The Hills of Refuge Part 43

His fingers touched the b.u.t.ton. He pushed it in and the white glare filled the room like a photographer's flash-light, revealing their set visages to each other. William certainly looked old now, for a storm of terror was laying waste his whole suppressed being. She turned from him in sheer pity of his swaying frailty. She sat down in a chair, and, like the ill man that he was, he sank into another. He had unfastened his scarf and collar and the ends of both hung in disorder on his breast.

"You say it is something important?" he muttered, and with his hand he made a pretext of shading his eyes.

"Yes, William, it is important, as I see it," she answered, her stare on the floor, her bloodless hands in her lap, tightly clasped. "It is about--about a subject we have not mentioned between us lately."

"I think I understand," he breathed low. "Then you have heard from him, or at least you know where he went."

"Yes, and through Michael," she added. "Michael owed him some money and so he searched for him till finally--"

"Oh!" burst eagerly from her listener. "Then it was not the detectives--not the police. You see--you see, I thought--"

"No, he is safe in that respect, for a while, at any rate," Celeste said. "Michael found him in a retired place down in the mountains of Georgia, and--"

"Why, I--I thought he had gone abroad!" and there was no mistaking the sudden uneasiness in William's tone. "But you say he is still here in this country? Are you sure about that?"

"Yes, Michael has seen and talked with him. William, Charlie is very unhappy. Don't think that he is complaining, for he is not, but a new life has opened out before him and he is still young. William, justice must be done to him."

The hand-shade fell lower over William's eyes, but she could still see their fixed pupils just beneath the flesh-line of his palm.

"Justice!" he gasped. "Surely you are not going to--to hint at that suspicion of yours again. Haven't I shown you--told you that it would make you miserable for life?"

"It is not merely a suspicion now, William," she said, grimly. "I know it to be a fact that Charlie is wholly innocent, and that you--But, oh, you know what I mean!"

Like a murderer faced by skilled accusers confident of his guilt, William could formulate no denial. His sheer silence condemned him, that and the furtive flight of his eyes from object to object in the room.

They reached everything except her set face. He and she were silent for a moment; then William spoke:

"So he talked to Michael. Probably he said a lot of things to him, and Michael has come back full of--of--"

"He said nothing of that sort to Michael," Celeste corrected, quickly.

"Charlie is still true to his agreement with you. He lets Michael think that he did it when under the influence of drink. Michael hasn't the slightest idea that another is to blame."

"I see, and in spite of all this, and even Charlie's confession over his own signature, which I showed you, you still hold the idea that--"

"Yes, I know that the poor boy was innocent, and that he did it all--the written confession, the going away, the shouldering of the disgrace here, and the nameless life among strangers as a common laborer--he did all that for your sake and mine and Ruth's. Don't--don't deny it any more, William--_don't lie to me_! I won't stand for it! I won't! I won't! I _can't_!"

He gave in. He could have crawled like a worm before her in his weltering despair.

"You know it is true, don't you, William?" There were pity, gentleness, and even abiding love in her tone.

He was conquered. He covered his ashen face with his gaunt hands, and, with his elbows on his knees, he sat leaning forward, dumb and undone.

Then she told him his brother's story. It fell from her lips like the sweet consolation of a consecrated nun to a dying penitent, and yet it rang full and firm with Heaven's demand for justice. With a wand of flaming truth she pointed the way--the only way. He sobbed. William for the first time sobbed in her presence. His lips hung loose and quivered like those of a whimpering child.

"Have you realized the cost?" he asked, presently. "Do you know what it will mean to you and to Ruth? As G.o.d is my judge, Lessie, I am not thinking of myself. In fact, I was thinking only of you when I did it!"

Here he made a confession of how he had prepared to kill himself that she might escape the long-drawn publicity of his trial, and how his brother had thwarted the effort.

"Yes, I realize the cost," Celeste answered, "but Ruth and I must pay it. It seems to me now that a greater thing in G.o.d's sight than paying our own debts is paying the debts of others. Charlie is trying to pay our debts, but he shall not. William, he shall not. You are dying under the strain that is on you. It is G.o.d's way of blighting His fruitless trees."

"You are right," he faltered. "A felon's cell, a convict's chains, would furnish relief compared with the tortures I have been enduring. But you and the baby--oh, Lessie, that is unbearable! That thought has haunted me for over a year."

"I know, but don't think of it now," she said. "Act at once. See uncle to-night before he retires. He is still in the library. He said he had something to read."

"I'll tell him at the bank in the morning," William said. "It is the proper place for it. Yes, yes, I'll tell him. You look as if you doubt it, but I'll keep my word. If you stop to think of it, you will see that there is nothing else to do."

"Wait!" Celeste rose and went out into the hallway. She leaned over the bal.u.s.trade and peered downward; then she came back. "I see the light in the library," she said. "He is there now. Go. It must be settled to-night. I am holding myself to it with all the strength of my soul. I am afraid I will weaken. Another night and I might. Charlie's rights and Ruth's are in a balance, and they are seesawing up and down. Hurry!

Hurry! Go this minute!"

He rose and staggered from the room. Celeste sat down and leaned forward. She listened, all her soul in her ears. She remembered that the old stairs had a harsh habit of creaking when one went down or up them.

They were uttering no sound now. Why? she wondered. Softly she got up and crept out into the hall. There in the darkness stood William on the first step, a hand on the railing. His face was turned toward the foot of the stairs. The narrow strip of carpet stretched down toward the dim light below. He was staring at the light as if turned to stone by its gruesome import. She crept to him, touched him on the arm. He turned his death-mask of a face to her, and moved his flabby lips soundlessly.

"Go on," she said.

"You forget one thing, Lessie." His voice came now in a rasping whisper.

"You forget that this thing was Charlie's own suggestion. He proposed it. He would expect me to live up to it, as well as he himself. You mentioned Ruth. She was in his mind at the time, as well as you and me.

Then there was another thing. He had--he said so himself--he had disgraced himself here. He had acted in a way that made him want to disappear, never to be heard of again. This would bring all that up again. I have no doubt that he would want the matter to rest just as it is."

"Yes, he would, and for that very reason it shall not," Celeste flashed out. "He loves a good girl, and she loves him. If you are silent to-night they will be parted forever. The thing is killing you; it will kill me, too. Are you trying to force me to be your accomplice?"

His head rocked negatively like a stone poised on a pivot, but still he did not move forward. Gently she caught his hand, the one still on the railing, and as she did so his fingers automatically clutched the wood as if he were afraid of falling down the stairs.

"I'll go," he said. "You see, I was wondering just how to put it to uncle. He will be humiliated in a peculiar way. I hardly know how to say it, but he has all along felt the--the stigma of Charlie's--of what he thinks Charlie did--felt it so keenly that he has overdone his--his praise of me. You understand--of _me_. He has boasted of my--my moral stamina and ability on all occasions, in that way, you see, to make up for Charlie's--or what he thinks was Charlie's bad conduct. It will upset him terribly. It will fill him with chagrin, for--for I and the bank and its success have become his very life. I dread the effect on him. He is old, you know, and not so very strong. What would we do if it were to result disastrously--I mean to him, you understand? If Charlie hadn't done this thing of his own accord--"

"Stop, William," Celeste said, with a resolute sigh. "I see how hard it is for you to do. Let me do it. I'll know what to say perhaps better than you. Besides, if you consent to my going to him it will be the same as if you did it. In fact, I'll tell him you sent me."

"No, I'll have to put it through," said William, suddenly. He barred the way by thrusting his disengaged hand against the wall, the other still holding on to the bal.u.s.trade. "Go to your room. I'll attend to it."

He moved forward now, and, standing still, she saw him slowly descend the stairs and vanish at the library door. Then she went back to her own room. But she did not disrobe nor turn on the light. She remained sitting in a chair at a window through which the rays of a street lamp fell. She would wait for William's return. She loved him; she was sorry for him; she wanted to cry, but could not.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

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 inst.i.tutions? 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.