William found his uncle at a writing-table, sheets of paper and a note-book before him, a fountain-pen in his hand. He looked up and smiled a pleasant greeting. "Thought you had turned in," he chuckled, softly. "I told Lessie I had a book to read, but it wasn't that, really. I've been here figuring on my holdings. I love to do it. It makes the things I've fought and won stand out, you see, before my eyes, as you might say. It furnishes me with a fresh surprise every time I do it. It always seems bigger, solider, you see. Sit down, my boy; take a cigar—there are several pretty good ones. No, you won't? I see, it will keep you awake, eh? Well, I must say I admire it in you. The best business men are careful, and you are one of them. I owe you a lot, my boy," he went on, as William sat down and clasped his cold knee-caps with his shaking hands. "Do you know what you did for me? I see; you are too modest to confess it. Well, you actually did this: I had practically given up the financial game. I was trifling my time and income away in Europe when this great family trouble clutched me and pulled me back into harness. And what has been the result? Why, I've not only enjoyed the game of defending our blood, but every venture I have made has shoveled gold into my bin."
William nodded. He could not find his voice. He was glad that his uncle's enthusiastic face was bent over his writing.
"And don't think I am not realizing that I'm no longer young, either," the steady voice went on. "I'm not a silly fool. I sha'n't claim more than ten years more of life, at the furthest, and what do you think I expect to do with my effects? You saw the little item in The Transcript the other day, stating that I might make a big donation to several charitable institutions? I know you must have seen it. Well, nothing could be farther from my intentions. I am going to leave all I have to a young fellow that I think had a pretty hard time of it. Of course, you don't know who I mean, Billy. I didn't think I'd ever want to provide for any particular person, but when I got back from Europe and saw you haggard and unstrung, putting up practically all you had in the world to pull our name from the mire—well, it changed me on the spot. You see, it was a quality I didn't think a man could have, and I'd found it in you."
"Wait! Stop, please!" William gulped. "I—I—"
"Too modest, eh?" the old man laughed. "Now you keep quiet. I am holding the floor, and the chairman says you are out of order. Huh! if you are too modest to want this for yourself, think of your wife and child. I've grown to love them as if they were child and grandchild of my own. I want to see them happy, and when I make them so you will be, too, Billy, in spite of the rascally thing that has been done to you. You shall be president of the bank; you shall run the whole thing, and I'll sit back and take life easy to the end. Do you know that old men enjoy life more than the young? Well, it is true. Aside from the bad conduct of your brother—the lasting sting of it—there is nothing in my life to regret. I am actually happy in the realization that I am doing so much for the happiness of you and yours—and mine. Yes, they are mine, too."
There was a pause, but William was unable to fill it. He reached out and took one of the cigars from the table; he struck a match and lighted it, but it burnt for an instant only. The old man was looking at him steadily. "You are not well to-night, are you, Billy?" he asked, in a sudden swirl of affectionate concern.
"No, not very," William heard himself saying. "I—I—"
"Well, perhaps you'd better turn in," his uncle suggested. "This is your day of rest, you know. Later I'll give you the details of what I am going to do for you."
"Uncle," said William, desperately, standing up and leaning forward like a storm-blown human reed, "I am unworthy, absolutely unworthy of—"
"Bosh! Go to bed!" the old man cried, in an ecstasy of delight. "I'm to be the judge of worthiness in this case. It is a scarce commodity these days, and when I see a man actually trying to stave off his just rewards—why, he is a miracle, that's all—a miracle of unselfishness! Stupid, think of that bonny child of yours! Don't you want to see her take her proper place in the social world? What have you lived and toiled for? I'll bet Lessie won't treat this thing as you do. I'll bet she will kiss her old uncle, and—"
William lost the remainder of the remark. A sudden sense of respite brooded over him like a protecting cloud. Had he the right now to step between his wife and child and such a princely inheritance? In the face of it would Lessie herself not feel impelled to take a different stand? What normal mother would not? To disillusion the old idealist now would ruin the chances of a good woman and a helpless child. Yes, at any rate, he told himself, he must see Celeste and lay the matter in its new form before her.
"Well, I'll go up," he said, as casually as was in his depleted power. "I'll see you at breakfast. I—I am rather tired."
"Yes. Good night, my boy. Sleep will do you good."
Somehow William had the odd sense of being bodiless as he ascended the stairs. As he approached his wife's room he saw the handle of her door move, and then he knew that she was standing waiting for him just inside the room. They faced each other in the deflected flare of the street lamp. She reached out and took his hands and clung to them.
"I've been listening. I expected a scene, a commotion, but I heard nothing of the sort," she whispered. "It must have simply stunned him. The blow was too deep even to stir his fury."
William pressed her hands convulsively, appealingly. He put an arm around her, a shaking, half-palsied arm.
"Lessie," he panted, raspingly. "I found out down there—Wait, wait! Give me time." He cleared his throat. "I found out—It was like this, darling. You know how rapidly he talks at times? Well, he wouldn't give me a chance to break in; and finally he told me something that made me—forced me to feel that if you had been there—I mean—"
"What? Go on! Go on!" Celeste breathed quickly.
"He was in a jolly mood. He spoke more freely than ever before. He let out the fact that he is worth several millions and that he intends to leave it all to us—I mean to you and Ruth. He has no idea of donating anything to charity, but all to you two. So you see—you see, it put me where I simply had to—to lay it before you. It strikes me as a reasonable idea that with all that money at your disposal you could—why, Lessie, you could make Charlie rich, and surely you cannot stand between our child and all that good fortune. Don't you see, dear? The truth would so infuriate uncle that he would—would drop us all—you, me, Ruth, Charlie—everybody! Old men are like that; they can't seem to recuperate after such a blow. I didn't tell him. I confess I didn't even mention it, for it was my duty to—to show you how matters stand. I'd not be a natural husband and father if—if I had acted otherwise. We have got in this awful mess. How are we going to get out? Remember, dear, I was trying to earn money for you and the baby when it happened, so how can I bear to—to think of going to jail and leaving you penniless? He would be mad enough to send me to jail, dear; he is just that vindictive, and he would not take care of you two, either. You don't seem to realize that it would make him the laughing-stock of the public, and he so sensitive and hot-tempered. You see, I have forced him to be my active accomplice in covering it all up, and he would have to remain silent or turn me over to the authorities. Oh, it is awful—awful! He puts such a high and unjust value on me that when he finds he has been fooled he will—why, he won't know how to control himself! It would be like him to leave the house to-night—this very night—and go to a hotel, where he would chatter even to the bell-boys. Think of Ruth—if not of me; have pity on that sweet, inoffensive child."
"Oh, but Charlie! Charlie!" Celeste found voice to say.
"But don't you remember that Charlie himself proposed going away? Why, he was down and out—sick of Boston and everything in it. He said he never wanted to come back or to be heard of again. That was to save me—just me—from—from trouble. Is it likely that he would be willing to have me—to have any of us take a step like this now? How do you know that—that he'd like to—to have his old life raked up again? He is evidently playing a part of some sort. Have we the right, without consulting him, to have all this put in the papers and flashed from end to end of the country?"
Celeste stood like a statue, cold and motionless, in his half-embrace. The dim light disclosed her marble cheek to his sight. Her wide-open eyes caught the flare from the street lamp and gave it back in gleams of indecision.
"You say he spoke of Ruth's inheritance?" she gasped.
"More of her than you or me," said William, grasping at the straw. "He fairly dotes on her. But don't think he would stand by her if—if we anger him by this exposure. He would hate us all, Ruth along with us. In a burst of fury he would cut us all out. Oh, I know him, Lessie," went on William, imbibing hope from the dead stare turned on him. "I have been right at his elbow for over a year. He has given me his innermost thoughts."
"I know," Celeste whispered. "I've noticed it, and knew why it was. He looked upon you as a paragon of nobility because you—because he thought you were sacrificing so much to atone for Charlie's conduct. He told me once that it had given him a new faith in men—that he had not thought such a thing possible. But that was wrong—cursed of God. It was hypocrisy as black as the lowest vats of hell. And I helped you in it. I feared all along that my intuition was telling me the truth, but because I didn't know where Charlie was, because I thought he might be dead, I kept silent. But, husband, it is different now—oh—oh! so different! God has sent us this trial. Charlie's life and happiness are at stake. If we are untrue he will bear the burden meant for us. God knows he has suffered enough for his boyish escapades—that has been proved by his throwing off his old habits and becoming a clean, decent, and ambitious man. He loves and is loved, and yet he is regarded as little more than a tramp by the people around him. William, I am weak, wavering, and all but dying under this. What am I to do?"
He put both his hands on her shoulders, turned her face directly to his, and went on, reassuringly: "Go to bed, darling. Let it be as it is. Remember I gave promise to Charlie not to follow him up. He was to be free forever. Go to bed, dear. This is a tempest in a teapot. You are all wrought up and nervous. You'd never forgive yourself for stepping in between our child and her rightful inheritance. Think of that. How would you like to be treated that way just to satisfy some one else's finical qualms as to right and wrong?"
She allowed him to push her toward her bed, and for no obvious reason other than physical weakness she sat upon it, her staring eyes still fixed upon his insistent face. He thought his case was won. He bent and kissed her on the cheek. He tried to raise her chin that his lips might put the seal of frailty upon hers, but she resisted him firmly, inexorably. This gave him pause. All the terrors of his moribund being gathered, screaming and threatening, from the nooks and crannies into which they had but temporarily fled.
"Don't you—can't you see it as—as I do?" he pleaded, still trying to lift her chin, and realizing his defeat even in that small failure.
"No!" That was all she said, but it was more than enough.
He stood away from her. Indescribable contingencies now waxing into grim certainties hurtled about him—exposure, a felon's cell, the visible hatred of the man who had so completely trusted him.
"No!" Celeste repeated, firmly. "There can be only one course to take, and that is the right one—right if it kills us all. You can't tell him. I must do it. He is still down there."
"Is this final?"
"Yes, final," she said, and stood up. He made a movement as if to stop her; it ended by his dropping his limp arms to his sides. His lips moved, but produced no sound. She left the room first, and he followed. Together they leaned over the balustrade and peered at the light below. Then she drew herself erect and started down the stairs. He watched her till she was half-way down, then turned into his room.
She reached the library door. She saw the old man still bent over his calculations, a glow of satisfaction on his pink face. She heard him chuckle. No doubt he was thinking of Ruth's good fortune. She was about to enter when a grim thought suddenly clutched her as if in a vise. How strangely William had acted as they were parting up-stairs! Once before he had started to end his life. Would he be so desperate now? Why not? The crisis was even greater. She turned quickly, and, holding her breath, she darted back up the stairs and tiptoed into William's room. He was standing at his bureau. She heard a hard substance strike against one of the smaller drawers as he turned to face her. Darting to him, she grasped his arm and slid her fingers down to the revolver he was clutching.
"Oh, you wouldn't do that—would you, dear?" she panted, as she wrung the weapon from his grasp.
His silence was his answer. He stepped back from her. He had steeled himself for the supreme shock of death. How could he summon mere words at this ultimate moment?
"I see, I see!" she moaned, and she was sure now that she loved him in his weakness as a mother might love her child that was blind, crippled, and in unending pain. She put the weapon into the bosom of her dress, and, with her hands outstretched, she cried: "I didn't tell him, darling. I hurried back to you when I thought—thought—thought of this. Something else must be done. Charlie wouldn't be willing to murder you. It was to prevent this that he went away."
Her hands were around his neck. He was still under the chill spell of the ordeal he had faced. She drew his head down and kissed him again and again on the lips, as if to restore life's breath to him.
"Yes, something else—but not this" she ran on. "We'll see—we'll see, sweetheart. If Charlie were here he'd stop you—he would—he would, and so must I. I see, you couldn't face it all, could you, dear? I ought to have thought of that sooner. Some one has said that God never puts more on us than we can bear, and that is why He turned me back to you when He did. Now, now, we can go to sleep, can't we, darling boy?"
"Oh, it was wonderful—glorious—ecstatic!" he muttered as if to himself, his blank stare fixed on the space beyond her. "I was afraid—afraid—afraid as I put my hand in the drawer and felt it like the icy foot of a corpse; but when I had hold of it—"
"What are you saying, darling?" Celeste asked, fearfully.
"I'll never invest in stocks again. Down, down, down, and the money not my own. I'll be caught. I can't hide it. The examiners will come and look me in the eye, and—"
"Oh, what is it, dear?" Celeste moaned, and, catching his arm, she shook him.
"When I had hold of it," he wandered on, vacantly, "something said—out of the very darkness down where he and my wife were settling my fate—something said: 'Don't be afraid—it is nothing. It will be only a pinprick and you'll be free.' And I was free. I saw—I saw—I heard—I heard—I felt—yes, that is it, I felt as a man feels when he is said to be dead and no living soul knows of the great change but himself."
"Oh, William darling, you are ill—you are—"
"Good boy, Charlie! Bully boy, my brother! You were true as steel—you knew it had gone down, down, down to the bottom of hell itself and so you ran away. But I was left with it, brother mine. I was in a vat filled with black, smirking imps. Every day I fought with them, every night. But I'm glad now. Are you dead, too? Is that light, or is it— Who ever heard of light and music being the same thing? It is even more than that, eh, Charlie? It is language—the cosmic speech of the universe, and we are in a sea of eternal bliss."
Celeste, wordless now, took his face between her trembling hands and tried to turn it toward her own, but it was immovable. He was chuckling, laughing, his eyes still fixed on space. Dropping her hands, Celeste ran to the head of the stairs, and, like a hysterical woman giving an alarm of fire, she called out:
"Oh, uncle—come quickly! Quick! Quick!"
"What is it? What is it?" he exclaimed, as he darted from the library and plunged up the stairs.
"Quick! Quick!" she cried back, and vanished from his view. He found her standing over her husband, who was now seated on his bed. Hearing his step, William uttered a low, chuckling laugh, and, staring at him, said:
"Here you are again, Charlie. I missed you. That cloud—that dazzling white cloud—seemed to come between us. I ran back to see Ruth and Lessie. Ruth was asleep, and when children are asleep they ride on the clouds—so a spirit told me. But Lessie was awake, standing over, over it—you know what I mean, over the body that held me so long. Oh, I wish she would hide it! Uncle was there, too, Charlie boy. Never could make the old doubter understand this, eh, Charlie? At first it was strange to us, too, eh? Wonderful, wonderful! I hear my old leathery tongue trying to describe it now. How funny!"
"William, what is the matter?" the old man asked, bending over him.
William looked at him closely; he put his hand on his shoulder and went on, chuckling: "Oh, I see it is you, uncle. I want to tell you. You needn't be afraid of dying, as I was all my life. I held it right over my heart and pulled the trigger. There was a flash, a little, tiny tickling sting, and then Charlie and I—I'll never invest in stocks again. It seemed very easy to pile up all that for Lessie and the baby. Down, down, down—Every morning at breakfast I faced them with those figures on my brain like the slimy tracks of coffin snails. Down, down to doom! to doom—that's it, to my doom!"
The old man stood erect. He moved to a window. His niece followed him like a praying shadow. Their eyes met.
"I am the cause of it," she said. "I tried to force him to confess to you that he was to blame, and not Charlie. He tried to use this," taking the revolver from her bosom, "while I went down to tell you."
"He, and not Charlie!" the old man exclaimed, with a fixed stare.
"Say what you like, do what you like," she said, harshly, fiercely, recklessly, her white lip curled in a sneer. "He said you would put him in jail. I wonder if you will—I wonder. I would give my life for him. We don't want your money—understand that. What living man has not sinned? and he did it for love. Don't you dare to accuse—abuse him. He is down now and dying, perhaps."
With his eyes on the bent form on the bed, the old man seemed not to hear her. "Oh, my God, this is awful—awful!" he said, under his breath. "Well, there is but one thing to do."
Turning, he suddenly left the room. There was a telephone in the hallway, just outside the door, and he went to it. He took up the directory and then turned on the electric light. His hands shook as he fumbled the pages. The book fell to the floor. He picked it up. His old face seemed withered like crinkled parchment.
"I can't find it!" he groaned. "My God! have mercy! It is awful—awful!"
Celeste was at his side. Like an infuriated tigress defending her young, she glared into his face, and all but snarled: "Do it, do it, if you dare—and we'll hate you, despise you, curse your name! I'll teach Ruth to spit on your grave."
"Lessie, Lessie, my child—my poor child! Do you object to my—"
"Object? Would you send him to jail when his reason is wrecked through fear of you—when he is dying?"
"Why, Lessie, Lessie, darling child, did you think that? Why, I am telephoning for the doctor, that is all. I love William and pity him as much as you do. We must save him, child, we must save him!"