Rudolph, coming home from work early on the next Saturday afternoon, saw
Millard approaching from the other direction. With that appetite for
sympathy which the first dash of sorrow is pretty sure to bring, the
young man felt an impulse to accost the person who had thought enough of
his sister's sufferings to give her a wheel-chair.
"Mr. Millard!"
"Oh, yes; you are Wilhelmina Schulenberg's brother," scrutinizing the
young man. "And how is your sister now?"
Rudolph shook his head gloomily.
"She can not live many days already; she will be dying purty soon."
"What? Sick again? Then Miss Callender's cure did not last."
"Ah, yes; her back it is all right. But you see maybe praying is not
strong for such sickness as she has now. It is quick consumption."
"Poor child!" said Millard.
"She has been very unlucky," said Rudolph. "We are all very unlucky. My
father he died when I was little, and my mother she had to work hard,
and I soon had also to work. And then Whilhelmina she got sick, and it
gave mother trouble."
"Has Miss Callender seen your sister?"
"Yes; she did not tell you already?" queried Rudolph.
"I have not seen her for a long time," said Millard.
"Oh!" exclaimed Rudolph, and went no farther.
"Did she--did she not try to make your sister well?"
"Yes; but believing is all good enough for the back, but it is no good
when you're real sick insides. You see it is consumption."
"Yes; I see," said Millard. A rush of feeling came over him. He
remembered Mina Schulenberg as she sat that day about a year ago--the
day of his engagement--near the bust of Beethoven in the park. She had
been the beginning and in some sense she had been the ending of his
engagement. Millard walked away from Rudolph in a preoccupied way.
Suddenly he turned and called after him:
"I say--Schulenberg!"
The young man faced about and came back. Millard said to him in a low
voice and with feeling: "Will you let me know if your sister dies? Come
straight to me. Don't say anything about it, but maybe I can show myself
a friend in some way. Here's my address at home, and between nine and
three I'm at the Bank of Manhadoes."
Rudolph said yes, and tried to thank him, but Millard strode away, his
mind reverting to the poor girl whose now fast-withering life seemed to
have some occult relation to his own, and thinking, too, of Phillida's
unfaltering ministrations. What mistakes and delusions could not be
forgiven to one so unwearyingly good? Why did he not share her reproach
with her, and leave her to learn by time and hard experience? Such
thoughts stung him sorely. And this death, under her very hand, of the
Schulenberg girl must be a sore trial. Would she learn from failure? Or
would she resolutely pursue her course?
Millard was not a man to lament the inevitable. Once he and Phillida had
broken, he had set out to be what he had been before. But who shall
cause the shadow to go backward upon the dial of Ahaz? When was a human
being ever the same after a capital passion that he had been before?
Millard had endeavored to dissipate his thoughts in society and at
places of amusement, only to discover that he could not revolve again in
the orbit from which he had been diverted by the attraction of Phillida.
Business, in so far as it engrossed his thoughts, had produced a
temporary forgetfulness, and of business he now had a great deal.
Farnsworth, who had contrived to give everybody connected with the Bank
of Manhadoes more uneasiness than one could reasonably expect from a man
whose vitality was so seriously impaired, died about this time, just
when those who knew him best had concluded that he was to be exempted
from the common lot. He died greatly regretted by all who had known him,
and particularly by those who had been associated with him in the
conduct of the bank from its foundation. So ran the words of the
obituary resolutions drafted by Masters, adopted by the Board of
Directors of the bank, printed in all the newspapers, and engrossed for
the benefit of his widow and his posterity. Posterity indeed gets more
out of such resolutions than contemporaries, for posterity is able to
accept them in a more literal sense. Hilbrough's ascendency in the bank,
and his appreciation of Millard, in spite of the latter's symmetrical
way of parting his hair, the stylish cut he gave his beard, and the
equipoise with which he bore his slender cane, procured the latter's
promotion to the vacant cashiership without visible opposition. Meadows
would have liked to oppose, but he found powerful motives to the
contrary; for Meadows himself was more and more disliked by members of
the board, and his remaining there depended now on the good-will of
Hilbrough. He therefore affected to be the chief advocate, and indeed
the original proposer, of Millard for the place.
The advancement carried with it an increase of dignity, influence, and
salary, which was rather gratifying to a man at Millard's time of life.
It would have proved a great addition to his happiness if he could only
have gone to Phillida and received her congratulations and based a
settlement of his domestic affairs upon his new circumstances. He did
plan to take a larger apartment next year and to live in a little better
style, perhaps also to keep horses; but the prospect was not
interesting.
While he sat one evening debating such things the electric bell of his
apartment was rung by the conductor of the freight-elevator, who came to
say that there was a German man in the basement inquiring for Mr.
Millard. His name was Schulenberg. Rudolph had come in by the main
entrance, but the clerk, seeing that he was a workingman, had spoken to
him with that princely severity which in a democratic country few but
hotel and house clerks know how to affect, and had sent him packing
down-stairs, out of sight, where he could have no chance to lower the
respectability of a house in which dwelt scores of people whose names
were printed in the Social Register, they subscribing for the same at a
good round price.
Rudolph had lost his way two or three times before he could find the
entrance to the lift, but at the convenience of the elevator-man he was
hoisted to Millard's floor. When he presented himself he looked
frightened at being ushered into a place accessible only by means of so
much ceremony and by ways so roundabout.
"Mr. Millard, my sister has just died. You told me to tell you already,"
he said, standing there and grasping his cap firmly as though it were
the only old friend he had to help him out of the labyrinth.
"When did she die?" asked Millard, motioning the young fellow to a
chair.
"Just now. I came straight away."
"Who is with your mother?"
"Miss Callender and a woman what lifs in the next room."
Millard mused a minute, his vagrant thoughts running far away from
Rudolph. Then recovering himself he said:
"Have you money enough for the funeral?"
"I haf fifteen dollars, already, that I haf been puttin' in the Germania
Spar Bank for such a trouble. I had more as that, but we haf had bad
luck. My uncle he will maybe lend me some more."
"What do you work at?"
"Mostly odd jobs. I had a place in a lumber-yard, but the man he failed
up already. I am hopin' that I shall get something more steady soon."
"It will be pretty hard for you to go in debt."
"Yes," with a rueful shrug. "But we're unlucky. Poor folks 'mos' always
is unlucky already."
"Well, now, you let me pay these expenses. Here's my card. Tell the
undertaker to send his bill to me. He can come to the bank and inquire
if he should think it not all right. But don't tell anybody about it."
"I thank you very much, very, very much, Mr. Millard; it will make my
mother feel a leetle better. And I will pay you wheneffer I haf the good
luck to get some money."
"Don't worry about that. Don't pay me till I ask you for it. Was Miss
Callender with you when your sister died?"
"Yes. Oh, yes; she is better as anybody I effer see."
Millard said no more, and Rudolph thanked him again, put on his cap, and
went out to try his luck at finding the door to the freight-elevator for
a descent from this lofty height to the dark caves of the
basement--vaulted caves with mazes of iron pipes of all sizes overhead,
the narrow passages beset by busy porters bearing parcels and trunks,
and by polyglot servants in dress-coats and white aprons running hither
and thither with trays balanced on their finger-tips and mostly quite
above replying to the questions of a bewildered intruder clad in
trousers of well-worn brown denim.