"They tried to squeeze out of me who the other men involved were but I wouldn't tell. I could have had a neat little come back on Delany if I had chosen but I don't play the game that way and I reckon he knew it and banked on my holding my tongue. I'd rather stand alone and take what was coming to me and I got it too good and plenty. They tried to make me tell what I did with the money. That riled me. It was none of their business and I told 'em so. Anyway I couldn't have told even if it would have done me any good on Madeline's account. I wouldn't drag her into it.
"Finally they dismissed me and said they would let me know later what they would do about my case. But there wasn't any doubt in my mind what they were going to do nor in theirs either, I'll bet. I was damned. They had to fire me—couldn't help it when I was caught with the goods under their very noses. I think a good many of them wished I hadn't been caught, that they could have let me off some way, particularly Prof. Hathaway. He put out his hand and patted my shoulder when I went out and I knew he was mighty sorry. He has been awfully decent to me always especially since I have been playing round with his daughter Elsie this fall and I guess it made him feel bad to have me turn out such a black sheep. I wished I could tell him the whole story but I couldn't. I just had to let him think it was as bad as it looked.
"I had hardly gotten back into the Frat house when I was called to the telephone. It was Madeline. She thanked me for sending her the money but said she was sending the check back as she didn't need it, had found a way out of her difficulties. She was going on a long, long journey in fact, and wouldn't see me again. Said she wanted to say good-by and wish me all kinds of luck and thank me for what she was pleased to call my goodness to her. And then she hung up before I could ask any questions or get it through my head what she meant by her long, long journey. My brain wasn't working very lively after what I'd been through over there at the board meeting anyway and I was too wrapped up in my own troubles to bother much about hers at the moment, selfish brute that I am.
"But the next morning I understood all right. She had found her way out and no mistake, just turned on the gas and let herself go. She was dead when they found her. I don't blame her, Uncle Phil. It was too hard for her. She couldn't go through with it. Life had been too hard for her from the beginning. She never had half a chance. And in the end we killed her between us, her pious old psalm singing hypocrite of a grandfather, the rotter who ruined her, and myself, the prince of fools.
"I went to see her with the old Doc. And, Uncle Phil, she was beautiful. Not even Granny looked more peaceful and happy than she did lying there dead with the little smile on her lips as if she were having a pleasant dream. But the scar was there on her forehead—the scar I put there. I've got a scar of my own too. It doesn't show on the surface but it is there for all that and always will be. I shan't talk about it but I'll never forget as long as I live that part of the debt she paid was mine. It is mea culpa for me always so far as she is concerned.
"Her grandfather arrived while I was there. If ever there was a man broken, mind and body and spirit he was. I couldn't help feeling sorry for him. Of the two I would much rather have been Madeline lying there dead than that poor old chap living with her death on his conscience.
"Later I got my official notice from the board. I was fired. I wanted to get out of college. I'm out for better or worse. Uncle Phil, don't think I don't care. I know how terribly you are going to be hurt and that it will be just about the finish of poor old Larry. I am not very proud of it myself—being catapulted out in disgrace where the rest of you left trailing clouds of glory. It isn't only what I have done just now. It is all the things I have done and haven't done before that has smashed me in the end—my fool attitude of have a good time and damn the expense. I didn't pay at the time. I am paying now compound interest accumulated. Worst of it is the rest of you will have to pay with me. You told me once we couldn't live to ourselves alone. I didn't understand then. I do now. I am guilty but you have to suffer with me for my mistakes. It is that that hurts worst of all.
"You have been wonderful to me always, had oceans of patience when I disappointed you and hurt you and worried you over and over again. And now here is this last, worst thing of all to forgive. Can you do it, Uncle Phil? Please try. And please don't worry about me, nor let the others. I'll come through all right. And if I don't I am not afraid of death. I have found out there are lots of worse things in the world. I haven't any pipe dreams about coming out a hero of any sort but I do mean to come out the kind of a man you won't be ashamed of and to try my darnedest to live up a little bit to the Holiday specifications. Again, dear Uncle Phil, please forgive me if you can and write as soon as I can send an address." Then a brief postscript. "The check Madeline sent back never got to me. If it is forwarded to the Hill please send it or rather its equivalent to the president. I wouldn't touch the money with a ten foot pole. I never wanted it for myself but only for Madeline and she is beyond needing anything any of us can give her now."