A CONFESSION.

Mr. Lurton wisely left the room. Mrs. Plausaby's fears of death soon awakened again, and she begged Isa to ask Mr. Lurton to come back. Like most feeble people, she had a superst.i.tious veneration for ecclesiastical authority, and now in her weakened condition she had readily got a vague notion that Lurton held her salvation in his hands, and could modify the conditions if he would.

"You aren't a Catholic are you, Mr. Lurton?"

"No, I am not at all a Catholic."

"Well, then, what makes you want me to confess?"

"Because you are adding to your first sin a greater one in wronging your son by not confessing."

"Who told you that? Did Albert?"

"No, you told me as much as that, yourself."

"Did I? Why, then I might as well tell you all. But why won't that do?"

"Because, that much would not get Albert out of prison. You don't want to leave him in penitentiary when you're gone, do you?"

"Oh, dear! I can't tell. Plausaby won't let me. Maybe I might tell Isa."

"That will do just as well. Tell Miss Marlay." And Lurton walked out on the piazza.

For half an hour Mrs. Plausaby talked to Isa and told her nothing. She would come face to face with the confession, and then say that she could not tell it, that Plausaby would do something awful if he knew she had said so much.

At last Isabel was tired out with this method, and was desperate at the thought that Plausaby would return while yet the confession was incomplete. So she determined to force Mrs. Plausaby to speak.

"Now, Mrs. Plausaby," she said, "what did Uncle Plausaby say to you that made you take that letter of Smith Westcott's?"

"I didn't take it, did I? How do you know? I didn't say so?"

"You have told me part, and if you tell me the rest I will keep it secret for the present. If you don't tell me, I shall tell Uncle Plausaby what I know, and tell him that he must tell me the rest."

"You wouldn't do that, Isabel? You couldn't do that. Don't do that,"

begged the sick woman.

"Then tell me the truth," she said with sternness. "What made you take that land-warrant--for you know you did, and you must not tell me a lie when you're just going to die and go before G.o.d."

"There now, Isa, I knew you would hate me. That's the reason why I can't tell it. Everybody has been looking so hateful at me ever since I took the letter, I mean ever since--Oh! I didn't mean anything bad, but you know I have to do what Plausaby tells me I must do. He's _such_ a man!

And then he was in trouble. There was some old trouble from Pennsylvania.

The men came on here, and made him pay money, all the money he could get, to keep them from having him put in prison. I don't know what it was all about, you know, I never could understand about business, but here was Albert bothering him about money to pay for a warrant, and these men taking all his money, and here was a trial about some lots that he sold to that fat man with curly hair, and he was afraid Albert would swear against him about that and about the county-seat, and so he wanted to get him away. And there was an awful bother about Katy and Westcott at the same time. And I wanted a changeable silk dress, and he couldn't get it for me because all his money was going to the men from Pennsylvania.

But--I can't tell you any more. I'm afraid Plausaby might come. You won't tell, and you won't hate me, Isa, dear--now, will you? You used to be good to me, but you won't be good to me any more!"

"I'll always love you if you only tell me the rest."

"No, I can't. For you see Plausaby didn't mean any harm, and I didn't mean any harm. Plausaby wanted Albert to go away so they couldn't get Albert to swear against him. It was all Albert's fault, you know--he had such notions. But he was a good boy, and I can't sleep at night now for seeing him behind a kind of a grate, and he seems to be pointing his finger at me and saying, 'You put me in here.' But I didn't. That's one of his notions. It was Plausaby made me do it. And he didn't mean any harm. He said Westcott would soon be his son-in-law. He had helped Westcott to get the claim anyhow. It was only borrowing a little from his own son-in-law. He said that I must get the letter out of the office when Albert did not see me. He said it would be a big letter, with 'Red Owl' stamped on it, and that it would be in Mr. Westcott's box. And he said I must take the land-warrant out and burn up the letter and the envelope. And then he said I must give the land-warrant to Albert the next day, and tell him that a man that came up in the stage brought it from Plausaby. And he said he'd get another and bring it home with him and give it to Westcott, and make it all right. And that would keep him out of prison, and get Albert away so he couldn't swear against him in the suit with the fat man, and then he would be able to get me the changeable silk that I wanted so much. But things went all wrong with him since, and I never got the changeable silk, and he said he would keep Albert out of penitentiary and he didn't, and Albert told me I musn't tell anybody about taking it myself, for he couldn't bear to have me go to prison. Now, won't that do? But don't you tell Plausaby.

He looks at me sometimes so awfully. Oh, dear! if I could have told that before, maybe I wouldn't have died. It's been killing me all the time.

Oh, dear! dear! I wish I was dead, if only I was sure I wouldn't go to the bad place."

Isa now acquainted Lurton briefly with the nature of Mrs. Plausaby's statement, and Lurton knelt by her bedside and turned it into a very solemn and penitent confession to G.o.d, and very trustfully prayed for forgiveness, and--call it the contagion of Lurton's own faith, if you will--at any rate, the dying woman felt a sense of relief that the story was told, and a sense of trust and more peace than she had ever known in her life. Lurton had led her feeble feet into a place of rest. And he found joy in thinking that, though his ministry to rude lumbermen and hardened convicts might be fruitless, he had at least some gifts that made him a source of strength and consolation to the weak, the remorseful, the bereaved, and the dying. He stepped out of the door of the sick-chamber, and there, right before him, was Plausaby, his smooth face making a vain endeavor to keep its hold upon itself. But Lurton saw at once that Plausaby had heard the prayer in which he had framed Mrs.

Plausaby's confession to Isa into a solemn and specific confession to G.o.d. I know no sight more pitiful than that of a man who has worn his face as a mask, when at last the mask is broken and the agony behind reveals itself. Lurton had a great deal of presence of mind, and if he did not think much of the official and priestly authority of a minister, he had a prophet's sense of his moral authority. He looked calmly and steadily into the eyes of Plausaby, Esq., and the hollow sham, who had been unshaken till now, quailed; counterfeit serenity could not hold its head up and look the real in the face. Had Lurton been abashed or nervous or self-conscious, Plausaby might have a.s.sumed an air of indignation at the minister's meddling. But Lurton had nothing but a serene sense of having been divinely aided in the performance of a delicate and difficult duty. He reached out his hand and greeted Plausaby quietly and courteously and yet solemnly. Isabel, for her part, perceiving that Plausaby had overheard, did not care to conceal the indignation she felt.

Poor Plausaby, Esq.! the disguise was torn, and he could no longer hide himself. He sat down and wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and essayed to speak, as before, to the minister, of his anxiety about his poor, dear wife, but he could not do it. Exert himself as he would, the color would not return to his pallid lips, and he had a shameful consciousness that the old serene and complacent look, when he tried it, was sadly crossed by rigid lines of hard anxiety and shame. The mask was indeed broken--the nakedness and villainy could no more be hidden! And even the voice, faithful and obedient hitherto, always holding the same rhythmical pace, had suddenly broken rein, galloping up and down the gamut in a husky jangling.

"Mr. Plausaby, let us walk," said Lurton, not affecting in the least to ignore Plausaby's agitation. They walked in silence through the village out to the prairie. Plausaby, habitually a sham, tried, to recover his ground. He said something about his wife's not being quite sane, and was going to caution Lurton about believing anything Mrs. Plausaby might say.

"Mr. Plausaby," said Lurton, "is it not better to repent of your sins and make rest.i.tution, than to hide them?"

Plausaby cleared his throat and wiped the perspiration from his brow, but he could not trust his voice to say anything.

It was vain to appeal to Plausaby to repent. He had saturated himself in falsehood from the beginning. Perhaps, after all, the saturation had began several generations back, and unhappy Plausaby, born to an inheritance of falsehood, was to be pitied as well as blamed. He was even now planning to extort from his vacillating wife a written statement that should contradict any confession of hers to Isa and Lurton.

Fly swiftly, pen! For Isa Marlay knew the stake in this game, and she did not mean that any chance of securing Charlton's release should be neglected. She knew nothing of legal forms, but she could write a straight-out statement after a woman's fashion. So she wrote a paper which read as follows:

"I do not expect to live long, and I solemnly confess that I took the land-warrant from Smith Westcott's letter, for which my son Albert Charlton is now unjustly imprisoned in the penitentiary, and I did it without the knowledge of Albert, and at the instigation of Thomas Plausaby, my husband."

This paper Isa read to Mrs. Plausaby, and that lady, after much vacillation, signed it with a feeble hand. Then Isabel wrote her own name as a witness. But she wanted another witness. At this moment Mrs. Ferret came in, having an instinctive feeling that a second visit from Lurton boded something worth finding out. Isa took her into Mrs. Plausaby's room and told her to witness this paper.

"Well," said pertinacious Mrs. Ferret, "I'll have to know what is in it, won't I?"

"No, you only want to know that this is Mrs. Plausaby's signature," and Isa placed her fingers over the paper in such a way that Mrs. Ferret could not read it.

"Did you sign this, Mrs. Plausaby?"

The sick woman said she did.

"Do you know what is in it?"

"Yes, but--but it's a secret."

"Did you sign it of your own free will, or did Mr. Plausaby make you?"

"Mr. Plausaby! Oh! don't tell him about it. He'll make such an awful fuss! But it's true."

Thus satisfied that it was not a case of domestic despotism, Mrs. Ferret wrote her peculiar signature, and made a private mark besides.

And later in the evening Mrs. Plausaby asked Isa to send word to that nice-looking young woman that Albert loved so much. She said she supposed he must feel bad about her. She wanted Isa to tell her all about it. "But not till I'm dead," she added. "Do you think people know what people say about them after they're dead? And, Isa, when I'm laid out let me wear my blue merino dress, and do my hair up nice, and put a bunch of roses in my hand. I wish Plausaby had got that changeable silk.

It would have been better than the blue merino. But you know best. Only don't forget to tell Albert's girl that he did not do it. But explain it all so she won't think I'm a--that I did it a-purpose, you know. I didn't mean to. What makes you look at me that way? Oh, dear! Isa, you won't ever love me any more!"

But Isa quieted her by putting her arms around her neck in a way that made the poor woman cry, and say, "That's just the way Katy used to do.

When I die, Katy'll love me all the same. Won't she? Katy always did love a body so." Perhaps she felt that Isabel's love was not like Katy's. For pity is not love, and even Mrs. Plausaby could hardly avoid distinguishing the spontaneous affection of Katy from this demonstration of Isa's, which must have cost her some exertion.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

DEATH.