"Mine is Ambrose Kean. You must think I am a fool,"
"I think," said Luke, gently, "that you have some cause of unhappiness."
"You are right there. I have been unfortunate, but I am also an offender against the law, and it was the fear of exposure and arrest that made me take the step I did. I thought I was ready to die, but when I found myself in the water life seemed dearer than it had before, and I tried to escape. Thanks to you, I am alive, but now I almost wish that I had succeeded. I don"t know how to face what is before me."
"Would you mind telling me what it is?"
"No; I need someone to confide in, and you deserve my confidence. Let me tell you, then, that I am employed in an office on Dearborn Street.
My pay is small, twelve dollars a week, but it would be enough to support me if I had only myself to look out for. But I have a mother in Milwaukee, and I have been in the habit of sending her four dollars a week. That left me only eight dollars, which I found it hard to live on, and there was nothing left for clothes."
"I can easily believe that," said Luke.
"I struggled along, however, as best I might, but last week I received a letter from my mother saying that she was sick. Of course her expenses were increased, and she wrote to know if I could send her a little extra money. I have been living so close up to my income that I absolutely had less than a dollar in my pocket. Unfortunately, temptation came at a time when I was least prepared to resist it. One of our customers from the country came in when I was alone, and paid me fifty dollars in bills, for which I gave him a receipt. No one saw the payment made. It flashed upon me that this sum would make my mother comfortable even if her sickness lasted a considerable time.
Without taking time to think, I went to an express office, and forwarded to her a package containing the bills. It started yesterday, and by this time is in my mother"s hands. You see the situation I am placed in. The one who paid the money may come to the office at any time and reveal my guilt."
"I don"t wonder that you were dispirited," returned Luke. "But can nothing be done? Can you not replace the money in time?"
"How can I? I have told you how small my salary is."
"Have you no friend or friends from whom you could borrow the money?"
"I know of none. I have few friends, and such as they are, are, like myself, dependent on small pay. I must tell you, by the way, how we became poor. My mother had a few thousand dollars, which, added to my earnings, would have made us comparatively independent, but in an evil hour she invested them in a California mine, on the strength of the indors.e.m.e.nt of a well-known financier of Milwaukee, Mr. Thomas Browning----"
"Who?" asked Luke, in surprise.
"Thomas Browning. Do you know him?"
"I have seen him. He sometimes comes to Chicago, and stops at the Sherman House."
"He recommended the stock so highly--in fact, he was the president of the company that put it on the market--that my poor mother thought it all right, and invested all she had. The stock was two dollars a share. Now it would not fetch two cents. This it was that reduced us to such extreme poverty."
"Do you think Mr. Browning was honest in his recommendation of the mine?" asked Luke, thoughtfully.
"I don"t know. He claimed to be the princ.i.p.al loser himself. But it is rather remarkable that he is living like a rich man now. Hundreds lost their money through this mine. As Mr. Browning had himself been in California----"
"What is that?" asked Luke, in excitement. "You say this Browning was once in California? Can you tell when?"
"Half a dozen years ago, more or less."
"And he looks like the man to whom my poor father confided ten thousand dollars for us," thought Luke. "It is very strange.
Everything tallies but the name. The wretch who swindled us was named Butler."
"Why do you ask when Mr. Browning was in California?" asked the young man.
"Because my father died in California," answered Luke, evasively, "and I thought it possible that Mr. Browning might have met him."
CHAPTER XXI
A FRIEND IN NEED
"Mr. Browning is a man of very peculiar appearance," said Kean.
"You refer to the wart on the upper part of his right cheek?"
"Yes, it gives him a repulsive look."
"And yet he is popular in Milwaukee?"
"Yes, among those who were not swindled by his mining scheme. He has done more harm than he can ever repair. For instance," added the young man, bitterly, "this crime which I have committed--I will call it by its right name--I was impelled to do by my mother"s poverty, brought on by him."
"How does it happen that you are not at the office to day?"
"I felt sick--sick at heart, rather than sick in body, and I sent word to my employer that I could not be there. I dread entering the office, for at any time exposure may come."
"If you could only raise the fifty dollars, you could replace the money before it was inquired for."
Ambrose Kean shook his head.
"I can"t possibly raise it," he said, despondently.
"I would let you have it if I possessed as much money, but, as you may suppose, I am poor."
"I am no less grateful to you, Luke. You have a good heart, I am sure.
You don"t despise me?"
"No, why should I?"
"I have been guilty of a crime."
"But you are sorry for it. Is there positively no one with whom you are acquainted who is rich enough to help you?"
"There is one lady in Chicago--a rich lady--who was a schoolmate of my mother. She was older and in better circ.u.mstances, but they were good friends."
"Who is this lady?"
"A Mrs. Merton."
"Mrs. Merton!" exclaimed Luke, in excitement. "Of Prairie Avenue?"
"Yes; I believe she lives there."
"Why, I know her--I am in her employ," said Luke.
Ambrose Kean stared at Luke in open amazement.
"Is this true?" he asked.