The Re-Creation of Brian Kent Part 26

Auntie Sue clasped her thin hands to her breast, and her sweet voice trembled with anxious fear: "You won't send that poor boy to prison, now, will you, Homer? It--it--would kill me if such a terrible thing were to happen now. Won't you let him go free, so that he can do his work,--won't you, Homer? I--I--" The strain of her anxiety was almost too much for the dear old gentlewoman's physical strength, and as her voice failed, the tears streamed down the soft cheeks unheeded.

In an instant the bank president was again on his knees beside her chair.

"Don't, Auntie Sue: don't, dear! Why, you know I would do anything in the world you asked, even if I wanted to send the fellow up; but I don't. I wouldn't touch him for the world. It is a thousand times better to let him go if he is proving himself an honest man. Please, dear, don't feel so. Why, I will be glad to let him off. I'll help him, Auntie Sue. I--I--am as glad as you are that we didn't get him. Please don't feel so about it. There, there,--it is all right, now."

So he comforted and rea.s.sured her until she was able to smile through her tears. "I knew I could depend on you, Homer."

A few minutes later, she said: "And what about that man who is coming to claim the reward, Homer?"

"Never you mind him!" cried the banker; "I'll fix that. But, tell me, Auntie Sue, where is young Kent now?"

"He is working in the neighborhood," she returned.

He looked at her shrewdly. "You have seen a lot of him, have you?"

"I have seen him occasionally," she answered. Homer T. Ward nodded his head, as if well pleased with himself. "You don't need to tell me any more. I understand, now, exactly. It is very clear what has reformed Brian Kent; you have been up to your old tricks. It is a wonder you haven't taken him into your house to live with you,--to save him from a.s.sociating with bad people."

He laughed, and when Auntie Sue only smiled, as though humoring him in his little joke, he added: "By the way, has Betty Jo seen this latest patient of yours? What does she think of his chances for complete recovery?"

"Yes," Auntie Sue returned, calmly; "Betty Jo has seen him. But, really, Homer, I have never asked her what she thought of him."

"Do you know, Auntie Sue," said the banker, reflectively, "I never did believe that Brian Kent was a criminal at heart."

"I know he is not," she returned stoutly. "But, tell me, Homer, how did it ever happen?"

"Well, you see," he answered, "young Kent had a wife who couldn't somehow seem to fit into his life. Ross never went into the details with me, fully, because that, of course, had no real bearing on the fact that he stole the money from the bank. But it seems that the youngster was rather ambitious,--studied a lot outside of business hours and that sort of thing. I know he made his own way through business college before he came to us. The wife didn't receive the attention she thought she should have, I suppose. Perhaps she was right at that. Anyway, she wanted a good time;--wanted him to take her out more, instead of spending his spare time digging away at his books. And so it went the usual way,--she found other company. Rather a gay set, I fancy; at least it led to her needing more money than he was earning, and so he helped out his salary, thinking to pay it back before he was caught, I suppose. Then the crash came,--some other man, you know,--and Brian skipped, which, of course, put us next to his stealing. I don't know what has become of the woman.

The last Ross knew of her she was living in St. Louis, and running with a pretty wild bunch,--glad to get rid of Brian, I expect. She couldn't have really cared so very much for him.

"Do you know, Auntie Sue, I have seen so many cases like this one.

I have been glad, many times, that I never married. And then, again, sometimes, I have seen homes that have made me sorry I never took the chance. I am glad you saved the boy, Auntie Sue: I am mighty glad."

"You have made me very happy, Homer," Auntie Sue returned. "But are you sure you can fix it about that reward? The man who is coming to claim it will make trouble, won't he, if he is not paid, somehow?"

"Yes, I expect he would," returned the president, thoughtfully. "And my directors might have something to say. And there are the Burns people and the Bankers' a.s.sociation and all. Hum-m-m!"

Homer T. Ward considered the matter a few moments, then he laughed.

"I'll tell you what we will do, Auntie Sue; we will let Brian Kent pay the reward himself. That would be fair, wouldn't it?"

Auntie Sue was sure that Brian would agree that it was a fair enough arrangement; but she did not see how it was to be managed.

Then her old pupil explained that he would pay the reward-money to the man who was coming to claim it, and thus satisfy him, and that the bank would hold the amount as a part of the debt which Brian was expected to pay.

Auntie Sue never knew that President Ward himself paid to the bank the full amount of the money stolen by Brian Kent in addition to the reward-money which he personally paid to j.a.p Taylor, in order to quiet him, and thus saved Brian from the publicity that surely would have followed any other course.

It should also be said here that Judy's father never again appeared in the Ozarks; at least, not in the Elbow Rock neighborhood. It might be that j.a.p Taylor was shrewd enough to know that his reputation would not permit him to show any considerable sum of money, where he was known, without starting an investigation; and for men of his type investigations are never to be desired.

Or it is not unlikely that the combination of money and the city proved the undoing of the moonshiner, and that he came to his legitimate and logical end among the dives and haunts of his kind, to which he would surely gravitate.

CHAPTER XXIII.

IN THE ELBOW ROCK RAPIDS.

The day following that night of Brian Kent's uneasy wakefulness was a hard day for the man and the woman in the little log house by the river.

For Brian, the morning dawned with a sense of impending disaster. He left his room while the sky was still gray behind the eastern mountains, and the mist that veiled the brightness of the hills seemed to hide in its ghostly depths legions of shadowy spirits that from his past had a.s.sembled to haunt him. The sombre aisles and caverns of the dimly lighted forest were peopled with shadowy memories of that life which he had hoped would never again for him awake. And the river swept through its gray world to the crashing turmoil at Elbow Rock like a thing doomed to seek forever in its own irresistible might the destruction of its ever-living self.

As one moving in a world of dreams, he went about his morning's work.

"Old Prince" whinnied his usual greeting, but received no answer. "Bess"

met him at the barnyard gate, but he did not speak. The sun leaped above the mountain-tops, and the world was filled with the beauty of its golden glory. From tree and bush and swaying weed, from forest and pasture, and garden and willow-fringed river-bank, the birds voiced their happy greetings to the new day. But the man neither saw nor heard.

When he went to the house with his full milk-pail, and Betty Jo met him at the kitchen-door with her cheery "Good-morning!" he tried resolutely to free himself from the mood which possessed him, but only partially succeeded. Several times, as the two faced each other across the breakfast table, Brian saw the gray eyes filled with questioning anxiety, as though Betty Jo, also, felt the presence of some forbidding spectre at the meal.

After several vain attempts to find something they could talk about, Betty Jo boldly acknowledged the situation by saying: "What in the world is the matter with us, this morning, Mr. Burns? I am possessed with the feeling that there is some one or something behind me. I want to look over my shoulder every minute."

At her words, Brian involuntarily turned his head for a quick backward glance.

"There!" cried Betty Jo, with a nervous laugh, not at all like her normal, well-poised self. "You feel it, too!"

Brian forced a laugh in return: "It is the weather, I guess." He tried to speak with casual ease. "The atmosphere is full of electricity this morning. We'll have a thunder-storm before night, probably."

"And was it the electricity in the air that kept you tramping up and down your room last night until almost morning?" she demanded abruptly, with her characteristic opposition to any evasion of the question at issue.

Brian retorted with a smile: "And how do you know that I tramped up and down my room last night?"

The color in Betty Jo's cheeks deepened as she answered, "I did not sleep very well either."

"But, I surely did not make noise enough for you to hear in your room?"

persisted Brian.

The color deepened still more in Betty Jo's checks, as she answered honestly: "I was not in my room when I heard you." She paused, and when he only looked at her expectantly, but did not speak, continued, in a hesitating manner quite unlike her matter-of-fact self: "When I could not sleep, and felt so as though there were somebody or something in the house that had no business here, I became afraid, and opened my door so I would not feel so much alone; and then I saw the light under the door of your room, and,--" she hesitated, but finished with a little air of defiance,--"and I went and listened outside your door to see if you were up."

"Yes?" said Brian Kent, gently.

"And when I heard you walking up and down, I wanted to call to you; but I thought I better not. It made me feel better, though, just to know that you were there; and so, pretty soon, I went back to my room again."

"And then?" said Brian.

"And then," confessed Betty Jo, "whatever it was that was keeping me awake came back, and went on keeping me awake until I was simply forced to go to you for help again."

Poor Betty Jo! She knew very well that she ought not to be saying those things to the man who, while he listened, could not hide the love that shone in his eyes.

And Brian Kent, as he thought of this woman, whom he loved with all the strength of his best self, creeping to the door of his room for comfort in the lonely night, scarcely dared trust himself to speak. At last, when their silence was becoming unbearable, he said, gently: "You poor child! Why didn't you call to me?"

And Betty Jo, hearing in his voice that which told her how near he was to the surrender that would bring disaster to them both, was aroused to the defense. The gray eyes never wavered as she answered, bravely: "I was afraid of that, too."