CHAPTER XXVIII.
Fletcher rose next morning betimes, after a night of fitful and unrefreshing slumber. In his dreams he had sought Bullion in vain; that substantial person seemed to have become a new Proteus, and to escape, when nearly overtaken, by taking refuge in some unexpected transformation. Sometimes the scene changed, and it was the dreamer that was flying, while Sandford, shod with swiftness, pursued him, swinging a lasso; and as often as the fierce hunter whirled the deadly coil, Fletcher awoke with a suffocating sensation, and a cold sweat trickling from his forehead. At breakfast, his wife noticed with intense anxiety his sharpened features and his evident preoccupation of mind. He hurried off, snatching a kiss from the baby and from the mother who held it, and walked towards Bullion's office. He knew Bullion was an early riser, and he felt sure of being able to see him before the usual hour of commencing business. But the office was not even opened; and, looking through the glass door, he saw that there was no fire in the grate. What was the meaning of this? Going into the street, he met Tonsor near the post-office. At the first sight of the broker's face, Fletcher's heart seemed to stop beating.
"Good-morning, Fletcher. Bad business, this! I suppose you've heard. Bullion went to protest yesterday. Hope you got wind of it in time, and made all safe."
"Bullion failed!" exclaimed Fletcher, through his chattering teeth.
"Then I'm a ruined man!"
But a sudden thought struck him, and he asked eagerly,—
"But the money,—haven't you got it still?"
"No,—paid it over yesterday."
"Well, the shares, then?"
"No,—sorry to say, Bullion's clerk came for them not ten minutes before
I heard of the protest."
"O God!" groaned the unhappy man, "there is no hope! But you, Mr. Tonsor, you are my friend; help me out of this! You can raise the money."
"Ten thousand dollars! It's a pretty large sum. I'm afraid I couldn't get it."
"Try, my friend,—you shall never regret it."
Tonsor hesitated, and Fletcher's spirits rose. He watched the broker's composed face with eyes that might pierce a mummy.
"What is the collateral?" asked Tonsor, slowly raising his wrinkled eyelids.
"Bullion's notes for seventeen thousand dollars."
"And Bullion gone to protest."
"He'll come up again."
"Perhaps; but while he is down, I can't do anything with his paper. The truth is, Fletcher, you ought not to have advanced the money for him. Remember, I warned you when you were about to do it."
Fletcher did not look as though he found the "Balm of I-told-you-so" very consoling.
Tonsor continued,—
"Now, if I were in your place, I would go and make a clean breast of it to Danforth. It was wrong, though I know you didn't mean any harm. He may be angry, but he won't touch you. You can't raise ten thousand dollars in these times,—not to save your soul."
"Keep your advice, and your money, too," said Fletcher, in sullen despair. "I ask for bread, and you give me a stone. Your moral lecture won't pay my debts."
He turned away abruptly and went again to Bullion's office. It was still closed. Determined at all hazards to see the man for whom he had risked so much, he went to his house on Beacon Hill. The servant said Mr. Bullion was not at home. Fletcher did not believe it, but the door was closed in his face before he could send a more urgent message, and with a sinking heart he retraced his steps towards State Street.
The horror of his position was now fully before him. He could not conceal his defalcation, and there was no longer a shadow of hope of replacing the money. Many a time he had taken the risk of lending large sums to brokers and others; but who would trust him, a man without estate, in a time like this? In his terrible anxiety about the new obligation, he had forgotten the old, until he chanced to observe Sandford on the opposite sidewalk, strolling leisurely towards the business quarter of the town. The ex-secretary made a barely-perceptible bow, and, drawing out his watch, significantly turned the face towards his debtor. It was enough; there was no need of words. It was a little after ten o'clock; the fatal letter would be delivered at eleven! Fletcher crossed the street and accosted Sandford, though not without trepidation; for he shuddered like a swimmer within reach of a shark, as he encountered those cold and pitiless eyes.
"Come to the office, Mr. Sandford, at eleven," he said. "The affair will be settled then, and forever."
Mr. Sandford nodded and walked on. Fletcher, meanwhile, quivering with agony, hurried to his employer's office. He scanned each face sharply as he entered, and felt sure that the loss had not yet been discovered. Going to his desk, he wrote and sealed a letter, and then went out, saying he had some business with a lawyer overhead.
Mrs. Fletcher grew momently more uneasy, after her husband left the house. A vague sense of coming evil oppressed her, until at length she could bear it no longer; she left her child with the servant, and, walking to the nearest stand, took a coach for State Street. On the way she recalled again and again the muttered words she heard during the night; she thought of the silent, comfortless breakfast, the hurried good-bye; she felt again the pressure of his trembling lips upon her own. Full of apprehension, she asked the coachman to call her husband to the door. Answer was made by a clerk that Mr. Fletcher was out on business, but was expected back presently. So she waited, looking out of the carriage-window,—a sad face to see! The hands of the Old State-House clock pointed at eleven, when Mr. Sandford punctually made his appearance,—smooth, cheerful, and with a slight exhilaration, in prospect of the two thousand dollars. Almost at the same moment Bullion came also; for Tonsor, fearing that Fletcher would take some desperate step, had been to the surly bankrupt's house and insisted upon his coming down to see his unfortunate agent. Just at the office-door, and opposite the carriage, met the two bankrupts, the disgraced "bull" and the vanquished "bear." It was an odd look of recognition that was exchanged between them; and if there was a shade of triumph in Sandford's face, it was not to be wondered at. They stood at the door, each motioning the other to enter first, when an unusual sound from the adjoining entry caused both of them to stop, and one of them, at least, to shiver. It was a sound of slow and hesitating, shuffling steps, as of men carrying a burden. The steps came nearer. Both Bullion and Sandford moved hurriedly to the spot. The men stopped in the doorway with their burden, and in a moment, with frantic shrieks, Mrs. Fletcher rushed in and fell upon the body of her husband!
"Good God! what's this?" exclaimed Bullion. "Dead?" He stooped down and thrust his hand under the waistcoat. The heart was still! He shuddered convulsively and drew back, covering his eyes. "Dead!"
Mr. Sandford seemed frozen to the threshold in speechless horror. There was his debtor, free,—the old account settled forever! The pallid temples would throb no more; the mobile lips had trembled their last; the glancing, restless eyes had found a ghastly repose; the slender and shapely frame, bereft of its active tenant, was limp and unresisting. What a moment for the two men, as they stood over the corpse of their victim!
Attracted by the unusual outcry, Mr. Danforth came hastily out of the office, and stood, as it were, transfixed at the sight of the dead. The men who had brought down the body at last found words to tell their dismal story.
They were at work on the upper floor, when they heard a noise in one of the adjoining rooms; as the apartment had been for some time unoccupied, they were naturally surprised. After a while all sounds ceased, and still no one came out to descend the stairs. Appalled by the silence, they broke open the door, and discovered Fletcher hanging by the neck from a coat-hook; a chair, overturned, had served as the scaffold from which he had stepped into eternity. They took him down, but life was already gone. A paper lay on his hat, with these words hastily pencilled on it:—
"On my desk is a letter that explains all. I'm off. Good-bye.
"JOHN FLETCHER."
Mr. Danforth, hearing this, instantly went into his office, and reappeared, reading a note addressed to him. Mr. Sandford, meanwhile, was striving to raise the wretched woman to her feet, and to lead her to the carriage. Mr. Bullion no longer whisked his defiant eyebrow, but stood downcast, silent, and conscience-stricken.
"Listen a moment," said Mr. Danforth. "Here is a letter from our rash friend, and, as it concerns you, gentlemen, I will read it. But first, my dear Madam, let me help you into the carriage."
The prostrate woman made no answer, save by a slow rolling of her body,—her sobs continuing without cessation. The letter was read:—
"MR. DANFORTH,
"To make a payment for shares bought by Mr. Bullion, I borrowed ten thousand dollars from your house yesterday. Mr. Bullion has failed, and does not protect me. He escapes, and I am left in the trap. I charge him to pay my wife the notes he owes me. As he hopes to be saved, let him consider that a debt of honor.
"But my death I lay at Sandford's door. He has followed me with a steady bay, like a bloodhound. His claim is now settled forever, as I told him. I don't ask God to forgive him;—I don't, and God won't. Let him live, the cold-blooded wretch that he is; one world or another would make no difference; for, to a devil like him, there is no heaven, no earth, nothing but hell.
"My poor wife! See to her, if you have any pity for
"JOHN FLETCHER."
"Look," said Mr. Danforth, holding the letter under the stony eyes of
Sandford,—"see where the tears blistered the paper!"
All the while, Mrs. Fletcher kept up an inarticulate moaning, though the sound grew fainter from exhaustion.
"Let us stop this," said Bullion, seeing the gathering crowd of passers-by. "Better be at home."
Pointing to the still prostrate woman, he, with Mr. Danforth, gently raised her up and placed her in the carriage. She did not speak, but murmured pleadingly, while her face wore a look of agonized longing, and her outstretched hands clutched nervously.
"Poor thing!" said Mr. Danforth, his voice beginning to tremble,—"she shall have her dead husband, if it is any comfort to her."
"That's right," said Bullion,—"carry him off before half-a-dozen coroner-buzzards come to fight over him."
The body was laid in the carriage, the head she had so often caressed resting in her lap, while her tears bathed the unconscious face, and her groans became heart-rending. Still holding the carriage-door, Mr. Danforth turned to Sandford, saying,—
"I don't know what you have done, but his blood is on your soul. I would rather be like him there, than you, on your feet.—Bullion, I don't mind the ten thousand dollars; but was it just the manly thing to leave a man that trusted you in this way to be sacrificed? Why didn't you come down this morning? God forgive you!—Coachman, drive to Carleton Street."
He stepped into the carriage, and away it rolled with its load of sorrow.
Mr. Sandford found the glances of his companion and the bystanders quite uncomfortable, and he slunk silently away. Failure and disgrace he had met; but this was a position for which he had not the nerve. The self-accusing Cain was not the only man who has exclaimed, "My punishment is greater than I can bear." Flight was the only alternative for Sandford. As long as he remained in Boston, every face seemed to wear a look of condemnation. The mark was set upon him, and avenging fiends pursued him. That very day he left the city in disguise. Through what trials he passed will never be known. But destitute, friendless, and broken-spirited, he wandered from city to city, a vagabond upon the face of the earth. Nor did a sterner retribution long delay. In New Orleans, he was so far reduced that he was obliged to earn a miserable support in an oyster-saloon near the levee. One night, a fight began between some drunken boatmen: and Sandford, though in no way concerned in the affair, received a chance bullet in his forehead, and fell dead without a word.