CHAPTER V
WHEN Fred Walton left Dearing's office, he went along the street toward his father's home. He walked slowly, absolute despair showing itself in the droop of his powerful body, and in the helpless, animal glare of his eyes. He had reached a point from which, the street being on a slight elevation, he could see the old house in which he was born. He paused. All about him was peace, stillness, and incongruous content. The town clock, capping the brick stand-pipe of the waterworks, struck nine solemn strokes, and he could feel the after-vibrations of the mellow metal as the sound died away. He turned, leaving his home on the left, and walked on aimlessly till the houses which bordered the way became more scattered, and then he reached a bridge which spanned a little river. A full moon was rising. Through the foliage of the near-by trees it looked like a world of fire away off in space. Its red rays fell on the swiftly rushing water, throwing on its surface a path of flaming blood. He went out on the structure, and leaned against the iron railing. Just beyond the end of the bridge rose a green-clad hill. It had a high fence around it, and a wide gateway with a white, crescent-shaped sign above it. It was the Stafford cemetery.
“Yes, I ought to see it once more before I go,” he said. “It will be the last time—the very last; and surely, though I'll blush in her dead presence, thief as I am, I ought to go.”
He crossed to the other side, and went into the gate of the enclosure. Threading his way among the monuments, his brow reverently bared to the solemn moonlight, he came to a square plot surrounded by an ivy-coated brick wall with a granite coping. It contained several graves bearing his name, but only one engaged his attention. He sat down on its footstone, and, with his head still bare, he remained motionless for a long time.
“She didn't know the son she used to be so proud of would ever come to this,” he said, bitterly. “With all her hopes and prayers, she little knew that I'd be an outcast—actually forced to flee from the law; she little dreamed it would come to that when she used to talk of the great and good things I was to do. Poor, dear, little mother! You'd rather be dead than alive to-night. I wonder if it is absolutely too late? Perhaps, far away, under a new name and among strangers, I may be able to live differently. And if I could, she would know and be glad. Mother, listen, dear!” A sob rose in him, and shook him from head to foot. “The wrong I did was done when my brain was turned by liquor, and I did not realize my danger till it was too late; I swear here—right here—to you, dear little mother, that from this moment on I'll try to be better. I may fail, but I'll try. I swear, too, that from this moment on I'll bend every energy of my soul and body to the undoing of the thing of which I am guilty.”
He stood up. Ten solemn strokes of the town clock rang out on the profound stillness. The air was vibrant with a myriad insect voices from the marshes along the river. Rays of lamplight shot across the shrubbery between the shafts and the slabs of stone. They came from a window in the cottage of the sexton of the cemetery. The lone visitor saw a shaggy head of hair, a long, ragged beard the color of the clay beneath the soil, and a rugged face, gashed and seamed by time. The old man was smoking—placidly smoking. Even a humble digger of graves could be content, while this young, vigorous soul was steeped in the dregs of despair. Walton turned away, slowly retraced his steps to the outside, crossed the river, and, careful to avoid meeting any one, he finally came again to his father's house. It was dark.
“I might get in at a window and bring away a few things to wear,” he reflected. “But no, I must not risk it. He might meet me face to face and demand the truth. I'd have to tell him. Sharp of sight, and suspicious as he now is, he would read it in my face, and order my arrest. Yes, he would do it. He is my father, but he would do it.”
On he went, now headed for the square. Reaching the bank, the thought occurred to him that, having a key, he would go in and write a note to his father. A moment later he had locked himself within the stifling place, and under a flaring gas-jet, and seated on the high office-stool at a desk, he wrote as follows:
My Dear Father,—Surprised though you've never been at my numerous bad acts, you will be now at what I am about to confess. For more than a week I have been covering up a shortage in my account which amounts to more than you can afford to lose without warning. I am five thousand dollars behind, and am absolutely unable to replace it. I shall make no excuses. Being your son gave me no right to the money, but taking it at a time when I believed it would save me in a certain speculation in futures, I told myself that I had the right, as your son and heir, to borrow it. That I looked at it that way, and was half intoxicated at the time the deed was committed, is all that I can say by way of palliation of my offence.