The Hills of Refuge Part 44

"No, not very," William heard himself saying. "I--I--"

"Well, perhaps you'd better turn in," his uncle suggested. "This is your day of rest, you know. Later I'll give you the details of what I am going to do for you."

"Uncle," said William, desperately, standing up and leaning forward like a storm-blown human reed, "I am unworthy, absolutely unworthy of--"

"Bosh! Go to bed!" the old man cried, in an ecstasy of delight. "I'm to be the judge of worthiness in this case. It is a scarce commodity these days, and when I see a man actually trying to stave off his just rewards--why, he is a miracle, that's all--a miracle of unselfishness!

Stupid, think of that bonny child of yours! Don't you want to see her take her proper place in the social world? What have you lived and toiled for? I'll bet Lessie won't treat this thing as you do. I'll bet she will kiss her old uncle, and--"

William lost the remainder of the remark. A sudden sense of respite brooded over him like a protecting cloud. Had he the right now to step between his wife and child and such a princely inheritance? In the face of it would Lessie herself not feel impelled to take a different stand?

What normal mother would not? To disillusion the old idealist now would ruin the chances of a good woman and a helpless child. Yes, at any rate, he told himself, he must see Celeste and lay the matter in its new form before her.

"Well, I'll go up," he said, as casually as was in his depleted power.

"I'll see you at breakfast. I--I am rather tired."

"Yes. Good night, my boy. Sleep will do you good."

Somehow William had the odd sense of being bodiless as he ascended the stairs. As he approached his wife's room he saw the handle of her door move, and then he knew that she was standing waiting for him just inside the room. They faced each other in the deflected flare of the street lamp. She reached out and took his hands and clung to them.

"I've been listening. I expected a scene, a commotion, but I heard nothing of the sort," she whispered. "It must have simply stunned him.

The blow was too deep even to stir his fury."

William pressed her hands convulsively, appealingly. He put an arm around her, a shaking, half-palsied arm.

"Lessie," he panted, raspingly. "I found out down there--Wait, wait!

Give me time." He cleared his throat. "I found out--It was like this, darling. You know how rapidly he talks at times? Well, he wouldn't give me a chance to break in; and finally he told me something that made me--forced me to feel that if you had been there--I mean--"

"What? Go on! Go on!" Celeste breathed quickly.

"He was in a jolly mood. He spoke more freely than ever before. He let out the fact that he is worth several millions and that he intends to leave it all to us--_I mean to you and Ruth_. He has no idea of donating anything to charity, but all to you two. So you see--you see, it put me where I simply had to--to lay it before you. It strikes me as a reasonable idea that with all that money at your disposal you could--why, Lessie, you could make Charlie rich, and surely you cannot stand between our child and all that good fortune. Don't you see, dear?

The truth would so infuriate uncle that he would--would drop us all--you, me, Ruth, Charlie--everybody! Old men are like that; they can't seem to recuperate after such a blow. I didn't tell him. I confess I didn't even mention it, for it was my duty to--to show you how matters stand. I'd not be a natural husband and father if--if I had acted otherwise. We have got in this awful mess. How are we going to get out?

Remember, dear, I was trying to earn money for you and the baby when it happened, so how can I bear to--to think of going to jail and leaving you penniless? He would be mad enough to send me to jail, dear; he is just that vindictive, and he would not take care of you two, either. You don't seem to realize that it would make him the laughing-stock of the public, and he so sensitive and hot-tempered. You see, I have forced him to be my active accomplice in covering it all up, and he would have to remain silent or turn me over to the authorities. Oh, it is awful--awful! He puts such a high and unjust value on me that when he finds he has been fooled he will--why, he won't know how to control himself! It would be like him to leave the house to-night--this very night--and go to a hotel, where he would chatter even to the bell-boys.

Think of Ruth--if not of me; have pity on that sweet, inoffensive child."

"Oh, but Charlie! Charlie!" Celeste found voice to say.

"But don't you remember that Charlie himself proposed going away? Why, he was down and out--sick of Boston and everything in it. He said he never wanted to come back or to be heard of again. That was to save me--just _me_--from--from trouble. Is it likely that he would be willing to have me--to have any of us take a step like this now? How do you know that--that he'd like to--to have his old life raked up again? He is evidently playing a part of some sort. Have we the right, without consulting him, to have all this put in the papers and flashed from end to end of the country?"

Celeste stood like a statue, cold and motionless, in his half-embrace.

The dim light disclosed her marble cheek to his sight. Her wide-open eyes caught the flare from the street lamp and gave it back in gleams of indecision.

"You say he spoke of Ruth's inheritance?" she gasped.

"More of her than you or me," said William, grasping at the straw. "He fairly dotes on her. But don't think he would stand by her if--if we anger him by this exposure. He would hate us all, Ruth along with us. In a burst of fury he would cut us all out. Oh, I know him, Lessie," went on William, imbibing hope from the dead stare turned on him. "I have been right at his elbow for over a year. He has given me his innermost thoughts."

"I know," Celeste whispered. "I've noticed it, and knew why it was. He looked upon you as a paragon of n.o.bility because you--because he thought you were sacrificing so much to atone for Charlie's conduct. He told me once that it had given him a new faith in men--that he had not thought such a thing possible. But that was wrong--cursed of G.o.d. It was hypocrisy as black as the lowest vats of h.e.l.l. And I helped you in it. I feared all along that my intuition was telling me the truth, but because I didn't know where Charlie was, because I thought he might be dead, I kept silent. But, husband, it is different now--oh--oh! so different!

G.o.d has sent us this trial. Charlie's life and happiness are at stake.

If we are untrue he will bear the burden meant for us. G.o.d knows he has suffered enough for his boyish escapades--that has been proved by his throwing off his old habits and becoming a clean, decent, and ambitious man. He loves and is loved, and yet he is regarded as little more than a tramp by the people around him. William, I am weak, wavering, and all but dying under this. What am I to do?"

He put both his hands on her shoulders, turned her face directly to his, and went on, rea.s.suringly: "Go to bed, darling. Let it be as it is.

Remember I gave promise to Charlie not to follow him up. He was to be free forever. Go to bed, dear. This is a tempest in a teapot. You are all wrought up and nervous. You'd never forgive yourself for stepping in between our child and her rightful inheritance. Think of that. How would you like to be treated that way just to satisfy some one else's finical qualms as to right and wrong?"

She allowed him to push her toward her bed, and for no obvious reason other than physical weakness she sat upon it, her staring eyes still fixed upon his insistent face. He thought his case was won. He bent and kissed her on the cheek. He tried to raise her chin that his lips might put the seal of frailty upon hers, but she resisted him firmly, inexorably. This gave him pause. All the terrors of his moribund being gathered, screaming and threatening, from the nooks and crannies into which they had but temporarily fled.

"Don't you--can't you see it as--as I do?" he pleaded, still trying to lift her chin, and realizing his defeat even in that small failure.

"No!" That was all she said, but it was more than enough.

He stood away from her. Indescribable contingencies now waxing into grim certainties hurtled about him--exposure, a felon's cell, the visible hatred of the man who had so completely trusted him.

"No!" Celeste repeated, firmly. "There can be only one course to take, and that is the right one--right if it kills us all. You can't tell him.

I must do it. He is still down there."

"Is this final?"

"Yes, final," she said, and stood up. He made a movement as if to stop her; it ended by his dropping his limp arms to his sides. His lips moved, but produced no sound. She left the room first, and he followed.

Together they leaned over the bal.u.s.trade and peered at the light below.

Then she drew herself erect and started down the stairs. He watched her till she was half-way down, then turned into his room.

She reached the library door. She saw the old man still bent over his calculations, a glow of satisfaction on his pink face. She heard him chuckle. No doubt he was thinking of Ruth's good fortune. She was about to enter when a grim thought suddenly clutched her as if in a vise. How strangely William had acted as they were parting up-stairs! Once before he had started to end his life. Would he be so desperate now? Why not?

The crisis was even greater. She turned quickly, and, holding her breath, she darted back up the stairs and tiptoed into William's room.

He was standing at his bureau. She heard a hard substance strike against one of the smaller drawers as he turned to face her. Darting to him, she grasped his arm and slid her fingers down to the revolver he was clutching.

"Oh, you wouldn't do that--would you, dear?" she panted, as she wrung the weapon from his grasp.

His silence was his answer. He stepped back from her. He had steeled himself for the supreme shock of death. How could he summon mere words at this ultimate moment?

"I see, I see!" she moaned, and she was sure now that she loved him in his weakness as a mother might love her child that was blind, crippled, and in unending pain. She put the weapon into the bosom of her dress, and, with her hands outstretched, she cried: "I didn't tell him, darling. I hurried back to you when I thought--thought--thought of _this_. Something else must be done. Charlie wouldn't be willing to murder you. It was to prevent this that he went away."

Her hands were around his neck. He was still under the chill spell of the ordeal he had faced. She drew his head down and kissed him again and again on the lips, as if to restore life's breath to him.

"Yes, something else--but not _this_" she ran on. "We'll see--we'll see, sweetheart. If Charlie were here he'd stop you--he would--he would, and so must I. I see, you couldn't face it all, could you, dear? I ought to have thought of that sooner. Some one has said that G.o.d never puts more on us than we can bear, and that is why He turned me back to you when He did. Now, now, we can go to sleep, can't we, darling boy?"

"Oh, it was wonderful--glorious--ecstatic!" he muttered as if to himself, his blank stare fixed on the s.p.a.ce beyond her. "I was afraid--afraid--afraid as I put my hand in the drawer and felt it like the icy foot of a corpse; but when I had hold of it--"

"What are you saying, darling?" Celeste asked, fearfully.

"I'll never invest in stocks again. Down, down, down, and the money not my own. I'll be caught. I can't hide it. The examiners will come and look me in the eye, and--"

"Oh, what is it, dear?" Celeste moaned, and, catching his arm, she shook him.

"When I had hold of it," he wandered on, vacantly, "something said--out of the very darkness down where he and my wife were settling my fate--something said: 'Don't be afraid--it is nothing. It will be only a pinp.r.i.c.k and you'll be free.' And I was free. I saw--I saw--I heard--I heard--I _felt_--yes, that is it, I _felt_ as a man feels when he is said to be dead and no living soul knows of the great change but himself."

"Oh, William darling, you are ill--you are--"

"Good boy, Charlie! Bully boy, my brother! You were true as steel--you knew it had gone down, down, down to the bottom of h.e.l.l itself and so you ran away. But I was left with it, brother mine. I was in a vat filled with black, smirking imps. Every day I fought with them, every night. But I'm glad now. Are you dead, too? Is that light, or is it-- Who ever heard of light and music being the same thing? It is even more than that, eh, Charlie? It is language--the cosmic speech of the universe, and we are in a sea of eternal bliss."

Celeste, wordless now, took his face between her trembling hands and tried to turn it toward her own, but it was immovable. He was chuckling, laughing, his eyes still fixed on s.p.a.ce. Dropping her hands, Celeste ran to the head of the stairs, and, like a hysterical woman giving an alarm of fire, she called out:

"Oh, uncle--come quickly! Quick! Quick!"