The Hills of Refuge Part 9

The natural thing for Mason to have done would have been to reiterate his appreciation, but he only stood staring helplessly at Charles.

Afterward Charles understood. The paper contained an accurate description of him--appearance, age, manner, and the very suit he was then wearing. Mumbling some excuse, Mason went back to his room. Charles heard him moving about, and now and then he saw his shadow flit across the floor of the hall.

Some one was coming up the stairs. Could it be an officer of the law?

Why not? He stood up to meet whatever fate was in store. He dared not look toward the stairs. He pretended to be unconcerned. Then he saw that it was only Mrs. Reilly.

"You must have fresh towels," she smiled, genially. "I almost forgot them. I hope you like your room, Mr.--Mr.--I didn't get your name. I like to know who my roomers are, for parcels and mail are always coming."

"Browne," he answered, impulsively, and then bit his lip to keep the word back. But it was too late, and the situation was complicated by the sudden appearance of Mason in the doorway of his room behind Mrs.

Reilly. The startled look in his face and the fact that he disappeared at once showed that he had caught the name and grasped its significance.

"Brown? That's common enough," Mrs. Reilly laughed. "I've had Browns and Whites and Blacks all at the same time. How is Mr. Mason? I'm going in to see him."

Turning, she went into Mason's room, and Charles heard her laughing and talking in her voluble way. He wanted her to leave so that he might read the printed condemnation of himself from his old home. She seemed to linger unnecessarily. Presently, however, she went down the stairs, and, lighting the gas, he read the article. Mason had given him a compact summary of the whole thing, but the details lashed him like whips of fire. It is one thing to make a sacrifice for a loved brother, but it is quite another to bear calmly such consequences as he was facing. It was plain now that even if he escaped he was forever lost to his past.

He heard Mason coming back. What could the fellow want?

"I see," Mason began, almost huskily, "that I am more deeply in your debt than I thought. Mrs. Reilly told me that you wanted to pay my back dues. I don't know what to say to show my appreciation. I have never, in all my knocking about, met a man with such a kind heart."

"Oh, don't mention that!" Charles replied. "It was nothing."

"But it is--it is to me, you may be sure. I'll never forget it as long as I live. I want to serve you. I want to be your friend as you have been mine. I've come here now to tell you that"--Charles knew what he meant in full--"that I will stick to you through thick and thin. I think I understand the--the trouble you spoke of just now. You will need a friend now, and I will be that friend."

Their eyes met. They both understood.

"Yes, I need a friend," Charles said, thickly, "and it is good to find such a one in you. Some time I may be able to speak more freely about myself than I can now, but I will say that, as I see it, I am not--not quite as bad as one would think."

"I know that. I'd bet my very life on it," Mason declared, warmly. "But let all that drop. Don't tell me anything. I know men, and I know you are pure gold. I want to help you and I will do it if it is possible."

Turning back, he entered his own room. A wonderful sense of security, blended with a sense of new-found comradeship, descended on the lonely, pursued man. He now had an adviser, a friend whom he could trust, and it was one who was capable of suffering, who even now was suffering.

That night he slept soundly, strangely free from the fear of arrest.

CHAPTER XI

When William Browne reached home, after his aimless walk which he had taken on leaving the bank that tumultuous morning, he endeavored to reach his room unnoticed by any member of the family, but on the landing of the second floor he met Celeste. She regarded him with a slow look of tentative surprise.

"I've been worried", she said.

"Worried, why?" he questioned, with a start.

"Because Mr. Bradford telephoned me two hours ago that you had started home and that you were not feeling very well. He seemed worried, from the excited way he spoke. Of course I looked for you at once. How could I tell but that you were seriously ill somewhere?"

"I thought a walk would do me good, and I took it," William bethought himself to say. "If I'd known he was telephoning I would have come directly home."

He started to pa.s.s her, but, touching his arm, she detained him. Her cheeks were pale, her thin lips were quivering.

"What _is_ the matter?" she demanded.

"I told you I was not feeling very well," he answered, lamely, trying to meet her penetrating stare with an air of complete self-possession.

"I've had a lot of head-work to do at night. I'm afraid I am near a breakdown. Bradford noticed it and advised me to come home."

He pa.s.sed her now, and went into his room. She followed close behind him, and when he turned he saw her.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, in surprise, for he thought he had left her outside.

"What is it now, Lessie? You know you are acting strangely."

The window-shades were drawn down, but she resolutely raised one, letting the sunlight stream in on him.

"If I am acting strangely, so are you--so are you," she said, desperately. "Something has happened, William, and you can't keep it from me. I have a right to know and I will know." She sat down in an arm-chair and folded her white hands in her lap.

He tried to smile, but his smile was such a ghastly failure that he gave it up. He turned to the bureau. He began to unb.u.t.ton his collar and untie his cravat. His brain had never been more active than now. She would soon know the whole story through the afternoon papers, why keep it from her now? The only explanation was that William Browne could not find within himself the power and poise openly to accuse his brother.

His conscience was against it and something else was against it--the fear of Celeste's shrewd condemnatory intuition. She did not leave him long to his turbulent reflections. "You may as well tell me," he heard her say. "I shall sit right here till you do. Is it about Charles?"

He was glad that she was behind him, since he had to speak.

"Yes, it concerns him," William answered. "He has gone away, no one knows where. You know how he has been acting of late? Well, well, he is gone this time for good, it seems."

"But that isn't all--it isn't all, and you know it isn't!" Celeste leaned forward and fixed him with a demanding stare. "That wouldn't make you act as you are now acting, or look as you look."

William jerked his cravat from his neck and stood folding it with unsteady fingers. "You may as well know the--the rest," he stammered.

"It will be in the papers. He has been reckless. Half the time he did not know what he was doing. He must have been out of his head, for a large amount of money is missing from the vault. He had free access to it. The examiners were due here to-day, and--and the thing could not have been kept from them, so--so he left last night."

"I know. You told me this morning at breakfast," Celeste's tone was firm, impersonal, impatient. "He wrote you a note. Was it about that--about the missing money?"

William's eyes sought the carpet as he answered: "Yes, he didn't have much else to say. He seemed to think that would be sufficient to--to thoroughly explain why--why he was leaving."

Celeste stood up. She sighed. Her husband had never seen in her face the expression that was in it now.

"William, I am not a child. I am not a fool!" she said, fiercely. "I want you to be frank with me. He is your brother and we love him. Why are you not perfectly--perfectly, absolutely open about this?"

"Open? Am I not open?" he evaded, as stupidly as a guilty child facing indisputable proof. "What--what is wrong now? Haven't I told you all that I know about it? You ought not to--to expect me to be in a natural, normal state of mind after a thing like this has happened. Surely you see that it was all due to me--I mean that but for me the directors would not have allowed Charlie to be about the bank after he became so dissipated. As it is--as it is, I have agreed to repay the missing money. It will almost bankrupt me, but I shall do it some way or other."

"You did not know it before you got his note at breakfast?" Celeste asked.

"No, not till then. It was like a bolt from a clear sky," said William, slightly more at ease.

"I don't believe it--I don't believe a word of that," Celeste said, firmly.

"You don't? You think I am lying, then?" William gasped. "My G.o.d! that you should say that to me!"

"I don't believe it," Celeste repeated. "I don't, because this morning when you came down you were very dejected. I have never seen you look so much so. It lasted till you read Charles's note. Then your face fairly blazed with relief. If Charles told you for the first time in that note that he was a thief, you could not have looked like that. You say you are all upset now over it. Why were you not then?"

"I was--I was, but I tried to hide it from you," was the slow answer.

"I know you did, in a way, but you did not a.s.sume that first look of joy and relief. I see that you are bent on keeping me in the dark. I see a reason for it, but I won't mention it now. When you feel like putting complete confidence in your wife, let me know. This is our first misunderstanding, but it is a serious one."