Mrs. Belding kissed her, and said, "Good-night," and walked to the
door. There she paused a moment, and came back to the bed. "I think,
after all, I had better say now what I thought of keeping till
to-morrow. I thank you for your confidence to-night, and shall respect
it. But you will see, I am sure, the necessity of being very
circumspect, under the circumstances. If you should want to do
anything for Arthur while he is ill, I should feel it my duty to forbid
it."
Alice received this charge with frank, open eyes. "I should not dream
of such a thing," she said. "If he had died, I should have been his
widow; but, as he is to live, he must come for me if he wants me. I was
very silly about him, but I must take the consequences. I can't now
take advantage of the poor fellow, by saving his life and establishing
a claim on it. So I will promise anything you want. I am so happy that
I will promise easily. But I am also very sleepy."
The beautiful eyelids were indeed heavy and drooping. The night's
excitement had left her wearied and utterly content. She fell asleep
even as her mother kissed her forehead.
The feeling of Offitt as he left Algonquin Avenue and struck into a
side street was one of pure exultation. He had accomplished the boldest
act of his life. He had shown address, skill, and courage. He had done
a thing which had appalled him in the contemplation, merely on account
of its physical difficulties and dangers. He had done it successfully.
He had a large amount of money in his pocket--enough to carry his bride
to the ends of the earth. When it was gone--well, at worst, he could
leave her, and shift for himself again. He had not a particle of regret
or remorse; and, in fact, these sentiments are far rarer than moralists
would have us believe. A ruffian who commits a crime usually glories in
it. It exalts him in his own eyes, all the more that he is compelled to
keep silent about it. As Offitt walked rapidly in the direction of Dean
Street, the only shadow on his exultation was his sudden perception of
the fact that he had better not tell Maud what he had done. In all his
plans he had promised himself the pleasure of telling her that she was
avenged upon her enemy by the hands of her lover; he had thought he
might extort his first kiss by that heroic avowal; but now, as he
walked stealthily down the silent street, he saw that nobody in the
universe could be made his confidant.
"I'll never own it, in earth or hell," he said to himself.
When he reached Matchin's cottage, all was dark and still. He tried to
attract Maud's attention by throwing soft clods of earth against her
window, but her sleep was too sound. He was afraid to throw pebbles for
fear of breaking the panes and waking the family. He went into the
little yard adjoining the shop, and found a ladder. He brought it out,
and placed it against the wall. He perceived now for the first time
that his hands were sticky. He gazed at them a moment. "Oh, yes," he
said to himself, "when he fell I held out my hands to keep his head
from touching my clothes. Careless trick! Ought to have washed them,
first thing." Then, struck by a sudden idea, he went to the well-curb,
and slightly moistened his fingers. He then rubbed them on the
door-knob, and the edge of the door of the cottage, and pressed them
several times in different places on the ladder. "Not a bad scheme,"
he said, chuckling. He then went again to the well, and washed his
hands thoroughly, afterward taking a handful of earth, and rubbing
them till they were as dirty as usual.
After making all these preparations for future contingencies, he
mounted the ladder, and tried to raise the window. It was already open
a few inches to admit the air, but was fastened there, and he could not
stir it. He began to call and whistle in as low and penetrating a tone
as he could manage, and at last awoke Maud, whose bed was only a few
feet away. She started up with a low cry of alarm, but saw in a moment
who it was.
"Well, what on earth are you doing here? Go away this minute, or I'll
call my father."
"Let me in, and I will tell you."
"I'll do nothing of the sort. Begone this instant."
"Maud, don't be foolish," he pleaded, in real alarm, as he saw that she
was angry and insulted. "I have done as you told me. I have wealth for
us both, and I have"--he had almost betrayed himself, but he
concluded--"I have come to take you away forever."
"Come to-morrow, at a decent hour, and I will talk to you."
"Now, Maud, my beauty, don't believe I am humbugging. I brought a lot
of money for you to look at--I knew you wanted to be sure. See here!"
He drew from his pocket a package of bank bills--he saw a glittering
stain on them. He put them in the other pocket of his coat and took out
another package. "And here's another, I've got a dozen like them.
Handle 'em yourself." He put them in through the window. Maud was so
near that she could take the bills by putting out her hand. She saw
there was a large amount of money there--more than she had ever seen
before.
"Come, my beauty," he said, "this is only spending-money for a bridal
tour. There are millions behind it. Get up and put on your dress. I
will wait below here. We can take the midnight train east, be married
at Clairfield, and sail for Paris the next day. That's the world for
you to shine in. Come! Waste no time. No tellin' what may happen
tomorrow."
She was strongly tempted. She had no longer any doubt of his wealth. He
was not precisely a hero in appearance, but she had never insisted upon
that--her romance having been always of a practical kind. She was about
to assent--and to seal her doom--when she suddenly remembered that all
her best clothes were in her mother's closet, which was larger than
hers, and that she could not get them without passing through the room
where her parents were asleep. That ended the discussion. It was out of
the question that she should marry this magnificent stranger in her
every-day dress and cotton stockings. It was equally impossible that
she should give that reason to any man. So she said, with dignity:
"Mr. Offitt, it is not proper for me to continue this conversation any
longer. You ought to see it ain't. I shall be happy to see you
to-morrow."
Offitt descended the ladder, grinding out curses between his set teeth.
A hate, as keen as his passion, for the foolish girl fired him.
"Think," he hissed, "a man that killed, half an hour ago, the biggest
swell in Buffland, to be treated that way by a carpenter's wench."
"Wait awhile, Miss; it'll come my innings." He lifted up the ladder,
carried it carefully around the house, and leaned it against the wall
under the window of the room occupied by Sleeny.
He hurried back to his lodging in Perry Place, where he found Sam
Sleeny lying asleep on his bed. He was not very graciously greeted by
his drowsy visitor.
"Why didn't you stay out all night?" Sam growled. "Where have you been,
anyhow?"
"I've been at the variety-show, and it was the boss fraud of the
season."
"You stayed so long you must have liked it."
"I was waiting to see just how bad a show could be and not spoil."
"What did you want to see me about tonight?"
"The fact is, I expected to meet a man around at the Varieties who was
to go in with us into a big thing. But he wasn't there. I'll nail him
to-morrow, and then we can talk. It's big money, Sammy, and no
discount. What would you think of a thousand dollars a month?"
"I'd a heap rather see it than hear you chin about it. Give me my
hammer, and I'll go home."
"Why, I took it round to your shop this evening, and I tossed it in
through the window. I meant to throw it upon the table, but it went
over, I think from the sound, and dropped on the floor. You will find
it among the shavings, I reckon,"
"Well, I'm off," said Sam, by way of good-night.
"All right. Guess I'll see you to-morrow."
Offitt waited till he could hear the heavy tread of Sleeny completing
the first flight of stairs and going around to the head of the second.
He then shut and locked his door, and hung his hat over the keyhole. He
turned up his lamp and sat down by the table to count his night's
gains. The first package he took from his pocket had a shining stain
upon the outside bill. He separated the stained bill carefully from the
rest, and held it a moment in his hand as if in doubt. He walked to his
wash-stand, but at the moment of touching his pitcher he stopped short.
He took out his handkerchief, but shook his head and put it back.
Finally, he lighted a match, applied it to the corner of the bill, and
watched it take fire and consume, until his fingers were scorched by
the blaze. "Pity!" he whispered--"good money like that."
He seated himself again and began with a fierce, sustained delight to
arrange and sort the bank-bills, laying the larger denominations by
themselves, smoothing them down with a quick and tender touch, a
kindling eye and a beating heart. In his whole life, past and future,
there was not such another moment of enjoyment. Money is, of course,
precious and acceptable to all men except idiots. But, if it means much
to the good and virtuous, how infinitely more it means to the
thoroughly depraved--the instant gratification of every savage and
hungry devil of a passion which their vile natures harbor. Though the
first and principal thing Offitt thought of was the possession of Maud
Matchin, his excited fancy did not stop there. A long gallery of
vicious pictures stretched out before his flaming eyes, as he reckoned
up the harvest of his hand. The mere thought that each bill represented
a dinner, where he might eat and drink what he liked, was enough to
inebriate a starved rogue whose excesses had always been limited by his
poverty.
When he had counted and sorted his cash, he took enough for his
immediate needs and put it in his wallet. The rest he made up into
convenient packages, which he tied compactly with twine and disposed in
his various pockets. "I'll chance it," he thought, after some
deliberation. "If they get me, they can get the money, too. But they
sha'n't get it without me."
He threw himself on his bed, and slept soundly till morning.