The Hills of Refuge Part 38

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 pa.s.sers-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 suns.h.i.+ne, 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d 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 embarra.s.sment, 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-a.s.sertion 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 n.o.ble 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, pa.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce 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."

CHAPTER XXVII

The voices on the veranda seemed louder now. He thought he heard Mary uttering a startled command of some sort; and then there were steps on the stairway and Kenneth and Martin softly knocked on his door. He opened it.

"Some one is driving up the road," Kenneth explained. "Sister thought it might be Albert Frazier coming to call on her. Anyway, she said, as he doesn't know that we are at home, we'd better keep out of sight. He may want to stay all night, and in that case we'll have to go to the barn again."

The three men went to a window and cautiously looked out. A horse and buggy were stopping at the gate. Frazier was alighting, while Rowland went down the walk to meet him in accordance with his hospitable habit.

"I can't stop long," Frazier was heard saying. "Leave the horse there.

He'll stand, all right. I only want to see your daughter a few minutes."

"Thank G.o.d!" Kenneth exclaimed, in relief. "Then we can get to bed, Martin. Oh, how I hate that man!"

The boys left Charles alone. He heard them creeping down the hall to their room at the end of the house. Later he heard their father pa.s.s on his way to his room. Charles sat down on his bed again. A different mood was now on him. Hot fury raged through him as he thought of what might be taking place below. That man might be urging the gentle girl to marry him. He might still be holding threats over her, and Mary might accept him. He heard their low voices. Frazier's dominated. Its coa.r.s.e monotone rumbled through the hall. He seemed to be explaining something. Charles closed his ears, for the sound was maddening.

"It is rather late to call," Frazier was saying, "but I had to see you, and this was the only time. I've thought it all over about me and you, little girl. I don't know, but maybe I'm not as tough a proposition as I appear to be. The truth is, I'm all in. I've lost every cent of money I had. I plunged too reckless. I lived too high. It was come-easy-go-easy with me. I've been a bad man, but you were always what I wanted. I reckon it is because you are so good at heart, but I knew that you'd never love me. I knew that, and so I resorted to that other game. I am sorry, for it was a sneaking thing to do. But, as I say, I'm all in financially. I could not maybe for many years give you what you deserve, and so I've decided to tell you about it and move away from here. I have a chance of getting something to do in Seattle. My mother's brother has an opening for me there and I am going at once. You never cared for me, did you, little girl? Now be honest."

"I don't think I ever loved you," Mary responded. "It was because you were so--so kind to me and father and the boys--that--"

"Oh, I know. That was part of my dirty work," Frazier sighed. "I was looking a long way ahead. Your father is as simple as a child, and I was using him, tempting him to let me indorse for him. However, he owes me nothing now. I am a bankrupt and the bank that advanced the money to him with my security will look to him for it. Your crops are good this year, and he will be able to make a substantial payment on account when they are marketed. That man you picked up is a wonder. My brother thinks there is something crooked about him and is looking him up. The fellow acts strangely, but he is doing your place no harm, and perhaps you ought to keep him. There is some mystery about him, but I've seen others like him who turned out all right in the end. I think he has secret a.s.sociates. In fact, I have an idea that some friend of his advanced the money for Tobe Keith's operation. I started to make investigations on that line, but my crash came, and all that is off."

"Do you think Tobe's chance is good to recover?" Mary asked, falteringly.

"That is one thing I came to tell you," Frazier answered. "The latest news is even more favorable. I heard this afternoon from Doctor Harrison that he is doing splendidly."