Two days later Rowland came back from the village. He brought the news
that Keith was well on the road to recovery, and that he had had a talk
with the district attorney, who had intimated discreetly that it was
unlikely that grave charges would be made against his sons, owing to the
disposition of the Keiths to drop the matter. The boys might be charged
with disorderly conduct and fined, but an arrest would not be made and
the case might not reach the court at all, owing to the sympathy of the
judge, who felt that Kenneth and Martin had already been punished
enough.
The next morning after this Charles found both the boys at the
breakfast-table when he came down. To his surprise, they announced that
they were going to help him in the field, that they were willing now to
run the risk of being seen by passers-by, though they were going to keep
out of sight as much as possible. So, accordingly, they both secured
hoes and set to work in the cotton-field.
All that morning they worked with energy, which, no doubt, was due to
their long confinement and the exhilarating sense of freedom. Mary came
down herself at noon and brought them all a delightful lunch which she
had prepared with her own hands. It was a warm day, with plenty of
sunshine, and they all sat in the shade of some oaks which stood on the
edge of the field. When the lunch was over Mary got ready to go home and
the boys hastened for their hoes, to resume work.
"You are wonderful!" and Mary smiled up at Charles, who was helping her
put the things back into her basket.
"Because I eat so much?" he jested.
"Because you are having the most remarkable effect on my brothers. Even
Kenneth has changed. He says he wants to be like you. He sees what your
industry is producing for us. We have never had such promising crops
before. Then--then your talks have done them good. I mean your talks on
moral lines."
"'Moral lines,'" he repeated, sadly. "Take it from me that I am a most
unworthy adviser. I do not want to sail under false colors. Your
brothers are fortunate in having had their lesson without fatal and
lasting consequences. As I have told you--as I have tried to have you
understand--I shall always be what I am--a man without a home, without a
family, without a country, for I cannot legally cast a vote. What your
brothers are escaping from--long imprisonment--I am in danger of every
hour. So far I have escaped, but I may not be able to keep it up. Do you
know--and I must say it now, so that you will understand thoroughly--do
you know, while I dread being taken back home in shackles, I dread
another thing far more, and that is being arrested here. Your friends
would laugh at you for being hoodwinked by a criminal tramp in whom you
have such absurd confidence as to give him food and shelter."
Mary's eyes were full of unshed tears. She hastily crammed the
table-cloth into the basket. "Why are you talking to me like this
to-day, when I was so happy?" she gulped.
"Because you insist on saying things about my--my worthiness, when I am
so overwhelmingly unworthy," he answered, grimly, standing over her, his
fine brow wrinkled with inner pain and bared to the sun. "Besides, as I
say, you must be prepared for it if I suddenly leave without a hint of
my intentions. If I could live a thousand years and be trained in the
highest modes of expression I could never tell you how much peace and
happiness I have found here. This," and he waved his hand over the
growing crops--"this has been like the fields and meadows of Paradise
into which I walked suddenly like a man who was born blind receiving
sight. You say you believe in the existence of God. Sometimes I do, but
I wonder really how He could have allowed me to grow unsuspectingly from
infancy into dissolute manhood, and then send me here? Why did He direct
my repentant steps to this spot--to this soul-soothing spot which I have
enjoyed only to lose?"
"Oh, because of all you have been to us!" the gentle girl softly sobbed,
as she stood by his side. She would have taken his hand but for the
nearness of her brothers. "You say you have done wrong in your past. I
don't believe it; but I shall not dispute with you over it. I only know
that God could not make a man so helpful, so useful as He has you
without eventually rewarding him. As Kenneth and Martin are escaping, so
shall you escape. Your troubles will not last. As for your going away,
you shall not. I say it. You shall not, I could not live without you. I
know that as well as I know that you are standing there. I'd follow you
to the end of the world. If you went to prison I'd go, too."
"You can't mean that." He bent toward the ground and uttered a low moan,
and yet his face was ablaze with triumphant light.
"I do mean it," she reiterated, "and if you think your running away
would save me from silly, weak-minded embarrassment, you must know that
it would kill me. Yes, Charlie, I tell you now that if you leave me and
I fail to see you again I'll end my life."
She had stepped close to him and he suddenly drew back.
"Your brothers are looking this way," he warned her.
"I don't care," she blurted out, desperately. "They may know. They adore
you as I do. I'll tell them how I feel. They are human. They will
understand."
"They would not want you"--Charles sighed--"want you to care for a man
who may any day be thrust into jail. Brought up as you have been brought
up, with your family back of you, they could not want you to care for a
man whose life is the deplorable wreck mine is. Our parting is
inevitable. I've tried to see it otherwise for a long time, but in vain.
I am responsible for the blight that is on me, and I must bear it to the
end. Maybe I can tell you more, honorably tell you more, some day, but I
cannot do so now. But, after all, even that mild justification would do
no good. I shall never forget you, but it is your duty to forget me.
Women do forget such things, but I shall hold you in my mind and soul
forever."
Kenneth was approaching to ask some question of Charles, and in order to
hide her distraught face from her brother's view Mary lifted the basket
and moved away.
That night the family, including the two boys, sat on the veranda after
supper. Rowland deported himself as if nothing very remarkable had
happened in the escape of his sons, but they themselves acted like
persons completely changed in character. Kenneth had lost his vaunting
air of self-assertion and overconfidence, and was very quiet. Martin was
effervescing with the sense of his release from the dangers he feared
and half lay, half sat with his head in his sister's lap. Mary's hands
were gently stroking back his hair, and now and then she bent and
whispered something mother-like and tender in his ear.
Dreading another reference from the family to the part he had played in
their rescue, Charles got up and went to his room. He was tired, but not
conscious of it, and not at all sleepy, for his brain was in a whirl
with thoughts of what had happened, together with grim cogitations on
the course he was trying to lay out for his future guidance.
His reason told him that two courses only lay before him. The more
logical seemed to be his abrupt disappearance from the spot which had
become so dear to him. The other alternative was to return to Boston and
appeal to William to release him from his agreement. This temptation was
by far the greater, and for a moment, in his fancy, it mastered him.
That girl--that wonderful girl down-stairs with her brother's head in
her lap--might then become his wife. "Wife! wife! wife!"--the very word
thrilled him through and through. He was seated on the edge of his bed,
his hardened hands clasped between his knees. His muscles were taut, his
face was wet with perspiration; it trickled in cold drops down his neck
onto his strong chest. Then another vision was spread before his mental
sight. He pictured William as he had last seen him at his desk in the
bank at night. He saw himself standing there telling the brother, whom
he really loved, that he had come back to undo the thing that he himself
had proposed. He saw the dumb appeal in the cowering man's eyes.
"But you were free," William seemed to say, "and this means death to me.
Charlie, it means death!"
"I know, but I now love a noble woman," he heard himself pleading, "and
for her sake I must live, and now I have learned what life really means.
William, my brother, I have failed in what I undertook to do. I am not
an angel. I'm only a man of flesh, blood, and bone--a primitive man who
knows no law but that of his heart's desire."
He fancied that he saw William's head sink to his desk, the death stamp
of agony on his face. He could hear him say: "You are right. I am the
one to suffer, not you. Leave me alone this time. I have the same means
here in my drawer. I won't fail now. Go home, say nothing, but be there
to comfort them when the news is brought."
He saw himself turn away, pass out at the big door and into the lighted
streets. It was the old walk home across the Common. Familiar objects
were here and there. Celeste met him at the door. He led her into the
parlor and turned on the light. They faced each other. She, too, had the
shadow of death upon her face.
"I know why you've come," he heard her say, resignedly. "I've been
expecting it. No man could be unselfish enough to accomplish what you
undertook." The light of her affection for him had died out of her eyes.
She quivered now in fear and dread.
"I had to do it," he imagined himself saying, in the tone of an
executioner hardened to grim duty.
"I understand. We are ready--Ruth and I are ready."
"May I see the child? If she is asleep I won't wake her. But may I have
just one look? I have her picture, but that is all of her that was left
to me."
She seemed to lead him up the stairs. How like a dream it all was!
Celeste moved through the space his thought created as silently as a
creeping ray of moonlight. She opened the door of the child's room. The
gas burnt low. There was the snowy bed. He dared not look at it quite
yet. Around the room crept the eyes of his thought, seeking respite from
his growing remorse. There hung dainty dresses. There in the open closet
were other things--little boots, slippers, shoes with skates attached,
toys, dolls--and there on the bed--how he loved the child! How he pitied
her as she lay asleep with that pink glow of life's alluring dawn upon
her, unconscious of the blade he had unsheathed.
"Yes, she must be told now," Celeste seemed to say, in vague, ethereal
tones. "She is young to shoulder it, but justice must be done even by a
child like her. She must not rob you of a single right or privilege."
The child waked. Startled joy blazed in her opening eyes. She uttered a
scream of delight and held out her arms. He took her to his breast and
clasped her tightly, her fragrant cheek against his own, her warm body
filling his chilled soul with fresh life.
"I can't do it," he heard himself deciding, and forthwith, the pulsing
thing on his breast became the cold drops of sweat which his agony had
forced from him. "No, I can't do it," he repeated. "I'll wander again.
I've given my word, and I'll keep it."