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Show aakold nccMml m ) The Place f Honeymoons, etc. COPYRIGHT BY Tfif aOB3J-r5mLL COHfAJIY w CHAPTER XX. 16 He That Was Dead. "Yes. it is I, the unlucky penny; Old Kalahari, in flesh and blooii and bone. 1 shouldn't get white over it, Arthur. It Isn't worth while. I can see that you haven't changed much, unless it is that your hair is a little paler at the temples. Gray? I'll wager I've a few myself." There was a flippancy in his tone that astonished Warrington's own ears, for certainly this light mooke.y did not come from within. At heart he was sober enough. To steady the thundering beat of his pulso he crossed the room, righted the chair, stacked the books and laid them on the desk. Arthur did not move save to turn his head and to follow fol-low with fascinated gaze his brother's movements. "Now, Arthur, I've only a little while. I cau see by your eyes that you are conjuring up nil sorts of terrible ter-rible things. But nothing is going to happen. I am going to talk to you; then I'm going away; and tomorrow it w ill be easy to convince yourself that you have seen only a ghost. Sit down. I'll take this chair at the left." Arthur's hands slid from the desk; In a kind of collapse he sat down. Suddenly Sud-denly he laid his bead upon his arms, and a great sigh sent its tremor across his shoulders. Warrington felt his j heart swell. The past faded away; his wrongs became vapors. He saw only his brother, the boy he had loved so devotedly, Arty, his other self, his scholarly other self. Why blame Arthur? Ar-thur? He, Paul, was the fool. "Don't take it like that, Arty," he Bald. The other's hand stretched out blindly toward the voice. "Ah, great God, Taul!" "I know! Perhaps I've brooded too much." Warrington crushed the hand In his two stroDg oues. "The main fault was mine. I couldn't see the length of my nose. I threw a temptation tempta-tion in your way which none but a demigod could have resisted. That night, when I got your note telling me what you had done, I did a damnably foolish thing. I went to the club bar and drank heavily. I was wild to help you, but I cojldn't see how. At two In the morning I thought I saw the way. Drunken men get strange ideas Into their heads. You were the apple of the mother's eyes; I was only her son. No use denying it- She worshiped you; tolerated me. I came back to the house, packed up what 1 absolutely needed, and took the first train west It all depended upon what you'd do. You let me go, Arty, old boy. I suppose sup-pose you were pretty well knocked up, when you learned what I had done. And then you let things drift. It was only natural. I had opened the way for you. Mother, learning that I was a thief, restored the defalcation to save the family honor, which was your future. We were always more or less hard pressed for funds. I did not gamble, bu. I wasted a lot. The mother moth-er gave us an allowance of five thousand thou-sand each. To this I managed to add another five and you another four. You were always borrowing from me. I never questioned what you did with it. I would to God I had! It would have saved us a lot of trouble." The band In his relayed and slipped from the clasp. "Some of these things will sound bitter, but the heart In-hind them isn't. So I did what I thought to be a great and glorious thing. 1 was sober when I reached Chicago. I saw my deed from another angle.. Think of it; we could have given our Joint note to mother's bank for the amount, (lid Henderson would have discounted il In a second. It was loo late. I went on. The few hundreds 1 bail gave out. I've been up against it pretty hard. There were times when I envied the pariah dug. Hut fortune came around one day, knocked, and I let her In I returned to make n restitution, only to learn that It had been made by you, long ago. A trick of young Klinoro's I shouldn't have come hack If I could have sent the money." Arthur raised his head and sat up. "Ah, why did you not write? Why did you not let me know where )ou were? God Is my witness, if there Is n corner cor-ner of this world iinsearchcd for you For two years 1 had a man hunting, lie gave up I believed you dead." "Dead? Well, I was In a sense." "You have suffered, hut not as I have. Always you ha. before you your great, splendid, foolish s.'n rlllen. I had nothing to bony me up; there was ' nly the di ., .1 lb" i ei i.l ii i t ion of an c. II deed, .'hd a moment of pitiful weak- nef-s. 'lie' fllpl;tioM was too glial, J'a'il." "I low did II happen ?" o,v doe:', anything like that hap. j-eij? Clumsily diew lie' find, f.ir at ( idl' I'e I II' Ver pl.lV' d hill a fi vv ('..lines of bridge. Cm lowly, il.-aii ", 1 1 1 -1 1 lie' full III. I." of Hie pSK.-UOII. You vvill lie-.er l.now what that In. I'iiiiI. It In r.t ronc r Hum love, or faith, or honor. Cod known I lover ilmmdil myself weak; nl mi hool I was Hie least lin pi'tuoiri of the two. ', er Ihlm: went, lilnl I In V i In n I i d me fl inn t he Ida i t ltoul""" and lino 'I In n I (nil mv hund in the safe. To this day I cannot tell why. I owed nothing to those despicable despica-ble thieves, Craig least of all." "Craig. I met him over there, 'lira-meled 'lira-meled him." "I didn't act like a man. Some day a comfortable fortune would fall to the lot of each of us. lint 1 tool; eight thousand, lost it, and came whining to you. You don't belong to (his petty age, Paul. You ought to have been a fellow of the round table." Arthur smiled wanly. "To throw your life away like that, for a brother who wasn't tit to lace your shoes! If you had written you would have learned that everything was smoothed over. The Andes people dropped the matter entirely. You loved the mother far better than I." "And she must never know," quietly. "Do you mean that?" "I always mean everything I say, Arty. Can't you see the uselessness of telling her now? She has gone all these years with the belief that I am a thief. A thief, Arty. I, who never stole anything save a farmer's apples. They would have called you a defaulter; that's because you had access to the safe, whereas I had none." Arthur winced. "I don't propose to disillusion the mother. I am strong enough to go away without seeing her; and God knows bow my heart yearns, and my ears and eyes and arms." Warrington reached mechanically for the portrait in the silver frame, but Arthur stayed his hand. "No, Taul; that is mine." Warrington dropped his hand, puzzled. puz-zled. "I was not going to destroy It," ironically. "No; but in a sense you have destroyed de-stroyed me. Compensation. What trifling thought most of us give that word! The law of compensation. For ten years Elsa has been the flower o' the corn for me. She almost loved me. And one day she sees you; aiid In that one day all that 1 bad gained was lost, and all that you had lost was gained. The law of compensation. Sometimes we escape retribution, but never the law of compensation. Some months ago she wrote me a letter. She was always direct. It was a just letter." A pause. Arthur gazed steadily at the portrait, while Warrington twisted twist-ed his yellow beard. "The ways of mothers are mysterious," mysteri-ous," said the latter, finally. He wondered won-dered if Arthur would confess to the blacker deed, or have it forced from him. He would wait and see. "The father and the mother weren't happy. Money. There's the wedge. It's In every life somewhere. A marriage of convenience Is an unwise thing. When we were born the mother turned to us. "Yes, It Is I, the Unlucky Penny." j Fp to the time we were six or seven t here w as no (list Inet Ion In her love for us. Hut on the day the father set bis choice upon me, she Het heis upon you. You'll never know how I suflered as a boy. when I saw the distance growing wider and wider with the years. Per-haps Per-haps the father understood, for lie Was always kind and gentle to uie. I ex-peel ex-peel to return to China shortly. The Andes has taken me back. Sounds like a fairy tale; eh? I shall never return re-turn here. Hut did you know who Klsa ('helvvood was?" "Not until that letter came." Neillu r of tin in hi aid Hie faint ga sp w ll h ll eauie f I mil behind the peilious dividing tin' study and (lie I living room, 'I lie gasp had fnllouetl III.' in V 'liable Unite I In . i . I : . of I h.sr cull lidi'iiei". 'I lie woman In hind those I porlii r' n swayed and lauglit blindly at the Jamb. With ei in I v h illness she saw In lliin l''i i ilil' li u 1 1 1 1 1 n t all that to which idl" had never given nunc than la passing tlioui'.ld. .'o re uoiiohi si ; ; mil v a simple e. Is ra lion id what had I Inn -1 1 ' -1 1 In t Ills boy's hci i I . A nil idle had almost fin gotten thin i.nu. A species of pa l a I y sis lnii hold nf her, b-iiv ing In r for Hie lime Incapable of movement , She ll.sild the deep Voice of tills oilier son nay: "l.oln of kinks In life, 'I here In only one law Hint 1 shall lay down for von. Arlv. You must vlvn up till Idea of marrying hdsa diet- wood." j "It will be easy to obey that. Are j you playing with me, Paul?" "Playing?" echoed Warrington. "Yes. Do you mean to sit there and tell me that you don't know why 1 shall never marry her?" Arthur read the truth in his brother's broth-er's eyes. He smiled weakly, the anger gone. "Same old blind duffer you always were. 1 wrote an answer to her letter. In that letter 1 told her . . . the truth." "You did that?" "J am your brother, Paul. 1 couldn't be a cad as well as a thief. Yes, 1 told her. I told her more, what you never knew. I let Craig believe that 1 was you, Paul. 1 wore your clothes, your scarfpins. your hats. In that 1 was a black villain. God! What a hell 1 lived in. . . . Ah, mother!" Arthur dropped his head upon his arms again. "Paul, my son!" It was Warrington's chair that toppled top-pled over. Framed in the portieres j stood his mother, white-haired, pale but as beautiful as of old. "1 am sorry. I had hoped to get ! away without you knowing." j "Why?" ! "Oh. because tUere wasn't any use of my coming at nil. I'd passed out of j your life, and 1 should have stayed i I 1 I'll'dlli If 1 ! lit!-? ! '- "Eighteen Thousand Miles I Have Traveled to Find You." out. Don't worry. I've got everything mapped out. There's a traiu at midnight." mid-night." Arthur stood up. "Mother, I am the guilty man. I was the thief. All these years I've let you believe that Paul had taken the money. . . ." "Yes, yes!" she Interrupted, never taking her eyes off this otiier son. "I heard every thing behind these curtains. cur-tains. You were going away, Paul, w ithout seeing me?" "What was tile use of stirring up old matters? Of bringing confusion into I this bouse?" He did not look at her. He could not tell her that he now knew what had drawn him hither, that all along he had deceived himself. him-self. "Paul, my son, I have been a wicked w oman." "Why. mother, you mustn't talk like that!" "Wicked! My son, my silent, kind ly, chivalrlc boy, will you forgive your mother? Your unnatural mother?" He caught her before her knees touched the floor; and. ah! how hungrily hun-grily her anus wound about hi in. "What's the use of lying?" he cried I brokenly. "My mother! 1 wanted to hear your voice and feel your arms, j You don't know how I have always I loved you. ll was n long time, a very . long time. Perhaps 1 was to be .blamed. I was proud, and kept away from yiui. Don't cry. There, there! 1 'can go away now, happy." Over his I mother's shoulders, now moving with silent stabbing sobs, he held out his hand to bis brother. Presently, above the two bowed heads. Warrington's i 1 1 vv ii rose, transfigured w ith happiness. ! The hall door opened and closed, but none of them regarded It. Hy and by the mother stood away, hut within arm's length. "How big and strong yon have grown, Paul." "In heart, too. mother," added Arthur. Ar-thur. "Old Galahad!" "You mind never leave us nintln, Paul. Promise." "May I always come hack?" "Always!" And she took his hand and pressed It tightly against her cheek "Always! Ah. your poor blind ; mot her! " "Always to come back ! ... I inn going to China In a little while, to take up the work I have always loved the building of hrldg.cn." "And I am going, loo!" It was lsa, at b'T journey 's end. Jealous love Is keen of eve There was death In Arthur's heart, lint lie i 1 1 ; 1 1 e 1 1 at her. After nil, what w as more logical than thai nl'e should lip I pea i,i I his inoini'lil ? by nip ( he cup when II might he drained at once, over with and done w 11 h ? "Kb. a!" said the mother, holding Wan linden's baud in (loser grasp. " Y es. inoi her. Ah, why did y on not tell n II?" Arthur walked to the lung window that opened out upon the garden. '1 here, lor a moment , he pa used. I lien passed it iin the room. "Go to I i L 1 1 1 . mother," mild Klsn, wise ly nnd Willi pity. 'I he mother he dialed, pulled by the old and Hie new love by the fear that the new found could lie hois hut a lit- He while Slowly Hhe let I'mils lined tall, and slower still she followed Ar thur's footsteps. "1 wasn't quite brave enough." he said, when she found him. "They love. And love me well, mother, for I am the broken man." She pressed his head against her heart. "My boy!" Hut her glance was leveled at the nmber-tlnted window through which she had come. To Warrington, Flsa was a little thinner, and of color there was none; but her eyes shone with all the splendor splen-dor of the oriental stars at which he had so often gazed witli mute inquiry. "Galahad!" she said, and smiled. "Well, what have you to say?" "I? In God's name, what can I say but that I love you?" "Well, say it. and stop the ache, in my heart! Say it. and make me forget for-get the weary eighteen thousand miles I have journeyed to find you! Say It. and hold me close for I am tired! . . . Listen!" she whispered, lifting her head from his shoulder. From out the "stillness of the summer sum-mer night came a jarring note, the eternal protest of Rajah. Till': KM). |