The Hills of Refuge Part 10

She left him stupefied, unable to formulate any defense. He was aware, too, that his helplessness was in its way a confession that she was right in her contention against him, but what was he to do? Retaining her respect and love meant much to him, but the other horror quite forced it into the background. Celeste must wait. The first thing to be considered was the retention of his high standing at the bank and the respect of the public. The seed of suspicion and disrespect was sown in his own home, but that could not be avoided. Celeste had defended her brother-in-law before; she was doing the same now. She was pitying the absent man too much for the absolute safety of William's plans. The feeling Celeste was entertaining might leak out into public channels, flow here and there, and create dangerous pools of suspicion. William threw himself on his bed. He really needed sleep, but his brain was too active for repose. He was listening for the ring of the 'phone in the hall below--or, worse than that, the ring of the door-bell. What was to keep those shrewd men at the bank from seeing through a pretense already half punctured by a woman? William thought of the revolver, but that was at the bank. He thought of quick poisons, but he had none, then of gas, but the room was too large and airy. Suddenly he sat up on the bed, his stockinged feet on the floor, his ears strained to catch a sound which came from the street.

"Extra! Extra! Extra! Big Bank Robbery! Sixty Thousand! Thief in High Social Standing!"

The front door below was opened, but not closed. He crept to a window over the stoop and peered through the ivy hanging from the wall. It was Celeste buying a paper from a newsboy. She was reading it. Only the top of her head was visible, outlined against the paper. How unlike Celeste to stand like that on the stoop, in the view of people pa.s.sing by! An automatic pang of pity went through the storm-tossed man. Could that really be the young girl whom he had loved so pa.s.sionately--the frail, tender feminine creature he had taken from the care and protection of devoted parents, and brought to this? A dead ivy-leaf was swinging by a spider's web and spinning before his eyes. How odd that he should note it, that he should notice how the rays of the sun fell on the dome of the Capitol, that he should find his brain estimating how many copies of the paper the shouting boy could dispose of in that street! Celeste was coming into the house. She was out of his view now. He knew that she was in the hall below, still reading, still wondering, still bent on knowing more than the paper could reveal.

When she had finished reading the account, Celeste, white in the face and yet steady in her step, went back to the dining-room. Michael was there at work, a cleaning-cloth and metal-polish in hand, rows of knives, forks, and spoons ranged in perfect order on the table in front of him. His mistress faced him.

"Did you know, Michael," she began, spreading out the paper on the table, "that this paper says that Charles has stolen a large amount of money and run away?"

Instead of answering, he bent over the paper. His kindly eyes took in the head-lines at a glance and he looked up, slowly shaking his head.

"Yes, yes, I see it is here," he answered. "I was afraid something would be said. I was afraid last night that something was wrong, but I don't believe he took any money. I don't! I never will believe it."

Celeste stepped to him. He was merely a servant, but she put an eager hand on his arm and looked into his face steadily.

"I don't believe it, either, Michael," she said, huskily. "I'll never believe it. He's gone--he's gone, but something else was at the bottom of it. It may have been like this--don't you see? Don't you see my idea?

I know that he was thoroughly disgusted over his dissipation--over what they say happened at the police station and his club; he made up his mind that perhaps he was a burden on us and determined that he would go away. And it just happens, you see, that the money was missing and they all connect him with the loss because he is gone?"

"It does look like that, madam," Michael said almost eagerly.

"But, Michael, Michael, what do you think of _this_?" and she pointed to a paragraph in the paper. "Here is what they say was in the note you handed Mr. Browne at breakfast. See! See! Look! Read it!"

Michael obeyed stolidly, then he looked up. "I know," he said, "and I think he wrote it. I think so from something he said to me about bank money last night, but still I don't think he is guilty. He didn't look it, madam."

"You say he didn't?" Celeste's fine features held an incipient fire which glowed through her thin skin and was focused in her eyes.

"No, madam, he was too--I might say, too happy-looking. Oh, I know the difference between the looks of a guilty man and an innocent one! I've run against both brands."

"And you say he was happy--happy over leaving us, perhaps never to return? Don't you think that is strange, Michael?"

"Yes, madam, that was odd. I must say that I could not make it out. He was jolly, and he was not drinking, either. If I never see him again, I'll never forget how he looked."

"I've been to his room," Celeste went on. "He took very few things, but do you remember the last photograph of Ruth that he had, in a silver frame on his bureau? He took that; at least it is missing."

"Yes, I saw him put it into his bag," said the servant. "Oh, he thinks a lot of the child!"

"And she almost wors.h.i.+ps him"--Celeste's voice shook at its lowest depths--"and she will never understand his absence. How am I to tell her? What am I to say? She may hear this"--indicating the paper with a gesture of contempt--"from other children. Oh, Michael, to think that her ideal is to be destroyed, and unjustly destroyed, for, as you say, and as I say, our Charlie is not a thief!"

Michael had taken up his cleaning-cloth and a silver platter. "I shall never believe that he is, madam," he faltered. "I shall not read that paper, either. It would upset me--make me mad."

"I had to," Celeste replied, dejectedly. "I see now that I'll have to read other things about him. He may be brought back to Boston, Michael.

You see the mention of the big reward? They will search everywhere, and Charlie is too unsuspecting, too innocent, to get away--that is, if he really _wants_ to get away. Did it strike you last night that he wanted to get away unhindered, Michael?"

"Yes, madam, he was anxious about that, and that is strange, too."

"Yes, it is strange," Celeste said, "for he is not guilty. He must have had a reason, but what could it have been, Michael?"

"I can't say, madam," answered the servant, applying his polish and rubbing the platter vigorously.

Celeste folded the paper. "This talk is just between us," she said, half questioningly.

"I understand, madam, I understand," Michael said, bowing as she was leaving the room.

In the hall she met her husband coming down the stairs, his trembling hand sliding on the walnut bal.u.s.trade as for support. Their eyes met. "I am going back to the bank," he explained. "It is after closing-time, but the directors may be holding a consultation. It would be better, I think, for me to offer any a.s.sistance in my power. Bradford suggested that I stay away for a while, but I have thought it over and I think I ought to be there."

"Yes, it might be better," Celeste agreed, or seemed to agree. "If you hear anything bearing on--on Charlie's innocence--if they discover that the money was taken by some one else--I wish you would telephone me at once."

"Some one else?" he said, staring blankly. "But you see they have his note. Bradford wanted that to--to show to the rest."

"Yes, I know about the note"--Celeste was turning into the parlor, her eyes averted--"but something else may come up to throw light on even the note."

"Yes, perhaps," he admitted, stupidly, "and in that case I'll 'phone you."

She vanished through the door, and he stalked down the steps into the street. He walked slowly and with a self-imposed limp. He kept his head down.

"Something is wrong with her," he mused, turbulently. "She does not believe it all. She may never be satisfied, and in that case what am I to do? I can't keep this up. It is as unbearable as the other thing from which Charlie saved me. But I must not give in--I must not! He has given me his word of honor never to reveal our compact and never to return. If he is not caught I shall escape. I may lose my wife, but I'll escape."

CHAPTER XII

Two weeks pa.s.sed by. For the most of the time Charles stayed close in the larger room, which he and Mason now occupied together, with a view to the utmost economy. They had become warm friends. When Charles's funds were almost exhausted Mason received a check for fifty dollars in payment of a debt owed him by a brother-in-law in the West, and Charles had to share it.

Mason never again alluded to the discovery he had made in regard to the trouble Charles was in, excepting once, when they were walking together in a crowded street on the East Side, and he had noticed that Charles seemed to be slightly nervous.

"Leave it to me," said Mason, suddenly. "I'll keep a sharp watch out, and I'll let you know if I see the slightest thing that looks fishy.

Keep your mind off of it. I don't want to know any more about it, either. From what you say I gather that you are bound by some promise or other to keep your mouth eternally closed, even to a friend like me.

That's all right. I admire you all the more for it. You may be a thief to those Boston folks, but you are not to me. The fact that you don't even deny the charge means nothing to me."

Upon another occasion, one rainy evening Mason took up the framed photograph of Ruth which Charles always had on the bureau, table, or mantelpiece, and stood admiring it.

"Say, pal," he said, suddenly, as he wiped the gla.s.s over the little face with his handkerchief, "if I ever leave you I'll want to steal this thing. It has grown on me. She must be a beauty, and so sweet and gentle."

Charles rose, took the picture into his hands, and stood looking at it steadily. "I wouldn't take the world for it," he said.

"I think I know something about her--I can guess. You say you used to drink hard at one time, though you don't now."

"Yes, that's true, but what else?" Charles went on, still feasting his homesick eyes on the picture.

"I don't want to bring up things that will pain you for no good in the world," Mason said, "so let's drop it."

"No, go ahead," Charles urged, half smiling. "I want you to finish, for I think, from some little things you have dropped now and then, that you are mistaken about me--in one particular, at least."

"Well," Mason went on, "I have an idea that you were once happily married and that--well, the old habit got the upper hand so far that your wife took the little girl and went away."

"Wrong, old man," Charles said, with a weary smile. "I've never been married."