These were questions he could not answer. He had not found his bearings yet. He would need more time. Moreover, the question of all others that hammered at his brain and conscience was, should he pay back the money he owed Muller by fraud? Should he be dishonest in one direction that he might be honest in another? Should he pay a debt of honour by an act of flagrant dishonour? He knew that Muller would answer yes in a moment; that with him honesty and honour did not belong to the same category. He would have said that men might be perfectly honourable without being honest; that honesty, after all, was merely a matter of policy; that perfectly honourable men cheated every day.
But with his awakened moral sense Rufus could not see things in that light. What, therefore, was he to do?
He stole off to bed at length, but not to sleep. Hour after hour he lay wide awake, thinking, thinking. But he could see no way out of the difficulty. The more he puzzled his brain the more perplexed he became.
He was on the horns of a dilemma from which there seemed no escape.
As a man of honour he was bound to hand back the money to Muller by the time appointed, and yet to do so he must take his own life and commit at the same time an act of roguery that would cover his name with infamy if men got to know. As far as his own life was concerned he was not in the mood to set much value upon it, and as the days pa.s.sed away that mood deepened and intensified. He asked himself the question constantly, What had he to live for? The things that made life valuable had been taken from him. What was life without hope and without love? He was so absolutely stranded that even if he lived it would only be a miserable dragging out of existence.
Sometimes he gave way to absolute despair, and the very thought of death was a relief to him. Peace and quietness and rest were to be found only in the grave. Why not end the struggle at once? Why wait until summer came? He could gain nothing by waiting, and a few days more or less could make no difference. The sooner the fatal slip was taken the sooner would come relief.
And yet in the darkest days of despair his moral sense revolted. The idea of committing a fraud as the final act of his life seemed to jar every fibre of his being. It was not dying he shrank from, though death itself seemed a far more solemn thing than it had done for many years past. But he was no coward. He did not recoil even from suffering; but to die a cheat was what he could not bring himself to look upon with equanimity.
Again and again he would say to himself, "What does it matter? I have been a cheat in intention if not in act. The proposal was my own. I entered into the compact with my eyes wide open."
But such reasoning did not satisfy him. Even when he told himself that he had no character to lose, that even if the fraud were discovered it would only throw a little darker shadow upon his memory. It did not lessen his repugnance of the contemplated act.
So one day of misery succeeded another, and he fancied sometimes he would lose his reason altogether.
Fortunately for him his old place at the mine became vacant, and the manager, who had never lost faith in him, was only too glad to reinstate him.
"Don"t be downhearted, Sterne," he said. "Our greatest successes are won through failure. You will win yet if you have only patience to wait and strength to persevere."
They were the first really friendly words that had been spoken to him, and the tears came into his eyes in spite of himself.
Captain Tom Hendy turned away his head. He did not like to see tears in a strong man"s eyes, and he guessed that Rufus must have suffered terribly for a few friendly words to affect him so much.
"It is kind of you, Capt"n Tom, to say so much," Rufus said, at length, "but I am too hopelessly stranded ever to do very much."
"Oh, that is all my eye," Captain Tom answered, with a brusque laugh.
"You know the old saying, "Rome was not built in a day.""
"Yes, I know the old saying, but I fear it won"t help me very much.
Still, I shall be glad to forget my disappointment for a while in my old tasks."
"Disappointment is the seed-ground out of which grow the fairest flowers," was the cheery answer.
Captain Tom was a Methodist local preacher, and was somewhat given to coining phrases that had a pleasant sound. Moreover, he had a big, kindly heart, a fact which was often unsuspected by those who did not know him.
"Can I begin work soon?" Rufus questioned, after a pause.
"On Monday morning. Jackson finishes on Sat.u.r.day, so you can just take up the old threads as though there had been no break."
"You are really awfully kind," Rufus said, impulsively. "You see, I come back with a damaged reputation."
"Not much, sonny; not much. But, of course, your religious views predisposed people to believe the worst."
"Yes, I suppose so. It is a curious world."
"Well, it is in some respects; but in the long run people generally get what they deserve."
"You think so?"
"I am sure of it. There is a moral order that never varies. Don"t you make any mistake, my boy. G.o.d is at the head of affairs, though you may think the world is run without a head."
"I don"t know that I have ever said that."
"Well, not in so many words, perhaps. But you"ve drifted a long way.
I"ve been awfully sorry. I"m sorry still. But you"ll get back. I"ve never lost faith in you. You"ve always been better than your philosophy.
But I"m not going to blame you."
"You need not be afraid that I shall be offended."
"No, "tisn"t that. I know what it is to doubt, myself. I fancy sometimes it"s only the people who never think who never doubt. The way into the Kingdom is through tribulation. So long as a man is honest in his doubts, I don"t mind. It is the blatant scepticism of ignorance that one resents. I am sure you have been anxious to find the truth."
"I am still."
"Light will come in good time, my boy. Only be patient and humble," and Captain Tom turned away.
"One word more before you go," Rufus said, eagerly.
"Yes, sonny, a dozen if you like."
"I referred just now to my damaged reputation."
"You did. But you"ll be able to live that down."
"That is not the point exactly. I was cruelly slandered in that matter.
I was never drunk in my life, never, in the smallest degree, the worse for drink; and it would be a comfort to me if you could accept my word of honour on that point."
"Then it was not a momentary weakness--a sudden lapse as it were?"
"It was not. I have never tasted a drop of intoxicants since my leg was broken, and then it was given to me as a medicine by the doctor."
"But why should three men swear you were drunk?"
"One to damage my character. The other two were bribed."
"Have you proof of that?"
"No."
"Then you had better keep a still tongue."
"I have done so; but you have shown yourself so friendly that I could not help speaking. Besides, it is hard to keep silent under so great a wrong."
"But why should any man--especially a man in the young Squire"s position--bribe others to swear your character away?"
"Because he feared I was coming between him and the girl he wanted to marry."