AUNT RACHEL’S WILL.
BOTH Lilian and myself were miserable while we waited for an answer from Tom Flynn. I pictured to myself the surprise of the noble fellow when he read my letter. I was not worthy of the disinterested friendship he had extended to me, but I did not believe that he would spurn me, as I deserved, in my guilt and shame.
We were tired of London, and rather to seek relief from the misery that preyed upon us than to see the sights, we went over to Paris. There was no peace for me in the gay capital, any more than in England, and at the end of a fortnight we returned to London. I had written to Tom that his answer would find me there. I wished him to inform me whether I could safely return to Boston, for I wished to go there, settle up my business, and then begin life anew in some part of the country where I was not known. The future, therefore, was still a problem to me. My first duty was to pay all that I owed the bank. With the ill-gotten wealth I had with me, and with what Aunt Rachel had left me, if she had left me anything, I should be able to discharge all my obligations.
I felt that I deserved a term in the State Prison, but I was not willing to endure the penalty of my crime. I hoped that I might be permitted to escape if I saved the bank from loss. This settlement was now the question above all others with me, and I looked more earnestly for an opportunity to restore my stolen plunder than I ever had to obtain it. Perhaps if Lilian had not been possessed of my secret I should have felt differently. As it was, she suffered not so much from the fear of what the world would say, as from actual consciousness of my guilt. She had vastly more of real principle than I ever gave her credit for. I had measured her by the standard of her mother, rather than her father. I could not persist in a crime which she so sincerely condemned.
My wife saved me.
The misery which I had suffered before she knew of my guilt was the fear of consequences, the fear of discovery. Her anguish rebuked me. She loved me, even while she despised me for my sin. Day after day we talked of the matter, and I was more and more impressed with the folly and wickedness of my past conduct. A man is a fool to commit a crime.
The three weeks expired, and I looked for my letter from Tom Flynn. It did not come, but I was willing to believe that there was some unavoidable delay. Tom would certainly write. Another week elapsed. I saw by the morning paper that the steamer had passed Cape Clear, and I waited with intense anxiety for the arrival of the mail, which was due in the evening. Lilian and I sat in the parlor awaiting the postman. There was a knock at the door. The letter had come at last, and I hastened to open the door.
Instead of a servant with the letter, at the door stood Tom Flynn!
“Paley, how are you?” exclaimed he, grasping both my hands.
The tears stood in my eyes, for it seemed like the days of innocence to be thus warmly greeted by him. I could not speak. I threw myself on the sofa and wept like a child.