Abernethey nimbly caught up two of the bags, and bore them to the table that stood against the wall to the right of the vault, where he set them down with a softness of movement which was like a caress in its tenderness. Then, he sank into a chair beside the table, and began untying the cord that held shut the mouth of one of the bags. It was only a matter of seconds until the sack gaped open—he paused now, to stare about the room with furtive, fearful eyes. His scrutiny was directed principally toward the windows: his lips were drawn in a snarl as he realized that the shades had not been pulled down. He sprang to his feet, and darted to the nearest, where he arranged the shade to his satisfaction, mumbling and mouthing the while. Afterward, he made a round of the room, very swiftly, yet using all care to render himself secure from observation by anyone without. A glance at the doors having shown him that all these were shut fast, he at last strode back to the table, where the money-bags awaited him. The chair was drawn close; into it, Abernethey sagged heavily, as if in sudden relaxation from the taut energy that had urged him on hitherto. For a half-minute, he sat crouched over the table in an attitude of utter weariness, almost of collapse. But abruptly, he aroused himself from the clutch of lethargy. Once again, he held himself upright; again, his eyes searched the room craftily, alight with emotional fires. Finally, his arms rose swiftly, swooped forward and downward, until the talonlike fingers closed on the bags, which he drew tight to his breast where it pressed against the table. In this posture, which was like an embrace, he remained moment after moment, tense, alert, movelessly alive in every fibre of him. Then, putting term to the rapturous pause the old man sighed faintly, as one who, with infinite reluctance, awakes from ecstasy. He sat rigid, and pushed the two bags a slight distance from the edge of the table. For another little interval, he stared at them, half-doubtfully, in the manner of one returning slowly to reality after the illusions of a dream. A second sigh was breathed from his lips, not blissful now, but weighted with bleak despair. Presently, he tossed his head impatiently, and began fumbling with the string of the second bag. This yielded speedily, as had that of the first. In another instant, he had poured forth the contents of the two sacks; on the table before him lay twin heaps of gold.
Afterward, for more than an hour, the miser gave full play to his vice. Before the smoldering fires of the metal, he worshiped devoutly, abjectly. His soul prostrated itself in adoration beneath the golden glory that he so loved and reverenced. At times, he plunged his fingers within the heaps, listening raptly to the clinking song of the coins as they were moved haphazard by the contact; at times, he sat dumb, crooning softly, as if these bits of metal had been sentient things to hark to his hymn of praise. Other vagaries were his, innumerable follies, nameless abasements before this, his most sacred shrine.
Of a sudden, Abernethey sprang to his feet. Leaving the glittering piles on the table, he hurried to the piano, where he seated himself with face turned toward the altar of his worship. The supple fingers touched the keys anew; the melancholy air which he had played before sounded once again. But now, it was rendered simply, without extremes of emotion on the part of its interpreter, without variations in its harmonic forms. Instead, the old man played it slowly and gently throughout, repeating it monotonously many times. The morbid rhythm stood forth ghastly in its naked, sordid truth. It came as a hopeless confession of despair, the ultimate fact in the vice that was his master.
Abernethey went back to the table, stacked coins until he had the measure of a bagful, and thus divided the gold, which was then returned to the sacks. Next, he brought forth other bags from the vault, until the table was covered. This done, he went out of the room, to reappear after a minute, wearing an old soft hat and a rain-coat with capacious pockets, in which he stored, one by one, the bags of gold.
“Two more trips will do it,” he muttered to himself, as he turned to close and lock the vault. “I must dictate that letter tonight.” Under the touch of his hand, the section of wainscoting swung back into its place. There was not even the suggestion of a crevice to hint of the hiding-place behind the carved wood; the miser turned, and went hastily from the room.
The Dresden clock on the mantel had just sounded the hour of four with its golden notes when Abernethey reentered. The water ran in a stream from his hat; all around him on the floor, as he came to a stand inside the door, drops from the rain-coat formed a growing pool. With a gesture of weariness, he cast off the hat, then freed himself from the coat, which he threw down on the floor with a carelessness which of itself was sufficient evidence that the treasure of gold was no longer there. He went forward to the fireplace, where he sank down into the morris chair, huddling without movement, as one exhausted. It was half an hour before he had rested enough for further exertion. Then, clumsily and with many groans, he stood up, and once more left the room. He returned soon with a phonograph and a box of rolls, which he set on the table. After he had arranged the machine, he began to dictate a letter into the receiver. His words came distinctly, swiftly, without ever any trace of hesitation. As soon as the first roll had been filled with the record, he paused to insert another, and then straightway continued with similar precision. When, at last, the miser made an end, he had used many rolls, and the first gleam of dawn was beating weakly on the drawn shades of the room.