A DIFFERENT HANDWRITING.
Henry bade Witherspoon good night and went to his room. A fire was burning in the grate. At the window there was a rattle of sleet. He lighted his old briar-root pipe and sat down. He had, as usual, ceased to argue with himself; he simply mused. He acknowledged his weakness, and sought a counteracting strength, but found none. But why should he fight against good fortune? It was not his fault that certain conditions existed. Why not starve the past and feed the present? But he had begun to argue, and he shook himself as though he would be freed from something that had taken hold of him, and he got up and stood at the window. How raw the night! And as he stood there, he fancied that the darkness and the sleet of his boyhood were trying to force their way into the warmth and the light of his new inheritance. He turned suddenly about, and bowing with mock politeness, said to himself: "You are a fool." He lighted his pipe afresh, and sat down to work. Some one tapped at the door. Was it Witherspoon come to deliver another argument, and to decide again in his own favor? No, it was Ellen. She had been at the theater.
"You bring roses out of the storm," said Henry, in allusion to the color of her cheeks.
"But I don't bring flattery. Gracious! I am chilled through." She took off her gloves and held her hands over the grate. "Everybody's gone to bed, and I didn't know but you might be here, scribbling. Goodness, what's that you've been smoking?"
"A pipe."
She turned from the fire and shrugged her shoulders. "Couldn't you get a cigar? Why do you smoke that awful thing?"
"It is an altar of the past, and on it I burn the memories of its day," he answered, smiling.
"Well, I think I would get a new altar and burn incense for the present! Oh, but I've had the stupidest evening."
"Wasn't the play good?"
"No, it was talk, talk, with a stress laid on nothing. And then my escort wasn't particularly entertaining."
"Who?"
"Oh, a Mr. Somebody. What have you been doing all the evening?"
"Something that I found to be worse than useless. Father and I have been locking horns over the—not exactly the labor question, but over the wretchedness of working-women."
"What do you know about the wretchedness of working-women?" she asked.
"What do I know about it? What can I help knowing about it? How can I shut my eyes against it?"
"I don't see why they are so very wretched. They get pay, I'm sure. Somebody has to work; somebody has to be poor. What are you writing?"
"The necessary rot of an editorial page." he answered.
"Why, how your handwriting has changed," she said, leaning over the table.
"How so?"
"Why, this is so different from the letters you wrote before you came home."
He did not reply immediately; he was thinking. "Pens in that country cut queer capers," he said. "Where are those letters, anyway?"
"Mother has put them away somewhere."
"I should like to see them again."
"Why?"
"Oh, on account of the memories they hold. Get them for me, and I will give you a description of my surroundings at the time I wrote them."
"Why, what a funny fellow you are! Can't you give me a description anyway?"
"No, not a good one."
"But I don't want to wake mother, and I don't know that I can find the letters."
"Go and see."
"Oh, you are so headstrong."
She went out, and he walked up and down the room, and then stood again at the window. Ellen returned.
"Here they are."
"Did you wake mother?"
"No, but I committed burglary. I found the key and unlocked her trunk, and all to please you."
"Good, and for the first time burglary shall be repaid with gratitude."
He took the letters and looked at the sprawling characters drawn by the hand of his friend. "When I copied this confession," said he, "I was heavy of heart. I was sitting in a small room, looking far down into a valley where nature seemed to keep her darkness stored, and from, another window, in the east, I could see a mountain where she made her light."
"Go on," she said, leaning with her elbows on the table.
He began to walk across the room, from the door to the grate, and to talk as one delivering a set oration. "And I had just finished my work when a most annoying monkey, owned by the landlord, jumped through the window. I was so startled that I threw the folded papers at him"—
"What have you done!" she cried.
He had thrown the letters into the fire, he sprang forward, and snatching them, threw them on the hearth and stamped out the blaze.
"Oh, I do wish you hadn't done that," she said, hoarse with alarm. "Mother reads these letters every day, and—oh, I do wish you hadn't done it! They are all scorched—ruined, and I wouldn't have her know that I took them out of her trunk for anything. What shall we do about it? Oh, I know you didn't mean to do it." He had looked appealingly at her. "I wish I hadn't got them."
"It is only the copy of the confession that is badly burned. The original is here on the table," he said.
"I know, but what good will that do? The letters are so scorched that it won't do to return them."
"But I can copy them," he replied.
"Oh, you genius!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands.
"Thank you," he said, bowing. Then he added: "Let me see—this paper won't do. Where can we get some fool's-cap?"
"There must be some in the library," she answered. "I'll slip down and see."
She hastened down-stairs and soon returned with the paper. "I feel like a burglar," she said.
"And I am a forger," he replied.
"Won't take you long, will it?"
"No."
The work was soon completed. The scorched letters were thrown into the fire. "She will never know the difference," said Ellen. "It is a sin to deceive her, but then, following the burglary, deception is a kindness; and there can't be so very much wickedness in a sin that keeps one from being unhappy."
"Or keeps one from being discovered," he suggested. She laughed, not mirthfully, but with an attempt at self-consolation. "This is our first secret," she said, as she opened the door.
"And I think you will keep it," he replied, smiling at her.
She looked at him for a moment and rejoined: "Indeed, fellow-criminal! And if you didn't smoke that horrid pipe, what a lovable convict you would make."
When she was gone he stood again at the window. The night was breathing hard. He spoke to himself with mock concern: "Two hours ago you were simply a fool, but now you are a scoundrel."