"Well, now you're shouting," said Pinney. "Can't I help you to put your
traps together? I want to introduce you to my wife. She takes as much
interest in this thing as I do; and she'll know how to look after you a
great deal better,--get you to Quebec once. She's the greatest little
nurse in _this_ world; and, as you _say_, you don't seem over and above
strong. I hope you don't object to children. We've got a baby, but it's
the _best_ baby! I've heard that child cry just _once_ since it was
born, and that was when it first realized that it was in this vale of
tears; I believe we all do that; but _our_ baby finished up the whole
crying-business on that occasion."
With Pinney these statements led to others until he had possessed
Northwick of his whole autobiography. He was in high content with
himself, and his joy overflowed in all manner of affectionate services
to Northwick, which Northwick accepted as the mourner entrusts his
helplessness to the ghastly kindness of the undertaker, and finds in it
a sort of human sympathy. If Northwick had been his own father, Pinney
could not have looked after him with tenderer care, in putting his
things together for him, and getting on board the boat, and making
interest with the clerk for the best stateroom. He did not hesitate to
describe him as an American financier; he enjoyed saying that he was in
Canada for his health; and that he must have an extra room. The clerk
gave up the captain's, as all the others were taken, and Pinney occupied
it with Northwick. It was larger and pleasanter than the other rooms,
and after Pinney got Northwick to bed, he sat beside him and talked.
Northwick said that he slept badly, and liked to have Pinney talk;
Pinney could see that he was uneasy when he left the room, and glad when
he got back; he made up his mind that Northwick was somehow a very sick
man. He lay quite motionless in the lower berth, where Pinney made him
comfortable; his hands were folded on his breast, and his eyes were
closed. Sometimes Pinney, as he talked on, thought the man was dead; and
there were times when he invented questions that Northwick had to answer
yes or no, before he felt sure that he was still alive; his breath went
and came so softly Pinney could not hear it.
Pinney told him all about his courtship and married life, and what a
prize he had drawn in Mrs. Pinney. He said she had been the making of
him, and if he ever did amount to anything, he should owe it to her.
They had their eye on a little place out of town, out Wollaston way, and
Pinney was going to try to get hold of it. He was tired of being mewed
up in a flat, and he wanted the baby to get its feet on the ground, when
it began to walk. He wanted to make his rent pay part of his purchase.
He considered that it was every man's duty to provide a permanent home
for his family, as soon as he began to have a family; and he asked
Northwick if he did not think a permanent home was the thing.
Northwick said he thought it was, and after he said that, he sighed so
deeply that Pinney said, "Oh, I beg your pardon." He had, in fact, lost
the sense of Northwick's situation, and now he recurred to it with a
fresh impulse of compassion. If his compassion was mixed with interest,
with business, as he would have said, it was none the less a genuine
emotion, and Pinney was sincere enough in saying he wished it could be
fixed so that Northwick could get back to his home; at his time of life
he needed it.
"And I don't believe but what it _could_ be fixed," he said. "I don't
know much about the points of the case; but I should say that with the
friends you've got, you wouldn't have a great deal of trouble. I presume
there are some legal forms you would have to go through with; but those
things can always be appealed and continued and _nolle prossed_, and all
that, till there isn't anything of them, in the end. Of course, it would
have been different if they could have got hold of you in the beginning.
But now," said Pinney, forgetting what he had already said of it, "the
whole thing has blown over, so that that letter of yours from Rimouski
hardly started a ripple in Boston; I can't say how it was in Hatboro'.
No, sir, I don't believe that if you went back now, and your friends
stood by you as they ought to,--I don't believe you'd get more than a
mere nominal sentence, if you got that."
Northwick made no reply, but Pinney fancied that his words were having
weight with him, and he went on: "I don't know whether you've ever kept
the run of these kind of things; but a friend of mine has, and he says
there isn't one case in ten where the law carries straight. You see,
public feeling has got a good deal to do with it, and when the people
get to feeling that a man has suffered enough, the courts are not going
to be hard on him. No, sir. I've seen it time and again, in my newspaper
experience. The public respects a man's sufferings, and if public
opinion can't work the courts, it can work the Governor's council. Fact
is, I looked into that business of yours a little, after you left, Mr.
Northwick, and I couldn't see, exactly, why you didn't stay, and try to
fix it up with the company. I believe you could have done it, and that
was the impression of a good many other newspaper men; and they're
pretty good judges; they've seen a lot of life. It's exciting, and it's
pleasant, newspaper work is," said Pinney, straying back again into the
paths of autobiography, "but I've got about enough of it, myself. The
worst of it is, there ain't any outcome to it. The chances of promotion
are about as good as they are in the U. S. Army when the Reservations
are quiet. So I'm going into something else. I'd like to tell you about
it, if you ain't too sleepy?"
"I _am_ rather tired," said Northwick, with affecting patience.
"Oh, well, then, I guess we'll postpone it till to-morrow. It'll keep.
My! It don't seem as I _was_ going back to my wife and baby. It seems
too good to be true. Every time I leave 'em, I just bet myself I sha'n't
get back alive; or if I do that I sha'n't find 'em safe and sound; and
I'm just as sure I'll win every time, as if I'd never lost the bet yet."
Pinney undressed rapidly, and before he climbed into the berth over
Northwick's, he locked the door, and put the key under his pillow.
Northwick did not seem to notice him, but a feeling of compunction made
him put the key back in the door. "I guess I'd better leave it there,
after all," he said. "It'll stop a key from the outside. Well, sir,
good-night," he added to Northwick, and climbed to his berth with a
light heart. Toward morning he was wakened by a groaning from the lower
berth, and he found Northwick in great pain. He wished to call for help;
but Northwick said the pain would pass, and asked him to get him some
medicine he had in his hand-bag; and when he had taken that he was
easier. But he held fast to Pinney's hand, which he had gripped in one
of his spasms, and he did not loose it till Pinney heard him drawing his
breath in the long respirations of sleep. Then Pinney got back to his
berth, and fell heavily asleep.
He knew it was late when he woke. The boat was at rest, and must be
lying at her landing in Quebec. He heard the passengers outside hurrying
down the cabin to go ashore. When he had collected himself, and recalled
the events of the night, he was almost afraid to look down at Northwick
lest he should find him lying dead in his berth; when he summoned
courage to look, he found the berth empty.
He leaped out upon the floor, and began to throw himself into his
clothes. He was reassured, for a moment, by seeing Northwick's
travelling-bag in the corner with his own; but the hand-bag was gone. He
rushed out, as soon as he could make himself decent, and searched every
part of the boat where Northwick might probably be; but he was not to be
seen.
He asked a steward how long the boat had been in; and the steward said
since six o'clock. It was then eight.
Northwick was not waiting for Pinney on the wharf, and he climbed
disconsolately to his hotel in the Upper Town. He bet, as a last
resource, that Northwick would not be waiting there for him, to give him
a pleasant surprise, and he won his disastrous wager.
It did not take his wife so long to understand what had happened, as
Pinney thought it would. She went straight to the heart of the mystery.
"Did you say anything about his going back?"
"Why--in a general way," Pinney admitted, ruefully.
"Then, of course, that made him afraid of you. You broke your word, Ren,
and it's served you right."
His wife was walking to and fro with the baby in her arms; and she said
it was sick, and she had been up all night with it. She told Pinney he
had better go out and get a doctor.
It was all as different from the return Pinney had planned as it could
be.
"I believe the old fool is crazy," he said, and he felt that this was
putting the mildest possible construction upon Northwick's behavior.
"He seems to have known what he was about, anyway," said Mrs. Pinney,
coldly. The baby began to cry. "Oh, _do_ go for the doctor!"