VIII.

Adeline was in a flutter of voluble foreboding till Elbridge came back.

She asked Suzette whether she believed their father would get away; she

said she knew that Elbridge would miss the train, with that slow, old

mare, and their father would be arrested. Weak as she was from the

sick-bed she had left to welcome him, she dressed herself carefully, so

as to be ready for the worst; she was going to jail with him if they

brought him back; she had made up her mind to that. From time to time

she went out and looked up the road, to see if Elbridge was coming back

alone, or whether the officers were bringing her father; she expected

they would bring him first to his family; she did not know why. Suzette

tried to keep her indoors; to make her lie down. She refused, with wild

upbraidings. She declared that Suzette had never cared anything for her

father; she had wanted to give their mother's property away, to please

the Hilarys; and now that she was going to marry Matt Hilary, she was

perfectly indifferent to everything else. She asked Suzette what had

come over her.

Elbridge drove first to the stable and put up his horse, when he came

back. Then he walked to the lodge to report.

"Is he safe? Did he get away? Where is he?" Adeline shrieked at him

before he could get a word out.

"He's all right, Miss Northwick," Elbridge answered soothingly. "He's on

his way back to Canady, again."

"Then I've driven him away!" she lamented. "I've hunted him out of his

home, and I shall never see him any more. Send for him! _Send_ for him!

Bring him _back_, I tell you! Go right straight after him, and tell him

I said to come back! What are you standing there for?"

She fell fainting. Elbridge helped Suzette carry her upstairs to her

bed, and then ran to get his wife, to stay with them while he went for

the doctor.

Matt Hilary had been spending the night at the rectory with Wade, and he

walked out to take leave of Suzette once more before he went home. He

found the doctor just driving away. "Miss Northwick seems not so well,"

said the doctor. "I'm very glad you happen to be here, on all accounts.

I shall come again later in the day."

Matt turned from the shadow of mystery the doctor's manner left, and

knocked at the door. It was opened by Suzette almost before he touched

it.

"Come in," she said, in a low voice, whose quality fended him from her

almost as much as the conditional look she gave him. The excited babble

of the sick woman overhead, mixed with Mrs. Newton's nasal attempts to

quiet her, broke in upon their talk.

"Mr. Hilary," said Suzette, formally, "are you willing my father should

come back, no matter what happens?"

"If he wishes to come back. You know what I have always said."

"And you would not care if they put him in prison?"

"I should care very much."

"You would be ashamed of me!"

"No! Never! What has it to do with you?"

"Then," she pursued, "he has come back. He has been here." She flashed

all the fact upon him in vivid, rapid phrases, and he listened with an

intelligent silence that stayed and comforted her as no words could have

done. Before she had finished, his arms were round her, and she felt how

inalienably faithful he was. "And now Adeline is raving to have him come

back again, and stay. She thinks she drove him away; she will die if

something can't be done. She says she would not let him stay

because--because you would be ashamed of us. She says I would be

ashamed--"

"Suzette! Sue!" Adeline called down from the chamber above, "don't you

let Mr. Hilary go before I get there. I want to speak to him," and while

they stared helplessly at each other, they heard her saying to Mrs.

Newton, "Yes, I shall, too! I'm perfectly rested, now; and I shall go

down. I should think I knew how I felt. I don't care what the doctor

said; and if you try to stop me--" She came clattering down the stairs

in the boots which she had pulled loosely on, and as soon as she showed

her excited face at the door, she began; "I've thought out a plan, Mr.

Hilary, and I want you should go and see Mr. Putney about it. You ask

him if it won't do. They can get father let out on bail, when he comes

back, and I can be his bail, and then, when there's a trial, they can

take me instead of him. It won't matter to the court which they have, as

long as they have somebody. Now, you go and ask Mr. Putney. I know he'll

say so, for he's thought just as I have about father's case, all along.

Will you go?"

"Will you go up and lie down again, Adeline, if Mr. Hilary will go?"

Suzette asked, like one dealing with a capricious child.

"What do you all want me to lie down for?" Adeline turned upon her. "I'm

perfectly well. And do you suppose I can rest, with such a thing on my

mind? If you want me to rest, you'd better let him go and find out what

Mr. Putney says. I think we'd better all go to Canada and bring father

back with us. He isn't fit to travel alone or with strangers; he needs

some one that understands his ways; and I'm going to him, just as soon

as Mr. Putney approves of my plan, and I know he will. But I don't want

Mr. Hilary to lose any time, now. I want to be in Quebec about as soon

as father is. Will you go?"

"Yes, Miss Northwick," said Matt, taking her tremulous hand. "I'll go to

Mr. Putney; and I'll see my father again; and whatever can be done to

save your father any further suffering, or yourself--"

"I don't care for myself," she said, plucking her hand away. "I'm young

and strong, and I can bear it. But it's father I'm so anxious about."

She began to cry, and at a look from Suzette, Matt left them. As he

walked along up toward the village in mechanical compliance with

Adeline's crazy wish, he felt more and more the deepening tragedy of the

case, and the inadequacy of all compromises and palliatives. There

seemed indeed but one remedy for the trouble, and that was for Northwick

to surrender himself, and for them all to meet the consequences

together. He realized how desperately homesick the man must have been to

take the risks he had run in stealing back for a look upon the places

and the faces so dear to him; his heart was heavy with pity for him. One

might call him coward and egotist all one would; at the end remained the

fact of a love which, if it could not endure heroically, was still a

deep and strong affection, doubtless the deepest and strongest thing in

the man's weak and shallow nature. It might be his truest inspiration,

and if it prompted him to venture everything, and to abide by whatever

might befall him, for the sake of being near those he loved, and

enjoying the convict's wretched privilege of looking on them now and

then, who should gainsay him?

Matt took Wade in on his way to Putney's office, to lay this question

before him, and he answered it for him in the same breath: "Certainly no

one less deeply concerned than the man's own flesh and blood could

forbid him."

"I'm not sure," said Wade, "that even his own flesh and blood would have

a supreme right there. It may be that love, and not duty, is the highest

thing in life. Oh, I know how we reason it away, and say that _true_

love is unselfish and can find its fruition in the very sacrifice of our

impulses; and we are fond of calling our impulses blind, but God alone

knows whether they are blind. The reasoned sacrifice may satisfy the

higher soul, but what about the simple and primitive natures which it

won't satisfy?"

For answer, Matt told how Northwick had come back, at the risk of

arrest, for an hour with his children, and was found in the empty house

that had been their home, and brought to them: how he had besought them

to let him stay, but they had driven him back to his exile. Matt

explained how he was on his way to the lawyer, at Adeline's frantic

demand, to go all over the case again, and see if something could not be

done to bring Northwick safely home. He had himself no hope of finding

any loophole in the law, through which the fugitive could come and go;

if he returned, Matt felt sure that he would be arrested and convicted,

but he was not sure that this might not be the best thing for all. "You

know," he said, "I've always believed that if he could voluntarily

submit himself to the penalty of his offence, the penalty would be the

greatest blessing for him on earth; the only blessing for his ruined

life."

"Yes," Wade answered, "we have always thought alike about that, and

perhaps this torment of longing for his home and children, may be the

divine means of leading him to accept the only mercy possible with God

for such a sufferer. If there were no one but him concerned, we could

not hesitate in urging him to return. But the innocent who must endure

the shame of his penalty with him--"

"They are ready for that. Would it be worse than what they have learned

to endure?"

"Perhaps not. But I was not thinking of his children alone. You,

yourself, Matt; your family--"

Matt threw up his arms impatiently, and made for the door. "There's no

question of _me_. And if _they_ could not endure their portion,--the

mere annoyance of knowing the slight for them in the minds of vulgar

people,--I should be ashamed of them."

"Well, you are right, Matt," said his friend. "God bless you and guide

you!" added the priest.

The lawyer had not yet come to his office, and Matt went to find him at

his house. Putney had just finished his breakfast, and they met at his

gate, and he turned back indoors with Matt. "Well, you know what's

happened, I see," he said, after the first glance at Matt's face.

"Yes, I know; and now what can be done? Are you sure we've considered

every point? Isn't there some chance--"

Putney shook his head, and then bit off a piece of tobacco before he

began to talk. "I've been over the whole case in my mind this morning,

and I'm perfectly certain there isn't the shadow of a chance of his

escaping trial if he gives himself up. That's what you mean, I suppose?"

"Yes; that's what I mean," said Matt, with a certain disappointment. He

supposed he had nerved himself for the worst, but he found he had been

willing to accept something short of it.

"At times I'm almost sorry he got off," said Putney. "If we could have

kept him, and surrendered him to the law, I believe we could have staved

off the trial, though we couldn't have prevented it, and I believe we

could have kept him out of State's prison on the ground of insanity."

Matt started impatiently. "Oh, I don't mean that it could be shown that

he was of unsound mind when he used the company's funds and tampered

with their books, though I have my own opinion about that. But I feel

sure that he's of unsound mind at present: and I believe we could show

it so clearly in court that the prosecution would find it impossible to

convict. We could have him sent to the insane asylum, and that would be

a creditable exit from the affair in the public eye; it would have a

retroactive effect that would popularly acquit him of the charges

against him."

Putney could not forego a mischievous enjoyment of Matt's obvious

discomfort at this suggestion. His fierce eyes blazed; but he added

seriously, "Why shouldn't he have the advantage of the truth, if that is

the truth about him? And I believe it is. I think it could be honestly

and satisfactorily proved from his history, ever since the defalcation

came out, that his reason is affected. His whole conduct, so far as I

know it, shows it; and I should like a chance to argue the case in

court. And I feel pretty sure I shall, yet. I'm just as certain as I sit

here that he will come back again. He can't keep away, and another time

he may not fall into the hands of friends. It will be a good while

before any rumor of last night's visit gets out; but it will get out at

last, and then the detectives will be on the watch for him. Perhaps it

will be just as well for us if he falls into their hands. If we produced

him in court it might be more difficult to work the plea of insanity.

But I do think the man's insane, and I should go into the case with a

full and thorough persuasion on that point. Did he tell them where to

find him in Canada?"

"He promised to let them know."

"I doubt if he does," said Putney. "He means to try coming back again.

The secrecy he's kept as to his whereabouts--the perfectly needless and

motiveless secrecy, as far as his children are concerned--would be a

strong point in favor of the theory of insanity. Yes, sir; I believe the

thing could be done; and I should like to do it. If the pressure of our

life produces insanity of the homicidal and suicidal type, there's no

reason why it shouldn't produce insanity of the defalcational type. The

conditions tend to produce it in a proportion that is simply

incalculable, and I think it's time that jurisprudence recognized the

fact of such a mental disease, say, as defalcomania. If the fight for

money and material success goes on, with the opportunities that the

accumulation of vast sums in a few hands afford, what is to be the end?"

Matt had no heart for the question of metaphysics or of economics,

whichever it was, that would have attracted him in another mood. He went

back to Suzette and addressed himself with her to the task of quieting

her sister. Adeline would be satisfied with nothing less than the

assurance that Putney agreed with her that her father would be acquitted

if he merely came back and gave himself up; she had changed to this

notion in Matt's absence, and with the mental reservation which he

permitted himself he was able to give the assurance she asked. Then at

last she consented to go to bed, and wait for the doctor's coming,

before she began her preparations for joining her father in Canada. She

did not relinquish that purpose; she felt sure that he never could get

home without her; and Suzette must come, too.