A CLIMAX
When Winn reached his room that evening, a letter from Jack Nickerson
and a clipping from the _Market News_ was awaiting him. The letter said:
"Come at once to the city, but keep shady when you arrive. Go to a hotel
and send for me. Rockhaven is up to ten, the street is all short of it,
and a bear panic may come any day. Have held your stock to unload at top
price. May do it to-morrow, but come anyway."
The clipping was as follows: "As we predicted weeks ago, Rockhaven, in
spite of countless rumors put forth by the bears, has crept steadily
upward. Most of it is in the hands of conservative investors who know
its value, and some day those who sold it so freely for five and six
will be bidding fifteen and twenty for it. It is a safe purchase now on
any weak spot, and good for ten points more."
And Winn, fresh from the spell of Mona's eyes and the tender mood of
that afternoon, felt that he had reached a turning-point in his life
and that independence and the end of his suspense were in sight. Go to
the city he must, and at once, that was certain, and perhaps a small
fortune was almost within his grasp! The thought made his pulses leap.
All his life long he had been hardly more than a cipher, a poorly paid
menial, and now possible freedom and escape from serfdom was near. Then
another impulse came, which was a natural sequence of the others. He had
never, since boyhood days, felt that he had a home. His aunt's was but a
free boarding place, and irksome at that; the city and its ways were not
congenial to him--even the thought of going there now was obnoxious; and
as this realization grew, there came to him, much like the sound of
church bells, the sincerity, the honest friendship, the simple truth of
those people he had for three months lived among. And into this
appreciation also entered--Mona.
Like all men, he aspired to some wealth and the protection it means; and
now, when a little of it seemed within his grasp, there followed a
nobler impulse, and that the home-building one. Then when he thought of
the city once more, with its social hypocrisy, its vain display of
wealth, its cold, heartless life, where none seemed ready to extend a
hand to him, he felt more than ever it never was and never could be a
home for him. And then in sharp contrast to one city product, Ethel
Sherman, came a thought of the girl who that morning had decked the cave
with ferns and flowers, that it might seem more worthy of him. And now
herself and her life passed in review. He saw her at home, patient with
her mother's whims, helping when and where she could; at church bowing
in reverence to the simple devotions and joining in the singing; and in
the wild gorge where she hid herself away to practice. This last touch
of romance seemed to affect him more than all else, and as he thought of
those eyes, into which no shadow of falsehood ever entered, and how all
that was beautiful in nature, from the roses that grew between the
granite ledges of the island to the boundless ocean beating against its
cliffs, appealed to her as to him; insensibly, and quite beyond his
power to check, came the sweet illusion of love. Gone for the moment was
the memory of Ethel Sherman and the bitterness she had meted out to him,
and in its place opened a new world. Gone, too, was the influence of the
one man who, above all others, had forced his cynicism upon Winn and
taught him distrust of womankind. Almost, but not quite, did this gentle
thraldom win, and then--the reaction came.
"I will tell Mona, as a big brother should," he thought, "all she has a
right to know, and leave the island as I came. I may return and I may
not."
But Winn, of wayward impulse and changeful nature, now buoyant, now
despondent, knew not his own heart nor its needs, and understood not at
all how some straw, some pebble of chance, would inevitably swerve him
in spite of all resolution.
It is thus with us all.
And now came the business side of his dilemma.
"It goes without sayin' ye best do as yer friend says," advised Jess,
when Winn had read the letters to him, "'n' the sooner the better. Sell
yer own stock fust, if ye kin, an' then mine if ye hev the chance, but
don't worry if ye can't. I'll take keer o' matters here while ye're
gone, an' when ye git back, we'll haul in the net 'n' see whar we
stand."
"But how about the others here?" queried Winn, who had worried about
them fully as much as about himself. "I must see that they are taken
care of."
"Wal," answered Jess, slowly, "ye go ahead 'n' see how the land lays,
'n' mebbe I'll follow ye if ye send me word; 'n' if ye don't, an' things
go to smash, I'll see none on 'em here is loser."
And this was Jess Hutton, the man above all others whom J. Malcolm
Weston had urged his dupe to sell stock to! Never before did Winn feel
so ashamed that he came there as manager for the Rockhaven Granite
Company.
"Mr. Hutton," he said earnestly, "I shall always be thankful that I told
you from the start how matters stood, and if the worst comes, you will
know it was no fault of mine."
"I knowed ye war honest, the fust time I sot eyes on ye," responded
Jess, cordially, "an' now ez ye're goin' soon, it won't do ye no harm to
tell ye. An' more'n that, I'll tell ye I never doubted from the start
this boss o' yourn was a rascal, an' the only reason I bought a little
stock was 'cause I liked ye 'n' wanted to help ye."
Winn felt more ashamed than ever.
When he returned to his room late that evening, the moon, now a few days
past its full, was just rising over Norse Hill and silvering the dark
and silent houses along the way. No one was up, and so still was the
village that his footsteps on the plank walk seemed to echo across the
island. When he came to where Rock Lane joined the street, he paused.
Just beyond he could see the little church and back of it the silent
village of the dead, each stone distinct and ghostly in the moonlight,
to the left the motionless harbor, a glittering field of silver, and
beyond the old tide mill, spectral and solemn. And faintly whispered in
the stilly night the ocean voice.
Many times afterward that picture returned to his memory.