Reclining on the two benches, Charles managed to fall asleep, and in spite of his worries he slept soundly. The gray morning light crept in at the open window and swept his dust-coated face, but still he did not wake. The light grew yellow and warm as the sun rose, but still he slept. He waked and sat up as the train was entering the suburbs of New York.
"Safe—still safe!" was his first thought, as he looked about him. The car was now half-full of passengers, many of them commuters going in to work. How fresh, clean, and contented they looked with their cigars and damp papers, and what a dismal tramp was he, at least in his own eyes! There was a little lavatory at the end of the car, and his first impulse was to go to it, wash the dust from his face and hands, and brush off his clothing; then it occurred to him that, as he was, he was less recognizable than otherwise, and he gave up the idea.
Slowly the long train clattered over the switches and crossings and pulled into the station at Forty-second Street. The vast roof cut off the direct rays of the sun and the forms and faces of the passengers became indistinct in the shadow. He followed the others down the packed aisle and joined the stream of passengers on the platform, all forging their way to the street. Covertly, as he hurried along, holding his bag in his right hand, he watched the crowd of bystanders to see if any one wore a police uniform. He was gratified to notice that the way seemed clear in that respect. And then he smiled at his imagined fears, for how could the police be on his track before the opening of the bank? No, no, he was safe so far, and he would soon be hidden from sight in the slums of the great city, for it was the slums that were to shelter him. There no one would look for a man of his type.
He was soon out in the crowded thoroughfare. Somehow it appealed to him to-day more than ever before. He walked along the street until he reached Fifth Avenue, and then he realized that he was not going in the direction he desired and turned back. He walked on till the buildings began to look more antiquated and shabby, and then he turned south. He pursued this direction till he had reached Twenty-eighth Street, and then turned east again. The surroundings were now decidedly squalid. The street was unclean and thronged. The houses were old three-story-and-basement residences, the ground floors of many having been turned into shops, the upper floors being rented as sleeping quarters at a very low rate as was shown by the soiled cards placed against the window-panes to catch the eye of passers-by.
Suddenly he became aware that he was hungry, and he looked about him for a place to break his fast, for he had eaten scarcely anything since noon the day before. Presently he descried a restaurant. It was located on the first floor immediately above a delicatessen shop. The street in front of it was unclean, ash-cans and garbage-pails flanking the crumbling brownstone steps to the entrance; and yet his aversion to these unsavory surroundings was conquered by his hunger and the security that such a place afforded him.
He went in and was surprised at the inviting appearance of the room. It was clean. The walls were snow white. White-clothed tables stood close together, some small, some long and narrow. He put down his bag and hung his hat and overcoat on an upright rack. The tables were nearly all filled with a motley assortment of human beings. The table near his bag had a single occupant, a young man of about his own age. Charles sat down opposite him. The fellow's face appealed to him vaguely, as reminding him of some countenance he had once seen and forgotten. It was a rather round face, blue-eyed, clean shaved, and crowned by light-brown curly hair.
A waitress in spotless apron and cap came to Charles. "You forgot to get your check," she said.
"Check? What is that?" he asked.
"Oh, I'll get it for you," the girl said, hurriedly, and she went to the glass-inclosed desk by the door at which another girl sat.
The stranger across the table held up his own check and smiled. "It's like this," he explained. "You see the prices, from five cents up to one dollar, are printed on it. The girl who waits on you punches the amount you order, and that is what you pay as you turn the check over at the desk when you go out."
"Oh, I see! Thank you!" Charles liked the face more than ever. Its underlying humor and good nature at once soothed and attracted him. The waitress came back with the check, and with it brought a printed bill of fare which she gave to Charles. While he was looking it over she bent near the man across the table.
"You can't keep this up," she said, gently. "It will kill you. I've been watching you for a week."
"Oh, leave that to me," he answered, with a smile that Charles now saw was drawn and twisted by manly embarrassment. "I've been this way before and pulled through."
The waitress sighed. "I wish I could manage it," she said in an undertone, "but I can't. That woman at the desk is a cat. She has it in for me."
"You don't think I'd let you do anything like that for me, I hope," he said, sensitively. "I appreciate it very much, but no working-girl shall lose through me."
Without replying she came around and bent over Charles. "Ready to order?" she asked.
"Eggs and bacon and coffee with cream," he said. As he spoke he noticed that his table companion had apparently ordered nothing but the few slices of bread and butter which he was slowly eating. A goblet of water was all the man had to drink. Charles now understood the situation and he wanted to assist, but Boston men of his class are not as free with strangers as Western and Southern people, and he found himself unable tactfully to accomplish what he desired.
"You are not quite on to the ropes," the stranger remarked, his eyes on the dress-suitcase which Charles had put down. "It was all new to me when I came here, but it doesn't take long to get the run of things. God knows it is simple enough if you have the money to do it with."
"I suppose so," Charles responded. "I've just come in."
The waitress was bringing his breakfast. She placed it before him, handing him a paper napkin and leaving spoons and knife and fork. "Anything else?" she asked.
"Nothing now, thank you," Charles answered.
Instead of going on to the next table at which a man and a woman with drink-flushed faces were seating themselves amid the soiled dishes left by others, she leaned again over the shoulder of the young man opposite Charles.
"You must let me help," she whispered. "I know you are all right, and you will never get work if you are underfed. You see, I know because I've been there myself."
"Please, please, don't mention it," the young man said, his face drawn and flushed with chagrin. "I assure you I am all right. That's a good girl—let it drop."
She said nothing, but moved on to the new arrivals and began to place the soiled things onto a tray preparatory to taking their order.
"Do you intend to stop in the city awhile?" the young man asked Charles.
"I may," the Bostonian returned. "I am looking for a room in this neighborhood."
"Oh, there are plenty of them," the other smiled, "but you don't always run across clean ones. I've tried several places and left. The house where I am now is clean and cheap, and I think there are plenty of vacancies. I have the landlady's card, if you care to look her up."
"Thank you, I'd like to do so." Charles had the feeling that he would like to see more of the stranger, and living in the same house might afford him the opportunity. The young man took a card from his pocket, and as he got up he laid it before Charles. "I hope you will find a room you like," he said, wearily, as he reached up for his hat, which Charles noticed was dented and frayed on the edges of the brim. As he went out Charles watched him, and saw him push a five-cent piece across the desk to the cashier. He looked very thin and his step seemed uncertain, like that of a convalescent.
The waitress came back to Charles. "He is in bad shape," she sighed. "He has been coming here for two weeks and eating like that. He is silly. He won't take help from any one. He has been well brought up, I'll bet."
"I wanted to help him, but I didn't see an opening for it," Charles said. "It was kind of you to offer it."
"Oh, I'd break if I owned this joint," she laughed. "I see things like that every day. Our cook used to make pancakes in the window. It was pitiful to see the people stand watching him with their poor mouths open."
Her voice shook and she suddenly turned away. As he was leaving the restaurant a wonderful sense of peace and quiet was on him. Already his new life was full of attractive novelty. How could he account for it logically? He was a fugitive from law, without any income to provide for his needs; he had renounced every tie of blood and former associate; he was a man without a home, without a prop to lean upon, and yet an inexpressible content was his. Was it due to his disgust over his past life and the sense of having put it behind him, or was it on account of the sacrifice he had made for his brother? He could not have said.
Glancing at the card, he saw that the rooming-house was quite near, and he turned toward it.
The house was a red-brick building like all the others in the block. The steps were of the conventional brownstone with rusty iron railings. The front door over the basement entrance was open, and he rang a jangling bell, the handle of which was so loose in its socket that it was drawn almost out of place. While he waited he looked into the hall. It was clean, though the carpets on the floor and visible stairs were worn and the massive hat-rack of walnut leaned forward from the wall as if about to fall. The basement door was opened and a portly woman with a red face and tousled yellow hair climbed the stair to the sidewalk and approached him.
"I understand you have rooms to rent," Charles said.
The woman eyed him curiously, evidently surprised at the elegance of his clothing and the politeness of his attitude, for he had taken off his hat in greeting her.
"Top floor back, three a week; hallroom back, next to it, two," she answered, wiping her fat hands on a white apron. "Want to see 'em?"
"If you please," Charles said.
"No trouble. That's what I'm here for," she smiled pleasantly. She came up the steps and led him into the hall. "Three flights up," she explained. "Will you leave your bag? If you do I'll have to lock the door. Roomers can't leave overcoats or hats on the rack now. Thieves are as plentiful as mosquitoes in Jersey—some in the house, as for that. My folks keep their rooms locked."
"I'll take the bag up with me," he said, feeling that, no matter what the rooms were like, he would take one.
The stairs were dark. A wire hanging down the shaft was attached to a bell at the top in order that it might be rung from the basement by the landlady as a signal to her few servants who might be working above when needed below. Immediately over the stairs in the roof was an oblong skylight of variegated glass through which the tinted rays of sunlight came. The woman pushed open the door of the larger room.
"The girl hasn't had a chance to get at it yet," she apologized. "The bed hasn't been made up, and the man that is in it has left his things lying around. He is going away this afternoon. If you like the room I'll put his things out. He is unable to pay and I can't run my house on nothing."
Charles saw an open unpacked trunk of very cheap quality in the center of the room. The sight of the chamber in its disorder was decidedly unpleasant, and Charles did not enter it. "What is the other like?" he asked.
"I'll show you," said the woman, and she opened the door of the adjoining room. It was very small, and it had only a single chair and one window with a torn shade and cheap cotton-lace curtains. The only place to hang clothing was the back of the door, into which hooks had been screwed. There was a tiny wash-stand with a bowl in which a pitcher stood, and a rack holding two thin cotton towels.
"This will do very well," he said. "It is large enough for me. I want to cut down expenses. I am out of work at present."
"Oh, I see!" the landlady said, sympathetically. "A good many young men are out of work. That is what is the matter with the fellow next door!"
Charles paid for a week in advance, and when she was about to leave she said:
"Is your trunk coming? If it is, I'll send it up."
"No, I don't happen to have one," he said, trying to summon a casual smile.
"Oh," she exclaimed, avoiding his eyes, "I make a rule to insist on that. I've had trouble with some roomers, and it was always them that just had hand-baggage."
"I can pay you more in advance, if you wish," he proposed, anxiously. "I don't want you to break any rules on my account."
"Oh, never mind!" she said. "I know you are all right. I'm a pretty good judge. The Lord knows I see all sorts of folks in my business, and most of them will do me whenever they can. I've had thugs and counterfeiters in my house. One man that said he was studying to be a minister had six wives scattered over the country. They arrested him one afternoon while I was giving him a cup of tea down-stairs—the smoothest talker that ever lived, by all odds. I missed some trinkets, but, being a widow, I never mentioned it to the officers. You see, it was all in the papers and any little thing like that might have put my name on the list of his victims; as it was, the number of my house was all that got into print."
When she had left him Charles closed the door and softly locked it. He sat down in the chair and leaned back. The little walled space gave him an odd sense of security. It was his own, for the time being, at least. The window was open and a cooling breeze came in, fanning back the white curtains. He took out his cigarettes and began to smoke, and as he smoked his mind became very active in dealing with recent events. Two marvelous things had taken place. He was free from future contact with his Boston friends and acquaintances, who knew of his recent escapades and their humiliating consequences, and he had released his brother from conditions that were even worse. The memory of William's open-mouthed stare of hope as he clutched at life anew drenched his soul with joy inexpressible. What did it matter that he was never again to see William, or his wife or child, or that he was never again to walk the historic streets of his native city? What was to become of him he knew not. Somehow it did not seem to matter. For the first time in his existence life had taken on a meaning that was worth consideration. It meant that by his persistent self-obliteration another man might reach readjustment, and a woman and a child would escape pain and disgrace.
"Good! good!" Charles exclaimed, and slapped his knee. "I haven't lived in vain, after all—that is," was his afterthought, "if I am not caught; but I shall escape. The infinite powers could not will it otherwise. William shall be a new man, and—why, I am already one! It is strange, but I am. This room"—he swept the walls with exultant eyes—"seems as natural to me as one in a fashionable club or hotel. It is all owing to one's point of view. I now live on this plane, and it is good. How amusing that woman was just now! How remarkable that I should feel inclined to laugh at her drollery! Another week and she would have been the seventh wife. The tea in the basement proves it. She is funny. I like her."
Then his facile mood changed. What was happening at the bank at that very moment? He looked at his watch. It was ten o'clock. The bank examiners were at work. The discovery was made. Poor, crushed William at his desk had only to say that the brother he had trusted had fled, and, understanding all, they would leave him alone.
At nine o'clock that morning William Browne came down to breakfast. Celeste was already in her place, and smiled as he bent down and kissed her. As he drew out his chair he noticed on his plate the envelope in his brother's handwriting. He was not expecting any communication from Charles, and the sight of the letter startled him. What could it mean, his morbid fears suggested, unless it was that Charles had changed his mind, after all, and had not left the city? Perhaps he was now in his room, sleeping late, as usual. The thought was unbearable, for it brought back all the terrors which had beset him during the weeks just past. He sat down, and for a moment let the envelope lie on the plate untouched. Celeste was busy pouring his coffee.
Michael came in bringing toast. He indicated the note with a wave of his pudgy hand. "Mr. Charles asked me to hand it to you," he said, in a grave tone which caught the attention of Celeste and caused her eyes to linger on his face inquiringly.
"Is he coming down?" she asked.
For the first time in his experience as a family servant Michael deliberately decided not to answer. He pretended not to have heard and turned from the room.
William took grim notice of the failure on the man's part. He tore off the end of the envelope, drew out the note, and read it. A thrill of joyous relief went over him. With tingling fingers he folded it and put it back into the envelope, and then placed it in his pocket. The rays of the sun falling in at the window on the plants and flowers held a beauty he had never seen before. Life—life! After all, he was to live! Charles was gone and all would yet be well. His wife was looking straight at him now.
"Good news of some sort," she smiled, as she spoke.
"Why, why do you think that?" he inquired, his beaming eyes steadying into an uneasy stare.
"Because I saw it in your face just then," she answered. "But why is he writing you when he could have come down and seen you? Is—is he all right?"
William wondered what he could now say. Why had it not occurred to him that he must be as adroit in his explanations to his wife as to the bank examiners, the directors, the public in general?
His brain seemed too heavy to deal adequately with a situation so delicate and fraught with pitfalls, for Celeste had a subtle intuition.
"Yes, he is all right," William said. "That is, he is not—was not drinking yesterday or last evening when I saw him at the bank. In this note he tells me that he has left town. I don't think he slept here last night. Did he, Michael?" The butler was entering with the eggs and bacon. "Did my brother sleep in his room last night?"
"I think not, sir," Michael answered, stiffly, avoiding the straight gaze of his mistress as he put the platter down by his master. "At least he was not there half an hour ago."
"But he gave you the note," Celeste put in, insistently.
"That was last night," Michael said. "He gave it to me when he came in. I was to hand it to you, sir, at breakfast."
"It is all right," William said, evasively. He took up a spoon to help himself to the eggs, but awkwardly dropped it. Michael served him with steady hands and unruffled mien. "Yes, he is all right. He says he wants to leave Boston for a while. You know he has had some troubles of late."
"Gone without saying anything to me or Ruth?" Celeste said, her thin lips twitching. "Why, I can't understand it! Is there anything in the note about the length of time he will be away?"
"I can't explain now," William returned, frowning over his coffee-cup. "Perhaps later to-day I may tell you more. I—I don't want to talk about it now. I have hard work before me to-day at the bank—a meeting of the directors, and other things of importance."
Celeste stared stolidly. She sat a moment erect in her chair, then said, crisply, "If you will excuse me, I'll go attend to Ruth."
William half rose as she got up, and then with a limp attitude of relief he sank back into his chair. He had not touched his eggs and toast. He drank his coffee rapidly and signaled the butler to fill his cup again. "Strong," he said; "no cream or sugar."
"Very well, sir." Michael obeyed with sympathetic deliberation. He evidently wanted to talk to his master about his brother, but he could find no plausible excuse for so doing. William bolted a few mouthfuls of the food on his plate, finished his third cup of coffee, and rose.
"I shall not be here to lunch," he said. "We'll have something served in the bank."
"Very well, sir." Michael drew his chair back and bowed as his master left the room.
William was getting his hat from the rack in the hall when Celeste came to the top of the stairs. "Do you want to see Ruth before you go?" she called down. "She is awake, but not quite dressed."
"Not now, dear. I am in an awful hurry," he said, impatiently. "I have no time to lose."
"Very well," Celeste coldly replied, and disappeared.
Outside the sun was shining brightly; the air was invigorating with its bare hint of dewiness on the trees and sward of the Common which he was crossing. A wondrous haze draped the Public Gardens some distance away on his right. On his left, the golden dome of the State House blazed under its reflected fire. The city's dull hum fell upon his ears, punctuated by the far-off peal of a bell.
Was Charles safely away? he asked himself. If only he had one more day between him and discovery how much better it would be! But that was out of the question. The thing that was to be done must be done at once. After all, what was there so terrible about it? Charles would make his way in some fashion, and the family disgrace would be avoided. Suicide? Nothing could be worse than suicide. Ah, but Charles might be followed and detained! In that case he would be put on trial for the crime, and of course he could no longer play the part he had undertaken. Then it would be suicide for himself; yes, suicide was even yet a possible contingent. He shuddered; the sunlight lost its charm, the air its bracing quality. He plunged on now, glancing neither to the right nor to the left, and his step was heavy as he entered the bank. It was open for business, and very active in the counting-rooms. Typewriting and adding machines were clicking. In the office of the president, a raised voice could be heard dictating a letter in studied paragraphs. William hung up his hat in the little anteroom and sat down at his desk. Automatically he felt in his pocket for the note Charles had written. He understood the afterthought which had inspired its writing, but he shrank from availing himself of it. He must appear to be busy, he told himself, and yet what could be done by a man in his state of suspense? Could one dictate a letter or add a column of figures while momentarily expecting the verdict of a jury as to whether he should live or die? The bank examiners would soon come. The ordeal of meeting their experienced scrutiny would be impossible in his present state of mind. How could he escape it? The note! Ah yes, the note! With the revelation once made to the president, his privacy would be respected. It was a terrible thing for a brother to do, but as a matter of sheer self-preservation, it had to be done. The dictating in the president's office had ceased. The girl stenographer, with her notes in hand, was hurrying past his open door. Now was the time, but he must first set the scene for the drama. He got up, went to the vault, drew open the massive door, busied his distraught brain over a combination, opened an inner safe. He remained there for a moment and then came out. A clerk glanced up from a big book of commercial reports, bowed respectfully, and then stared almost in alarm at his superior.
"My God!" he heard the banker say. "My God!"
With Charles's note in his hand William moved on to the office of the president. The door was partially open. He pushed it aside and entered. A heavy-set gentleman past sixty years of age, with a reddish face and iron-gray hair, raised a pair of frank blue eyes. "Well, Browne, we've got to show a clean record to-day," he began, jestingly. "This fellow McCurdy thinks he is a regular Sherlock Holmes. You know he was the slick chap that exposed—" He suddenly checked himself. The jovial smile left his facile mouth, for William was now in the full light of the electric lamp on the desk.
"I have bad news, Bradford," William gulped, putting his bloodless hand on the roll-top of the mahogany desk, the hand clutching his brother's note.
"Bad news?" Bradford repeated, in slow amazement. "Why, what's happened? You look—look—"
"The safe has been robbed!" William's words tripped over one another, as they tumbled from his pallid lips. "I found this note, and went to see if—if what it says could be true. See! Look!"
William spread out the crumpled note, and laid it before Bradford's widening eyes, and then stepped back and stood still and silent behind him. There was only a moment's pause. Bradford whirled around in his revolving-chair.
"My God!" he cried. "Your brother! I was afraid something might go wrong. Several of us were; but on your account—"
"I understand," William leaned forward. There was almost unexpected support in the president's tone and phrasing, laden as it was with sympathy. "I have made a great, great mistake, Bradford, and I will do all in my power to make up for it. In a short while—a month, six weeks—I can replace that money out of my own funds, and I want to do it—Imustdo it. I want the directors and you to understand that. Will you tell them? Will you do that for me? The money is almost in sight. I'm sure it is coming. I only need a little time."
"That will be considered later." Bradford stood up. His hand was extended to the limp man before him. "I sympathize with you, Browne. I have been sorry for you all along on account of your brother's conduct, and of course I am more so now. You need not fear that the matter will impair your own standing with us. The fact that you propose to return the money is sufficient proof of your personal integrity. Now—now, leave everything to me. You are in no shape for business. Why, you have gone all to pieces! Leave it all to me. If I were you I'd go home. This will create a sensation—it can't be avoided—and why should you be in the midst of it?"
William heard himself muttering subdued words of thanks. He felt his hand warmly pressed; the arm of a friend and old associate was around his shoulders as he turned away.
Reaching his office, William entered, closed the door, and sat down at his desk, his fixed stare on the large, spotless green blotting-pad. What ailed him? Why was he so filled with excruciating agony? A better way of escape than he had hoped for had opened out before him. The bank examiners, the directors, the depositors would respect his feelings and think nothing prejudicial to him for absenting himself from the scene. They would regard him as a well-meaning man impoverished by the irresponsible acts of a drunkard relative. If anything, their respect would be heightened by his generous offer of reimbursement. He told all this to his benumbed consciousness, but it failed to revivify the soul within him.
"Sixty thousand dollars!" It was a voice from a telephone-booth near by, a voice unwittingly raised too high, through excitement. It was Bradford speaking to one of the directors at his suburban home.
"Yes, Davis, you must hurry in. We'll wait for you." Here some words became indistinct in the tread of hurried feet in the counting-room and corridors, then: "Oh yes, poor fellow! he is all broken up over it. Surprised him like all the rest. I must say I didn't think it of Charlie. I loved the boy, in a way, but I presume he got entangled in some—Well, you know what I mean. It will get the best of 'em down sooner or later. Yes. All right. Good-by. Oh, say, hurry in. We must decide what we are going to do about the police. We must be quick about that. Unpleasant as it will be for Browne, the boy must be caught. At least that is my opinion, and I think we ought to offer a reward. Think it over and hurry in. We need you. Good-by."
William, his stare still on the green pad before him, heard Bradford closing the door of the booth. He recognized the voice of one of the directors who had just come in and had met the president in the corridor.
"It has taken me off my feet," the man said, angrily. "What a bunch of fools we were! The young villain! What other bank would have allowed him to be around, after—"
"'Sh!" Through the very walls and closed door William saw the president's considerate thumb jerked in his direction. "'Sh! He'll hear. There'll be no permanent loss to us, you know. The newspapers must put that in. It will prevent a run on us. McCurdy is in my office. We'll get together soon."
Their voices died down. The telephone-bells were jingling from all directions.
"Is that police headquarters? Well, this is—"
William would have stood up, his ear to the door, had he not known so well all that was flying over the wires. The clerk at the 'phone in the nearest booth was now in communication with the editorial office of a leading daily.
"Yes, you can send him around," the clerk said. "I'll tell him all I know about it."
William clasped his hands between his gaunt knees. He had once deliberately planned suicide to avoid facing his accusers. Yet now, with safety in his grasp, how could he face the defamers of his innocent brother? Strange, but this was agony—even greater agony than the other situation. He told himself that he must get away from it, for the moment, anyway. Bradford had suggested a loophole. No man of refinement would want to be present during the investigation of his own brother's ill conduct. No, he would go out, home, for a walk—somewhere, anywhere. He had left Charles's note with Bradford. That was sufficient in all reason to absolve William from any suspicion whatever. Yes, he would go. There were situations under which a man's leaving such a scene would suggest complicity, but this would imply naught else than broken-hearted innocence burdened beyond physical endurance. Taking his hat, he went out into the street. As he passed the main counting-room many eyes were lifted from ponderous tomes and machines. Curiosity and sympathy combined were in the awed and stealthy glances. Outside, at the door, a group had gathered. It was as if a telepathic sense of the tragedy within had permeated the walls.
"There he goes! That's his brother!" reached William's ears as he elbowed his way to the pavement. "Hey! there comes the chief of police!" the same voice said. "Quick action, if heisfat, eh?"
William did not care to see the official in question even at a distance. He kept his eyes on the ground and hurried away. Home? he asked himself. No, not now—not now. Celeste would wonder. She would have to be told, and how could he tell her the thing that his reason assured him she would never believe? A woman's intuition! Ah, it was to be dreaded! It did not lend itself readily to practical subterfuge. Business men, bank examiners, skilled detectives would be led by mere physical evidence—a man's written confession, his open flight, his reckless past and inebriety, but a woman's faith was too deep and well-informed for that. What was to be done—what? He crossed the Common; he plunged into the Public Gardens; he strode through into Commonwealth Avenue, and on and on. He knew not where he was going or with what object in view, but he must keep in motion. He wanted to put a certain thing behind him, but that thing was in his brain and it was producing a thousand pictures—pictures of his boyhood with Charles as a toddling infant beside him; of his later young manhood with Charles, a careless school-boy shirking his studies for open-air sport; Charles as he entered the bank under his protection; Charles in the beginning of his reckless career; Charles as he had last seen him, drawing the accumulated burthen of another man's folly upon his sturdy, repentant shoulders. Great God! How could he go through with it? And yet it must be done. The terrible game must be played to a finish. After all, was the whole thing not right? Through this sacrifice were not a good woman and a helpless child escaping shame and misery? True, he had made a misstep, but so had Charles. It would be comforting to know that, in a sense, he and Charles were on a sort of level. Ah, but they were not—they were not! Pragmatically tested, they were different. Charles was now living in the joyful consciousness that a great good was to come out of his self-renunciation; but it was vastly different with the man for whom the renunciation had been made. William had never loved his brother so much as now. He had never before been capable of such a love. From the depths of the pit into which he had fallen Charles appeared as a far-off superman. William might have wept, but men do not weep while in terror, and William was afraid. After all, he asked himself, with a start, how could he be sure that his secret transactions in stocks might not be ferreted out by this same McCurdy, or some one else? These facts brought to light and the authorities would readily see through the thin ruse that was being perpetrated.
For more than two hours he walked, here and there. He crossed the bridge to Cambridge. His dull stare swept the various college buildings and stately clubs, but they only reminded him of Charles and what Charles was doing for him. Why, the day Charles was graduated his friends had honored him with—But why think of trivialities? Perhaps at the bank some further discovery was being made. Had he covered his tracks completely? How could he tell? He turned abruptly homeward. He would plead a headache; he would shut himself in his room; he would explain nothing to Celeste. She would wonder, but the newspapers would tell her all.
Alone in his little room, Charles became conscious of a vast sense of fatigue, induced, no doubt, by the fact that his fears concerning his brother's fate were now allayed. Removing his coat and shoes, he threw himself on the hard, narrow bed and was soon soundly asleep. He did not awaken till three o'clock in the afternoon, and might have slept longer but for the harsh sound of a truck delivering coal through a sheet-iron chute into the basement of a house next door. He lay for several minutes trying to recall some vaguely delectable and flitting dreams he had just been enjoying. Somehow, by sheer contrast to their evanescent quality, the sordid little room and its meager furnishings produced a depression that had not come to him since the beginning of his flight. His thoughts were on his home, and he was all but faint under the sharp realization that it was his home no longer.
Presently he heard a step on the stairs. It was a slow, discouraged one, and the man who made it opened the room adjoining his and went in, leaving the door open. Feeling the need of fresh air, Charles got up and opened his own door. And as he did so he saw the inmate of the other room standing over the open trunk. To his surprise he recognized him as the man whose acquaintance he had made at the restaurant. Their eyes met.
"I see you got fixed," the stranger said, with a smile that seemed forced. "Well, you will like it, all right, I think. As for me, I'm bounced. I've had my walking-papers. Mrs. Reilly is a good soul, but she has to live, and I don't blame her. Do you know, she was awfully good about it—tried to let me down easy, says I can take my trunk and all that, and forget what I owe her. Take my trunk! Huh! as if I'd carry it out on my shoulder, which I'd have to do or cheat the expressman out of his dues."
"I'm sorry you are going," Charles said. "I wish we could be neighbors."
"Well, so am I," the other responded, listlessly, "but we can't have everything our way. After all, the sleeping is good in the parks such weather as this. I've done it, and I can do it again, but I sha'n't need a trunk. I'll leave it. And I'll pay Mrs. Reilly some day. I've always paid my way."
Some one was coming. It was the landlady herself. Her face was very grave and full of feeling. She seemed slightly surprised at finding the two men together. Charles explained how they had met at breakfast.
"And he sent you to me?" she said. "He recommended me?"
"Yes, that is how I got the address," Charles returned.
She turned on the young man suddenly. She was trying to smile, though her face was full of contradictory emotions. "Mr. Mason," she faltered, as she touched him on his arm, "I must tell you the truth, and I'll do it right here, facing this gentleman. I hardly slept a wink last night, tired as I was from house-cleaning and beating carpets, because I said what I did yesterday about you leaving. And now I hear in this roundabout way that you have been trying to help me. Humph!" she laughed, making a sound in her throat like a suppressed sob, "do you think I'm going to let you go? Not on your life. I've never had a young man under my roof that I liked better. I'd rather keep you here for nothing than to get money for the room from some of the scamps that are floating about."
"You are very good, Mrs. Reilly," Mason said, with emotion on his part, "but I don't think, owing you for three weeks already, that—"
"Three weeks nothing! Cut that out!" she exclaimed. She strode to a window and examined the tattered shade. "There is no demand for rooms now, anyway. Do you hear me, you are going to stay? I've got to have new shades here, that's all there is about it. Yes, I want you to stay, Mr. Mason, and that settles it. You will find work, I'm sure of it. It is a dull season, that's all. Business will pick up later. It always does."
Mason was blandly protesting, his color high in his cheeks, when she suddenly whirled from the room.
"You are to stay!" she called back from the head of the stairs. "You talk to him, sir," she added to Charles. "He is a nice young man and needs a home of some sort."
The situation being embarrassing, Charles went into his own room. Mason, now without his coat and his shirt-collar open, stalked in after him.
"Sorry you had to hear all that," he said with wincing, tight-drawn lips. "Great God! do you know, sir, that the hardest thing on earth for an able-bodied man to do is to receive help from a working-woman? God! it stings like fire—it kills me!"
"I see, I see," Charles answered. "Your feeling is natural to your particular temperament. In your case you'd better owe it to a man. I want to be frank with you, Mr. Mason. You can do me a favor. I have the money to spare, and I want you to let me advance it for you."
"You? You? Great God! man, you are not in earnest! You don't mean it!"
"But I do," Charles said, firmly. "It is selfish on my part, too, for I don't want you to go away. I'm a stranger here and I'm lonely. I'm out of work myself; I want your companionship; strangers though we are to each other, I feel as if we were old friends. I can't tell why this is, but I do."
"I know, I guess," said the astounded man as he sank into the chair near the window. "I suppose we are both troubled to some extent. I thought you looked bothered a little at breakfast this morning. I'd like to be with you, too, but I couldn't start out in any stranger's debt like that, you know. It is—is almost as bad, you see, as owing a woman."
"You mustn't feel as you do in regard to me, at least," Charles said. "I am without a home. I don't want to be alone. I would love to share the little I have with you. Something draws me to you like ties of blood."
It was significant that Mason made no reply. He leaned forward, clasping his big freckled hands between his knees. He dropped his head, his reddish-brown curls lopped over his wide brow. He was silent. Charles saw his shoulders rise and fall convulsively, as if he were trying to suppress a tumult of feeling. Presently he raised his head. His hunger-pinched lips were twisted awry.
"My God!" he gulped, "I didn't know I'd ever run across a fellow like you. I thank you! I thank you! I thank you!" He got up; his knees, in his frayed, bulging trousers, shook visibly. He moved to the door, passed through it, and went into his own room. From his position near the door Charles saw him reel past the trunk, totter, and clutch a post of the old-fashioned bed. Holding it, he stood swaying back and forth, his head hanging low on a limp neck. Charles ran to him, caught his arm, and made him lie down on the bed. Mason was ghastly pale.
"It is nothing," he said, trying to smile carelessly. "It will pass over. I had it once yesterday in the street."
"I know what it is." Charles bent over him tenderly. "You are weak from hunger."
"Do you think that is it?" Mason asked, resignedly, doggedly.
"Yes, and it has to end right here and now. We are friends, aren't we? I'm going down and bring you something this minute. It is not a woman that is offering it, Mason. It is a friend who knows what suffering is. Wait! Lie still. I'll hurry back."
From the restaurant where he had breakfasted that morning Charles secured some hot chicken broth with bread and coffee. As he was hurrying back, he met a newsboy selling afternoon papers. The thought darted through his brain that the papers might contain an account of his flight which had been telegraphed from Boston, and he bought a paper and thrust it into his pocket. He met Mrs. Reilly as he was entering the front door. Hurriedly he explained the reason for his bringing the food.
"Good gracious!" she cried. "I thought he looked bad. One of my roomers said it was dope, but I didn't believe him. And I was turning him out in that condition! Think of it—just think of it!"
"I am to pay the back rent he owes, Mrs. Reilly," Charles said, putting the things down on a step of the chair and taking out his purse.
"You? Not on your life!" she threw back, warmly. "Do you think I'll let a stranger come and do more for that poor boy than I've done, when he was going about drumming up trade for me after what I said to him? Not on your life! I'll feed him, too, from this on. I'll bring him his breakfast if he ain't able to come down in the morning."
Seeing that she would not receive the money, Charles took up the things and ascended the stairs. He found Mason seated at the window in the cooling breeze from the open space in the rear.
His eyes held the eager gleam of a starving man shipwrecked on a raft. He tried to make light of his hunger as Charles hurriedly placed a small table near him and filled a soup-plate with the rich broth, which contained tender fragments of chicken.
"Here, tackle this, you chump!" said Charles, and he laughed as he used to laugh in his school-days. "The idea of your letting yourself starve in this great, enlightened, Christian city!"
Mason obeyed. A warm look of reviving health was in his face as he drank the soup. The plate was soon empty. Charles filled it again, and poured out the hot coffee. As he did so he felt the folded newspaper in his pocket, and a sudden cool shock of dismay went through him. What might not the paper say? Some one might have seen him take the train in Boston. Some one might have watched him on his arrival in New York. The very house he was in might already be shadowed by instructed officials. Men nowadays were captured easily enough in the vast network of the detective system.
As he crumbled his bread into the broth Mason's satisfied glance swept the face of his companion. "What are you worried about?" he asked. "I saw you change all at once like you was thinking of something unpleasant. I hope it ain't me. My God! I don't want to be a burden on a man as kind as you are!"
"You? No, no! But I have my little troubles, Mason," Charles admitted, frankly. "I try to keep my mind off of them, but they will sneak back at times. Don't think it is money; it is not that, and instead of being a burden you are just the reverse. You are a great help to me."
"I'm sorry you have worries," Mason responded, with a sigh. "But it seems to me that every one I meet has some trouble or other. The thing has its funny side, too. I could dance and sing with this feed in me, thanks to you. This morning, after I left you, I went looking for a job, as usual. I had failed to see the firms I had in view in Wall Street, and was standing in front of an old church down there when a shabbily dressed man with a red nose came up to me.
"'Say, boss,' he began, 'can you give a feller a dime to pay his carfare home? I'm stranded here and got to get back.'
"It struck me as funny—his wanting money to get booze with, and me without bread, and I laughed in his face. 'Say,' I said, 'I was about to ask you the same question, but I've never begged in my life, and I don't know how to go about it.'
"'Oh, is that it? New hand, eh?' he said, very cordially. 'Well, young feller, I don't mind giving you a tip or two to start you out. I was green at it once myself. Now look here. You are too timid. Brace up. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Pick 'em out as they come along. Take the best-dressed first. Learn to know the labels on cigars and make a break for the costly smokers. If you see a feller smiling, he's your game. If you see two prosperous-looking guys chatting in a friendly way, strike 'em both. One will try to outdo the other. I won a dollar in a game like that once out of two fellers getting in a fine auto. Women are all right, too, but when you see one coming you'd better just hang your head and look sadlike, especially if you are at the lead-pencil game.'
"I thanked him," Mason finished, "but I never profited by his advice. I simply can't beg. Say, is that an afternoon paper in your pocket? I wonder if it carries want ads?"
"I don't really know," Charles replied, drawing the paper out slowly and awkwardly, for in some way it seemed to cling to his pocket and his fingers were not apt as usual. He spread it out, and as he held it toward his companion some large head-lines on the first page caught his attention and a cold wave of despair swept over him.
"Robbery of a Boston Bank! Absconding Clerk Makes Away with Sixty Thousand Dollars. Ten Thousand Dollars Reward Offered!"
Mason was taking the paper into his extended hand. It seemed to Charles as if the dismal room were enveloped in a mist. He heard Mason saying something as if from a great height or depth as he opened the rustling sheet.
"Excuse me," Charles managed to say. "I'll come back in a moment."
Mason made some reply which he did not hear, and Charles went into his own room, where he stood at the window, looking out over the back yards below. Why, he asked himself, was he so terribly alarmed all at once? Was not all this to be expected? To do him full credit, he was not even then thinking of himself. It was William. It was Celeste. It was little Ruth. They were first in his thoughts. Ah, after all, was his vicarious effort at rescue to fail totally? He stood at the window a long time, lost in a flood of reflections. It was now sundown. Lights in the rear rooms of the buildings across the court were flashing up. He heard a match being struck in Mason's room and the rustling of the tell-tale paper. He crept to the door, glanced in, and saw his new friend standing under a flaring gas-jet, with the first page of the paper before his eyes. Was he reading the Boston news? Would he couple his new friend's arrival on that particular train with the events described? Well, what did it matter? Something told him that even were he a murderer his secret would be safe with Mason; and yet, if possible to avoid it, Mason must not know, for Charles had promised his brother that no circumstances should wring the truth from him. Mason remained at the jet, reading as if wholly absorbed. There could be no doubt now that it was the Boston report that had caught his attention.
Suddenly, while he watched him, Mason lowered the paper, and Charles had barely time to step back to the window before Mason was on the threshold, the paper in his hand.
"Pardon me," he said, staring through the dusk at Charles, "I did not mean to take your paper from you. I was expecting you back every minute and got to reading about—about"—there was a slight pause here as it seemed to Charles's overwrought fancy—"about a poor chap in Boston who got away with a pile of boodle. It is interesting, the whole tale. Booze, booze! The old, old story—secret speculations, and women. Family broken-hearted. Went back on his best friend, his only brother, who stands at the top socially. Gosh! I've been reckless myself, but not like that, thank God! I've been my own worst enemy, but I never hurt my people like that. I'm sorry for the poor devil! I really am sorry! This paper speaks of the chap as having had lots of friends before he got to the bottom. They are usually like that, free and easy and kind-hearted. Oh, I guess he was tempted, poor devil! And he will be caught, they think. Left for New York last night and is hiding here."
Mason was offering him the open paper and Charles took it. Before a man so genuine as his new friend had shown himself to be, he could not bring himself to play a part. Silently he dropped the paper on his bed. He sat down by it, leaving Mason standing with a sort of dumb inquiry in his eyes. It was significant that Mason was now silent. It was significant that he seemed to be studying Charles's features in the dim light from the gas, studying them with an awkward, reluctant stare.
"I'll read it later—later," Charles said, faintly, taking up the paper and laying it on the pillow of his bed. "I hope you feel better since you've eaten," he went on, lamely. "I—I thought the soup would do you good, weak as you are."
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.
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 pass her, but, touching his arm, she detained him. Her cheeks were pale, her thin lips were quivering.
"Whatisthe 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 passed 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 unbutton 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 God! 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 assume 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."
She left him stupefied, unable to formulate any defense. He was aware, too, that his helplessness was in its way a confession that she was right in her contention against him, but what was he to do? Retaining her respect and love meant much to him, but the other horror quite forced it into the background. Celeste must wait. The first thing to be considered was the retention of his high standing at the bank and the respect of the public. The seed of suspicion and disrespect was sown in his own home, but that could not be avoided. Celeste had defended her brother-in-law before; she was doing the same now. She was pitying the absent man too much for the absolute safety of William's plans. The feeling Celeste was entertaining might leak out into public channels, flow here and there, and create dangerous pools of suspicion. William threw himself on his bed. He really needed sleep, but his brain was too active for repose. He was listening for the ring of the 'phone in the hall below—or, worse than that, the ring of the door-bell. What was to keep those shrewd men at the bank from seeing through a pretense already half punctured by a woman? William thought of the revolver, but that was at the bank. He thought of quick poisons, but he had none, then of gas, but the room was too large and airy. Suddenly he sat up on the bed, his stockinged feet on the floor, his ears strained to catch a sound which came from the street.
"Extra! Extra! Extra! Big Bank Robbery! Sixty Thousand! Thief in High Social Standing!"
The front door below was opened, but not closed. He crept to a window over the stoop and peered through the ivy hanging from the wall. It was Celeste buying a paper from a newsboy. She was reading it. Only the top of her head was visible, outlined against the paper. How unlike Celeste to stand like that on the stoop, in the view of people passing by! An automatic pang of pity went through the storm-tossed man. Could that really be the young girl whom he had loved so passionately—the frail, tender feminine creature he had taken from the care and protection of devoted parents, and brought to this? A dead ivy-leaf was swinging by a spider's web and spinning before his eyes. How odd that he should note it, that he should notice how the rays of the sun fell on the dome of the Capitol, that he should find his brain estimating how many copies of the paper the shouting boy could dispose of in that street! Celeste was coming into the house. She was out of his view now. He knew that she was in the hall below, still reading, still wondering, still bent on knowing more than the paper could reveal.
When she had finished reading the account, Celeste, white in the face and yet steady in her step, went back to the dining-room. Michael was there at work, a cleaning-cloth and metal-polish in hand, rows of knives, forks, and spoons ranged in perfect order on the table in front of him. His mistress faced him.
"Did you know, Michael," she began, spreading out the paper on the table, "that this paper says that Charles has stolen a large amount of money and run away?"
Instead of answering, he bent over the paper. His kindly eyes took in the head-lines at a glance and he looked up, slowly shaking his head.
"Yes, yes, I see it is here," he answered. "I was afraid something would be said. I was afraid last night that something was wrong, but I don't believe he took any money. I don't! I never will believe it."
Celeste stepped to him. He was merely a servant, but she put an eager hand on his arm and looked into his face steadily.
"I don't believe it, either, Michael," she said, huskily. "I'll never believe it. He's gone—he's gone, but something else was at the bottom of it. It may have been like this—don't you see? Don't you see my idea? I know that he was thoroughly disgusted over his dissipation—over what they say happened at the police station and his club; he made up his mind that perhaps he was a burden on us and determined that he would go away. And it just happens, you see, that the money was missing and they all connect him with the loss because he is gone?"
"It does look like that, madam," Michael said almost eagerly.
"But, Michael, Michael, what do you think ofthis?" and she pointed to a paragraph in the paper. "Here is what they say was in the note you handed Mr. Browne at breakfast. See! See! Look! Read it!"
Michael obeyed stolidly, then he looked up. "I know," he said, "and I think he wrote it. I think so from something he said to me about bank money last night, but still I don't think he is guilty. He didn't look it, madam."
"You say he didn't?" Celeste's fine features held an incipient fire which glowed through her thin skin and was focused in her eyes.
"No, madam, he was too—I might say, too happy-looking. Oh, I know the difference between the looks of a guilty man and an innocent one! I've run against both brands."
"And you say he was happy—happy over leaving us, perhaps never to return? Don't you think that is strange, Michael?"
"Yes, madam, that was odd. I must say that I could not make it out. He was jolly, and he was not drinking, either. If I never see him again, I'll never forget how he looked."
"I've been to his room," Celeste went on. "He took very few things, but do you remember the last photograph of Ruth that he had, in a silver frame on his bureau? He took that; at least it is missing."
"Yes, I saw him put it into his bag," said the servant. "Oh, he thinks a lot of the child!"
"And she almost worships him"—Celeste's voice shook at its lowest depths—"and she will never understand his absence. How am I to tell her? What am I to say? She may hear this"—indicating the paper with a gesture of contempt—"from other children. Oh, Michael, to think that her ideal is to be destroyed, and unjustly destroyed, for, as you say, and as I say, our Charlie is not a thief!"
Michael had taken up his cleaning-cloth and a silver platter. "I shall never believe that he is, madam," he faltered. "I shall not read that paper, either. It would upset me—make me mad."
"I had to," Celeste replied, dejectedly. "I see now that I'll have to read other things about him. He may be brought back to Boston, Michael. You see the mention of the big reward? They will search everywhere, and Charlie is too unsuspecting, too innocent, to get away—that is, if he reallywantsto get away. Did it strike you last night that he wanted to get away unhindered, Michael?"
"Yes, madam, he was anxious about that, and that is strange, too."
"Yes, it is strange," Celeste said, "for he is not guilty. He must have had a reason, but what could it have been, Michael?"
"I can't say, madam," answered the servant, applying his polish and rubbing the platter vigorously.
Celeste folded the paper. "This talk is just between us," she said, half questioningly.
"I understand, madam, I understand," Michael said, bowing as she was leaving the room.
In the hall she met her husband coming down the stairs, his trembling hand sliding on the walnut balustrade as for support. Their eyes met. "I am going back to the bank," he explained. "It is after closing-time, but the directors may be holding a consultation. It would be better, I think, for me to offer any assistance in my power. Bradford suggested that I stay away for a while, but I have thought it over and I think I ought to be there."
"Yes, it might be better," Celeste agreed, or seemed to agree. "If you hear anything bearing on—on Charlie's innocence—if they discover that the money was taken by some one else—I wish you would telephone me at once."
"Some one else?" he said, staring blankly. "But you see they have his note. Bradford wanted that to—to show to the rest."
"Yes, I know about the note"—Celeste was turning into the parlor, her eyes averted—"but something else may come up to throw light on even the note."
"Yes, perhaps," he admitted, stupidly, "and in that case I'll 'phone you."
She vanished through the door, and he stalked down the steps into the street. He walked slowly and with a self-imposed limp. He kept his head down.
"Something is wrong with her," he mused, turbulently. "She does not believe it all. She may never be satisfied, and in that case what am I to do? I can't keep this up. It is as unbearable as the other thing from which Charlie saved me. But I must not give in—I must not! He has given me his word of honor never to reveal our compact and never to return. If he is not caught I shall escape. I may lose my wife, but I'll escape."