William found his uncle at a writing-table, sheets of paper and a
note-book before him, a fountain-pen in his hand. He looked up and
smiled a pleasant greeting. "Thought you had turned in," he chuckled,
softly. "I told Lessie I had a book to read, but it wasn't that, really.
I've been here figuring on my holdings. I love to do it. It makes the
things I've fought and won stand out, you see, before my eyes, as you
might say. It furnishes me with a fresh surprise every time I do it. It
always seems bigger, solider, you see. Sit down, my boy; take a
cigar--there are several pretty good ones. No, you won't? I see, it will
keep you awake, eh? Well, I must say I admire it in you. The best
business men are careful, and you are one of them. I owe you a lot, my
boy," he went on, as William sat down and clasped his cold knee-caps
with his shaking hands. "Do you know what you did for me? I see; you are
too modest to confess it. Well, you actually did this: I had practically
given up the financial game. I was trifling my time and income away in
Europe when this great family trouble clutched me and pulled me back
into harness. And what has been the result? Why, I've not only enjoyed
the game of defending our blood, but every venture I have made has
shoveled gold into my bin."
William nodded. He could not find his voice. He was glad that his
uncle's enthusiastic face was bent over his writing.
"And don't think I am not realizing that I'm no longer young, either,"
the steady voice went on. "I'm not a silly fool. I sha'n't claim more
than ten years more of life, at the furthest, and what do you think I
expect to do with my effects? You saw the little item in _The
Transcript_ the other day, stating that I might make a big donation to
several charitable institutions? I know you must have seen it. Well,
nothing could be farther from my intentions. I am going to leave all I
have to a young fellow that I think had a pretty hard time of it. Of
course, you don't know who I mean, Billy. I didn't think I'd ever want
to provide for any particular person, but when I got back from Europe
and saw you haggard and unstrung, putting up practically all you had in
the world to pull our name from the mire--well, it changed me on the
spot. You see, it was a quality I didn't think a man could have, and I'd
found it in you."
"Wait! Stop, please!" William gulped. "I--I--"
"Too modest, eh?" the old man laughed. "Now you keep quiet. I am holding
the floor, and the chairman says you are out of order. Huh! if you are
too modest to want this for yourself, think of your wife and child. I've
grown to love them as if they were child and grandchild of my own. I
want to see them happy, and when I make them so you will be, too, Billy,
in spite of the rascally thing that has been done to you. You shall be
president of the bank; you shall run the whole thing, and I'll sit back
and take life easy to the end. Do you know that old men enjoy life more
than the young? Well, it is true. Aside from the bad conduct of your
brother--the lasting sting of it--there is nothing in my life to regret.
I am actually happy in the realization that I am doing so much for the
happiness of you and yours--and mine. Yes, they are mine, too."
There was a pause, but William was unable to fill it. He reached out and
took one of the cigars from the table; he struck a match and lighted it,
but it burnt for an instant only. The old man was looking at him
steadily. "You are not well to-night, are you, Billy?" he asked, in a
sudden swirl of affectionate concern.
"No, not very," William heard himself saying. "I--I--"
"Well, perhaps you'd better turn in," his uncle suggested. "This is your
day of rest, you know. Later I'll give you the details of what I am
going to do for you."
"Uncle," said William, desperately, standing up and leaning forward like
a storm-blown human reed, "I am unworthy, absolutely unworthy of--"
"Bosh! Go to bed!" the old man cried, in an ecstasy of delight. "I'm to
be the judge of worthiness in this case. It is a scarce commodity these
days, and when I see a man actually trying to stave off his just
rewards--why, he is a miracle, that's all--a miracle of unselfishness!
Stupid, think of that bonny child of yours! Don't you want to see her
take her proper place in the social world? What have you lived and
toiled for? I'll bet Lessie won't treat this thing as you do. I'll bet
she will kiss her old uncle, and--"
William lost the remainder of the remark. A sudden sense of respite
brooded over him like a protecting cloud. Had he the right now to step
between his wife and child and such a princely inheritance? In the face
of it would Lessie herself not feel impelled to take a different stand?
What normal mother would not? To disillusion the old idealist now would
ruin the chances of a good woman and a helpless child. Yes, at any rate,
he told himself, he must see Celeste and lay the matter in its new form
before her.
"Well, I'll go up," he said, as casually as was in his depleted power.
"I'll see you at breakfast. I--I am rather tired."
"Yes. Good night, my boy. Sleep will do you good."
Somehow William had the odd sense of being bodiless as he ascended the
stairs. As he approached his wife's room he saw the handle of her door
move, and then he knew that she was standing waiting for him just inside
the room. They faced each other in the deflected flare of the street
lamp. She reached out and took his hands and clung to them.
"I've been listening. I expected a scene, a commotion, but I heard
nothing of the sort," she whispered. "It must have simply stunned him.
The blow was too deep even to stir his fury."
William pressed her hands convulsively, appealingly. He put an arm
around her, a shaking, half-palsied arm.
"Lessie," he panted, raspingly. "I found out down there--Wait, wait!
Give me time." He cleared his throat. "I found out--It was like this,
darling. You know how rapidly he talks at times? Well, he wouldn't give
me a chance to break in; and finally he told me something that made
me--forced me to feel that if you had been there--I mean--"
"What? Go on! Go on!" Celeste breathed quickly.
"He was in a jolly mood. He spoke more freely than ever before. He let
out the fact that he is worth several millions and that he intends to
leave it all to us--_I mean to you and Ruth_. He has no idea of donating
anything to charity, but all to you two. So you see--you see, it put me
where I simply had to--to lay it before you. It strikes me as a
reasonable idea that with all that money at your disposal you
could--why, Lessie, you could make Charlie rich, and surely you cannot
stand between our child and all that good fortune. Don't you see, dear?
The truth would so infuriate uncle that he would--would drop us
all--you, me, Ruth, Charlie--everybody! Old men are like that; they
can't seem to recuperate after such a blow. I didn't tell him. I confess
I didn't even mention it, for it was my duty to--to show you how matters
stand. I'd not be a natural husband and father if--if I had acted
otherwise. We have got in this awful mess. How are we going to get out?
Remember, dear, I was trying to earn money for you and the baby when it
happened, so how can I bear to--to think of going to jail and leaving
you penniless? He would be mad enough to send me to jail, dear; he is
just that vindictive, and he would not take care of you two, either. You
don't seem to realize that it would make him the laughing-stock of the
public, and he so sensitive and hot-tempered. You see, I have forced him
to be my active accomplice in covering it all up, and he would have to
remain silent or turn me over to the authorities. Oh, it is
awful--awful! He puts such a high and unjust value on me that when he
finds he has been fooled he will--why, he won't know how to control
himself! It would be like him to leave the house to-night--this very
night--and go to a hotel, where he would chatter even to the bell-boys.
Think of Ruth--if not of me; have pity on that sweet, inoffensive
child."
"Oh, but Charlie! Charlie!" Celeste found voice to say.
"But don't you remember that Charlie himself proposed going away? Why,
he was down and out--sick of Boston and everything in it. He said he
never wanted to come back or to be heard of again. That was to save
me--just _me_--from--from trouble. Is it likely that he would be willing
to have me--to have any of us take a step like this now? How do you know
that--that he'd like to--to have his old life raked up again? He is
evidently playing a part of some sort. Have we the right, without
consulting him, to have all this put in the papers and flashed from end
to end of the country?"
Celeste stood like a statue, cold and motionless, in his half-embrace.
The dim light disclosed her marble cheek to his sight. Her wide-open
eyes caught the flare from the street lamp and gave it back in gleams of
indecision.
"You say he spoke of Ruth's inheritance?" she gasped.
"More of her than you or me," said William, grasping at the straw. "He
fairly dotes on her. But don't think he would stand by her if--if we
anger him by this exposure. He would hate us all, Ruth along with us. In
a burst of fury he would cut us all out. Oh, I know him, Lessie," went
on William, imbibing hope from the dead stare turned on him. "I have
been right at his elbow for over a year. He has given me his innermost
thoughts."
"I know," Celeste whispered. "I've noticed it, and knew why it was. He
looked upon you as a paragon of nobility because you--because he thought
you were sacrificing so much to atone for Charlie's conduct. He told me
once that it had given him a new faith in men--that he had not thought
such a thing possible. But that was wrong--cursed of God. It was
hypocrisy as black as the lowest vats of hell. And I helped you in it. I
feared all along that my intuition was telling me the truth, but because
I didn't know where Charlie was, because I thought he might be dead, I
kept silent. But, husband, it is different now--oh--oh! so different!
God has sent us this trial. Charlie's life and happiness are at stake.
If we are untrue he will bear the burden meant for us. God knows he has
suffered enough for his boyish escapades--that has been proved by his
throwing off his old habits and becoming a clean, decent, and ambitious
man. He loves and is loved, and yet he is regarded as little more than a
tramp by the people around him. William, I am weak, wavering, and all
but dying under this. What am I to do?"
He put both his hands on her shoulders, turned her face directly to his,
and went on, reassuringly: "Go to bed, darling. Let it be as it is.
Remember I gave promise to Charlie not to follow him up. He was to be
free forever. Go to bed, dear. This is a tempest in a teapot. You are
all wrought up and nervous. You'd never forgive yourself for stepping in
between our child and her rightful inheritance. Think of that. How would
you like to be treated that way just to satisfy some one else's finical
qualms as to right and wrong?"
She allowed him to push her toward her bed, and for no obvious reason
other than physical weakness she sat upon it, her staring eyes still
fixed upon his insistent face. He thought his case was won. He bent and
kissed her on the cheek. He tried to raise her chin that his lips might
put the seal of frailty upon hers, but she resisted him firmly,
inexorably. This gave him pause. All the terrors of his moribund being
gathered, screaming and threatening, from the nooks and crannies into
which they had but temporarily fled.
"Don't you--can't you see it as--as I do?" he pleaded, still trying to
lift her chin, and realizing his defeat even in that small failure.
"No!" That was all she said, but it was more than enough.
He stood away from her. Indescribable contingencies now waxing into grim
certainties hurtled about him--exposure, a felon's cell, the visible
hatred of the man who had so completely trusted him.
"No!" Celeste repeated, firmly. "There can be only one course to take,
and that is the right one--right if it kills us all. You can't tell him.
I must do it. He is still down there."
"Is this final?"
"Yes, final," she said, and stood up. He made a movement as if to stop
her; it ended by his dropping his limp arms to his sides. His lips
moved, but produced no sound. She left the room first, and he followed.
Together they leaned over the balustrade and peered at the light below.
Then she drew herself erect and started down the stairs. He watched her
till she was half-way down, then turned into his room.
She reached the library door. She saw the old man still bent over his
calculations, a glow of satisfaction on his pink face. She heard him
chuckle. No doubt he was thinking of Ruth's good fortune. She was about
to enter when a grim thought suddenly clutched her as if in a vise. How
strangely William had acted as they were parting up-stairs! Once before
he had started to end his life. Would he be so desperate now? Why not?
The crisis was even greater. She turned quickly, and, holding her
breath, she darted back up the stairs and tiptoed into William's room.
He was standing at his bureau. She heard a hard substance strike against
one of the smaller drawers as he turned to face her. Darting to him, she
grasped his arm and slid her fingers down to the revolver he was
clutching.
"Oh, you wouldn't do that--would you, dear?" she panted, as she wrung
the weapon from his grasp.
His silence was his answer. He stepped back from her. He had steeled
himself for the supreme shock of death. How could he summon mere words
at this ultimate moment?
"I see, I see!" she moaned, and she was sure now that she loved him in
his weakness as a mother might love her child that was blind, crippled,
and in unending pain. She put the weapon into the bosom of her dress,
and, with her hands outstretched, she cried: "I didn't tell him,
darling. I hurried back to you when I thought--thought--thought of
_this_. Something else must be done. Charlie wouldn't be willing to
murder you. It was to prevent this that he went away."
Her hands were around his neck. He was still under the chill spell of
the ordeal he had faced. She drew his head down and kissed him again and
again on the lips, as if to restore life's breath to him.
"Yes, something else--but not _this_" she ran on. "We'll see--we'll see,
sweetheart. If Charlie were here he'd stop you--he would--he would, and
so must I. I see, you couldn't face it all, could you, dear? I ought to
have thought of that sooner. Some one has said that God never puts more
on us than we can bear, and that is why He turned me back to you when He
did. Now, now, we can go to sleep, can't we, darling boy?"
"Oh, it was wonderful--glorious--ecstatic!" he muttered as if to
himself, his blank stare fixed on the space beyond her. "I was
afraid--afraid--afraid as I put my hand in the drawer and felt it like
the icy foot of a corpse; but when I had hold of it--"
"What are you saying, darling?" Celeste asked, fearfully.
"I'll never invest in stocks again. Down, down, down, and the money not
my own. I'll be caught. I can't hide it. The examiners will come and
look me in the eye, and--"
"Oh, what is it, dear?" Celeste moaned, and, catching his arm, she shook
him.
"When I had hold of it," he wandered on, vacantly, "something said--out
of the very darkness down where he and my wife were settling my
fate--something said: 'Don't be afraid--it is nothing. It will be only a
pinprick and you'll be free.' And I was free. I saw--I saw--I heard--I
heard--I _felt_--yes, that is it, I _felt_ as a man feels when he is
said to be dead and no living soul knows of the great change but
himself."
"Oh, William darling, you are ill--you are--"
"Good boy, Charlie! Bully boy, my brother! You were true as steel--you
knew it had gone down, down, down to the bottom of hell itself and so
you ran away. But I was left with it, brother mine. I was in a vat
filled with black, smirking imps. Every day I fought with them, every
night. But I'm glad now. Are you dead, too? Is that light, or is it--
Who ever heard of light and music being the same thing? It is even more
than that, eh, Charlie? It is language--the cosmic speech of the
universe, and we are in a sea of eternal bliss."
Celeste, wordless now, took his face between her trembling hands and
tried to turn it toward her own, but it was immovable. He was chuckling,
laughing, his eyes still fixed on space. Dropping her hands, Celeste ran
to the head of the stairs, and, like a hysterical woman giving an alarm
of fire, she called out:
"Oh, uncle--come quickly! Quick! Quick!"
"What is it? What is it?" he exclaimed, as he darted from the library
and plunged up the stairs.
"Quick! Quick!" she cried back, and vanished from his view. He found her
standing over her husband, who was now seated on his bed. Hearing his
step, William uttered a low, chuckling laugh, and, staring at him, said:
"Here you are again, Charlie. I missed you. That cloud--that dazzling
white cloud--seemed to come between us. I ran back to see Ruth and
Lessie. Ruth was asleep, and when children are asleep they ride on the
clouds--so a spirit told me. But Lessie was awake, standing over, over
it--you know what I mean, over the body that held me so long. Oh, I wish
she would hide it! Uncle was there, too, Charlie boy. Never could make
the old doubter understand this, eh, Charlie? At first it was strange to
us, too, eh? Wonderful, wonderful! I hear my old leathery tongue trying
to describe it now. How funny!"
"William, what is the matter?" the old man asked, bending over him.
William looked at him closely; he put his hand on his shoulder and went
on, chuckling: "Oh, I see it is you, uncle. I want to tell you. You
needn't be afraid of dying, as I was all my life. I held it right over
my heart and pulled the trigger. There was a flash, a little, tiny
tickling sting, and then Charlie and I--I'll never invest in stocks
again. It seemed very easy to pile up all that for Lessie and the baby.
Down, down, down--Every morning at breakfast I faced them with those
figures on my brain like the slimy tracks of coffin snails. Down, down
to doom! to doom--that's it, to my doom!"
The old man stood erect. He moved to a window. His niece followed him
like a praying shadow. Their eyes met.
"I am the cause of it," she said. "I tried to force him to confess to
you that he was to blame, and not Charlie. He tried to use this," taking
the revolver from her bosom, "while I went down to tell you."
"He, and not Charlie!" the old man exclaimed, with a fixed stare.
"Say what you like, _do_ what you like," she said, harshly, fiercely,
recklessly, her white lip curled in a sneer. "He said you would put him
in jail. I wonder if you will--I wonder. I would give my life for him.
We don't want your money--understand that. What living man has not
sinned? and _he_ did it for love. Don't you dare to accuse--abuse him.
He is down now and dying, perhaps."
With his eyes on the bent form on the bed, the old man seemed not to
hear her. "Oh, my God, this is awful--awful!" he said, under his breath.
"Well, there is but one thing to do."
Turning, he suddenly left the room. There was a telephone in the
hallway, just outside the door, and he went to it. He took up the
directory and then turned on the electric light. His hands shook as he
fumbled the pages. The book fell to the floor. He picked it up. His old
face seemed withered like crinkled parchment.
"I can't find it!" he groaned. "My God! have mercy! It is awful--awful!"
Celeste was at his side. Like an infuriated tigress defending her young,
she glared into his face, and all but snarled: "Do it, do it, if you
dare--and we'll hate you, despise you, curse your name! I'll teach Ruth
to spit on your grave."
"Lessie, Lessie, my child--my poor child! Do you object to my--"
"Object? Would you send him to jail when his reason is wrecked through
fear of you--when he is dying?"
"Why, Lessie, Lessie, darling child, did you think _that_? Why, I am
telephoning for the doctor, that is all. I love William and pity him as
much as you do. We must save him, child, we must save him!"