He paused again. Beatrice had listened with a gray look on her face.
It would have startled him had he glanced up, but he did not, and after a moment"s silence the halting boyish voice went on:
"You have changed everything for me. I was nothing but a clod before.
You are not the mother of my body, but you are of my soul. It was born of you. I shall always love and reverence you for it. You will always be my ideal. If I ever do anything worth while it will be because of you. In everything I shall ever attempt I shall try to do it as if you were to pa.s.s judgment upon it. You will be a lifelong inspiration to me. Oh, I am bungling this! I can"t tell you what I feel--you are so pure, so good, so n.o.ble! I shall reverence all women for your sake henceforth."
"And if," said Beatrice, in a very low voice, "if I were false to your ideal of me--if I were to do anything that would destroy your faith in me--something weak or wicked--"
"But you couldn"t," he interrupted, flinging up his head and looking at her with his great dog-like eyes, "you couldn"t!"
"But if I could?" she persisted, gently, "and if I did--what then?"
"I should hate you," he said, pa.s.sionately. "You would be worse than a murderess. You would kill every good impulse and belief in me. I would never trust anything or anybody again--but there," he added, his voice once more growing tender, "you will never fail me, I feel sure of that."
"Thank you," said Beatrice, almost in a whisper. "Thank you," she repeated, after a moment. She stood up and held out her hand. "I think I must go now. Good-bye, dear laddie. Write to me from Rome. I shall always be glad to hear from you wherever you are. And--and--I shall always try to live up to your ideal of me, Stephen."
He sprang to his feet and took her hand, lifting it to his lips with boyish reverence. "I know that," he said, slowly. "Good-bye, my sweet lady."
When Mrs. Longworth found herself in her room again, she unlocked her desk and took out a letter. It was addressed to Mr. Maurice Cunningham. She slowly tore it twice across, laid the fragments on a tray, and touched them with a lighted match. As they blazed up one line came out in writhing redness across the page: "I will go away with you as you ask." Then it crumbled into gray ashes.
She drew a long breath and hid her face in her hands.
The Promissory Note
Ernest Duncan swung himself off the platform of David White"s store and walked whistling up the street. Life seemed good to Ernest just then. Mr. White had given him a rise in salary that day, and had told him that he was satisfied with him. Mr. White was not easy to please in the matter of clerks, and it had been with fear and trembling that Ernest had gone into his store six months before. He had thought himself fortunate to secure such a chance. His father had died the preceding year, leaving nothing in the way of worldly goods except the house he had lived in. For several years before his death he had been unable to do much work, and the finances of the little family had dwindled steadily. After his father"s death Ernest, who had been going to school and expecting to go to college, found that he must go to work at once instead to support himself and his mother.
If George Duncan had not left much of worldly wealth behind him, he at least bequeathed to his son the interest of a fine, upright character and a reputation for honesty and integrity. None knew this better than David White, and it was on this account that he took Ernest as his clerk, over the heads of several other applicants who seemed to have a stronger "pull."
"I don"t know anything about _you_, Ernest," he said bluntly. "You"re only sixteen, and you may not have an ounce of real grit or worth in you. But it will be a queer thing if your father"s son hasn"t. I knew him all his life. A better man never lived nor, before his accident, a smarter one. I"ll give his son a chance, anyhow. If you take after your dad you"ll get on all right."
Ernest had not been in the store very long before Mr. White concluded, with a gratified chuckle, that he did take after his father. He was hard-working, conscientious, and obliging. Customers of all sorts, from the rough fishermen who came up from the harbour to the old Irishwomen from the back country roads, liked him. Mr. White was satisfied. He was beginning to grow old. This lad had the makings of a good partner in him by and by. No hurry; he must serves long apprenticeship first and prove his mettle; no use spoiling him by hinting at future partnerships before need was. That would all come in due time. David White was a shrewd man.
Ernest was unconscious of his employer"s plans regarding him; but he knew that he stood well with him and, much to his surprise, he found that he liked the work, and was beginning to take a personal interest and pleasure in the store. Hence, he went home to tea on this particular afternoon with buoyant step and smiling eyes. It was a good world, and he was glad to be alive in it, glad to have work to do and a dear little mother to work for. Most of the folks who met him smiled in friendly fashion at the bright-eyed, frank-faced lad. Only old Jacob Patterson scowled grimly as he pa.s.sed him, emitting merely a surly grunt in response to Ernest"s greeting. But then, old Jacob Patterson was noted as much for his surliness as for his miserliness.
n.o.body had ever heard him speak pleasantly to anyone; therefore his unfriendliness did not at all dash Ernest"s high spirits.
"I"m sorry for him," the lad thought. "He has no interest in life save acc.u.mulating money. He has no other pleasure or affection or ambition.
When he dies I don"t suppose a single regret will follow him. Father died a poor man, but what love and respect went with him to his grave--aye, and beyond it. Jacob Patterson, I"m sorry for you. You have chosen the poorer part, and you are a poor man in spite of your thousands."
Ernest and his mother lived up on the hill, at the end of the straggling village street. The house was a small, old-fashioned one, painted white, set in the middle of a small but beautiful lawn. George Duncan, during the last rather helpless years of his life, had devoted himself to the cultivation of flowers, shrubs, and trees and, as a result, his lawn was the prettiest in Conway. Ernest worked hard in his spare moments to keep it looking as well as in his father"s lifetime, for he loved his little home dearly, and was proud of its beauty.
He ran gaily into the sitting-room.
"Tea ready, lady mother? I"m hungry as a wolf. Good news gives one an appet.i.te. Mr. White has raised my salary a couple of dollars per week.
We must celebrate the event somehow this evening. What do you say to a sail on the river and an ice cream at Taylor"s afterwards? When a little woman can"t outlive her schoolgirl hankering for ice cream--why, Mother, what"s the matter? Mother, dear!"
Mrs. Duncan had been standing before the window with her back to the room when Ernest entered. When she turned he saw that she had been crying.
"Oh, Ernest," she said brokenly, "Jacob Patterson has just been here--and he says--he says--"
"What has that old miser been saying to trouble you?" demanded Ernest angrily, taking her hands in his.
"He says he holds your father"s promissory note for nine hundred dollars, overdue for several years," answered Mrs. Duncan. "Yes--and he showed me the note, Ernest."
"Father"s promissory note for nine hundred!" exclaimed Ernest in bewilderment. "But Father paid that note to James Patterson five years ago, Mother--just before his accident. Didn"t you tell me he did?"
"Yes, he did," said Mrs. Duncan, "but--"
"Then where is it?" interrupted Ernest. "Father would keep the receipted note, of course. We must look among his papers."
"You won"t find it there, Ernest. We--we don"t know where the note is.
It--it was lost."
"Lost! That is unfortunate. But you say that Jacob Patterson showed you a promissory note of Father"s still in existence? How can that be?
It can"t possibly be the note he paid. And there couldn"t have been another note we knew nothing of?"
"I understand how this note came to be in Jacob Patterson"s possession," said Mrs. Duncan more firmly, "but he laughed in my face when I told him. I must tell you the whole story, Ernest. But sit down and get your tea first."
"I haven"t any appet.i.te for tea now, Mother," said Ernest soberly.
"Let me hear the whole truth about the matter."
"Seven years ago your father gave his note to old James Patterson, Jacob"s brother," said Mrs. Duncan. "It was for nine hundred dollars.
Two years afterwards the note fell due and he paid James Patterson the full amount with interest. I remember the day well. I have only too good reason to. He went up to the Patterson place in the afternoon with the money. It was a very hot day. James Patterson receipted the note and gave it to your father. Your father always remembered that much; he was also sure that he had the note with him when he left the house. He then went over to see Paul Sinclair. A thunderstorm came up while he was on the road. Then, as you know, Ernest, just as he turned in at Paul Sinclair"s gate the lightning flash struck and stunned him.
It was weeks before he came to himself at all. He never did come completely to himself again. When, weeks afterwards, I thought of the note and asked him about it, we could not find it; and, search as we did, we never found it. Your father could never remember what he did with it when he left James Patterson"s. Neither Mr. Sinclair nor his wife could recollect seeing anything of it at the time of the accident. James Patterson had left for California the very morning after, and he never came back. We did not worry much about the loss of the note then; it did not seem of much moment, and your father was not in a condition to be troubled about the matter."
"But, Mother, this note that Jacob Patterson holds--I don"t understand about this."
"I"m coming to that. I remember distinctly that on the evening when your father came home after signing the note he said that James Patterson drew up a note and he signed it, but just as he did so the old man"s pet cat, which was sitting on the table, upset an ink bottle and the ink ran all over the table and stained one end of the note.
Old James Patterson was the fussiest man who ever lived, and a stickler for neatness. "Tut, tut," he said, "this won"t do. Here, I"ll draw up another note and tear this blotted one up." He did so and your father signed it. He always supposed James Patterson destroyed the first one, and certainly he must have intended to, for there never was an honester man. But he must have neglected to do so for, Ernest, it was that blotted note Jacob Patterson showed me today. He said he found it among his brother"s papers. I suppose it has been in the desk up at the Patterson place ever since James went to California. He died last winter and Jacob is his sole heir. Ernest, that note with the compound interest on it for seven years amounts to over eleven hundred dollars. How can we pay it?"
"I"m afraid that this is a very serious business, Mother," said Ernest, rising and pacing the floor with agitated strides. "We shall have to pay the note if we cannot find the other--and even if we could, perhaps. Your story of the drawing up of the second note would not be worth anything as evidence in a court of law--and we have nothing to hope from Jacob Patterson"s clemency. No doubt he believes that he really holds Father"s unpaid note. He is not a dishonest man; in fact, he rather prides himself on having made all his money honestly. He will exact every penny of the debt. The first thing to do is to have another thorough search for the lost note--although I am afraid that it is a forlorn hope."
A forlorn hope it proved to be. The note did not turn up. Old Jacob Patterson proved obdurate. He laughed to scorn the tale of the blotted note and, indeed, Ernest sadly admitted to himself that it was not a story anybody would be in a hurry to believe.
"There"s nothing for it but to sell our house and pay the debt, Mother," he said at last. Ernest had grown old in the days that had followed Jacob Patterson"s demand. His boyish face was pale and haggard. "Jacob Patterson will take the case into the law courts if we don"t settle at once. Mr. White offered to lend me the money on a mortgage on the place, but I could never pay the interest out of my salary when we have nothing else to live on. I would only get further and further behind. I"m not afraid of hard work, but I dare not borrow money with so little prospect of ever being able to repay it. We must sell the place and rent that little four-roomed cottage of Mr. Percy"s down by the river to live in. Oh, Mother, it half kills me to think of your being turned out of your home like this!"
It was a bitter thing for Mrs. Duncan also, but for Ernest"s sake she concealed her feelings and affected cheerfulness. The house and lot were sold, Mr. White being the purchaser thereof; and Ernest and his mother removed to the little riverside cottage with such of their household belongings as had not also to be sold to make up the required sum. Even then, Ernest had to borrow two hundred dollars from Mr. White, and he foresaw that the repayal of this sum would cost him much self-denial and privation. It would be necessary to cut their modest expenses down severely. For himself Ernest did not mind, but it hurt him keenly that his mother should lack the little luxuries and comforts to which she had been accustomed. He saw too, in spite of her efforts to hide it, that leaving her old home was a terrible blow to her. Altogether, Ernest felt bitter and disheartened; his step lacked spring and his face its smile. He did his work with dogged faithfulness, but he no longer found pleasure in it. He knew that his mother secretly pined after her lost home where she had gone as a bride, and the knowledge rendered him very unhappy.
Paul Sinclair, his father"s friend and cousin, died that winter, leaving two small children. His wife had died the previous year. When his business affairs came to be settled they were found to be sadly involved. There were debts on all sides, and it was soon only too evident that nothing was left for the little boys. They were homeless and penniless.
"What will become of them, poor little fellows?" said Mrs. Duncan pityingly. "We are their only relatives, Ernest. We must give them a home at least."
"Mother, how can we!" exclaimed Ernest. "We are so poor. It"s as much as we can do to get along now, and there is that two hundred to pay Mr. White. I"m sorry for Danny and Frank, but I don"t see how we can possibly do anything for them."
Mrs. Duncan sighed.