The Colossus Part 30

"But does he do me a _justice_? He's got to pay back every cent I advanced on that newspaper deal."

"We will attend to that, father."

"_We_ will. You are to have nothing to do with it."

"I mean that he will."

"That's different. I'll take the thing away from him the first thing he knows. I'm tired of his browbeating. Isn't it time for those papers?"

"Not quite."

"Have they stopped printing them? Are they holding back just to worry me now that they've got me down? Where's Henry?"

"He has just gone out to wait for the carrier-boy. He's coming now, I think."

Henry came in with the morning papers. "What do they say?" Witherspoon eagerly asked. He flounced up, and drawing the covers about him, sat on the edge of the bed.

"I'll see," Henry answered.

"But be quick about it. Great goodness, I can't wait all day."

"There's so much that I can't tell it in a breath."

"But can't you give me the gist of it? Call yourself a newspaper man and can't get at the gist of a thing."

"Be patient a moment and I will read to you."

During more than an hour Witherspoon sat, listening; and when the last paper had been disposed of, he said: "Why, that isn't so bad. They don't mix me up in it after all. What was that? Brooks seems to he wavering and may make a confession? But what will he say? That's the question. What will he say?"

"How can he say anything to hurt you?" Mrs. Wither spoon asked.

"He can't if he sticks to the truth. But will he? He may want to ruin the Colossus. I will not go near him. They may hang him and let him rot. I will not go near him. The truth is, I have been afraid of him.

The best of us have cause to fear the man we have placed too much confidence in. Caroline, I'll get up."

"Not now, father. The doctor said you must not get up to-day."

"But does he suppose I'm going to lie here and let the Colossus run wild? Got n.o.body to help me; n.o.body."

"I will go down this morning and see that everything starts off all right," said Henry.

"You will? What do you know about it? You could have known all about it, but what do you know now?"

"I should think that the heads of the departments understand their business; and I hope that I can at least represent you for a short time."

"For a short time? Oh, yes, a short time suits you exactly. Ellen could do that, and I'd send her if she were at home." The girl was at Lake Geneva. "Think you can go down and say, 'Wish you would open this door if you please'? Think you can do that?"

The mother put up her hands as though she would protect her son against the merchant's feelingless reproach. For a time Henry sat looking hard in Witherspoon's blood-shot eyes; and a thought, hot and anger-edged, strove for utterance, but an appealing gesture, a look from that gentle woman, turned his resentment into these consoling words, "Don't worry. I think I know my duty when it's put before me.

The Colossus shall not suffer."

How tenderly she looked at him. She made a magnanimity of the cooling of his resentment and she gave him that sacred reward--a mother's gratefulness.

"All right," said the merchant, "Do the best you can."

His quick discernment had caught the play between Henry and Mrs.

Witherspoon. "Of course I don't expect you to take my place. I want you merely to show that the Witherspoon family hasn't run away."

The doctor called and found his patient much improved. "A little rest is all you need to bring you about again," the physician said. "Your unsettled nerves have made you morbid. Don't worry. Everything will be all right."

The newspaper reports of the arrest of Brooks, although they proceeded to arraign and condemn him, had on Witherspoon's nervous system more of a retoning effect than could have been brought about by a doctor's skill. That Brooks might be guilty, had not been the merchant's fear; but that he himself might in some way be implicated, had been his morbid dread. Now he could begin to recognize the truth that with a black beast of his own creation he had frightened himself; and he laughed with a nervous shudder. But when the doctor was gone he again became anxious.

"Caroline, didn't he ask if there had ever been any insanity in my family?"

"Why, no; he didn't hint at such a thing."

"I must have dreamed it, then. But what makes me dream such strange things? I thought you told him that my father had been a little off at times. Didn't you?"

"Why, of course not. You never told me that there was ever anything wrong with your father, and even if there was how should I know it?"

"But there wasn't anything wrong with him, Caroline, and why should you say 'if there was.'"

"Now, father, I never thought of such a thing as suspecting that there was, and please don't let that worry you."

"I won't, but didn't Henry bring a paper and keep it hidden until after I went to sleep?"

"No, he read them all to you."

"I thought he brought in a weekly paper and read something about a widow from Was.h.i.+ngton."

"No, he didn't."

After a time he dozed and then he began to mutter: "It is easier to pay than to explain."

"What is it, dear?" she asked, not noticing that he dozed.

"Did you speak to me?" he inquired, rousing himself.

"You said something about it's being easier to pay than to explain,"

she answered.

"Did I? Must have been dreaming. Has Ellen come home?"

"Not yet, but I'm looking for her. Of course she started for home as soon as she could after hearing the news."

"What time is it?"

"Twenty minutes of four," she answered, glancing at the clock.

"I wonder why Henry doesn't come."