A fortnight later Mostyn returned to Atlanta. He spent the first day at
his sister's home trying to pass the time reading in her library, but
the whole procedure was a hollow makeshift. Had he been a condemned
prisoner awaiting execution at dawn, he could not have suffered more
mental agony.
Unable to sleep that night, he rose before sun-up on the following
morning and walked through the quiet streets for two hours. What a mad,
futile thing the waking city seemed! "What are these people living
for--what, after all?" he asked. "But they may be happy in a way," he
added. "The fault is in me. I am seeing them through self-stained
glasses. It wasn't like this in my sight once--the town was a sort of
heaven when I first entered it and began to attract attention. Yes, I
am at fault. I have disobeyed a spiritual law, and am getting my dues.
What is the use of holding out longer? I see now that I am beaten. I
have got to do this thing, and be done with it."
After breakfast he went straight to the bank. Wright, Delbridge, and
the clerks and stenographers seemed unreal creatures, with flaccid,
vacuous faces, as he shook hands with them and answered their
conventional queries about his vacation. "Vacation!" The word was not
in his vocabulary. "Business!" That, too, was a corpse of a word
floating on the still waters of past usage. "Money, stocks, bonds,
market-reports!" They seemed like forgotten enemies rising to stop him.
How could Delbridge smile in his smug way, as he chewed his cigar and
boasted of a new club of which he was the president? How could Wright
put up with his moderate salary and stand all day at that prison
window? What could the limp, pale-faced stenographers in their simple
dresses hope for? Did they expect to marry, bear children, nurse them
at their thin breasts--and bury them like close-clipped flowers of
Heaven just opening to fragrance?
Seated at his desk, he asked a clerk to go to the vault and bring him
his certificates of bank stock. Delbridge was passing, and, seeing them
in his hands, he said, with his forced and commercial shrewdness:
"If you have any idea of selling out, Mostyn, I'm in a shape now to
take that stock off your hands."
Mostyn's stare resolved itself into a glare of indecision. "What would
be your price?" he asked, under his breath, and yet audibly--"that is,
in case I--I found another use for the money?"
"The same price I gave Saunders," Delbridge answered. "You couldn't
expect to make a better deal than that long-headed chap. If you really
want to do this thing you'd better act at once. I have another plan on
hand."
"You make it as an offer?" Mostyn asked.
"Yes."
"Then the stock is yours," Mostyn answered. "Figure it up and place the
money to my credit. I may check it out to-day. I am thinking of leaving
town."
Delbridge suppressed a glow of triumph in his eyes as he took the
certificates into his hands. He spread the crisp sheets out on the
desk. "Indorse them while the pen is handy," he suggested.
Mostyn dipped the pen and wrote steadily on the backs of the
certificates.
"That's O. K.," Delbridge mumbled, dropping his cigar into a cuspidor.
"Now I'll credit your account with the money. Check on it when you
like."
When Delbridge's back was turned Mostyn drew a blank check from a
pigeonhole and began to fill it in. The amount was for one hundred
thousand dollars. He made it payable to Jefferson Henderson. He was
about to sign his name when a great weakness swept over him like a
flood from an unexpected source. How could he do a thing as silly as
that? A gift of one-tenth of the amount would delight the old man and
take him out of want--perhaps win his gratitude for all time. Mostyn
started to tear the check up, but paused. No, no, that wouldn't be in
obedience to a higher idea of justice. If the old man had been allowed
to hold on to his investment in that early enterprise his earnings
would have come to fully as much as the written amount. Suddenly Mostyn
saw the dead face of his child as it lay in the coffin surrounded with
flowers, and a sob struggled up within him and burst.
"For your sake, Dick," he whispered. "I know you'd want me to do it. I
know it--I know it."
Half an hour later he was out in the open air, walking with a strange
new activity. His very body seemed imponderable. He crossed the railway
near the Kimball House and went on to Decatur Street. Along this street
he walked for a few blocks and then turned off. Before long he was in
the most dilapidated, sordid part of the city. He knew where Henderson
lived. He had seen the old man pottering about the narrow front yard of
the grimy little cottage as he drove past it one morning with a friend.
As he drew near the house to-day its impoverished appearance was more
noticeable than ever. It was out of repair. Shingles had fallen from
the sagging roof. It had not been painted for years; the slats and
hinges of the outside blinds were broken, and they hung awry across the
cracked window-panes. There was a little fence around it from which
many palings were missing, as was the gate. On the narrow front porch a
ragged hemp hammock hung by knotted and tied ropes between two posts.
There was a broken baby-carriage in the yard, a child's playhouse at
the step, a little toy wagon, a headless doll, a piece of bread, and
some chicken-bones.
Mostyn went to the open door and rang the jangling cast-iron bell. It
brought a young woman from a room on the right of the bare little hall.
She held a baby in her arms as she peered questioningly at the visitor.
Mostyn knew who she was. She was Henderson's youngest daughter, who had
married a shiftless carpenter and been deserted by him, leaving two
children to be cared for by their grandfather. It was evident by her
blank stare that she did not recognize the caller.
"I want to see your father," Mostyn said. "Is he at home?"
"He's in the back yard," she answered. "He hasn't been feeling at all
well to-day, and he didn't go to town as usual. Who may I say it is?"
"Tell him it is Mr. Mostyn," was the answer. "I won't keep him but a
moment."
"Mostyn--Dick Mostyn!" The woman's tired eyes flashed as she jerked out
the name. "So you have come _here_ to devil him, have you?" She shifted
the infant from her left to her right hip and sneered. "I don't suppose
he cares to see you. I'll tell you one thing--he's my father and I have
a right to be plain--you and your treatment are driving him out of his
senses. He can't think of anything else or talk of anything else.
Sometimes he rages, and sometimes he breaks down and cries like a
child. I never have fully understood what you did to him, but I know
you ruined him. Come in. I'll tell him you are here. I hope to the Lord
you won't hit him any harder than you have already. We are in trouble
enough. Two days last week we went without anything to eat except what
a neighbor sent in, and that nearly killed my father, for he is proud.
One of my sisters is sick and lost her job at the factory. If I thought
you was any sort of a man I'd ask you to have pity."
With her disengaged hand the woman shoved a door open and hastily
retreated. He went into a little sitting-room and sat down. There were
only a few pieces of furniture in the room. A worn straw mat lay on the
floor; three or four chairs, all but bottomless, stood here and there;
a small square table holding a lamp and a family photograph-album bound
in red plush was in the center of the room. Oil-portraits of Henderson
and his dead wife, in massive frames, hung on the walls. Henderson's
wore the prosperous look of the time when his means and good will had
been at Mostyn's service.
Holding his hat between his knees, the caller leaned forward tensely,
wondering over the present spectacle of himself. He heard loud words in
the rear. "I know what he wants." Old Henderson's voice rose and
cracked. "It isn't the first time he has tried to browbeat me into
holding my tongue. He's heard what I've said, and wants to threaten me
with prosecution. But that won't stop me. I'll tell him what I think to
his teeth--the low-lived, thieving dog! He _did_ steal my money--he
_did,_ he _did!_"
Heavy footfalls rang on the bare floor of the hall; an outer door was
slammed. The voice of Henderson's daughter, now full of fright, was
heard admonishing her father to be calm. "You'll drop like the doctor
said you would if you don't be careful!" she advised. "The man isn't
worth it."
With dragging steps old Henderson advanced till he stood in the
doorway. His long white hair was unkempt; he wore no collar or coat.
His trousers were baggy, patched at the knees, and frayed at the bottom
of the legs, where they scarcely reached the gaping tops of his
stringless shoes. Mostyn had risen and now stood staring at his former
patron, unable to formulate what he had come to say.
"My daughter says you want to see me," Henderson blurted out. "Well,
you are welcome to the sight. You've dodged _me_ often enough lately.
Do you know what I tried to see you about the other day when I was
there? It wasn't to get money, for I've given that up long, long ago. I
wanted to tell you that I spend my days now thanking both God and the
devil for the plight you are in at last. I believe prayers are
answered--you bet I do--you bet, you bet! I've prayed to have you hit
below the belt, and it has come in good measure. I see from the way you
look that you feel it. Ah, ha! you know now, don't you, how it feels to
squirm under public scorn and lose something you hold dear? They tell
me old Mitchell sees through you and is leaving all he's got to
Virginia kin. The dying of your child knocked all that into a cocked
hat--your own child, think of that! I've laughed till I was sick over
it. First one report come, then another, till your three staggering,
knock-out blows was made public. I don't know how true it
is"--Henderson wrung his talon-like hands together tightly--"but
business men say there isn't much left of your private funds."
"Hardly anything now, Mr. Henderson," Mostyn answered. "Now that I have
decided to--"
"Ah! _that_ is true, then!" Henderson ran on, with a sly chuckle. "It
is reported that Delbridge, the feller you started out to race against
so big, has swiped the bank presidency right from under your nose,
nabbed the cream of the business, and put it on a respectable footing."
"That is all true," Mostyn admitted. Thrusting his hand into his
pocket, he drew out the check he had written. It fluttered in the air,
for he held it unsteadily. "Here is something for you," he said. "It is
late coming, Mr. Henderson, but it is yours. You will find it all
right."
"Mine?" The old man's limp hands hung down his sides. He saw the
extended check, but failed to understand. He gazed at the quivering
slip, his rigid lips dripping, his eyes filled with groping suspicion.
"Yes, it is yours," Mostyn said. "I've been long getting to it, but I
am now bent on making restitution as far as possible. I can never wipe
out the trouble I've put you to during all these years, but this may
help. If you had held your interest in that factory as I held mine it
would have been worth one hundred thousand dollars to-day."
"I know it--I know it--what the hell--" Henderson stared first at the
check and then at Mostyn. "What do you mean by coming to me at this
late--"
"It is my check for a hundred thousand dollars, payable to you," Mostyn
answered. "The money is yours. You may draw it any time you like."
Henderson's hand shot out. The long-nailed fingers grasped the slip of
paper and bore it to his eyes. He stared; he blinked; he quivered. A
light flared up in his face and died.
"You don't mean it; it is another one of your damned tricks," he
gasped. "You can't mean that I am to have--"
"I mean nothing else, Mr. Henderson," Mostyn faltered. He moved forward
and laid his hand on the old man's shoulder. A flood of new-born
tenderness rose within him and surged outward. "I have wronged you
through the best part of your life. This is your money, and I am glad
to be able to return it."
"Mine? Oh, God! oh, God! oh, God!" Mostyn's hand fell from the sloping
shoulder, for Henderson was leaving the room. "Wait, wait, wait!" he
called back, imploringly. "I want my--my daughter to read it and see
if--if it is like you say it is. I can't see without my glasses; the
letters run together. I don't know what to believe or--or what to
doubt. Wait, wait, wait!"
Mostyn heard him clattering along the hall, calling to his daughter in
the plaintive voice of an excited child. "Hettie, Hettie, here! Come,
daughter, come look--read this! Quick! Quick! What does it say?"
Mostyn stood at the little window. He heard the infant crying in the
rear as if it had been suddenly neglected by its mother. He heard the
young woman's voice reading the words written on the check.
"He's paying it back!" Henderson's voice rose almost to a scream. "It
is twice as much as I put in, too. Oh, Het, we are rich! we are rich!
He isn't so bad, after all! He's more than doing the right thing! Not
one man in a million would do it; he's white to the bone! He's had
sorrow--maybe that's it. They say trouble will turn a man about. Oh,
Lord! oh, Lord!"
The next moment Henderson, his face wet with tears, stood in the narrow
doorway. He held out his hand and grasped Mostyn's. He started to
speak, but burst into violent sobbing. Mostyn was shaken to the lowest
depths of himself. He put his arm about the old man's shoulders and
drew him against his breast. A thrill of strange, hitherto
inexperienced ecstasy passed through him. He thought of his dead child;
he thought of his dead wife; he thought of the mystic preacher of the
mountains; he thought of Dolly Drake. The whole world was whirling into
new expression. It now had transcendent meaning. At last he understood.
The heights could not be seen except from the depths. Joy could not be
felt till after sorrow--till after total renunciation of self. What
need had he now of money? None, that he could see. The world was full
of glorious things, and the old man weeping in his arms was the most
glorious of all.