Northwick kept up the mental juggle he had used in getting himself away
from Hatboro', and as far as Ponkwasset Junction he made believe that he
was going to leave the main line, and take the branch road to the mills.
He had a thousand-mile ticket, and he had no baggage check to define his
destination; he could step off and get on where he pleased. At first he
let the conductor take up the mileage on his ticket as far as Ponkwasset
Junction; but when he got there he kept on with the train, northward, in
the pretence that he was going on as far as Willoughby Junction, to look
after some business of his quarries. He verified his pretence by
speaking of it to the conductor who knew him; he was not a person to
take conductors into his confidence, but he felt obliged to account to
the man for his apparent change of mind. He was at some trouble to make
it seem casual and insignificant, and he wondered if the conductor meant
to insinuate anything by saying in return that it was a pretty brisk day
to be knocking round much in a stone quarry. Northwick smiled in saying,
"It was, rather;" he watched the conductor to see if he should betray
any particular interest in the matter when he left him. But the
conductor went on punching the passengers' tickets, and seemed to forget
Northwick as soon as he left him. At the next station, Northwick
followed him out on the platform to find if he sent any telegram off.
When he had once given way to this anxiety, which he knew to be
perfectly stupid and futile, he had to yield to it at every station. He
took his bag with him each time he left the car, and he meant not to go
back if he saw the conductor telegraphing. It was intensely cold, and in
spite of the fierce heat of the stove at the end of the car, the frost
gathered thickly on the windows. The train creaked, when it stopped and
started, as if it were crunching along on a bed of dry snow; the noises
of the wheels seemed at times to lose their rhythmical cadence, and then
Northwick held his breath for fear one of them might be broken. He had a
dread of accident such as he had never felt before; his life had never
seemed so valuable to him as now; he reflected that it was so because it
was to be devoted now to retrieving the past in a new field under new
conditions. His life, in this view, was not his own; it was a precious
trust which he held for others, first for his children, and then for
those whom he was finally to save from loss by the miscarriage of his
enterprises. He justified himself anew in what he was intending; it
presented itself as a piece of self-sacrifice, a sacred duty which he
was bound to fulfil. All the time he knew that he was a defaulter who
had used the money in his charge, and tampered with the record so as to
cover up the fact, and that he was now absconding, and was carrying off
a large sum of money that was not morally his. At one of the stations
where he got out to see whether the conductor was telegraphing, he
noticed the conductor eyeing his bag curiously; and he knew that he
believed there was money in it. Northwick felt a thrill of gratified
cunning in realizing how mistaken the conductor was; but he was willing
the fellow should think he was carrying up money to pay off his quarry
hands.
He was impatient to reach the Junction, where this conductor would leave
the train, and it would continue northward in the charge of another man;
he seldom went beyond Willoughby on that road, and the new conductor
would hardly know him. He meant to go on to Blackbrook Junction, and
take the New England Central there for Montreal; but he saw the
conductor go to the telegraph office at Willoughby Junction, and it
suddenly occurred to him that he must not go to Montreal by a route so
direct that any absconding defaulter would be expected to take it. He
had not the least proof that the conductor's dispatch had anything to do
with him; but he could not help acting as if it had. He said good-day to
the conductor as he passed him, and he went out of the station, with his
bag, as if he were going up into the town. He watched till he saw the
conductor go off in another direction, and then he came back, and got
aboard the train just as it was drawing out of the station. He knew that
he was not shadowed in any way, but his consciousness of stealth was
such that he felt as if he were followed, and that he must act so as to
baffle and mislead pursuit.
At Blackbrook, where the train stopped for dinner, he was aware that no
one knew him, and he ate hungrily; he felt strengthened and encouraged,
and he began to react against the terror that had possessed him. He
perceived that it was senseless and ridiculous; that the conductor could
not possibly have been telegraphing about him from Willoughby, and there
was as yet no suspicion abroad concerning him; he might go freely
anywhere, by any road.
But he had now let the New England Central train leave without him, and
it only remained for him to push on to Wellwater, where he hoped to
connect with the Boston train for Montreal, on the Union and Dominion
road. He remembered that this train divided at Wellwater, and certain
cars ran direct to Quebec, up through Sherbrooke and Lennoxville. He
meant to go from Montreal to Quebec, but now he questioned whether he
had better not go straight on from Wellwater; when he recalled the long,
all-night ride without a sleeper, which he had once made on that route
many summers before, he said to himself that in his shaken condition, he
must not run the risk of such a hardship. If he were to get sick from
it, or die, it would be as bad as a railroad accident. The word now made
him think of what Hilary had said; Hilary who had called him a thief. He
would show Hilary whether he was a thief or not, give him time; he would
make him eat his words, and he figured Hilary retracting and apologizing
in the presence of the whole Board; Hilary apologized handsomely, and
Northwick forgave him, while it was also passing through his mind that
he must reduce the risks of railroad accident to a minimum, by
shortening the time. They reduced the risk of ocean travel in that way,
by reducing the time, and logically the fastest ship was the safest. If
he could get to Montreal from Wellwater in four or five hours, when it
would take him twelve hours to get to Quebec, it was certainly his duty
to go to Montreal. First of all, he must put himself out of danger of
every kind. He must not even fatigue himself too much; and he decided to
telegraph on to Wellwater, and secure a seat in the Pullman car to
Montreal. He had been travelling all day in the ordinary car, and he had
found it very rough.
It suddenly occurred to him that he must now assume a false name; and he
reflected that he must take one that sounded like his own, or else he
would not answer promptly and naturally to it. He chose Warwick, and he
kept saying it over to himself while he wrote his dispatch to the
station-master at Wellwater, asking him to secure a chair in the
Pullman. He was pleased with the choice he had made; it seemed like his
own name when spoken, and yet very unlike when written. But while he
congratulated himself on his quickness and sagacity, he was aware of
something detached, almost alien, in the operation of his mind. It did
not seem to be working normally; he could govern it, but it was like
something trying to get away from him, like a headstrong, restive horse.
The notion suggested the colt that had fallen lame; he wondered if
Elbridge would look carefully after it; and then he thought of all the
other horses. A torment of heartbreaking homesickness seized him; his
love for his place, his house, his children, seemed to turn against him,
and to tear him and leave him bleeding, like the evil spirit in the
demoniac among the tombs. He was in such misery with his longing for his
children, that he thought it must show in his face; and he made a feint
of having to rise and arrange his overcoat so that he could catch sight
of himself in the mirror at the end of the car. His face betrayed
nothing; it looked, as it always did, like the face of a kindly,
respectable man, a financially reliable face, the face of a leading
citizen. He gathered courage and strength from it to put away the
remorse that was devouring him. If that was the way he looked that was
the way he must be; and he could only be leaving those so dear to him
for some good purpose. He recalled that his purpose was to clear the
name they bore from the cloud that must fall upon it; to rehabilitate
himself; to secure his creditors from final loss. This was a good
purpose, the best purpose that a man in his place could have; he
recollected that he was to be careful of his life and health, because he
had dedicated himself to this purpose.
He determined to keep this purpose steadily in mind, not to lose thought
of it for an instant; it was his only refuge. Then a new anguish seized
him; a doubt that swiftly became certainty; and he knew that he had
signed that dispatch Northwick and not Warwick; he saw just how his
signature looked on the yellow manilla paper of the telegraph blank. Now
he saw what a fool he had been to think of sending any dispatch. He
cursed himself under his breath, and in the same breath he humbly prayed
to God for some way of escape. His terror made it certain to him that he
would be arrested as soon as he reached Wellwater. That would be the
next stop, the conductor told him, when he halted him with the question
on his way through the cars. The conductor said they were behind time,
and Northwick knew by the frantic pull of the train that they were
running to make up the loss. It would simply be death to jump from the
car; and he must not die, he must run the risk. In his prayer he
bargained with God that if He would let him escape, he would give every
thought, every breath to making up the loss of his creditors; he half
promised to return the money he was carrying away, and trust to his own
powers, his business talent in a new field, to retrieve himself. He
resolved to hide himself as soon as he reached Wellwater; it would be
dark, and he hoped that by this understanding with Providence he could
elude the officer in getting out of the car. But if there were two, one
at each end of the car?
There was none, and Northwick walked away from the station with the
other passengers, who were going to the hotel near the station for
supper. In the dim light of the failing day and the village lamps, he
saw with a kind of surprise, the deep snow, and felt the strong, still
cold of the winterland he had been journeying into. The white drifts
were everywhere; the vague level of the frozen lake stretched away from
the hotel like a sea of snow; on its edge lay the excursion steamer in
which Northwick had one summer made the tour of the lake with his
family, long ago.
He was only a few miles from the Canadian frontier; with a rebound from
his anxiety, he now exulted in the safety he had already experienced. He
remained tranquilly eating after the departure of the Montreal train was
cried; and when he was left almost alone, the head-waiter came to him
and said, "Your train's just going, sir."
"Thank you," he answered, "I'm going out on the Quebec line." He wanted
to laugh, in thinking how he had baffled fate. Now, if any inquiry were
made for him it would be at the Montreal train before it started, or at
the next station, which was still within the American border, on that
line. But on the train for Quebec, which would reach Stanstead in half
an hour, he would be safe from conjecture, even, thanks to that dispatch
asking for a chair on the Montreal Pullman. The Quebec train was slow in
starting; but he did not care; he walked up and down the platform, and
waited patiently. He no longer thought with anxiety of the long
all-night ride before him. If he did not choose to keep straight on to
Quebec, he could stop at Lenoxville or Sherbrooke, and take up his
journey again the next day. At Stanstead he ceased altogether to deal
with the past in his thoughts. He was now safe from it beyond any
possible peradventure, and he began to plan for the future. He had
prepared himself for the all-night ride, if he should decide to take it,
with a cup of strong coffee at Wellwater, and he was alert in every
faculty. His mind worked nimbly and docilely now, with none of that
perversity which had troubled him during the day with the fear that he
was going wrong in it. His thought was clear and quick, and it obeyed
his will like a part of it; that sense of duality in himself no longer
agonized him. He took a calm and prudent survey of the work before him;
and he saw how essential it was that he should make no false step, but
should act at every moment with the sense that he was merely the agent
of others in the effort to retrieve his losses.