CHAPTER XXIII.MY CONFESSION.I HAD apparently deceived my wife as far as it was possible for me to do so. If I told her the truth, would she not spurn me, cast me out and despise me? How could she do less? She was innocent, she was true, she was beautiful; and I was afraid of her. Many and many a time had I cursed my folly and wickedness in departing, even for a moment, from the straight path of rectitude. I wondered that I had been able to delude myself into the belief that taking even a few hundred dollars for a brief period was not a crime.Be warned, O young man, against thefirstwrong step. While you cheat others, you are the greatest dupe yourself.In the excitement of seeing the wonders of London I had found some relief from the goadings of conscience, and from the terrors of the future. Almost every day I met some Americans, seeing the sights which attracted strangers. Iavoided them, for I feared that I should be recognized by some one from Boston. Lilian desired to see these Americans, but I was obliged to lead her away from them. I was not only an exile from home, but I felt like a leper among my own countrymen.I was now to face a genuine trial, not a fear, but a reality. After reading the paragraph in the newspaper, my wife had evidently measured my conduct by the suspicions she entertained. By this time she was satisfied that I had not resorted to so much concealment in leaving Boston for the reasons I had alleged. My course was inconsistent from beginning to end. I could easily imagine what had passed through her mind since she read that paragraph.Possibly I might succeed in lulling her suspicions for the time. I might even argue her out of them. She was innocence and simplicity, like her father, rather than her mother, and would try to believe what I told her. But what was the use to attempt to deceive her any longer? The truth would soon dawn upon her. Yet I had not the courage to be candid with her.“Why don’t you tell me about it, Paley?” repeated she, anxiously, as I turned over the newspaper.“What shall I tell you, Lilian?”“Tell me that you are not a defaulter.”“Well, I’m not, then,” I replied, with a smile, which I am sure was a very grim one.She looked at me, and I saw her eyes fill with tears after she had gazed at me in silence for a moment. I think that my tone and my looks belied my speech, and without heeding the value of the words I used, they conveyed to her the impression that I was guilty.“Why do you cry, Lilian?” I asked, moved by her tears.“I don’t know. I can’t help it. I feel just as though something was going wrong,” she replied, covering her face with her handkerchief.“Why, what do you mean, Lilian?”“Every thing looks very strange to me.”“What looks strange?”“That we should have left so suddenly; that I could not even tell dear ma where we were going; that you were in such a hurry to reach your new place in Paris, though we have stopped a whole month in London. What is the reason I have no letters from home?”“Because none have come, I suppose. I have not received any,” I answered, struggling to be funny.“Paley, you told me, if you left for Paris, that you should write to the bank officers, and resign your situation. You did not do so. This paper says you have been missing for a week, and there is a suspicion that your accounts are not all right. Tell me the worst, Paley. I will try to bear it,” she continued, wiping away the tears which filled her eyes.I was tempted to do so. She had been worrying for weeks about her letters, and she would continue to do so as long as we remained in Europe. No letters would come; none could come. Her parents and her sisters were as anxious about her as she was about them. I could never make peace on the plan which I had laid out at home. My wife would become more and more unhappy, and after the facts of my defalcation had been fully published, I should be still more in dread of meeting some American who would recognize me. As a teller in the bank I was well known to many of the wealthiest men of Boston. Under existing treaties, I could be arrested in most of the European nations, and sent back to the scene of my crime. There was no place of safety for me. I could not flee from the wrath to come.“What do you suspect, Lilian?” I inquired.“I should not suspect anything, if this paper did not say that your accounts were supposed to be wrong. I don’t know any thing about such things, but this paragraph set me to thinking how strange your movements were when you left Boston. I wish I could believe it is all right. Why don’t you go to your place in Paris? We had to leave home at twenty-four hours’ notice, because there must be no delay.”“We are going next week.”“But you have laid your plans to travel in Europe for the next year, at least.”What was the use for me to attempt to explain? It was worse than folly. I had told Lilian so many stories, without regard to their consistency, that she knew not what to believe. I was disgusted with myself.“I don’t see where you got so much money, either, Paley,” she added.“Do you think I stole it?” I asked, somewhat severely.“I’m afraid you did,” she answered, with a shudder.“You are?”“When I think of it, I am really afraid you did. Here we are in London under an assumedname. All your papers call you Charles Gaspiller. You told me you had over thirty thousand dollars too.”“I should have had more if I had not lost any,” I replied, in rather a surly tone.“Tell me the whole truth, Paley. Let me know the worst. If my husband is a—”“A what?”“A defaulter, a thief. Let me know it,” said she, with a burst of agony.“A thief!” I exclaimed, springing to my feet.“Don’t be angry, Paley.”“When my wife calls me a thief, we have been together long enough,” I added, sternly.I took my hat, and rushed out of the room. I was angry, but my wrath was of only a moment’s duration. I went out into the Strand, and walked at a furious pace till I reached the American Agency. I wished to know the worst. If I had been published as a defaulter in Boston, I was no longer safe in London. I wished to see a file of Boston papers. I had not thought of looking at them before, because I desired to banish my native land from my mind.I turned the folios till I came to the one which Lilian had seen. I read the paragraph again. Itwas very vague. It did not say that the missing teller was a defaulter; it only hinted at something of the kind, for the inference always is, when a bank officer disappears, that his cash is short. I turned over the sheet to find something more about the matter. There was nothing else about me or the bank; but as I examined the paper, my eyes rested for a moment on the list of deaths.“In Springhaven, 15th inst., Miss Rachel Glasswood, 67 years.”My aunt had passed away on the very day that I sailed from New York! How I cursed myself again and again! If I had not fled I should certainly have been able to pay my debt to the bank in a short time, for I was confident she had left me enough for this. I had banished myself from home for nothing. I had suffered tortures which no innocent man can understand or conceive of, and years of misery were still before me. I had made up my mind long before, that honesty was the best policy; and I even had a glimmering conception of something higher than this. I was sure I should have been happier with poverty and hard labor for my lot, if I could only have been honest.How I envied Tom Flynn! His piety, which Ihad derided, seemed to me now to be the sum total of earthly joy. I do not believe in cant of any kind, but if ever a man was convicted of sin, I was, though I had not yet the courage to attempt to retrace my steps. My wife virtually called me a thief. It was only the truth; I deserved the epithet, and more than that.I turned to the next paper. There was nothing about me or the bank in it, and I continued my search till, in a subsequent issue, I found another paragraph. The writer was happy to assure the public that the bank would not lose a dollar by the missing teller. I was surprised at this announcement, for I was indebted to the bank in the sum of thirty-eight thousand dollars. I could not understand it. I turned to the stock lists in the several papers. The shares in the Forty-Ninth had been affected by the first paragraph, but the quotations showed that they had been restored by the information contained in the second.I concluded that the bank had determined to conceal my deficit to avoid the loss of public confidence. But while I was trying to satisfy myself with this theory, a better one was suggested to me. My aunt died on the day of my departure.Within the week the substance of her will was known to Captain Halliard. She had left her whole fortune to me, and it was to be used in making good the deficiency in my cash. Of course I had no idea how much she had left, but I supposed it was enough to satisfy the bank, or to pay the loss with the sums for which my bondsmen were liable. One thing was plain, that, if the bank acknowledged no loss, it would not proceed against me; and I realized that I was safe from arrest while in Europe.I could find no further allusion to the missing teller in any of the papers. If the deficit was made good, doubtless my friends would labor to cover up my errors. As the matter now stood, the money in my possession belonged to me. I tried to make myself believe that it was Aunt Rachel’s fortune. But I could not wink out of sight my blasted reputation, for, whatever the papers said, or failed to say, people would have their own opinions about my sudden departure. I was far from satisfied. If my financial record were explained away, I could not get rid of the consciousness of my own guilt, which was positive suffering to me. I was convicted of my sin, and I had even prayed to God for mercy under my misery.Poor Lilian was suffering quite as severely. I had left her in anger, and the tears came to my eyes when I thought of her. I hastened back to the hotel. I found her lying upon the sofa, sobbing like a child. I raised her in my arms, kissed her tenderly, and begged her to forgive my harsh conduct.“O, Paley! how miserable I am! Only tell me that you are not guilty, and I shall be happy,” she said.“You would hate and despise me if I told you the truth, Lilian,” I replied.“Then it is the truth!” she exclaimed, springing up, and looking at me with something like horror in her expression.I did not know what had come over me, unless it was the conscious conviction of my sin, but without definitely resolving to tell the truth, I found it impossible to utter any more lies. Life seemed to me a more solemn thing than ever before.“I deserve the worst you can say of me, Lilian.”“Then you are a defaulter, Paley?”“I am; but no one knows it.”“Yes, I know it.”“I wish I could hide it from myself. You shall know all, Lilian.”“But give back the money. I would rather be a beggar and sweep the crossings of the streets, than live in luxury on stolen money.”“Do not be too severe, Lilian. The bank will not lose a dollar by me. On the very day that we sailed from New York, Aunt Rachel died. I have no doubt that she left most of her property to me; and the bank has by this time been paid every dollar I owed it.”“That is some comfort, but not much. You have ruined your reputation. Poor Aunt Rachel! I wish I had seen more of her. What could tempt you to go astray, Paley?” continued my wife, the tears coming to her eyes again.“I was extravagant, and lived beyond my means. I borrowed the money to furnish our house, and I was otherwise in debt.”“Why didn’t you tell me, Paley? We all thought you were made of money.”“I had not the courage to tell you.”“I know I am giddy, and fond of dress and show, but I would rather have lived in an attic, and dressed in calico, than had you run in debt. You always said you had plenty of money, andyour salary seemed to be more than enough to supply all our wants.”“I was weak and foolish, Lilian. I can see it now; I could not see it then.”I told her the whole story from the beginning to the end—how I had been thorned by my uncle and by other creditors, and how I had been tempted to take the money from the bank. I told the truth, as I understood it at the time, when I declared that I had not, at first, intended to rob my employers. She listened to me with the deepest interest, occasionally interrupting me with questions. I told her the whole truth. I did not even conceal from her the fact that I had destroyed her letters. She wept bitterly as she rehearsed the sufferings of her parents and sisters.“Let us go home, Paley,” said she, when I had finished the loathsome confession. “I don’t want to see Europe till you have atoned for your fault.”“I may be thrown into prison if I go to Boston again,” I suggested.She clasped me in her arms and wept upon my neck. If her heart was bursting, mine was hardly less affected. The afternoon, the evening, thenight passed away, and still we wept and groaned in bitterness of spirit in each other’s arms. The clock struck four in the morning before we could decide what to do. She could not advise me to go home if a prison cell awaited me. I never realized the pressure of guilt so heavily before. I never knew my wife till then. Guilty as I was she still clung to me, and was willing to share my lot of shame and disgrace.In the morning hours I told her what I would do. I would write to Tom Flynn. I would confess my error to him, assure him of the sincere penitence I felt, and be governed by his advice. I did write, page after page, and, sheet after sheet, till I had told the whole story. I assured him every penny the bank or my bondsmen had lost should be paid. I would give up everything I had.I sent my long letter, with another from Lilian to her friends, by the next mail, and anxiously waited a reply, which could not reach me under three weeks.
CHAPTER XXIII.MY CONFESSION.I HAD apparently deceived my wife as far as it was possible for me to do so. If I told her the truth, would she not spurn me, cast me out and despise me? How could she do less? She was innocent, she was true, she was beautiful; and I was afraid of her. Many and many a time had I cursed my folly and wickedness in departing, even for a moment, from the straight path of rectitude. I wondered that I had been able to delude myself into the belief that taking even a few hundred dollars for a brief period was not a crime.Be warned, O young man, against thefirstwrong step. While you cheat others, you are the greatest dupe yourself.In the excitement of seeing the wonders of London I had found some relief from the goadings of conscience, and from the terrors of the future. Almost every day I met some Americans, seeing the sights which attracted strangers. Iavoided them, for I feared that I should be recognized by some one from Boston. Lilian desired to see these Americans, but I was obliged to lead her away from them. I was not only an exile from home, but I felt like a leper among my own countrymen.I was now to face a genuine trial, not a fear, but a reality. After reading the paragraph in the newspaper, my wife had evidently measured my conduct by the suspicions she entertained. By this time she was satisfied that I had not resorted to so much concealment in leaving Boston for the reasons I had alleged. My course was inconsistent from beginning to end. I could easily imagine what had passed through her mind since she read that paragraph.Possibly I might succeed in lulling her suspicions for the time. I might even argue her out of them. She was innocence and simplicity, like her father, rather than her mother, and would try to believe what I told her. But what was the use to attempt to deceive her any longer? The truth would soon dawn upon her. Yet I had not the courage to be candid with her.“Why don’t you tell me about it, Paley?” repeated she, anxiously, as I turned over the newspaper.“What shall I tell you, Lilian?”“Tell me that you are not a defaulter.”“Well, I’m not, then,” I replied, with a smile, which I am sure was a very grim one.She looked at me, and I saw her eyes fill with tears after she had gazed at me in silence for a moment. I think that my tone and my looks belied my speech, and without heeding the value of the words I used, they conveyed to her the impression that I was guilty.“Why do you cry, Lilian?” I asked, moved by her tears.“I don’t know. I can’t help it. I feel just as though something was going wrong,” she replied, covering her face with her handkerchief.“Why, what do you mean, Lilian?”“Every thing looks very strange to me.”“What looks strange?”“That we should have left so suddenly; that I could not even tell dear ma where we were going; that you were in such a hurry to reach your new place in Paris, though we have stopped a whole month in London. What is the reason I have no letters from home?”“Because none have come, I suppose. I have not received any,” I answered, struggling to be funny.“Paley, you told me, if you left for Paris, that you should write to the bank officers, and resign your situation. You did not do so. This paper says you have been missing for a week, and there is a suspicion that your accounts are not all right. Tell me the worst, Paley. I will try to bear it,” she continued, wiping away the tears which filled her eyes.I was tempted to do so. She had been worrying for weeks about her letters, and she would continue to do so as long as we remained in Europe. No letters would come; none could come. Her parents and her sisters were as anxious about her as she was about them. I could never make peace on the plan which I had laid out at home. My wife would become more and more unhappy, and after the facts of my defalcation had been fully published, I should be still more in dread of meeting some American who would recognize me. As a teller in the bank I was well known to many of the wealthiest men of Boston. Under existing treaties, I could be arrested in most of the European nations, and sent back to the scene of my crime. There was no place of safety for me. I could not flee from the wrath to come.“What do you suspect, Lilian?” I inquired.“I should not suspect anything, if this paper did not say that your accounts were supposed to be wrong. I don’t know any thing about such things, but this paragraph set me to thinking how strange your movements were when you left Boston. I wish I could believe it is all right. Why don’t you go to your place in Paris? We had to leave home at twenty-four hours’ notice, because there must be no delay.”“We are going next week.”“But you have laid your plans to travel in Europe for the next year, at least.”What was the use for me to attempt to explain? It was worse than folly. I had told Lilian so many stories, without regard to their consistency, that she knew not what to believe. I was disgusted with myself.“I don’t see where you got so much money, either, Paley,” she added.“Do you think I stole it?” I asked, somewhat severely.“I’m afraid you did,” she answered, with a shudder.“You are?”“When I think of it, I am really afraid you did. Here we are in London under an assumedname. All your papers call you Charles Gaspiller. You told me you had over thirty thousand dollars too.”“I should have had more if I had not lost any,” I replied, in rather a surly tone.“Tell me the whole truth, Paley. Let me know the worst. If my husband is a—”“A what?”“A defaulter, a thief. Let me know it,” said she, with a burst of agony.“A thief!” I exclaimed, springing to my feet.“Don’t be angry, Paley.”“When my wife calls me a thief, we have been together long enough,” I added, sternly.I took my hat, and rushed out of the room. I was angry, but my wrath was of only a moment’s duration. I went out into the Strand, and walked at a furious pace till I reached the American Agency. I wished to know the worst. If I had been published as a defaulter in Boston, I was no longer safe in London. I wished to see a file of Boston papers. I had not thought of looking at them before, because I desired to banish my native land from my mind.I turned the folios till I came to the one which Lilian had seen. I read the paragraph again. Itwas very vague. It did not say that the missing teller was a defaulter; it only hinted at something of the kind, for the inference always is, when a bank officer disappears, that his cash is short. I turned over the sheet to find something more about the matter. There was nothing else about me or the bank; but as I examined the paper, my eyes rested for a moment on the list of deaths.“In Springhaven, 15th inst., Miss Rachel Glasswood, 67 years.”My aunt had passed away on the very day that I sailed from New York! How I cursed myself again and again! If I had not fled I should certainly have been able to pay my debt to the bank in a short time, for I was confident she had left me enough for this. I had banished myself from home for nothing. I had suffered tortures which no innocent man can understand or conceive of, and years of misery were still before me. I had made up my mind long before, that honesty was the best policy; and I even had a glimmering conception of something higher than this. I was sure I should have been happier with poverty and hard labor for my lot, if I could only have been honest.How I envied Tom Flynn! His piety, which Ihad derided, seemed to me now to be the sum total of earthly joy. I do not believe in cant of any kind, but if ever a man was convicted of sin, I was, though I had not yet the courage to attempt to retrace my steps. My wife virtually called me a thief. It was only the truth; I deserved the epithet, and more than that.I turned to the next paper. There was nothing about me or the bank in it, and I continued my search till, in a subsequent issue, I found another paragraph. The writer was happy to assure the public that the bank would not lose a dollar by the missing teller. I was surprised at this announcement, for I was indebted to the bank in the sum of thirty-eight thousand dollars. I could not understand it. I turned to the stock lists in the several papers. The shares in the Forty-Ninth had been affected by the first paragraph, but the quotations showed that they had been restored by the information contained in the second.I concluded that the bank had determined to conceal my deficit to avoid the loss of public confidence. But while I was trying to satisfy myself with this theory, a better one was suggested to me. My aunt died on the day of my departure.Within the week the substance of her will was known to Captain Halliard. She had left her whole fortune to me, and it was to be used in making good the deficiency in my cash. Of course I had no idea how much she had left, but I supposed it was enough to satisfy the bank, or to pay the loss with the sums for which my bondsmen were liable. One thing was plain, that, if the bank acknowledged no loss, it would not proceed against me; and I realized that I was safe from arrest while in Europe.I could find no further allusion to the missing teller in any of the papers. If the deficit was made good, doubtless my friends would labor to cover up my errors. As the matter now stood, the money in my possession belonged to me. I tried to make myself believe that it was Aunt Rachel’s fortune. But I could not wink out of sight my blasted reputation, for, whatever the papers said, or failed to say, people would have their own opinions about my sudden departure. I was far from satisfied. If my financial record were explained away, I could not get rid of the consciousness of my own guilt, which was positive suffering to me. I was convicted of my sin, and I had even prayed to God for mercy under my misery.Poor Lilian was suffering quite as severely. I had left her in anger, and the tears came to my eyes when I thought of her. I hastened back to the hotel. I found her lying upon the sofa, sobbing like a child. I raised her in my arms, kissed her tenderly, and begged her to forgive my harsh conduct.“O, Paley! how miserable I am! Only tell me that you are not guilty, and I shall be happy,” she said.“You would hate and despise me if I told you the truth, Lilian,” I replied.“Then it is the truth!” she exclaimed, springing up, and looking at me with something like horror in her expression.I did not know what had come over me, unless it was the conscious conviction of my sin, but without definitely resolving to tell the truth, I found it impossible to utter any more lies. Life seemed to me a more solemn thing than ever before.“I deserve the worst you can say of me, Lilian.”“Then you are a defaulter, Paley?”“I am; but no one knows it.”“Yes, I know it.”“I wish I could hide it from myself. You shall know all, Lilian.”“But give back the money. I would rather be a beggar and sweep the crossings of the streets, than live in luxury on stolen money.”“Do not be too severe, Lilian. The bank will not lose a dollar by me. On the very day that we sailed from New York, Aunt Rachel died. I have no doubt that she left most of her property to me; and the bank has by this time been paid every dollar I owed it.”“That is some comfort, but not much. You have ruined your reputation. Poor Aunt Rachel! I wish I had seen more of her. What could tempt you to go astray, Paley?” continued my wife, the tears coming to her eyes again.“I was extravagant, and lived beyond my means. I borrowed the money to furnish our house, and I was otherwise in debt.”“Why didn’t you tell me, Paley? We all thought you were made of money.”“I had not the courage to tell you.”“I know I am giddy, and fond of dress and show, but I would rather have lived in an attic, and dressed in calico, than had you run in debt. You always said you had plenty of money, andyour salary seemed to be more than enough to supply all our wants.”“I was weak and foolish, Lilian. I can see it now; I could not see it then.”I told her the whole story from the beginning to the end—how I had been thorned by my uncle and by other creditors, and how I had been tempted to take the money from the bank. I told the truth, as I understood it at the time, when I declared that I had not, at first, intended to rob my employers. She listened to me with the deepest interest, occasionally interrupting me with questions. I told her the whole truth. I did not even conceal from her the fact that I had destroyed her letters. She wept bitterly as she rehearsed the sufferings of her parents and sisters.“Let us go home, Paley,” said she, when I had finished the loathsome confession. “I don’t want to see Europe till you have atoned for your fault.”“I may be thrown into prison if I go to Boston again,” I suggested.She clasped me in her arms and wept upon my neck. If her heart was bursting, mine was hardly less affected. The afternoon, the evening, thenight passed away, and still we wept and groaned in bitterness of spirit in each other’s arms. The clock struck four in the morning before we could decide what to do. She could not advise me to go home if a prison cell awaited me. I never realized the pressure of guilt so heavily before. I never knew my wife till then. Guilty as I was she still clung to me, and was willing to share my lot of shame and disgrace.In the morning hours I told her what I would do. I would write to Tom Flynn. I would confess my error to him, assure him of the sincere penitence I felt, and be governed by his advice. I did write, page after page, and, sheet after sheet, till I had told the whole story. I assured him every penny the bank or my bondsmen had lost should be paid. I would give up everything I had.I sent my long letter, with another from Lilian to her friends, by the next mail, and anxiously waited a reply, which could not reach me under three weeks.
MY CONFESSION.
I HAD apparently deceived my wife as far as it was possible for me to do so. If I told her the truth, would she not spurn me, cast me out and despise me? How could she do less? She was innocent, she was true, she was beautiful; and I was afraid of her. Many and many a time had I cursed my folly and wickedness in departing, even for a moment, from the straight path of rectitude. I wondered that I had been able to delude myself into the belief that taking even a few hundred dollars for a brief period was not a crime.
Be warned, O young man, against thefirstwrong step. While you cheat others, you are the greatest dupe yourself.
In the excitement of seeing the wonders of London I had found some relief from the goadings of conscience, and from the terrors of the future. Almost every day I met some Americans, seeing the sights which attracted strangers. Iavoided them, for I feared that I should be recognized by some one from Boston. Lilian desired to see these Americans, but I was obliged to lead her away from them. I was not only an exile from home, but I felt like a leper among my own countrymen.
I was now to face a genuine trial, not a fear, but a reality. After reading the paragraph in the newspaper, my wife had evidently measured my conduct by the suspicions she entertained. By this time she was satisfied that I had not resorted to so much concealment in leaving Boston for the reasons I had alleged. My course was inconsistent from beginning to end. I could easily imagine what had passed through her mind since she read that paragraph.
Possibly I might succeed in lulling her suspicions for the time. I might even argue her out of them. She was innocence and simplicity, like her father, rather than her mother, and would try to believe what I told her. But what was the use to attempt to deceive her any longer? The truth would soon dawn upon her. Yet I had not the courage to be candid with her.
“Why don’t you tell me about it, Paley?” repeated she, anxiously, as I turned over the newspaper.
“What shall I tell you, Lilian?”
“Tell me that you are not a defaulter.”
“Well, I’m not, then,” I replied, with a smile, which I am sure was a very grim one.
She looked at me, and I saw her eyes fill with tears after she had gazed at me in silence for a moment. I think that my tone and my looks belied my speech, and without heeding the value of the words I used, they conveyed to her the impression that I was guilty.
“Why do you cry, Lilian?” I asked, moved by her tears.
“I don’t know. I can’t help it. I feel just as though something was going wrong,” she replied, covering her face with her handkerchief.
“Why, what do you mean, Lilian?”
“Every thing looks very strange to me.”
“What looks strange?”
“That we should have left so suddenly; that I could not even tell dear ma where we were going; that you were in such a hurry to reach your new place in Paris, though we have stopped a whole month in London. What is the reason I have no letters from home?”
“Because none have come, I suppose. I have not received any,” I answered, struggling to be funny.
“Paley, you told me, if you left for Paris, that you should write to the bank officers, and resign your situation. You did not do so. This paper says you have been missing for a week, and there is a suspicion that your accounts are not all right. Tell me the worst, Paley. I will try to bear it,” she continued, wiping away the tears which filled her eyes.
I was tempted to do so. She had been worrying for weeks about her letters, and she would continue to do so as long as we remained in Europe. No letters would come; none could come. Her parents and her sisters were as anxious about her as she was about them. I could never make peace on the plan which I had laid out at home. My wife would become more and more unhappy, and after the facts of my defalcation had been fully published, I should be still more in dread of meeting some American who would recognize me. As a teller in the bank I was well known to many of the wealthiest men of Boston. Under existing treaties, I could be arrested in most of the European nations, and sent back to the scene of my crime. There was no place of safety for me. I could not flee from the wrath to come.
“What do you suspect, Lilian?” I inquired.
“I should not suspect anything, if this paper did not say that your accounts were supposed to be wrong. I don’t know any thing about such things, but this paragraph set me to thinking how strange your movements were when you left Boston. I wish I could believe it is all right. Why don’t you go to your place in Paris? We had to leave home at twenty-four hours’ notice, because there must be no delay.”
“We are going next week.”
“But you have laid your plans to travel in Europe for the next year, at least.”
What was the use for me to attempt to explain? It was worse than folly. I had told Lilian so many stories, without regard to their consistency, that she knew not what to believe. I was disgusted with myself.
“I don’t see where you got so much money, either, Paley,” she added.
“Do you think I stole it?” I asked, somewhat severely.
“I’m afraid you did,” she answered, with a shudder.
“You are?”
“When I think of it, I am really afraid you did. Here we are in London under an assumedname. All your papers call you Charles Gaspiller. You told me you had over thirty thousand dollars too.”
“I should have had more if I had not lost any,” I replied, in rather a surly tone.
“Tell me the whole truth, Paley. Let me know the worst. If my husband is a—”
“A what?”
“A defaulter, a thief. Let me know it,” said she, with a burst of agony.
“A thief!” I exclaimed, springing to my feet.
“Don’t be angry, Paley.”
“When my wife calls me a thief, we have been together long enough,” I added, sternly.
I took my hat, and rushed out of the room. I was angry, but my wrath was of only a moment’s duration. I went out into the Strand, and walked at a furious pace till I reached the American Agency. I wished to know the worst. If I had been published as a defaulter in Boston, I was no longer safe in London. I wished to see a file of Boston papers. I had not thought of looking at them before, because I desired to banish my native land from my mind.
I turned the folios till I came to the one which Lilian had seen. I read the paragraph again. Itwas very vague. It did not say that the missing teller was a defaulter; it only hinted at something of the kind, for the inference always is, when a bank officer disappears, that his cash is short. I turned over the sheet to find something more about the matter. There was nothing else about me or the bank; but as I examined the paper, my eyes rested for a moment on the list of deaths.
“In Springhaven, 15th inst., Miss Rachel Glasswood, 67 years.”
My aunt had passed away on the very day that I sailed from New York! How I cursed myself again and again! If I had not fled I should certainly have been able to pay my debt to the bank in a short time, for I was confident she had left me enough for this. I had banished myself from home for nothing. I had suffered tortures which no innocent man can understand or conceive of, and years of misery were still before me. I had made up my mind long before, that honesty was the best policy; and I even had a glimmering conception of something higher than this. I was sure I should have been happier with poverty and hard labor for my lot, if I could only have been honest.
How I envied Tom Flynn! His piety, which Ihad derided, seemed to me now to be the sum total of earthly joy. I do not believe in cant of any kind, but if ever a man was convicted of sin, I was, though I had not yet the courage to attempt to retrace my steps. My wife virtually called me a thief. It was only the truth; I deserved the epithet, and more than that.
I turned to the next paper. There was nothing about me or the bank in it, and I continued my search till, in a subsequent issue, I found another paragraph. The writer was happy to assure the public that the bank would not lose a dollar by the missing teller. I was surprised at this announcement, for I was indebted to the bank in the sum of thirty-eight thousand dollars. I could not understand it. I turned to the stock lists in the several papers. The shares in the Forty-Ninth had been affected by the first paragraph, but the quotations showed that they had been restored by the information contained in the second.
I concluded that the bank had determined to conceal my deficit to avoid the loss of public confidence. But while I was trying to satisfy myself with this theory, a better one was suggested to me. My aunt died on the day of my departure.Within the week the substance of her will was known to Captain Halliard. She had left her whole fortune to me, and it was to be used in making good the deficiency in my cash. Of course I had no idea how much she had left, but I supposed it was enough to satisfy the bank, or to pay the loss with the sums for which my bondsmen were liable. One thing was plain, that, if the bank acknowledged no loss, it would not proceed against me; and I realized that I was safe from arrest while in Europe.
I could find no further allusion to the missing teller in any of the papers. If the deficit was made good, doubtless my friends would labor to cover up my errors. As the matter now stood, the money in my possession belonged to me. I tried to make myself believe that it was Aunt Rachel’s fortune. But I could not wink out of sight my blasted reputation, for, whatever the papers said, or failed to say, people would have their own opinions about my sudden departure. I was far from satisfied. If my financial record were explained away, I could not get rid of the consciousness of my own guilt, which was positive suffering to me. I was convicted of my sin, and I had even prayed to God for mercy under my misery.
Poor Lilian was suffering quite as severely. I had left her in anger, and the tears came to my eyes when I thought of her. I hastened back to the hotel. I found her lying upon the sofa, sobbing like a child. I raised her in my arms, kissed her tenderly, and begged her to forgive my harsh conduct.
“O, Paley! how miserable I am! Only tell me that you are not guilty, and I shall be happy,” she said.
“You would hate and despise me if I told you the truth, Lilian,” I replied.
“Then it is the truth!” she exclaimed, springing up, and looking at me with something like horror in her expression.
I did not know what had come over me, unless it was the conscious conviction of my sin, but without definitely resolving to tell the truth, I found it impossible to utter any more lies. Life seemed to me a more solemn thing than ever before.
“I deserve the worst you can say of me, Lilian.”
“Then you are a defaulter, Paley?”
“I am; but no one knows it.”
“Yes, I know it.”
“I wish I could hide it from myself. You shall know all, Lilian.”
“But give back the money. I would rather be a beggar and sweep the crossings of the streets, than live in luxury on stolen money.”
“Do not be too severe, Lilian. The bank will not lose a dollar by me. On the very day that we sailed from New York, Aunt Rachel died. I have no doubt that she left most of her property to me; and the bank has by this time been paid every dollar I owed it.”
“That is some comfort, but not much. You have ruined your reputation. Poor Aunt Rachel! I wish I had seen more of her. What could tempt you to go astray, Paley?” continued my wife, the tears coming to her eyes again.
“I was extravagant, and lived beyond my means. I borrowed the money to furnish our house, and I was otherwise in debt.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Paley? We all thought you were made of money.”
“I had not the courage to tell you.”
“I know I am giddy, and fond of dress and show, but I would rather have lived in an attic, and dressed in calico, than had you run in debt. You always said you had plenty of money, andyour salary seemed to be more than enough to supply all our wants.”
“I was weak and foolish, Lilian. I can see it now; I could not see it then.”
I told her the whole story from the beginning to the end—how I had been thorned by my uncle and by other creditors, and how I had been tempted to take the money from the bank. I told the truth, as I understood it at the time, when I declared that I had not, at first, intended to rob my employers. She listened to me with the deepest interest, occasionally interrupting me with questions. I told her the whole truth. I did not even conceal from her the fact that I had destroyed her letters. She wept bitterly as she rehearsed the sufferings of her parents and sisters.
“Let us go home, Paley,” said she, when I had finished the loathsome confession. “I don’t want to see Europe till you have atoned for your fault.”
“I may be thrown into prison if I go to Boston again,” I suggested.
She clasped me in her arms and wept upon my neck. If her heart was bursting, mine was hardly less affected. The afternoon, the evening, thenight passed away, and still we wept and groaned in bitterness of spirit in each other’s arms. The clock struck four in the morning before we could decide what to do. She could not advise me to go home if a prison cell awaited me. I never realized the pressure of guilt so heavily before. I never knew my wife till then. Guilty as I was she still clung to me, and was willing to share my lot of shame and disgrace.
In the morning hours I told her what I would do. I would write to Tom Flynn. I would confess my error to him, assure him of the sincere penitence I felt, and be governed by his advice. I did write, page after page, and, sheet after sheet, till I had told the whole story. I assured him every penny the bank or my bondsmen had lost should be paid. I would give up everything I had.
I sent my long letter, with another from Lilian to her friends, by the next mail, and anxiously waited a reply, which could not reach me under three weeks.