I could not make up my mind to doom her who had given me being, who had watched over me in my childhood, who had loved me as none else but God could love me, to such awful agony as the revelation of my crime would cause her. Was there no way to escape? I could restore the thirty thousand dollars. With the proceeds of my house and furniture I could make up three thousand more. I was really, then, only five thousand dollars in debt—the sum which I had lost in copper stocks. The case seemed not so desperate, after all. I could go to Aunt Rachel, tell her, with the genuine penitence I then felt what a wicked deed I had done. She would lend me five thousand dollars, and I could pay all I owed.
My heart leaped with delight as I thought of this remedy. But then there might be some delay. Lilian was all ready to start for New York. It was possible that the deficit might be discovered before I had raised the money. If it were, I was lost. Still farther, if I paid the three thousand dollars in my possession into the bank, I should not have any thing to furnish another house. I should be compelled to board, and very likely the circumstances would drive me back to Mrs. Oliphant’s. I shuddered as I considered it.
I thought of my mother again, and had almost resolved to adopt the suggestion of my better nature, when I was tempted to enter a bar-room. I drank a glass of whiskey. The effect of strong drink upon me was to stupefy my faculties and make me reckless. I drank a second and then a third glass, in as many different saloons. I forgot my mother then. I was excited, and pictured to myself the delights of foreign travel.
I am almost sure now, so strong was the tendency upon me, that I should have carried out the suggestion of my higher impulses, if I had not entered the bar-room. The devil of whiskey drove the good resolution, still in its formative state, out of my mind. If the thought of my mother came back to me, I drove it from me. In this frame of mind, I could not think of humiliating myself by confessing my errors even to Aunt Rachel, the most indulgent of women.
I walked up Tremont Street, thinking of the future. The die was cast, and I refused to avail myself of the means of escape which were open to me. It was a sorry day for me when I turned from the road which might have restored me to honor and integrity. As the events proved, it would have been better, and I should have realized more than I anticipated. I had long dreamed of seeing the wonders of the old world, and the prospect of doing so at once had a powerful influence upon me. Within twenty-four hours I should be on board of a steamer bound to Europe; but at the same time I should be an exile from home, from honor and integrity, leaving a ruined name and a blasted reputation behind me.
“How are you, Paley?”
It was Tom Flynn. His voice startled me. I would rather have met any other one than him, for his very looks seemed to reproach me.
“Ah, how do you do, Tom?” I replied, in some confusion.
“So you are going to Albany to-night?” he added.