daughter, Rowland answered, "but it doesn't matter. A sense of humor is a family heritage which has come down from the women of your mother's line, who were noted for their brilliant repartee. I have recorded scores of bright sayings in my book. Your great-great-great-grandmother once said to Washington—"
I remember it, Mary said, crisply. "The same thing was told of a number of other Colonial dames. Bright remarks must have been scarce in that day of scalps and tomahawks."
Rowland was thinking of something else, and did not smile. They were at the house now, and with one of his unconscious bows he left her to go to his room.
One night, two days later, Rowland had retired early, and the boys, having worked hard all day, soon followed him. Charles was seated on a rustic bench on the lawn. He had noted the change in Rowland's manner toward him and had promptly coupled it with the sheriff's visit. That something of a serious nature was impending he did not doubt. Several times he had caught Mary's glance, and each time he had felt that she was trying to convey some hint that she wanted to speak to him, but that no suitable opportunity had presented itself. Something told him now that she would join him where he sat; he knew that she had not yet retired, for now and then she passed the window of the lighted sitting-room. The anticipation of meeting her was not that of unalloyed joy, for he felt more and more that he had no moral right to the trust she was so blindly placing in him. She had bared her soul to him; he was unable to do the same to her. Loving her as he did more than life itself, yet he was sure he had no right to foster love in her breast. The burning tobacco died in his pipe as he held it in his tense hand between his knees and again thought out the sinister situation. For the sake of his love's life and hers he might wreck the hope and happiness of a whole family to whom he had pledged fidelity; but if he did that even Mary herself would spurn him. Yes, for had she not been ready to sacrifice herself on a bare chance to save her brothers? No, she loved him for what she thought he was, not for what he would be if he failed in his righteous undertaking. He might tell her how he was bound, but that would sound like self-glorification and would do no good, since her only chance for happiness lay in forgetting him.
He felt rather than saw her as she approached soundlessly on the dewy grass. He stood up. The seat was short, and the wild thought flashed through his brain that he had no more right to sit close beside her than the humblest subject beside his queen; so he stood bowing, and with his hand mutely indicated the seat. She took it, and then, as he remained standing, she suddenly reached out, caught his hand, and drew him down beside her.
What is the matter? she asked, insincerely, for she knew the cause of his restraint.
Nothing, he answered.
Oh, I know there is; but never mind, she continued, still holding his hand. "I had to see you to-night, Charlie. I could not have waited longer."
Is it about Albert Frazier? he asked.
No, you know it is not. Besides, he has gone away for good and all. He released me from my—my understanding with him. We are not even going to write to each other.
The heart of the listener bounded, but it sank a moment later, for, pressing his hand, as if to console him, Mary went on:
I wanted to see you about yourself, Charlie—yourself.
I can guess, he said, grimly. "It has to do with the sheriff's visit the other day. I felt that something was wrong from the way your father acted. He tries to treat me the same, but can't."
Mary lowered her head. She toyed with his big fingers as a nervous child might have done. "I think Albert started his brother's suspicions against you soon after you came to us," she said, gently.
Suspicions? Charles was speaking merely to fill awkward pauses.
Yes, it is outrageous, but he has you mixed up with the men who left the circus when you did. I suppose his idea is to get information from you if he can—force it from you by unfair means. A man like him will balk at nothing to gain his point.
I can give him no information, Charles answered, in a low, forced tone. "I knew such men were with the circus, and that they had left about the time I did, but I did not even know them personally."
I know that, Mary said, her hand now like a lifeless thing in his clasp, "but you do not want to be arrested and—and questioned, do you?"
He started, stared steadily, and then released her hand. "No," he answered, after a pause, "I don't want to go through that. I am sorry to have to admit it to you, but it is a fact. I am—am really not prepared for—for that. In fact, that is why I left the circus just when I did. The report was out that the entire company was to be grilled, and I had reasons for—for—But I think you know what I mean. I've tried hard to make you understand that I am unworthy of—"
Stop! Mary cried, sharply. "This is no time to go through all that. I know you are worthy, and that settles it. But I have not told you all. Charlie, you are being watched day and night."
Watched? he exclaimed.
Yes, the sheriff told father so, and I myself have seen the men. One in the day and another at night. At this very moment we may be under the eye of one of them.
What is the sheriff's object? Charles asked, in a tone of dead despair. "I mean in having me shadowed this way?"
I think he has an idea that the friend of yours who was here the other day is in some way connected with the men he is after, and that he may return to see you.
Thank Heaven, Mike is gone, and is out of it! Charles said, half to her and as much to himself. "It would have been terrible if that poor chap had been drawn into it. Well, well, you see what I have brought down on you for so kindly giving me work and shelter and treating me as an equal when I am simply an outlaw trying to escape imprisonment."
Hush! hush! Mary cried, fiercely. "I shall not listen to you."
He had made a movement as if to rise, but again she caught his hand and detained him.
I know what you are at heart, and that is all I want to know of your affairs. You have said you were bound by honor not to tell everything, and I would not want you to break your word even to enlighten me.
His face was set and pale, his lips twisted awry. Again he drew his hand away. "Have you any idea when they will arrest me?" he asked, hollowly.
Not for a week or so, anyway, Mary responded. "The sheriff said that you would not be allowed to leave here. Do you want to get away, Charlie?"
It would do no good to try, he sighed, and yet bravely, for he was not thinking of himself at all. "It would be an open admission that I was avoiding the law." He sighed again and stood up. "Pardon me," he said, "but I mustn't let you compromise yourself like this. You say I am watched, and it would be unfair to you—to your father—to your brothers—for your name to be associated in the slightest with mine."
Oh, what can I do? Mary was standing by him now, her hand upon his arm. "I thought I was unhappy over my brothers, but, now that they are out of trouble, I am in agony over you. Oh, Charlie, don't you see—don't you understand—"
Her voice broke in a sob. He was swayed by a storm of emotion. He was about to take her in his arms, when the thought of being seen by a hidden observer checked him.
You must go in now, he said. "See how the dew is settling on your hair."
She nodded mutely, and side by side they went to the house. The sitting-room on the left of the hall was lighted, the parlor on the right was dark.
Come into the parlor, she said, in a low, firm tone. "No one could see us there, and—and—oh, Charlie! I can't part with you like this! I can't bear it. I'd lie awake all night."
In the silence of the big room they stood facing each other. Their hands met like drowning persons afloat in a dark, calm sea. He could see her eyes in the gloom. They seemed like portals of escape from a living hell. Her quick breath fanned his face; the warmth of her being drove the deathlike chill from his body. He took her face into his hands, and bent and kissed her lips. She put her head on his breast, her arms about his neck, and held him tightly.
They shall not part us, she whispered against his cheek. "Never, never, never!"
The Boston family were at breakfast. William was in his place next to his wife, and his uncle, who now lived in the house, sat opposite him. The two men were talking of stocks, bonds, securities, and insurance rates. Celeste was taking no part in the conversation. In her morning dress she looked as frail and dainty as ever.
Presently the maid who was waiting at the table bent over her shoulder and, smiling, whispered something to her.
Oh, is he! Celeste exclaimed. "Tell him to wait. I want to see him after breakfast."
Who is it, dear? William asked.
It is Michael, she returned. "He has got back from New York. I want to find out how his mother is. He has been away longer than usual. I am afraid she may be worse."
Raising his coffee-cup to his lips, William dismissed the subject and continued his chat with his uncle.
We certainly have made the bank pay, the older man said. "As you know, it was not in the best condition when I took hold of it. I had no idea running a bank was so interesting. I have handled my end well and you have yours. I have heartily enjoyed my work, but sometimes I am in doubt about you."
About me? William's eyes met the upward glance of his wife, and both looked at the old man inquiringly.
Yes. You always seem nervous, overworked, and worried. I've tried to make it out. Are you sure you are entirely well? You are getting gray, my boy, and your signature often has a shaky look. You don't smoke too much, do you?
I think not, said William, and his eyes fell under the calm, penetrating stare of his wife. "But I am nervous, and seem to be getting more so. I am thinking of a vacation."
That is right, take it, his uncle said. "I can run the old boat awhile by myself."
Celeste remained at the table after they had left the room. She listened attentively and heard them closing the door as they went out into the street. No sooner were they away than she rang for the maid.
Please tell Michael that I want to see him, she said to the girl. "He is still there, is he not?"
Yes, madam.
In a moment Michael appeared, his hat in hand.
When did you get back? Celeste asked, after she had greeted him and he stood at the end of the table, the dust of travel on his gray suit and in the hollows of his earnest blue eyes.
At four o'clock this morning, madam; I'm pretty well done up.
How did you leave your mother? asked Celeste, and her eyes swept him from head to foot. It was plain to the servant that her questions were merely perfunctory.
Very well, thank you, madam. It is very kind of you to ask.
I am glad to hear it, Michael. Celeste faced him more directly now. "I was afraid she was worse, for you know you were gone longer than usual."
A few days longer, madam, Michael said. "I had no idea of being detained, but I actually ran across a trace of Mr. Charles, and, knowing your anxiety, I—"
You have found him—you have seen him! Celeste interrupted. "I know it from the way you look, Michael."
Yes, madam, I found him. After some trouble and quite a journey I located him and managed to meet and talk with him.
Sit down, Michael, sit down; you are tired.
He drew a chair back from the table and sat in it, his travel-stained hat on his knee.
Now tell me about him. Is he well?
A perfect picture of health, madam, Michael beamed. "He is living on an old plantation down in the mountains of Georgia, working like a common laborer, but he seemed satisfied."
Like a common laborer! Celeste repeated, sadly. "Go on, tell me everything, Michael."
At some length the old servant recounted his experiences from the moment of his meeting with Mason in New York till he had joined Charles in the South.
And the girl you speak of—the planter's daughter. You say she is—
The most beautiful and refined young lady I ever met, madam. I cannot tell you how well she impressed me. You could see by a look at her that she was of fine stock. She was very nice to me. I saw her father, too, but I did not meet him—a fine figure of a gentleman. A little run down in appearance, madam, but a courtly gentleman at bottom. The house was a fine old place. You could not blame a young man like Mr. Charles for wanting to settle there, after all the roving he had had to get away from—You understand what I mean, madam?
Celeste nodded breathlessly. "You must tell me, Michael," she urged, "if, in your opinion, Charles is in love with the young lady."
Michael hesitated; he fumbled the rim of his hat; he blinked under her steady stare.
Answer me, Michael, Celeste insisted. "Surely he would not object to my knowing it if he is. You see, I am anxious to hear that he has found such happiness."
I may as well tell you that he made no secret of it, madam, but I regret to say that it has not brought him full contentment.
Then she cares for some one else, Celeste said, regretfully.
On the contrary, madam, I am sure that the feeling is mutual. I could see it in the way she looked at him, and in the way she treated me merely because I was a friend of his, as he told her in my presence.
But I don't understand, Celeste pursued. "If they love each other—" She went no further, knitting her brows perplexedly.
It is this way, madam. Oh, Mr. Charles spoke plainly enough that night at the little hotel when he came to see me! You see, madam, he is conscientious—Mr. Charles is remarkably so, and he will not, he says, think of asking such a young lady to be his wife when he is—well, under a cloud.
Oh! Oh! That is it!
Oh yes, madam, and in that respect he is to be pitied. Even if he were willing to keep his—his little mistake from the young lady herself, he could not show her family proper credentials as to who he is. You see, he is at present a common farm-hand. The young lady seems to understand him, I should say, but her people and the community don't. You would be sorry for him if you could see him and hear him talk in his brave, manly, and patient way.
At this point Michael told of the timely aid which had been given to Keith, the motive behind it, and the successful outcome of the operation. As he told it, it was a dramatic story which held Celeste spellbound.
And he gave even that money away! Celeste cried. "I know he loves her, Michael, but, as you say, he is only a farm-hand and the other thing hangs over him. I know him well enough to understand that he'd never think of marriage in his condition. Oh, he must be unhappy, Michael! As you say, she may be the one woman in all the world for him, and yet he has to give her up. Poor, dear Charlie!"
Yes, he is unfortunate, madam. He no longer drinks. All that is over. He is a man among men, madam. His simple life and regular habits have improved him wonderfully. He is a young giant of a man. His skin is clear, and his eye bright, but he is sad—yes, he is sad and thoughtful, especially when he speaks of home and the little girl. He cautioned me not to mention him to her. He wants her to think of him as dead, because the young soon forget those who die.
Celeste rose suddenly. "I'll see you again," she said, clearing her husky throat. "I must go now. I thank you, Michael. No one else could have done what you have done." At the door she suddenly wheeled on him. "Michael, wait, please!" she said. Her lips were twitching, her brows were contracted as if in deep, disturbed thought. She rested her thin white hands on the back of a chair and grasped it as for support. "Michael," she continued, "did it ever occur to you that Charles may have been drawn into that trouble by others and may not have been wholly to blame?"
I can't say that I thought that, madam, said Michael, swinging awkwardly from one foot to the other and blinking. "I did always think, and believe, too, that he wasn't at himself when it happened. I told him I thought that once, and he did not deny it. That is why I've been so sorry for him, for a man ought not to be punished all his life for a thing that was done when he was—well, like Mr. Charles used to get."
I see; I see what you think, and Celeste nodded as if in affirmation of some thought of her own. "And you say you think the two are in love with each other?"
Oh yes, madam, and that is the sad part of it.
And that but for Charles's secret trouble they would be married?
Yes, madam. I have no doubt of it.
Thank you, Michael. You may have done him a great service by—by going to see him when you did. I mean, she added, starting as from some inner fear, "that reaching him just when you did with that money—"
Oh yes, madam, Mr. Charles spoke of that a dozen times. You see, as I have tried to explain, it lifted a load from the young lady.
I understand that, Celeste said, musingly. "And she is very pretty and sweet and gentle, you say?"
She is everything a lady ought to be, madam, and, oh, I must say my heart ached for her, too, for I could see how she felt about him. She is full of spirit. She is the kind that would fight for a man to the last ditch and drop of blood. But, oh, madam, it seemed so sad! There he was in a farmer's clothes, his hands as hard as stone, and she—why, madam, he treated her like she was a princess of royal rank, and all the time with that old, sad look he used to have when he was scolding himself to me after one of his little sprees around town. Almost the last thing he said to me, madam, was that when he had helped her all he could he intended to slip away, for her own good, and take up his life somewhere else among strangers. It was then, madam, I assure you, that I almost lost my religion. I've been taught, madam, from my mother's knee—and she is a saint, if one ever lived—I say I've been taught that our Saviour died to help men who repent, and there was Mr. Charles bowed down like that without a hand held out to him. He gave up all he loved here—you, the little girl—his 'Sunbeam,' as he called her down there—and his brother, and now, when he has found some one that he loves, he must give her up also and start to roving again. I shed tears. I couldn't help it, and it moved him. I could see that. We were in my room at the hotel. His face turned dark as he sat there on my bed trying to be calm. He stood up and shook himself and smiled. 'Mike,' he said, 'nothing counts that we do for ourselves. It is only by forgetting ourselves and helping others that we accomplish anything worth while.'
Thank you, Michael, I'll see you again soon, Celeste said, moving toward the door.
'Nothing counts that we do for ourselves,' Celeste repeated, as she was ascending the stairs to her daughter's room. At the door she paused and listened for a moment, then, softly turning the bolt, she entered the room. The blinds were down to exclude the sunlight which was growing warm. On the great white bed Ruth lay asleep. One plump bare arm, shapely wrist, and hand lay against the mass of golden hair. Celeste stood at the foot of the bed, and with a mother's parched thirst drank from the picture before her eyes. How beautiful the child was! How exquisite the patrician brow, the neck, the contour of nose, mouth, and chin! How temperamentally sensitive, imaginative, and high-strung! How proud of her father, of his social and financial standing and his old name of Puritan respectability! How affectionate she was with her mother, how adored by the servants and by her absent uncle!
She is all I have now! thought Celeste, as she choked down a sob, "Can I do it—am I able to do it?"
She sat in a rocking-chair near the bed, her gaze still on the child's face. A sudden breeze fanned the shades of the windows inward. She locked her hands in her lap, her thin, blue-veined, irresolute hands in a lap of stone. "'Nothing counts that we do for ourselves,'" she quoted, uncompromisingly. "If I refuse I'll not be acting for myself, but for her—my baby—my darling baby! Charlie loved her enough to undertake her rescue, and I must help him carry it through. Yes, I can do that conscientiously. It would kill her to learn that her father was a convict. She couldn't grow up under it. It would blight her whole existence. At school she would hear it. In society it would be whispered behind her back and thrown in her face. Oh, it can't be! God would not allow it to be. He would not allow the sins of a father to fall on shoulders so frail and helpless. Some coarse children would think nothing of it; it would kill my baby. She would brood over it—oh, I know my child! She would hold it in her mind night and day. From what she now is she would become an embittered cynic, soured against life and her Creator. She would never marry. She would not want to bring children into a world so full of pain. And yet, and yet—" Celeste rose and went to a window and stood looking out, peering through the small panes as a hopeless prisoner might.
And yet—justice must be done. Her white lips framed the words which shrank from utterance. "Charlie has his rights, and so has the girl he loves. He undertook our rescue without knowing the cost. He was full of repentance at the time over his trivial mistakes, but now he must see it differently. Shall we drive him to roving again? Would God give my child a happy life at such a cost? Would He blight the lives of two of His children for one—and those two wholly innocent? No, justice must be done. It must! It must! It must! But I can't be her executioner. Why, I'm her mother! She is all I have in the world!"
Celeste crept back to the bed and bent over the sleeping child. Her hand went out as if to caress the white brow, but her fingers lifted only a fragrant lock of hair, and this she bent and kissed as soundlessly as the sunlight's vibration on the rug-strewn floor.
The next day was Sunday. Leaving her husband and his uncle smoking over their papers in the dining-room, her child in the care of a maid, Celeste slipped away unnoticed. She did not often attend church, but she was going to-day. Why, she could not have explained. It was as if a building with a spire and chimes, altar and surpliced clergyman, white-robed choristers and bowed suppliants, would help her make the decision that a long, sleepless night had withheld. She felt faint as she entered the family pew and bowed her head, for she had taken little nourishment since her travail began. Somehow her own death seemed a near thing, but she did not care. There were other things so much worse than mere death.
She failed to comprehend any part of the sermon which the gray-haired minister was delivering in that far-off, detached tone. She noticed some rings on his stout fingers and wondered how such mere trinkets could be worn by an ordained helper of the despairing and the God-forsaken. As soon as the service was over she hastened homeward. She told herself that she would act at once and face her husband with a demand that either he or she should perform the bounden duty. But as she entered the door and heard the voices of the two men in the dining-room, and smelled the smoke of their cigars, her courage oozed from her. She could not tell them both. Her talk must be for William alone; it would be for him to inform his uncle, and he would do it. William, once shown the right road, would take it. She knew him well enough for that. His wavering for the past year had been like hers, but when he knew all and was faced with the call of justice, as she was facing it, he would obey.
At the foot of the stairs in the hall she paused. Should she go back to the two men, or—It was the rippling laugh of her child up-stairs, who was being amused by a maid, the joyous clapping of a small pair of hands, that drew Celeste up the carpeted steps and into the child's presence.
Oh, mother, see what she has put on me! Ruth cried, gleefully, as she sprang into the middle of the room robed in a filmy pink gown which had been made for her use in a class in interpretative dancing, and held out the skirt, forming wings like those of a fairy floating over beds of roses. A circle of artificial flowers rested on the golden tresses. Ruth's eyes were sparkling with delight as she bowed low in one of the postures she had been taught, and then glided gracefully into her mother's arms.
Oh, we've had so much fun! Haven't we, Annette?
Madame will pardon me, the French maid said. "I know it is Sunday, but she was so full of joy when she waked that—"
It doesn't matter, Celeste said. "You may go. I'll dress her for dinner myself."
And as she did it, that morning of all mornings to be remembered, Celeste was the most pitiable of all pitiable creatures. Her coming sacrifice was not like that of Abraham in his offering of Isaac to his God, for, while he was a child of God, Abraham was not a mother.
Justice must be done! she kept saying. "The happiness of two against the misery of one—two against two, in reality; but I don't count, I mustn't count. Charlie said to Michael that nothing counts that we do for ourselves, and this protesting ache within me is self, for my baby is myself. Sweet, sweet little daughter! Mother has the blade ready and must thrust it deep into your joyous heart. Oh, if my cup would only pass, and my will might be done instead of God's!" She held her child on her knees as she took off the pink symbol of dawn and robed her anew. She was laying her child on an altar before God and no sacrificial ram was in sight.
All the rest of the day Celeste was with Ruth. She walked with her in the Public Gardens. She stayed away from home, fearing that some one might call, and she felt unequal to the mocking convention. Surely this was no time for smirking formalities. When, as the sun was going down, she and the child returned home she found no one there except the servants. She felt relieved, for she was not prepared yet to meet her husband's eye, for surely he would know that something unusual had happened to her. She was glad that he did not return till just before the supper was served. She took Ruth down-stairs and into the dining-room as soon as the meal was announced. William and his uncle had met again in the parlor and were talking there in low tones. She and Ruth were in their places at the table when they came in.
Yes, we certainly put it over on them, the old man said, with a chuckling laugh. "I felt sure the market was firm and sent my wire at once."
I was confident, too, William answered, "but I never knew you to take a risk, and it may have been due to that fact that I was so undisturbed."
Well, I think I can say as much for you, William, the old man answered. "Since I have been with you at the bank you have been the most conservative business man I ever knew. I have sometimes thought you were too careful, but caution can never be a fault."
They took seats. The business talk continued. The bank was to become the greatest in the state—every indication was in its favor. Celeste failed to hear Ruth's pretty prattle at her side. As she looked at the two men her determination, which had been held so firmly all day, grew weak and vacillating. How could she carry out her plan before them? She sank more deeply into the mire of misery than ever. The whole world seemed black and mad under the contending forces of right and wrong. How frail was the spirit flag she was striving to hold aloft in all that clash and rush of evil!
No, the right thing could not be done—by her, at any rate. Charles would have to remain the self-elected lifelong victim that he was. After all, he would be saving her; he would be saving Ruth; he would be saving his brother whom he had always loved. Saving his brother! But was he? Could it be done so vicariously? And as this question pounded upon her brain she looked for the first time with scaleless eyes at her husband. Why had she not noticed it before? William was the mere withering husk of the man he had once been. His deep-sunken, shadowy eyes told his story; his parchment-like skin, his furtive, haunted look, repeated it; his constantly enforced attention to what was being said by others, his Judas-like manner, the quivering of his mentally handcuffed hands, confirmed it again and again. Why, William was dying—dying from the sheer poison of his putrefying soul. Only his great, staring eyes seemed alive, and they lived only in their dumb quest of mercy. Poor William! No one could save him but himself. Charles's nobility, Charles's sacrifice, would not do it. He must do it himself. Ah yes, that was the key, and it had dropped down from heaven! The thing was settled now. She would see him before the dawn of another day. She would suffer. Ruth would suffer, but William would be saved. Ah, that was the point too long overlooked! His only child would be paying the price, but in the far-off future Ruth herself, with the spiritual wisdom of age, might thank the memory of her mother for the opportunity given her.
The family retired before ten o'clock that night. Celeste sat by her daughter's bed, and with a soft, soothing song lulled her child to sleep. Gradually she felt the tiny fingers losing their grasp upon her own. Shortly afterward Celeste heard William ascending the stairs to his room adjoining hers. She heard him close his door. He always closed his door. At night or in the day he closed his door. Even at the bank he closed the door of his private office, perhaps in order that he might release the drawn cords to those perpetual curtains of his secret self.
There was another door between her room and his. Even that was shut. If she wished to see him before he retired she must hasten. She went into her own room, but did not turn on the electric light. She stood in the center of the room, shivering from head to foot as from cold. Presently she knocked on his door. Then there was a moment of tense silence. The sound must have startled her husband; and when at last he did fumblingly turn the bolt and open the door he stood there in the dark, facing her wonderingly, speechlessly.
I—I didn't know who it was—at first! he stammered. "I thought—thought—"
Excuse me, she said, stroking the death-damp sweat from her brow and sliding past him into his room, "but I wanted to see you. I wanted to talk to you. It is something important, it seems to me. I couldn't do it before uncle, and you were with him all day. May we have a—a light?"
Need we? fell from his lips impulsively, then: "Yes, dear, of course. I quite forgot. I—I sometimes undress in the—the dark in the summer-time." He groped for the button on the wall. "Yes, I was right," he thought. "She has had something on her mind all day and last night, and she says it is important. My God! important! Only one thing is important—can it have come up again?"
His fingers touched the button. He pushed it in and the white glare filled the room like a photographer's flash-light, revealing their set visages to each other. William certainly looked old now, for a storm of terror was laying waste his whole suppressed being. She turned from him in sheer pity of his swaying frailty. She sat down in a chair, and, like the ill man that he was, he sank into another. He had unfastened his scarf and collar and the ends of both hung in disorder on his breast.
You say it is something important? he muttered, and with his hand he made a pretext of shading his eyes.
Yes, William, it is important, as I see it, she answered, her stare on the floor, her bloodless hands in her lap, tightly clasped. "It is about—about a subject we have not mentioned between us lately."
I think I understand, he breathed low. "Then you have heard from him, or at least you know where he went."
Yes, and through Michael, she added. "Michael owed him some money and so he searched for him till finally—"
Oh! burst eagerly from her listener. "Then it was not the detectives—not the police. You see—you see, I thought—"
No, he is safe in that respect, for a while, at any rate, Celeste said. "Michael found him in a retired place down in the mountains of Georgia, and—"
Why, I—I thought he had gone abroad! and there was no mistaking the sudden uneasiness in William's tone. "But you say he is still here in this country? Are you sure about that?"
Yes, Michael has seen and talked with him. William, Charlie is very unhappy. Don't think that he is complaining, for he is not, but a new life has opened out before him and he is still young. William, justice must be done to him.
The hand-shade fell lower over William's eyes, but she could still see their fixed pupils just beneath the flesh-line of his palm.
Justice! he gasped. "Surely you are not going to—to hint at that suspicion of yours again. Haven't I shown you—told you that it would make you miserable for life?"
It is not merely a suspicion now, William, she said, grimly. "I know it to be a fact that Charlie is wholly innocent, and that you—But, oh, you know what I mean!"
Like a murderer faced by skilled accusers confident of his guilt, William could formulate no denial. His sheer silence condemned him, that and the furtive flight of his eyes from object to object in the room. They reached everything except her set face. He and she were silent for a moment; then William spoke:
So he talked to Michael. Probably he said a lot of things to him, and Michael has come back full of—of—
He said nothing of that sort to Michael, Celeste corrected, quickly. "Charlie is still true to his agreement with you. He lets Michael think that he did it when under the influence of drink. Michael hasn't the slightest idea that another is to blame."
I see, and in spite of all this, and even Charlie's confession over his own signature, which I showed you, you still hold the idea that—
Yes, I know that the poor boy was innocent, and that he did it all—the written confession, the going away, the shouldering of the disgrace here, and the nameless life among strangers as a common laborer—he did all that for your sake and mine and Ruth's. Don't—don't deny it any more, William—don't lie to me! I won't stand for it! I won't! I won't! I can't!
He gave in. He could have crawled like a worm before her in his weltering despair.
You know it is true, don't you, William? There were pity, gentleness, and even abiding love in her tone.
He was conquered. He covered his ashen face with his gaunt hands, and, with his elbows on his knees, he sat leaning forward, dumb and undone. Then she told him his brother's story. It fell from her lips like the sweet consolation of a consecrated nun to a dying penitent, and yet it rang full and firm with Heaven's demand for justice. With a wand of flaming truth she pointed the way—the only way. He sobbed. William for the first time sobbed in her presence. His lips hung loose and quivered like those of a whimpering child.
Have you realized the cost? he asked, presently. "Do you know what it will mean to you and to Ruth? As God is my judge, Lessie, I am not thinking of myself. In fact, I was thinking only of you when I did it!" Here he made a confession of how he had prepared to kill himself that she might escape the long-drawn publicity of his trial, and how his brother had thwarted the effort.
Yes, I realize the cost, Celeste answered, "but Ruth and I must pay it. It seems to me now that a greater thing in God's sight than paying our own debts is paying the debts of others. Charlie is trying to pay our debts, but he shall not. William, he shall not. You are dying under the strain that is on you. It is God's way of blighting His fruitless trees."
You are right, he faltered. "A felon's cell, a convict's chains, would furnish relief compared with the tortures I have been enduring. But you and the baby—oh, Lessie, that is unbearable! That thought has haunted me for over a year."
I know, but don't think of it now, she said. "Act at once. See uncle to-night before he retires. He is still in the library. He said he had something to read."
I'll tell him at the bank in the morning, William said. "It is the proper place for it. Yes, yes, I'll tell him. You look as if you doubt it, but I'll keep my word. If you stop to think of it, you will see that there is nothing else to do."
Wait! Celeste rose and went out into the hallway. She leaned over the balustrade and peered downward; then she came back. "I see the light in the library," she said. "He is there now. Go. It must be settled to-night. I am holding myself to it with all the strength of my soul. I am afraid I will weaken. Another night and I might. Charlie's rights and Ruth's are in a balance, and they are seesawing up and down. Hurry! Hurry! Go this minute!"
He rose and staggered from the room. Celeste sat down and leaned forward. She listened, all her soul in her ears. She remembered that the old stairs had a harsh habit of creaking when one went down or up them. They were uttering no sound now. Why? she wondered. Softly she got up and crept out into the hall. There in the darkness stood William on the first step, a hand on the railing. His face was turned toward the foot of the stairs. The narrow strip of carpet stretched down toward the dim light below. He was staring at the light as if turned to stone by its gruesome import. She crept to him, touched him on the arm. He turned his death-mask of a face to her, and moved his flabby lips soundlessly.
Go on, she said.
You forget one thing, Lessie. His voice came now in a rasping whisper. "You forget that this thing was Charlie's own suggestion. He proposed it. He would expect me to live up to it, as well as he himself. You mentioned Ruth. She was in his mind at the time, as well as you and me. Then there was another thing. He had—he said so himself—he had disgraced himself here. He had acted in a way that made him want to disappear, never to be heard of again. This would bring all that up again. I have no doubt that he would want the matter to rest just as it is."
Yes, he would, and for that very reason it shall not, Celeste flashed out. "He loves a good girl, and she loves him. If you are silent to-night they will be parted forever. The thing is killing you; it will kill me, too. Are you trying to force me to be your accomplice?"
His head rocked negatively like a stone poised on a pivot, but still he did not move forward. Gently she caught his hand, the one still on the railing, and as she did so his fingers automatically clutched the wood as if he were afraid of falling down the stairs.
I'll go, he said. "You see, I was wondering just how to put it to uncle. He will be humiliated in a peculiar way. I hardly know how to say it, but he has all along felt the—the stigma of Charlie's—of what he thinks Charlie did—felt it so keenly that he has overdone his—his praise of me. You understand—of me. He has boasted of my—my moral stamina and ability on all occasions, in that way, you see, to make up for Charlie's—or what he thinks was Charlie's bad conduct. It will upset him terribly. It will fill him with chagrin, for—for I and the bank and its success have become his very life. I dread the effect on him. He is old, you know, and not so very strong. What would we do if it were to result disastrously—I mean to him, you understand? If Charlie hadn't done this thing of his own accord—"
Stop, William, Celeste said, with a resolute sigh. "I see how hard it is for you to do. Let me do it. I'll know what to say perhaps better than you. Besides, if you consent to my going to him it will be the same as if you did it. In fact, I'll tell him you sent me."
No, I'll have to put it through, said William, suddenly. He barred the way by thrusting his disengaged hand against the wall, the other still holding on to the balustrade. "Go to your room. I'll attend to it."
He moved forward now, and, standing still, she saw him slowly descend the stairs and vanish at the library door. Then she went back to her own room. But she did not disrobe nor turn on the light. She remained sitting in a chair at a window through which the rays of a street lamp fell. She would wait for William's return. She loved him; she was sorry for him; she wanted to cry, but could not.
William found his uncle at a writing-table, sheets of paper and a note-book before him, a fountain-pen in his hand. He looked up and smiled a pleasant greeting. "Thought you had turned in," he chuckled, softly. "I told Lessie I had a book to read, but it wasn't that, really. I've been here figuring on my holdings. I love to do it. It makes the things I've fought and won stand out, you see, before my eyes, as you might say. It furnishes me with a fresh surprise every time I do it. It always seems bigger, solider, you see. Sit down, my boy; take a cigar—there are several pretty good ones. No, you won't? I see, it will keep you awake, eh? Well, I must say I admire it in you. The best business men are careful, and you are one of them. I owe you a lot, my boy," he went on, as William sat down and clasped his cold knee-caps with his shaking hands. "Do you know what you did for me? I see; you are too modest to confess it. Well, you actually did this: I had practically given up the financial game. I was trifling my time and income away in Europe when this great family trouble clutched me and pulled me back into harness. And what has been the result? Why, I've not only enjoyed the game of defending our blood, but every venture I have made has shoveled gold into my bin."
William nodded. He could not find his voice. He was glad that his uncle's enthusiastic face was bent over his writing.
And don't think I am not realizing that I'm no longer young, either, the steady voice went on. "I'm not a silly fool. I sha'n't claim more than ten years more of life, at the furthest, and what do you think I expect to do with my effects? You saw the little item in The Transcript the other day, stating that I might make a big donation to several charitable institutions? I know you must have seen it. Well, nothing could be farther from my intentions. I am going to leave all I have to a young fellow that I think had a pretty hard time of it. Of course, you don't know who I mean, Billy. I didn't think I'd ever want to provide for any particular person, but when I got back from Europe and saw you haggard and unstrung, putting up practically all you had in the world to pull our name from the mire—well, it changed me on the spot. You see, it was a quality I didn't think a man could have, and I'd found it in you."
Wait! Stop, please! William gulped. "I—I—"
Too modest, eh? the old man laughed. "Now you keep quiet. I am holding the floor, and the chairman says you are out of order. Huh! if you are too modest to want this for yourself, think of your wife and child. I've grown to love them as if they were child and grandchild of my own. I want to see them happy, and when I make them so you will be, too, Billy, in spite of the rascally thing that has been done to you. You shall be president of the bank; you shall run the whole thing, and I'll sit back and take life easy to the end. Do you know that old men enjoy life more than the young? Well, it is true. Aside from the bad conduct of your brother—the lasting sting of it—there is nothing in my life to regret. I am actually happy in the realization that I am doing so much for the happiness of you and yours—and mine. Yes, they are mine, too."
There was a pause, but William was unable to fill it. He reached out and took one of the cigars from the table; he struck a match and lighted it, but it burnt for an instant only. The old man was looking at him steadily. "You are not well to-night, are you, Billy?" he asked, in a sudden swirl of affectionate concern.
No, not very, William heard himself saying. "I—I—"
Well, perhaps you'd better turn in, his uncle suggested. "This is your day of rest, you know. Later I'll give you the details of what I am going to do for you."
Uncle, said William, desperately, standing up and leaning forward like a storm-blown human reed, "I am unworthy, absolutely unworthy of—"
Bosh! Go to bed! the old man cried, in an ecstasy of delight. "I'm to be the judge of worthiness in this case. It is a scarce commodity these days, and when I see a man actually trying to stave off his just rewards—why, he is a miracle, that's all—a miracle of unselfishness! Stupid, think of that bonny child of yours! Don't you want to see her take her proper place in the social world? What have you lived and toiled for? I'll bet Lessie won't treat this thing as you do. I'll bet she will kiss her old uncle, and—"
William lost the remainder of the remark. A sudden sense of respite brooded over him like a protecting cloud. Had he the right now to step between his wife and child and such a princely inheritance? In the face of it would Lessie herself not feel impelled to take a different stand? What normal mother would not? To disillusion the old idealist now would ruin the chances of a good woman and a helpless child. Yes, at any rate, he told himself, he must see Celeste and lay the matter in its new form before her.
Well, I'll go up, he said, as casually as was in his depleted power. "I'll see you at breakfast. I—I am rather tired."
Yes. Good night, my boy. Sleep will do you good.
Somehow William had the odd sense of being bodiless as he ascended the stairs. As he approached his wife's room he saw the handle of her door move, and then he knew that she was standing waiting for him just inside the room. They faced each other in the deflected flare of the street lamp. She reached out and took his hands and clung to them.
I've been listening. I expected a scene, a commotion, but I heard nothing of the sort, she whispered. "It must have simply stunned him. The blow was too deep even to stir his fury."
William pressed her hands convulsively, appealingly. He put an arm around her, a shaking, half-palsied arm.
Lessie, he panted, raspingly. "I found out down there—Wait, wait! Give me time." He cleared his throat. "I found out—It was like this, darling. You know how rapidly he talks at times? Well, he wouldn't give me a chance to break in; and finally he told me something that made me—forced me to feel that if you had been there—I mean—"
What? Go on! Go on! Celeste breathed quickly.
He was in a jolly mood. He spoke more freely than ever before. He let out the fact that he is worth several millions and that he intends to leave it all to us—I mean to you and Ruth. He has no idea of donating anything to charity, but all to you two. So you see—you see, it put me where I simply had to—to lay it before you. It strikes me as a reasonable idea that with all that money at your disposal you could—why, Lessie, you could make Charlie rich, and surely you cannot stand between our child and all that good fortune. Don't you see, dear? The truth would so infuriate uncle that he would—would drop us all—you, me, Ruth, Charlie—everybody! Old men are like that; they can't seem to recuperate after such a blow. I didn't tell him. I confess I didn't even mention it, for it was my duty to—to show you how matters stand. I'd not be a natural husband and father if—if I had acted otherwise. We have got in this awful mess. How are we going to get out? Remember, dear, I was trying to earn money for you and the baby when it happened, so how can I bear to—to think of going to jail and leaving you penniless? He would be mad enough to send me to jail, dear; he is just that vindictive, and he would not take care of you two, either. You don't seem to realize that it would make him the laughing-stock of the public, and he so sensitive and hot-tempered. You see, I have forced him to be my active accomplice in covering it all up, and he would have to remain silent or turn me over to the authorities. Oh, it is awful—awful! He puts such a high and unjust value on me that when he finds he has been fooled he will—why, he won't know how to control himself! It would be like him to leave the house to-night—this very night—and go to a hotel, where he would chatter even to the bell-boys. Think of Ruth—if not of me; have pity on that sweet, inoffensive child.
Oh, but Charlie! Charlie! Celeste found voice to say.
But don't you remember that Charlie himself proposed going away? Why, he was down and out—sick of Boston and everything in it. He said he never wanted to come back or to be heard of again. That was to save me—just me—from—from trouble. Is it likely that he would be willing to have me—to have any of us take a step like this now? How do you know that—that he'd like to—to have his old life raked up again? He is evidently playing a part of some sort. Have we the right, without consulting him, to have all this put in the papers and flashed from end to end of the country?
Celeste stood like a statue, cold and motionless, in his half-embrace. The dim light disclosed her marble cheek to his sight. Her wide-open eyes caught the flare from the street lamp and gave it back in gleams of indecision.
You say he spoke of Ruth's inheritance? she gasped.
More of her than you or me, said William, grasping at the straw. "He fairly dotes on her. But don't think he would stand by her if—if we anger him by this exposure. He would hate us all, Ruth along with us. In a burst of fury he would cut us all out. Oh, I know him, Lessie," went on William, imbibing hope from the dead stare turned on him. "I have been right at his elbow for over a year. He has given me his innermost thoughts."
I know, Celeste whispered. "I've noticed it, and knew why it was. He looked upon you as a paragon of nobility because you—because he thought you were sacrificing so much to atone for Charlie's conduct. He told me once that it had given him a new faith in men—that he had not thought such a thing possible. But that was wrong—cursed of God. It was hypocrisy as black as the lowest vats of hell. And I helped you in it. I feared all along that my intuition was telling me the truth, but because I didn't know where Charlie was, because I thought he might be dead, I kept silent. But, husband, it is different now—oh—oh! so different! God has sent us this trial. Charlie's life and happiness are at stake. If we are untrue he will bear the burden meant for us. God knows he has suffered enough for his boyish escapades—that has been proved by his throwing off his old habits and becoming a clean, decent, and ambitious man. He loves and is loved, and yet he is regarded as little more than a tramp by the people around him. William, I am weak, wavering, and all but dying under this. What am I to do?"
He put both his hands on her shoulders, turned her face directly to his, and went on, reassuringly: "Go to bed, darling. Let it be as it is. Remember I gave promise to Charlie not to follow him up. He was to be free forever. Go to bed, dear. This is a tempest in a teapot. You are all wrought up and nervous. You'd never forgive yourself for stepping in between our child and her rightful inheritance. Think of that. How would you like to be treated that way just to satisfy some one else's finical qualms as to right and wrong?"
She allowed him to push her toward her bed, and for no obvious reason other than physical weakness she sat upon it, her staring eyes still fixed upon his insistent face. He thought his case was won. He bent and kissed her on the cheek. He tried to raise her chin that his lips might put the seal of frailty upon hers, but she resisted him firmly, inexorably. This gave him pause. All the terrors of his moribund being gathered, screaming and threatening, from the nooks and crannies into which they had but temporarily fled.
Don't you—can't you see it as—as I do? he pleaded, still trying to lift her chin, and realizing his defeat even in that small failure.
No! That was all she said, but it was more than enough.
He stood away from her. Indescribable contingencies now waxing into grim certainties hurtled about him—exposure, a felon's cell, the visible hatred of the man who had so completely trusted him.
No! Celeste repeated, firmly. "There can be only one course to take, and that is the right one—right if it kills us all. You can't tell him. I must do it. He is still down there."
Is this final?
Yes, final, she said, and stood up. He made a movement as if to stop her; it ended by his dropping his limp arms to his sides. His lips moved, but produced no sound. She left the room first, and he followed. Together they leaned over the balustrade and peered at the light below. Then she drew herself erect and started down the stairs. He watched her till she was half-way down, then turned into his room.
She reached the library door. She saw the old man still bent over his calculations, a glow of satisfaction on his pink face. She heard him chuckle. No doubt he was thinking of Ruth's good fortune. She was about to enter when a grim thought suddenly clutched her as if in a vise. How strangely William had acted as they were parting up-stairs! Once before he had started to end his life. Would he be so desperate now? Why not? The crisis was even greater. She turned quickly, and, holding her breath, she darted back up the stairs and tiptoed into William's room. He was standing at his bureau. She heard a hard substance strike against one of the smaller drawers as he turned to face her. Darting to him, she grasped his arm and slid her fingers down to the revolver he was clutching.
Oh, you wouldn't do that—would you, dear? she panted, as she wrung the weapon from his grasp.
His silence was his answer. He stepped back from her. He had steeled himself for the supreme shock of death. How could he summon mere words at this ultimate moment?
I see, I see! she moaned, and she was sure now that she loved him in his weakness as a mother might love her child that was blind, crippled, and in unending pain. She put the weapon into the bosom of her dress, and, with her hands outstretched, she cried: "I didn't tell him, darling. I hurried back to you when I thought—thought—thought of this. Something else must be done. Charlie wouldn't be willing to murder you. It was to prevent this that he went away."
Her hands were around his neck. He was still under the chill spell of the ordeal he had faced. She drew his head down and kissed him again and again on the lips, as if to restore life's breath to him.
Yes, something else—but not this she ran on. "We'll see—we'll see, sweetheart. If Charlie were here he'd stop you—he would—he would, and so must I. I see, you couldn't face it all, could you, dear? I ought to have thought of that sooner. Some one has said that God never puts more on us than we can bear, and that is why He turned me back to you when He did. Now, now, we can go to sleep, can't we, darling boy?"
Oh, it was wonderful—glorious—ecstatic! he muttered as if to himself, his blank stare fixed on the space beyond her. "I was afraid—afraid—afraid as I put my hand in the drawer and felt it like the icy foot of a corpse; but when I had hold of it—"
What are you saying, darling? Celeste asked, fearfully.
I'll never invest in stocks again. Down, down, down, and the money not my own. I'll be caught. I can't hide it. The examiners will come and look me in the eye, and—
Oh, what is it, dear? Celeste moaned, and, catching his arm, she shook him.
When I had hold of it, he wandered on, vacantly, "something said—out of the very darkness down where he and my wife were settling my fate—something said: 'Don't be afraid—it is nothing. It will be only a pinprick and you'll be free.' And I was free. I saw—I saw—I heard—I heard—I felt—yes, that is it, I felt as a man feels when he is said to be dead and no living soul knows of the great change but himself."
Oh, William darling, you are ill—you are—
Good boy, Charlie! Bully boy, my brother! You were true as steel—you knew it had gone down, down, down to the bottom of hell itself and so you ran away. But I was left with it, brother mine. I was in a vat filled with black, smirking imps. Every day I fought with them, every night. But I'm glad now. Are you dead, too? Is that light, or is it— Who ever heard of light and music being the same thing? It is even more than that, eh, Charlie? It is language—the cosmic speech of the universe, and we are in a sea of eternal bliss.
Celeste, wordless now, took his face between her trembling hands and tried to turn it toward her own, but it was immovable. He was chuckling, laughing, his eyes still fixed on space. Dropping her hands, Celeste ran to the head of the stairs, and, like a hysterical woman giving an alarm of fire, she called out:
Oh, uncle—come quickly! Quick! Quick!
What is it? What is it? he exclaimed, as he darted from the library and plunged up the stairs.
Quick! Quick! she cried back, and vanished from his view. He found her standing over her husband, who was now seated on his bed. Hearing his step, William uttered a low, chuckling laugh, and, staring at him, said:
Here you are again, Charlie. I missed you. That cloud—that dazzling white cloud—seemed to come between us. I ran back to see Ruth and Lessie. Ruth was asleep, and when children are asleep they ride on the clouds—so a spirit told me. But Lessie was awake, standing over, over it—you know what I mean, over the body that held me so long. Oh, I wish she would hide it! Uncle was there, too, Charlie boy. Never could make the old doubter understand this, eh, Charlie? At first it was strange to us, too, eh? Wonderful, wonderful! I hear my old leathery tongue trying to describe it now. How funny!
William, what is the matter? the old man asked, bending over him.
William looked at him closely; he put his hand on his shoulder and went on, chuckling: "Oh, I see it is you, uncle. I want to tell you. You needn't be afraid of dying, as I was all my life. I held it right over my heart and pulled the trigger. There was a flash, a little, tiny tickling sting, and then Charlie and I—I'll never invest in stocks again. It seemed very easy to pile up all that for Lessie and the baby. Down, down, down—Every morning at breakfast I faced them with those figures on my brain like the slimy tracks of coffin snails. Down, down to doom! to doom—that's it, to my doom!"
The old man stood erect. He moved to a window. His niece followed him like a praying shadow. Their eyes met.
I am the cause of it, she said. "I tried to force him to confess to you that he was to blame, and not Charlie. He tried to use this," taking the revolver from her bosom, "while I went down to tell you."
He, and not Charlie! the old man exclaimed, with a fixed stare.
Say what you like, do what you like, she said, harshly, fiercely, recklessly, her white lip curled in a sneer. "He said you would put him in jail. I wonder if you will—I wonder. I would give my life for him. We don't want your money—understand that. What living man has not sinned? and he did it for love. Don't you dare to accuse—abuse him. He is down now and dying, perhaps."
With his eyes on the bent form on the bed, the old man seemed not to hear her. "Oh, my God, this is awful—awful!" he said, under his breath. "Well, there is but one thing to do."
Turning, he suddenly left the room. There was a telephone in the hallway, just outside the door, and he went to it. He took up the directory and then turned on the electric light. His hands shook as he fumbled the pages. The book fell to the floor. He picked it up. His old face seemed withered like crinkled parchment.
I can't find it! he groaned. "My God! have mercy! It is awful—awful!"
Celeste was at his side. Like an infuriated tigress defending her young, she glared into his face, and all but snarled: "Do it, do it, if you dare—and we'll hate you, despise you, curse your name! I'll teach Ruth to spit on your grave."
Lessie, Lessie, my child—my poor child! Do you object to my—
Object? Would you send him to jail when his reason is wrecked through fear of you—when he is dying?
Why, Lessie, Lessie, darling child, did you think that? Why, I am telephoning for the doctor, that is all. I love William and pity him as much as you do. We must save him, child, we must save him!
About a week later Tobe Keith was brought back to Carlin from Atlanta. He was able to walk through the streets from the station to his home. The news reached Kenneth and Martin as they were working in the cotton-fields. The bearer of the tidings said that the sheriff himself had asked that they be informed. Charles was at work close by, and, tossing his straw hat into the air, Kenneth ran toward him, followed by Martin, who was all aglow with joy.
I thought it would be so, Charles said, when he was informed of the good news.
With his hat swinging at his side, Kenneth held out his hand to him. "I want to thank you," he said, in a manly tone. "You did it, Brown."
And Martin chimed in, a hand outstretched also: "Yes, you did it. If it hadn't been for you he would have stayed here and died. Sister says so."
Flushing red, Charles was unable to deny the part he had played, though still unable fully to explain it. At this instant they saw Mary coming down the path.
She's heard, too, Martin chuckled. "It lifts a load off her mind—an awful load of worry. She was always afraid there would be an unfavorable turn down there. And they say Tobe is friendly to us."
The two boys went on to meet their sister, but Charles, feeling that he had no valid reason for following them, resumed his work with his hoe in the cotton. Several minutes passed. His back was turned to the trio on the path and he was constantly working away from them. Presently he heard the soft swishing of a starched skirt against the cotton-plants and Mary was at his side. Looking up, he was surprised to find her countenance overcast with a look of depression.
They've gone over to Dodd's to tell father, she said. "They are very, very happy."
But you—? and he leaned on his hoe. "You don't seem—Has anything gone wrong? Was it—a false report, after all?"
Oh no, it is true enough. She took a deep, lingering breath and released it in a sigh. "But the man that brought the news about Tobe told me something else—something that everybody in the neighborhood seems to know. Charlie, the sheriff has sent those men back to watch you again. They were seen hiding in the woods on the hillside. They are watching us even now. I thought that was all off, but they say the sheriff has had fresh instructions from the East. The men he is after are hiding somewhere in this part of the state, and he seems to think they are here in the mountains and that Tobe Keith and you know something about them."
Charles looked toward the hillside indicated, and then drew his lingering eyes back to hers. He was slightly pale; his lips were drawn tight in chagrin. He made a failure of a smile of indifference.
I thought that was over, he said. "I thought the sheriff had turned his attention elsewhere. But it can't be helped. You ought not to have taken me in. I ought not to have stopped here at all."
Don't talk that way! Mary commanded, with desperate warmth. "What are we going to do about it? I want the truth. I know you are bound by honor, as you say, but as far as you are able I want you to tell me what to expect. If he arrests you—well, what then?"
Charles dropped his eyes to the soil his hoe had turned up and the weeds he had cut. His fine face was stamped with the misery that permeated his being like an absorbent fluid. "If he arrests me he will want me to do the impossible," he said. "He will want me to show who and what I am. I've tried to tell you that I have no past that I can bring up even—even to stand well in your sight. I shall say nothing to him. I don't think the law would let him torture me bodily, but my silence will be ground enough to confirm his suspicions. A man who has been the daily associate of a bunch of circus crooks, and who refuses to show his record to an officer of the law, will stand a poor show."
I wonder—couldn't you escape? But, oh, I don't want you to leave! I couldn't bear that.
I thought of escape when they were hanging round before, he answered, with a pale, frank smile, "but gave it up. Such men would be hard to get away from, now that they are on guard, and, besides, to try it would be a confession that I am guilty of what they charge. No, I'll have to let them have their way about it. The men they are after are a dangerous lot and ought to be apprehended."
Listen to me, Charlie, and Mary, in her earnestness, put her hand on his arm. "I know something—a little something—of all this, and you need not deny it. You are trying to protect some one else in some way. I know it; I feel it; I've been sure of it for some time."
I am sorry, but I can tell you—even you—nothing, he replied, and the words came out with a low groan. "I'm glad you think so well of me. It is the only good thing that has come my way in a long time, but you mustn't care for me deeply, very deeply, for that would mar your future. You know what I think of you, but I have no right to mention it. Your father is right in warning you, as I know he has done; he shows it in the strange, half-fearful way he now speaks to me."
She averted her face; her eyes were moist; her exquisite lips were quivering like those of a weeping child. "I must go," she murmured. "I am sure they are watching us."
Yes, don't stay. He took up his hoe and began to work as she turned to go.
She hesitated and stood still. "The sheriff talks freely to father," she said. "In fact, I think father went over to Dodd's to meet him. I am sorry to have to tell you this, but you might hear it and not understand. Father liked you all along till—" She broke off, at a loss for words sufficiently delicate to express her meaning.
Till the good old man found that I was a menace under his roof, Charles put in, bitterly. "That's what I am, Miss Row—"
Stop! she suddenly cried out. "Have you lost consideration for my feelings? Am I to count for nothing in this matter? What if you can't reveal everything to me? I don't care. To me you are the soul of honor; to me you are the noblest, most abused man on earth. Charlie, I'll stand by you; I'll go with you if they put you in jail. They can't punish you without punishing me. I've told my father so. My brothers know how I feel. That is why father—as I started to say—is so worried. He doesn't know what to do. He has his pride; he loves me, wants to protect me, and does not know which way to turn."
And there is nothing I can do, as I see it, Charles groaned, leaning on his hoe, his great, famished eyes on hers. "If it would help, I'd gladly kill myself, but my death would prove nothing but my cowardice and confirm them in their suspicions."
She stepped back to him. She laid her slender, tapering hand on his arm and looked into his face steadily. "Yes, you are too brave for that," she faltered, giving her proud head a little shake of emphasis. "I've never been afraid of that. You, like myself, were born to suffer, it seems, but we will stand up under it, won't we? Let them all do their worst; it won't kill us, for we love each other, don't we, Charlie?"
He lowered his uncovered head; his grim, ashen face was wrung as from deathly pain.
We love each other, don't we, Charlie? she repeated, entreatingly.
A shudder shook him from head to foot. "How can I be glad to hear you say that," he asked, "when I know that it is your ruin and that I brought it on you? I have no right to tell you how I feel—how I've felt ever since I kissed you that night in the parlor and you lay so willingly in my arms and hung about my accursed neck. What can I do—what in the name of God, my tormentor? Shall I throw my sacred promise to the winds and laugh in the face of—of—?"
No! she cried out. "No, for I'd be doing it. I'd be your evil temptress. Be yourself, Charlie—be what you were before I met you. I think I know—you are selling yourself for some one else as I was willing to do when my brothers were in danger. Don't let me tempt you—don't let anything tempt you. God brought me out of my darkness—by your aid He brought me out. He only knows what my awful struggle was when I was ready to go to that repulsive man as his wife with your image locked in my breast—with my desire for you wrapped around my soul. God helped me; surely He will help you. What are earthly troubles for if they are not to be conquered, trampled under foot, as we mount to the heights to which we are destined? You shall not tell me anything. I know your soul, and that is enough."
She turned quickly and moved away. He saw the heads of her brothers as they wended their way toward Dodd's through the tall waving corn. How steadily, how erectly she walked toward the old mansion of her forebears! He noted the tiny marks of her shoes in the soil at his feet. He could have kissed them; he could have fallen on his knees before them in reverent, worshipful humility.
Charles worked on till the cool, creeping shadows of the mountains told him that the sun was down. Then he shouldered his hoe and listlessly trudged homeward. He heard Kenneth and Martin singing as they returned through the corn. It was a negro plantation melody, somehow maddening now in its trustful suggestion of joy. He saw the boys come out into the path. They were arm in arm, full of happiness, full of the ebullient consciousness of their release. He smiled grimly. He told himself that their nightmare had passed, while his was an abiding reality. He must be the exception that proved the rule of life's cosmic harmony. Some things could be borne with a smile. A man might die for his friend, and jest as the black cap muffled his lips; a man might sing as he was being vivisected for a good cause; but this—this fate belonged to no imaginable category of tortures. He had won the heart of an angel and was forced to wear the garb of an outcast in the kingdom which was her rightful abode.
Charles left his hoe in the barn and started toward the front of the house. Was he mistaken, or did he see a group of three men near the steps? Yes, and Rowland was one of them. As he passed through the gate he noted the big revolvers belted around the waists of the strangers. They were strong, well-built, sturdy men of the mountains in broad-brimmed felt hats. They evidently saw him, eyed him steadily as he came up the walk, and stood aside silently as he fearlessly ascended the steps. He thought they were going to arrest him, had no sense of objection to it, and was surprised when they neither spoke nor moved. As for Rowland, he simply nodded coldly and Charles went on up to his room.
He went to a window. It was open and he heard the mumbled voices of the men below, but could not see them. He stood listening.
Oh, it is all right, Colonel, one of the men said. "You've done all you can do. The sheriff thinks the thing looks shaky, and he wants to be on the safe side. There is a big reward out for those chaps and he thinks the fellow that was so free with his money in Tobe Keith's case, and your man that was with him at the time, are two of them."
I've heard all that from the sheriff himself, Rowland answered. "You may think it strange of us, but we are all willing to trust Mr. Brown. He has done good work here, and has been more than a friend."
But you say yourself, Colonel, that you don't know a thing about him, came the answer. "You don't know where he comes from, what his connections are, or anything."
That's all true, Rowland admitted, wearily. "I've never believed in prying into the private affairs of people. He is doing for us more than he agreed to do, and I am sure he is an educated gentleman who may have met with misfortune of some sort. I've never thought he was a happy man, and I've been sorry for him. I wish I could befriend him; and if you will give me a chance—"
Charles listened no longer. He had made up his mind as to what he would do. Turning, he went deliberately down-stairs and out to the group. They looked at him in surprise as he approached, and appeared to be somewhat abashed.
Gentlemen, Charles began, calmly, "pardon me for interrupting your conversation, but I have reason to believe that you are here on my account. Am I right?"
Well, yes, one of the men said, awkwardly, as he shifted from one of his heavily booted feet to the other. "You see, we are deputies under the sheriff's orders."
I thought so, Charles answered, "and I've come to ask a favor of you. The fact that you are watching me under this gentleman's roof is very mortifying to me, for I respect his kindness and his hospitality, and I want to ask if there is any reason why you may not arrest me and take me elsewhere?"
The question astounded them. The two men exchanged swift glances of inquiry. "Why—why, we have had no such orders, you see," the deputy stammered. "We are only doing as we were directed."
But a man has a right to decent treatment before he is proved guilty of a charge, Charles went on, "and this constant shadowing of this house because I am here is not fair to me or the family. I am a laborer on this place—that and nothing more—and I demand that you either withdraw from these premises or take me with you for safekeeping."
Charles heard a gasp behind him, and saw Mary standing in the doorway, pale as death and trembling.
What are you saying? she cried, and she came forward and caught the arm of her lover. "You are not going! You are not!"
Daughter! Daughter! Rowland protested, in a sinking voice, "be careful—be careful! Daughter, be careful!"
He is not going! she repeated. "It is a shame, an outrage! Father, if he goes, I go. Understand that for once and all."
An awkward pause ensued. Charles stood like a man of granite, his head up, his eyes fixed on the deputies; across his face the whip of pain had left its mark.
We have no orders, said the man who had spoken before, "except to hang around here and see if that friend of yours comes back, or any other suspicious stranger. We can't take you till we have orders, and we can't let up on our guard, either. There are four of us—two for night, and two for day work."
Rowland looked at his daughter wistfully. There was a suggestion of slow rising emotion in his wrinkled face as he spoke.
Tell Sheriff Frazier for me, boys, that I will furnish a bond for any amount in Mr. Brown's behalf, and that I hope he will do what Mr. Brown wishes in regard to lifting this—this surveillance.
Mr. Rowland, Charles cried out, urgently, "you mustn't do that. I don't deserve it at your hands. I'm a stranger without a dollar to my name."
He does deserve it, father. You are right, said Mary, as she swept to her father's side and locked her arm in his. "He is the best and truest friend we ever had, and you will never regret this."
The old white head rocked up and down deliberately. "Yes, tell the sheriff what I said, and do it at once if possible."
One of us will see him right away, was the deputy's answer, as both of them clattered down the steps and strode toward the gate.
Charles started forward as if to utter a further protest, but Mary sprang to his side.
Hush! she cried. "Father wants to do this. Let him! It is a poor enough return for what you have done for us."
Turning suddenly, as if to hide her emotion, she went into the house. Rowland and Charles stood facing each other in the gathering dusk. From the direction of the kitchen came the singing voices of Kenneth and Martin, who were unconscious of the tragedy being enacted so close at hand. There was a light rising into the old face of the planter which Charles had never seen there before. Rowland laid his hand on his shoulder and let it lie there gently, almost tenderly.
You have won the heart of my daughter, he began. "She is the image of her mother, and the man who has such a love has all the world can give that is worth having. I congratulate you, sir. For her sake I must make your cause my own. You have helped me free my sons; you must help me save my daughter. She could not survive your downfall—I know that because I knew her mother. Tell me, as a man facing a man, are these charges true?"
They are not. I swear they are not.
Thank God! That is all I want to know! Rowland held out his hand and, taking that of Charles, he pressed it tightly. He was about to withdraw in his stately way when Charles drew him back.
Wait, he faltered. "As I've said, these charges are wholly unfounded, but under the circumstances it is my duty to you to tell you what your daughter has failed to mention, and that is that there are things in my life which I have pledged my honor never to reveal—things concerning others more than myself—"
Then don't mention them, Rowland said, firmly. "Do your duty as you see it and God will take care of you. I have suspected that you may be keeping back something, but that is your right. Now let's go in to supper. But wait a moment. I want to speak of something psychological. Do you know that a man of my age can be turned from almost a lifelong purpose in an instant? You have seen me working on that ponderous genealogy of mine. Well, the other day when my boys were in so much danger my daughter and I were alone in my room. She looked very sad, and all at once it seemed to me that she was an exact reproduction of her mother when we were married. You know in that day when I brought my young wife here we had everything our hearts desired in the way of luxury, comfort, and even what was then considered style. Now it is all gone and we are poor. This change, I reckon, has pained me more than it has my daughter, and I have clung to the past and tried to keep it alive. One of the ways of keeping it alive has been my thinking and writing about the dignity and superiority of my ancestors. I was getting my book ready to hand down to my children and their children, and I would have finished it and published it but for my daughter. On the day I spoke of just now, I happened to tell her that I was thinking of borrowing some money to pay for the printing, when I saw from her face that she wasn't pleased. I asked her what was the matter, and she came and sat on my knee, sir, as she had done as a little child, and as—as her mother had done as a bride. She put her arm around my neck and kissed me, and then she begged my forgiveness for saying what she felt that she ought to say. She pointed out that she and her brothers belonged to a different age from the one I'd passed through. As she saw it, life was too grim and serious for one to foster pride in one's ancestors simply because they, being men and women of gentility, wealth, and influence, had stood higher than others. Mary cried as she begged that I should not spend any money to publish a book which she herself could not take pride in. She said that sorrow, trouble, and adversity had made her see that the common people were nearer God than the opposite class, and that if we expected God to help us out of the great trouble in which my sons were plunged we must humble ourselves. Well, sir, I was changed—in a flash I was a changed man. My young daughter had taught me more in a moment than I had learned in a long lifetime. I laid the manuscript away. If it has any historical value it may be used by some one else in the future, but not by me. It is full of human vanity.
I felt as if a vast load had been somehow lifted from my old shoulders. I knew she was right and obeyed her. I am telling you this, sir, because you have a right to know the kind of woman whose heart you have won. She is a treasure, sir—a treasure—a treasure!
Aunt Zilla was ringing the supper-bell. Its tones swept melodiously over the dusk-draped fields. The old man had taken the arm of his companion as he might that of an honored guest in the past, and led him into the house.
I shall never question your integrity, sir, he said. "Something has told me all along that you are a man among men. My daughter has felt it intuitively, and so have I and my sons. Whatever your personal trouble is, we'll stick to you through it if you will only give us a chance."
Charles found himself unable properly to respond. The family were at the table in the shaded lamplight. The meal passed in quiet dignity, and when it was over the men went out to the front veranda. Kenneth and Martin, who had not been informed of the talk with the deputies, were still in a gay mood and began singing again. Rowland stood on the steps for a moment, and then walked down toward the gate. Finding himself alone, Charles slipped up to his room. He had an overwhelming sense of his need of quiet reflection. He sat down, lighted his pipe, but in his inactive hands it quickly expired. That he would have to face the officers of the law sooner or later he did not doubt. The bond in his favor might mean a few days' delay, but it also meant the certainty of his appearance before the authorities. What would then take place he could not imagine, but of one thing he was sure—a stranger in a strange land who flatly refused to give account of himself when charged with an offense against the law would find himself in a serious position indeed. Then a sudden thought hurtled through his brain and shook him from head to foot, leaving him cold with sheer despair. Why had he not thought of it before? The account of his arrest would be given in the papers, along with the name he had never changed. It would be copied all over the country, and the Charles Browne of Boston, so long sought, would be discovered at last. William would read his doom in the head-lines of his paper at his desk or the breakfast-table. Celeste would know the truth, for William would tell the truth rather than see his brother unjustly punished. The revolver—ah yes! the revolver in the drawer of his brother's desk! It was as clear to his sight now as when he had last seen it. William would use it, without doubt, now, and there would be no delay.
Where is Mr. Brown? It was Mary's voice addressed to her brothers below. Charles sprang up and stood listening.
I think he went up-stairs, Martin said. "He may be tired. He has worked hard to-day."
Tired! repeated the grim listener, with a sardonic smile, as if the body counted when the soul of a man was being hounded to such a sinister doom. Mary was still on the veranda. What good could be done by his going to her? How could he act with her as if nothing new had happened when the claws of this unexpected monster were clutching his throat? He crept with the tread of a thief out into the hall and looked down the stairs. He could see Mary standing in the doorway. What was she thinking? How would she view the thing he now feared? He went back into his room and strode to and fro across the uncarpeted floor, his arms locked, his jaws clenched. Presently he heard the sound of hoofs and some one dismounted at the gate and strode up the walk to the steps. Charles went to a window. A restive horse was pawing at the gate. The voice of one of the deputies came up from below:
I happened to meet the sheriff over at Dodd's, Colonel. He said the bond would be all right, and he has ordered us away. Your man will have to appear in a few days, and you will be informed. He said to tell you that the bond would be drawed up for a thousand dollars and that the fellow would not be arrested yet a while. He said for me to say that you was taking a big risk, as he has fresh reasons for thinking that your man will never be able to show a clean record. He thinks if he had been able to do so he would have put it up before this, considering all that's happened.
Charles started to the stairs, but suddenly checked himself. What was there to say or do? And time to think and try to plan was what he needed. He went back to his room and sat down. He was aflame with the terrible shame of the thing. He heard Mary's subdued voice in conversation with her father and brothers, and the hoof-beats of the deputy's horse as he rode away toward the village. How could he face his friends down there with sealed lips when they were so valiantly and faithfully defending him out of sheer confidence in his veiled integrity? He decided that he would not join them. He sat in his unlighted room till he heard them saying good night to one another, and then he went to bed, but not to sleep. Through the long, warm night he struggled with his problem. Once he half thought he had solved it. He might now manage to escape. It would be leaving Rowland with the bond to pay, but he could perhaps get to William safely, secure the money, and return it. But could it be done? No, for the names of Charles Brown of Georgia and Charles Browne of Boston would be linked together by the detectives, published everywhere, and a renewed search for the bank defaulter would meet with success. No, there was nothing to do now but to wait—if a man of his temperament could wait with a sword like that hanging over him and all he loved.
Charles and the boys were in the field the next morning. The sheer desperate movement of his limbs while at hard work had a tendency to throw off the mental pain that he was still laboring under. It was about ten o'clock, when, happening to glance toward the house, he saw the sheriff drive up in a two-seated trap and sit waiting at the gate. Then, to Charles's surprise, both Mary and her father came out, got into the trap, and were driven away toward the village. Kenneth had noticed it; he came across the cotton-rows and joined him.
They've gone in to fix up that bond, he explained, in a tone of evident satisfaction. "Father is to sign it to-day in the office of the clerk of the court."
But your sister? and Charles wiped the perspiration from his brow and bewildered eyes.
Oh, I think she went along as a witness to my father's signature, and also to see Tobe Keith and his mother. Brown, she doesn't believe you were connected with those circus men; neither does father. As for me and Martin, you know what we think.
Thank you, Charles muttered. "It is kind of you all." His eyes were now on the trap and its inmates as they slowly ascended the sloping road half a mile distant. Mary sat with her father on the rear seat. Beyond them rose the rugged mountain, green as to foliage and brown and gray as to earth and stone. Above it all arched the blue sky, with here and there a creeping wisp of snow-white cloud. How incongruous it was! Here he was dodging imprisonment while this gentle family were espousing—blindly espousing his tottering cause. He drew a picture of himself running along the road after the trap, running faster than the horses, overtaking them and panting out a demand that the law should be allowed to take its course. But it was only a futile figment of a weary brain. He had uprooted a stalk of cotton, and he replaced it, raking out the mellow soil with his bare hands, packing it back on the roots, and bracing the plant between two of its neighbors by interlocking their pliant branches.
Mary! Mary! Mary! The balmy air, blown from the direction she was taking in his behalf, seemed to sing the name as from vibrant strings stretched from heaven to earth—from shores of matter to boundaries of infinite spirit. Again she was in his arms as she was that night in the darkened old parlor. Her pulsing lips were on his, her clinging arms about his neck. After that spiritual marriage, could heaven or hell tear her from him? Could fate rob him of such a prize? Perhaps, for the prize could not be had at such a price. Mary, who had been a ready sacrifice herself, could not love one less worthy, and she would have to know the truth. He worked on—as a dying man he toiled on through the long, weary day.
On reaching the town, Rowland and the sheriff stopped at the court-house and Mary went to the Keiths'. To her great delight, she saw Tobe out in the little yard, seated under an apple-tree. He got up at once, and with scarcely any limp at all came to meet her.
Mother is not here, he said, as he shook hands. "It is kind of you to come, Miss Mary."
I heard you were recovering, Mary returned, "and I was very glad. You know what it meant to me, Tobe?"
Yes, I do, and that helped me pull through, I think, Miss Mary. Those boys are too young and thoughtless to shoulder a load like that would have been. We were all to blame.
I hope we will have no trouble with the courts, Mary said. "What do you think about that, Tobe?"
He waved his hands lightly. "Nothing will be done," he answered. "The sheriff and three or four good lawyers told me so. They said it all depended on whether I'd press the charges, and I don't intend to, Miss Mary. I've had my lesson, and the boys have, too. I've cut liquor out and folks say they have, too."
She nodded. "Yes, they have changed remarkably. They are more serious, and they work every day."
Tobe was smiling significantly. For a moment he was silent; then he said: "Miss Mary, me and mother are powerfully bothered about a certain thing. We want to know who furnished the money that came to me that night. As soon as I heard, down in Atlanta, that the stranger that fetched it was a friend of that Mr. Brown on your place, and that Mr. Brown was with him that night and kept back out of sight, why, we was sure that you sent the money, but we heard after we got back that you said you didn't."
I didn't, Tobe, Mary declared. "I tried to raise it, but failed to get it in time. In fact, I was surprised to hear that you had received it."
Then you can't tell us anything about that? Tobe's face fell.
I think I can, and I think I ought to. Mary's color was slightly higher now. "Tobe, you see, since Mr. Brown came to us he has become warmly attached to my brothers, and he was greatly disturbed over the danger they and you were in. I have an idea that the stranger you saw was an old friend of his who came here to pay him some money he owed. I suppose that Mr. Brown did not want to get credit for what he did, and so he got his friend to hand you the money that night."
Now I understand it better, Tobe smiled. "He must be a fine man, and I don't believe the reports the sheriff and his gang are circulating about him. They say he is in big trouble himself—in fact, that him and his friend belong to the bunch of circus outlaws that are wanted. The sheriff had the cheek to try to tie me up with it, because this money came as it did, but I laughed in his face. I told him he'd have to prove it, and he went off with a hangdog look on him."
Mr. Brown is not guilty, but he is in trouble over it, Tobe, Mary sighed, as she turned to leave.
Tobe, his hat in his hand, went with her to the gate and opened it, with the unstudied grace of his class. He stood bowing as she walked away toward the square. She was to meet her father at the hotel, and thither she went, vaguely depressed by the talk she had had concerning Charles.
She had reached the front of the hotel when she saw Sam Lee at a canvas-covered wagon belonging to a mountain farmer. The clerk was buying some produce for the hotel table and, seeing her, he left the farmer and came to her.
I was on the lookout for you, he said, doffing his hat and bowing. "I heard you were around at Keith's. There is some lady friend of yours up in the parlor. She come in on the south-bound about half an hour ago. She is powerful stylish-looking, and wanted to see about some conveyance out to your place, when I told her that you and your pa were in town. She begged me to look you up, and I told her I would. She said she would wait in the parlor. She looks like she may be some of your Virginia kin. I didn't ask her name, for there was no reason for it."
I can't imagine who it can be, Mary answered. "Well, I'll go up. If you see my father, will you send him up, too, please?"
Mary went into the entrance-hall and up the stairs to the parlor at the end of the first flight. The door was open, and the big room, being somewhat shaded, appeared so dark after her walk in the glaring sunlight that she was at first unable to see distinctly. Presently, however, she became aware of a woman's figure rising from a sofa in a corner and approaching her.
May I ask if this is Miss Rowland? a sweet, tremulous voice inquired.
Yes, I am Miss Rowland, Mary answered. "Are you the lady who wanted to see me?"
Yes. I asked the clerk about you, and he said he would send you up here. Miss Rowland, I am a stranger, but it is imperative that I see you. There is, I believe, a gentleman working on your place whose name is Charles Browne.
Mary started, stared, and was silent. Her mind fairly whirled in confusion. Charles had hinted at troubles he had left behind him. How could she know that it would be wise for her to speak in any way of him and his affairs to a total stranger? She remained silent. She had drawn herself up to her full height; her head and neck were rigid, her hands clasped tightly before her.
Oh, I see, the stranger went on. "You don't know me yet, and you are such a faithful friend to him that you don't want to risk the slightest misstep. Well, you are right, and I am wrong. I was in too great a hurry. I see now what I've got to do, Miss Rowland. I've got to convince you that I am his friend, and a faithful one, too."
Mary's perplexed face was still rigid and was growing even pale. Her eyes, more accustomed to the darkened room, were enabled now to get a clearer view of the visitor. She felt strangely drawn by the rather sad and pinched features, the yearning eyes, and the sweet, almost pathetic voice.
Miss Rowland, I am Charlie's sister-in-law, Mrs. William Browne. I've come here from Boston to tell you and your father something that you ought to know, for, Miss Rowland, I know that Charlie loves you. It came to me through another, but when I saw you come in at that door I knew it to be the truth beyond doubt. You are beautiful, beautiful, and are so true to him that you stand there now, afraid that through me you may harm his interests.
He has spoken to me of you, Mary said, "and of Ruth." Her hands went out impulsively and clasped those of Celeste. "You must pardon me, Mrs. Browne, if—if I seem slow to—"
I understand thoroughly, Celeste broke in. "I've come to bring you good, not bad news. My dear, Charlie is the noblest man in all the world—yes, in all the world. Over a year ago his brother, my husband, committed a great offense against the law. On the verge of detection he was about to kill himself and leave me and Ruth under the stigma of it all. Charles sacrificed himself under a sacred agreement with my husband. He left Boston, pursued for a crime he had not committed, and disgraced for life. But the other day Michael, an old servant of ours, came back and told me about you and Charles—that Charles adored you, but was too honorable to think of marriage with you under the circumstances. Michael said Charlie was very unhappy. It made me so, for I wanted him and you to get your rights. I finally told my husband how I felt, and demanded that he do his duty. It drove him out of his mind temporarily. He is now in a sanatorium on the way to recovery. He has confessed everything to his uncle, whose influence at the bank has caused the dismissal of the charges, the financial loss having been made good. Moreover, explanations have been published in the Boston papers which clear Charlie's name in full."
Oh, I'm so glad! I'm so glad! Mary now fairly glowed. "You've come just in time to save him from grave trouble." And Mary went on to explain the situation. The two sat side by side on the sofa, holding each other's hands. Rowland found them there half an hour later, and heard the news. He made a most favorable impression on the Boston lady as he stood gravely listening to all she had to say, in the polished manner of the old régime. Then he told them both that he must see the sheriff at once and have the action against Charles suppressed.
In half an hour Rowland came back. Everything had been settled and the bond destroyed. Then he pressed Celeste to return home with him and his daughter, and Mary joined in the invitation. Celeste accepted with delight, for she was eager to see Charles as soon as possible, and Rowland went to order a carriage from the livery-stable. There was, however, a delay in securing a conveyance, and it was near sundown before they had started homeward.
Charles toiled all that day in the fields. At no time during all his troubles had his depression been greater, due to the humiliating fact of Mary and her father being at work in his behalf. And what good would come of it? he kept asking himself. His appearance at court was inevitable sooner or later, and what could he say in his defense? Nothing and still remain true to the high stand he had taken.
He saw the sun sink below the mountain-top, and felt the coolness of the dusk as it came with its moist suggestion of falling dew. He saw Kenneth and Martin as they left their work some distance away and went singing toward the house. He wondered if Mary and her father had returned. The thought of having to face them in the lamplight at the supper-table was galling to his tortured spirit. He had known them such a short time, and yet was now on their bounty to an unpardonable extent. He bit his lips; he groaned; he cursed his fate. Finally, when it was too dark to work any longer, he started to the house. He was approaching the barn when he saw some one coming toward him. It was Mary, and a fresh sense of his humiliation swept over him like a torrent. What would she have to say? Perhaps the bond, after all, had been deemed insufficient. Perhaps—perhaps—But she was now before him. He dared not look straight at her, and was grateful for the thickening dusk that veiled him from her view.
We are late getting back, she said, in a voice which, somehow, suggested a tremulous suppression of vast and sweeping emotion.
I see, he returned. "I thought you'd be back earlier. I'm sorry I allowed your father to do that. I had no idea you were going with him. I ought to have stopped you both. Such a thing has never been heard of! Why, I am nothing but the tramp that I was when I came here! I've not been open with you, and a man who is like that among strangers doesn't deserve—"
Hush, Charlie! Mary put her hand on his arm and smiled into his face. "We would do a little thing like that a million times and be glad of the chance. In fact, we have not done enough for you. It is we who ought to be grateful, not you. Charlie, we know all about you now—all about your Boston life—" She broke down and sobbed. She sobbed in sheer joy, but he misunderstood.
You know, then! he gasped. "You've found out. They have traced me down. It was the name. If I had changed that I might have had a chance. It got into the papers, I see, and the news of my capture spread to the North. Well, well, you see now who you have been sheltering."
It was Mary's turn to misunderstand. Wiping the glad tears from her eyes, she faced him. She put her hand on his arm again.
There is a great surprise waiting for you at the house, she said. "Who do you think is there to see you? Who, Charlie, who?"
He stared dumbly, his mouth falling open in limp despair.
I promised that I wouldn't tell you, Mary went on, "so that you would be surprised suddenly, but you look so—so—You don't seem to understand that all your trouble and mine is over. Charlie, it is Celeste."
Celeste! he gasped. "Celeste!"
Yes, and she has told us everything. Your brother has been ill and has confessed the truth. The blame rests where it should at last, and you are free. Oh, Charlie, you are the noblest, best man in all the world, and when I think of what you have borne and your reason for it I feel like falling at your feet in worship. Oh, tell me—tell me—can you really love me? Since I've heard your story I've been afraid that you—that such a man as you—could not really care for a simple country girl like I am. It worried me all the way home. While Celeste was talking it fairly grappled my heart and crushed it. When you and I were both in trouble it somehow seemed possible, but now— Her voice broke. Quickly Charles stepped forward and took her into his arms. He was quivering in every limb and muscle. Every nerve in his being was strung taut to the music of ecstasy inexpressible.
The clanging of Aunt Zilla's supper-bell awoke them both to the world about them, and arm in arm they went homeward. Celeste was in the parlor, waiting for him, and he went in to her alone. How sad, how changed she looked in the lamplight, how like some consecrated nun contrasted to her former girlish self! As he kissed her and held her thin hands in his calloused grasp he wondered at the lines and shadows in the features which had once been so smooth and free from care. For the first time that day she allowed her emotions to get the better of her. She tried to speak and failed. Suddenly she seemed to him to be a homeless, deserted human waif, and then he comprehended all. The man recuperating in the hospital, though mentally sound, could never be the ideal she had so long striven to make of him. For the second time William had tried to desert her and his child. He was weak; he was a coward; but he was the father of her child, and perhaps ideals were, after all, not to be met in substance. And yet there were strong men in the world, for the man standing before her in the soiled garb of a voluntary outcast possessed the missing requirements. Celeste was happy for him and unhappy for herself. She calmed herself and hurriedly told him the chief things that had taken place in Boston.
Uncle feels very sorry for his unjust thoughts about you, she said. "All his family pride has centered around you. He is sorry for William, and is not unkind to him, but you are all he talks about now. He is coming down to see you as soon as I get back. I don't know that I have a right to mention it, but I shall, anyway. He has made a will, Charlie, dividing all his fortune between you and Ruth. You are rich now, and are bound to be happy. Mary is a gem of a woman who has proved her worth and fidelity."
She seemed slightly faint. She swayed to and fro, and he caught her arm and steadied her. He had never loved her so much as now. How lonely and bereft she seemed, how frail, how persistently selfless!
You don't look strong, he said, sympathetically. "You must stay with us for a while, and let us put the color back into your cheeks. The mountain air here is good and bracing."
He felt the brave tremor which a crushed sob gave to her frame. "Thank you, Charlie," she said, "but I must hurry back. I am hungry for Ruth. I have never left her so long before. She is my very life now, Charlie, and—and William needs me."
THE END