Fletcher rose next morning betimes, after a night of fitful and
unrefreshing slumber. In his dreams he had sought Bullion in vain; that
substantial person seemed to have become a new Proteus, and to
escape, when nearly overtaken, by taking refuge in some unexpected
transformation. Sometimes the scene changed, and it was the dreamer that
was flying, while Sandford, shod with swiftness, pursued him, swinging
a lasso; and as often as the fierce hunter whirled the deadly coil,
Fletcher awoke with a suffocating sensation, and a cold sweat trickling
from his forehead. At breakfast, his wife noticed with intense anxiety
his sharpened features and his evident preoccupation of mind. He hurried
off, snatching a kiss from the baby and from the mother who held it, and
walked towards Bullion's office. He knew Bullion was an early riser,
and he felt sure of being able to see him before the usual hour of
commencing business. But the office was not even opened; and, looking
through the glass door, he saw that there was no fire in the grate. What
was the meaning of this? Going into the street, he met Tonsor near the
post-office. At the first sight of the broker's face, Fletcher's heart
seemed to stop beating.
"Good-morning, Fletcher. Bad business, this! I suppose you've heard.
Bullion went to protest yesterday. Hope you got wind of it in time, and
made all safe."
"Bullion failed!" exclaimed Fletcher, through his chattering teeth.
"Then I'm a ruined man!"
But a sudden thought struck him, and he asked eagerly,--
"But the money,--haven't you got it still?"
"No,--paid it over yesterday."
"Well, the shares, then?"
"No,--sorry to say, Bullion's clerk came for them not ten minutes before
I heard of the protest."
"O God!" groaned the unhappy man, "there is no hope! But you, Mr.
Tonsor, you are my friend; help me out of this! You can raise the
money."
"Ten thousand dollars! It's a pretty large sum. I'm afraid I couldn't
get it."
"Try, my friend,--you shall never regret it."
Tonsor hesitated, and Fletcher's spirits rose. He watched the broker's
composed face with eyes that might pierce a mummy.
"What is the collateral?" asked Tonsor, slowly raising his wrinkled
eyelids.
"Bullion's notes for seventeen thousand dollars."
"And Bullion gone to protest."
"He'll come up again."
"Perhaps; but while he is down, I can't do anything with his paper. The
truth is, Fletcher, you ought not to have advanced the money for him.
Remember, I warned you when you were about to do it."
Fletcher did not look as though he found the "Balm of I-told-you-so"
very consoling.
Tonsor continued,--
"Now, if I were in your place, I would go and make a clean breast of it
to Danforth. It was wrong, though I know you didn't mean any harm. He
may be angry, but he won't touch you. You _can't_ raise ten thousand
dollars in these times,--not to save your soul."
"Keep your advice, and your money, too," said Fletcher, in sullen
despair. "I ask for bread, and you give me a stone. Your moral lecture
won't pay my debts."
He turned away abruptly and went again to Bullion's office. It was still
closed. Determined at all hazards to see the man for whom he had risked
so much, he went to his house on Beacon Hill. The servant said Mr.
Bullion was not at home. Fletcher did not believe it, but the door was
closed in his face before he could send a more urgent message, and with
a sinking heart he retraced his steps towards State Street.
The horror of his position was now fully before him. He could not
conceal his defalcation, and there was no longer a shadow of hope of
replacing the money. Many a time he had taken the risk of lending large
sums to brokers and others; but who would trust him, a man without
estate, in a time like this? In his terrible anxiety about the new
obligation, he had forgotten the old, until he chanced to observe
Sandford on the opposite sidewalk, strolling leisurely towards the
business quarter of the town. The ex-secretary made a barely-perceptible
bow, and, drawing out his watch, significantly turned the face towards
his debtor. It was enough; there was no need of words. It was a little
after ten o'clock; the fatal letter would be delivered at eleven!
Fletcher crossed the street and accosted Sandford, though not without
trepidation; for he shuddered like a swimmer within reach of a shark, as
he encountered those cold and pitiless eyes.
"Come to the office, Mr. Sandford, at eleven," he said. "The affair will
be settled then, and forever."
Mr. Sandford nodded and walked on. Fletcher, meanwhile, quivering with
agony, hurried to his employer's office. He scanned each face sharply
as he entered, and felt sure that the loss had not yet been discovered.
Going to his desk, he wrote and sealed a letter, and then went out,
saying he had some business with a lawyer overhead.
Mrs. Fletcher grew momently more uneasy, after her husband left the
house. A vague sense of coming evil oppressed her, until at length she
could bear it no longer; she left her child with the servant, and,
walking to the nearest stand, took a coach for State Street. On the way
she recalled again and again the muttered words she heard during the
night; she thought of the silent, comfortless breakfast, the hurried
good-bye; she felt again the pressure of his trembling lips upon her
own. Full of apprehension, she asked the coachman to call her husband
to the door. Answer was made by a clerk that Mr. Fletcher was out on
business, but was expected back presently. So she waited, looking out
of the carriage-window,--a sad face to see! The hands of the Old
State-House clock pointed at eleven, when Mr. Sandford punctually made
his appearance,--smooth, cheerful, and with a slight exhilaration, in
prospect of the two thousand dollars. Almost at the same moment Bullion
came also; for Tonsor, fearing that Fletcher would take some desperate
step, had been to the surly bankrupt's house and insisted upon his
coming down to see his unfortunate agent. Just at the office-door, and
opposite the carriage, met the two bankrupts, the disgraced "bull"
and the vanquished "bear." It was an odd look of recognition that
was exchanged between them; and if there was a shade of triumph in
Sandford's face, it was not to be wondered at. They stood at the door,
each motioning the other to enter first, when an unusual sound from the
adjoining entry caused both of them to stop, and one of them, at least,
to shiver. It was a sound of slow and hesitating, shuffling steps, as of
men carrying a burden. The steps came nearer. Both Bullion and Sandford
moved hurriedly to the spot. The men stopped in the doorway with their
burden, and in a moment, with frantic shrieks, Mrs. Fletcher rushed in
and fell upon the body of her husband!
"Good God! what's this?" exclaimed Bullion. "Dead?" He stooped down and
thrust his hand under the waistcoat. The heart was still! He shuddered
convulsively and drew back, covering his eyes. "Dead!"
Mr. Sandford seemed frozen to the threshold in speechless horror. There
was his debtor, free,--the old account settled forever! The pallid
temples would throb no more; the mobile lips had trembled their last;
the glancing, restless eyes had found a ghastly repose; the slender and
shapely frame, bereft of its active tenant, was limp and unresisting.
What a moment for the two men, as they stood over the corpse of their
victim!
Attracted by the unusual outcry, Mr. Danforth came hastily out of the
office, and stood, as it were, transfixed at the sight of the dead. The
men who had brought down the body at last found words to tell their
dismal story.
They were at work on the upper floor, when they heard a noise in one of
the adjoining rooms; as the apartment had been for some time unoccupied,
they were naturally surprised. After a while all sounds ceased, and
still no one came out to descend the stairs. Appalled by the silence,
they broke open the door, and discovered Fletcher hanging by the neck
from a coat-hook; a chair, overturned, had served as the scaffold from
which he had stepped into eternity. They took him down, but life was
already gone. A paper lay on his hat, with these words hastily pencilled
on it:--
"On my desk is a letter that explains all. I'm off. Good-bye.
"JOHN FLETCHER."
Mr. Danforth, hearing this, instantly went into his office, and
reappeared, reading a note addressed to him. Mr. Sandford, meanwhile,
was striving to raise the wretched woman to her feet, and to lead her
to the carriage. Mr. Bullion no longer whisked his defiant eyebrow, but
stood downcast, silent, and conscience-stricken.
"Listen a moment," said Mr. Danforth. "Here is a letter from our rash
friend, and, as it concerns you, gentlemen, I will read it. But first,
my dear Madam, let me help you into the carriage."
The prostrate woman made no answer, save by a slow rolling of her
body,--her sobs continuing without cessation. The letter was read:--
"MR. DANFORTH,
"To make a payment for shares bought by Mr. Bullion, I borrowed ten
thousand dollars from your house yesterday. Mr. Bullion has failed, and
does not protect me. He escapes, and I am left in the trap. I charge him
to pay my wife the notes he owes me. As he hopes to be saved, let him
consider that a debt of honor.
"But my death I lay at Sandford's door. He has followed me with a steady
bay, like a bloodhound. His claim is now settled forever, as I told him.
I don't ask God to forgive him;--I don't, and God won't. Let him live,
the cold-blooded wretch that he is; one world or another would make no
difference; for, to a devil like him, there is no heaven, no earth,
nothing but hell.
"My poor wife! See to her, if you have any pity for
"JOHN FLETCHER."
"Look," said Mr. Danforth, holding the letter under the stony eyes of
Sandford,--"see where the tears blistered the paper!"
All the while, Mrs. Fletcher kept up an inarticulate moaning, though the
sound grew fainter from exhaustion.
"Let us stop this," said Bullion, seeing the gathering crowd of
passers-by. "Better be at home."
Pointing to the still prostrate woman, he, with Mr. Danforth, gently
raised her up and placed her in the carriage. She did not speak, but
murmured pleadingly, while her face wore a look of agonized longing, and
her outstretched hands clutched nervously.
"Poor thing!" said Mr. Danforth, his voice beginning to tremble,--"she
shall have her dead husband, if it is any comfort to her."
"That's right," said Bullion,--"carry him off before half-a-dozen
coroner-buzzards come to fight over him."
The body was laid in the carriage, the head she had so often caressed
resting in her lap, while her tears bathed the unconscious face, and
her groans became heart-rending. Still holding the carriage-door, Mr.
Danforth turned to Sandford, saying,--
"I don't know _what_ you have done, but his blood is on your soul. I
would rather be like him there, than you, on your feet.--Bullion, I
don't mind the ten thousand dollars; but was it just the manly thing to
leave a man that trusted you in this way to be sacrificed? Why didn't
you come down this morning? God forgive you!--Coachman, drive to
Carleton Street."
He stepped into the carriage, and away it rolled with its load of
sorrow.
Mr. Sandford found the glances of his companion and the bystanders quite
uncomfortable, and he slunk silently away. Failure and disgrace he
had met; but this was a position for which he had not the nerve.
The self-accusing Cain was not the only man who has exclaimed, "My
punishment is greater than I can bear." Flight was the only alternative
for Sandford. As long as he remained in Boston, every face seemed to
wear a look of condemnation. The mark was set upon him, and avenging
fiends pursued him. That very day he left the city in disguise. Through
what trials he passed will never be known. But destitute, friendless,
and broken-spirited, he wandered from city to city, a vagabond upon the
face of the earth. Nor did a sterner retribution long delay. In New
Orleans, he was so far reduced that he was obliged to earn a miserable
support in an oyster-saloon near the levee. One night, a fight began
between some drunken boatmen: and Sandford, though in no way concerned
in the affair, received a chance bullet in his forehead, and fell dead
without a word.