Crane saw all this with fierce satisfaction. He had planned this sudden accusation with subtle forethought. It even gave him relief to feel his suffering shifted to another; he was no longer the a.s.sailed by evil fortune, he was the a.s.sailant. Already the sustaining force of right was on his side; what a dreadful thing it was to squirm and shrink in the toils of crime. A thought that he might have been like this had he allowed Mortimer to stand accused flashed through his mind. He waited for his victim to speak.

At last Ca.s.s found strength to say: "Mr. Crane, this is a terrible accusation; there is some dreadful mistake--I did not--"

The other interrupted him. The man's defense must be so abjectly hopeless, such a cowardly weak string of lies, that out of pity, as he might have ceased to beat a hound, Crane continued, speaking rapidly, holding the guilty man tight in the grasp of his fierce denunciation.

"You stole that note. You sent it, with a quick-delivery stamp to your brother, Billy Ca.s.s, in New York, and he bet it for you on my horse, The Dutchman, on the 13th, and lost it. Mortimer, thinking that Alan Porter had taken the money, replaced it, and you nearly committed a greater crime than stealing when you allowed him to be dishonored, allowed him to be accused and all but convicted of your foolish sin. It is useless to deny it, all this can be proved in court. I have weighed the matter carefully, and if you confess you will not be prosecuted; if you do not, you will be sent to the penitentiary."

Ca.s.s, stricken beyond the hope of defense, rose from his chair, steadying himself with his hands on the table, leaned far over it, as though he were drawn physically by the fierce magnetism of his accuser, and spoke in a voice scarce stronger than the treble of a child's: "My G.o.d! Mr. Crane! Do you mean it, that you won't prosecute me? Did you say that?"

"Not if you confess."

"Thank G.o.d--thank you, sir. I'm glad, I'm glad; I've been in h.e.l.l for days. I haven't slept. Mortimer's eyes have stared at me all through the night, for I liked him--everybody liked him--he was good to me. Oh, G.o.d!

I should have gone out of my mind with more of it. I didn't steal the money--no, no! I didn't mean to steal it; the Devil put it into my hands. Before G.o.d, I never stole a dollar in my life. But it wasn't that--it wasn't the money--it was to think that an innocent man was to suffer--to have his life wrecked because of my folly."

How it was coming home to Crane. Had he not dabbled his hands in the same sin, almost committed it?

"You have never known what it is to suffer in that way. But let me tell you all. I must. Then perhaps you will understand how I was tempted. For years I have been ground in poverty. My mother and my sister, even my brother have all looked to me. My brother should have supported them, but all his money went on the race course, gambling. When I heard Alan Porter tell Mortimer that your horse was sure to win, for the first time in my life I felt a desire to get money that way. But I had no money to bet. That day as I went into the vault I saw under a lower shelf--the Devil drew my eyes that way--a bank note. I hardly knew it was a bank note, for I saw but a piece of paper indistinctly in the dim light. I picked it up. Oh, G.o.d! if I hadn't touched it! I looked at it. My heart jumped in my throat and choked me; my head swam. In my ears were strange voices, saying: 'Take it! Put it in your pocket!' Perhaps it was because it was so large--a thousand dollars--perhaps it was because it seemed lost, out of place, I don't know. I had handled thousands and thousands before, and never felt that way.

"The devil voices that were in my ears said: 'This is your chance. Take it, borrow it, no one will know. Bet it on the horse that will surely win, and you will get many thousands; then you can replace it, and for once in your life you will know what it is to have something of your own.'"

"I tried to put it back. I couldn't. The voices called me a fool, a coward. I thought of my mother, my sister, what I could do if I had the courage. I tried to take it in to Mr. Lane and say that I had found it.

I couldn't. Oh, my G.o.d! you don't know what it is to be tempted! You have been successful, and don't know how miserably weak ill-fortune makes a man. I yielded--I took it; then when its loss was discovered, and Mortimer was accused, I tried to confess--I couldn't; I was a coward, a traitor, a Judas. Oh, G.o.d!"

The overwrought man threw himself face down on the table in front of his grim accuser, like a child's broken doll, and wept with great sobs that shook his frame as the wind lashes the waters into turmoil.

An exultation of righteous victory swept through Crane's soul. He might have been like that; he had been saved from it by his love for a good woman. He could not despise the poor broken creature who confessed so abjectly, because all but in deed he also had sinned. The deepest cry of despair from Ca.s.s was because of the sin he had committed against his friend--against Mortimer.

Crane waited until Ca.s.s's misery had exhausted itself a little, and when he spoke his voice was soft in pity.

"I understand. Sit in your chair there and be a man. Half an hour ago I thought you a thief--I don't now. You had your time of weakness, perhaps all men have that; you fell by the wayside. I don't think you'll do it again."

"No, no, no! I wouldn't go through the h.e.l.l I've lived in again for all the money in the world. And I'm so glad that it is known; I feel relief."

"Well, it is better that the truth has come out, because everything can be put right. I was going to make you pay back the thousand dollars to Mortimer--I was going to drive you from the bank--I was going to let it be known that you had stolen the money, but now, I must think. You must have another chance. It's a dangerous thing to wreck lives--"

"My G.o.d! it is; that's what haunted me night and day. I felt as though I had murdered a man who had been my friend. I knew he thought young Porter had taken it and was shielding him. The memory of the misery in Mortimer's face at being counted a thief would have stuck to me if I had lived a hundred years."

Ca.s.s had interrupted Crane. When he ceased again out of exhaustion, Crane proceeded, "Mortimer must be paid back the money."

"I'll save and work my fingers off till I do it."

"You can't. Those dependent upon you would starve. I'll attend to that myself."

"And you will let me go without--"

"No, you can't go."

"My G.o.d! I'm to be prosecuted?"

"No, you can stay in the bank. I don't think you'll ever listen to the voices again; it's bad business."

Ca.s.s sat and stared at the strange man who said these things out of silly expressionless eyes that were blurred full of tears.

"Yes, you can go right on as you have been. It will be understood that the money was found, had been mislaid; I'll think that out. It's n.o.body's business just now; I run the bank and you take orders from me.

Go back to your desk and stay there. I've got to tell Mortimer and Miss Porter that you made this mistake, and Lane, too, I suppose, but n.o.body else will ever know of it. I was going to make you sign a confession, but it's not needed. You may go now."

Ca.s.s rose, his thin legs seeming hopelessly inadequate to the task of carrying his body, and said, "Will you take my hand, sir?"

"Of course I will. Just do right from this on, and forget-no, better not forget; remember that there is no crime like weakness; all crime comes from weakness. Be strong, and listen to no more voices. But I needn't tell you. I know from this out I can trust you further than a man who has never been tried."

At the door Ca.s.s turned and looked back at the man who had reached down into the abyss, pulled him up, and stood him on his feet. The man was sitting quite still, his back to the light, his head drooped, and Ca.s.s could not see his face. He strove futilely for some adequate expression of grat.i.tude, but his senses were numb from the shock of what he had escaped; he simply nodded twice toward the sitting figure, turned, and pa.s.sed out into the street, where the sunlight baptized him with warmth as though he had been born again.

"Poor, weak devil!" muttered Crane; then he shivered. Had the imbecile's talk of voices got on to his nerves? Surely a voice had whispered derisively in his ear, "Which one is the poor, weak devil?" And in answer within his soul Crane knew that the margin was indeed of infinitesimal narrowness. Ca.s.s, hastened in his temptation, yielding to the first insane impulse, not knowing that the d.a.m.nation of a friend hung on his act, had fallen. He, Crane, in full knowledge that two innocent lives might be wrecked by his doing, had been kept to the right only after hours of struggle, and by the supporting influence of a supreme love. To have gained Allis Porter by the strategy of a villain could not be the method of holy pa.s.sion. To sacrifice his desire and give her back her lover was love, love worthy of the girl.

For an hour he waited; then there was turmoil on the stairway; horses were surely coming up. At the door a thick voice explained the diversion. The hostler had again arrived, with an hour of increased drunkenness pulling mercilessly at his erratic legs.

"John Porter's gal 'sh here, an'--an'--" the hostler wrestled with the mental exercise that had been entrusted to his muddled brain. He'd swear that she was there, for his eyes had seen her, two of her; and also he had a hazy idea that when he essayed the stairs she had entrusted to him some message. He groped fitfully among the wheels that buzzed in his skull for the elusive something connected with her advent. The heredity of habit came to his a.s.sistance.

"D'ye want a drink?" he asked, with a sudden brightening.

"Drink!" a voice cried. "I don't want any drink" A strong hand had him by the collar, and the house was rocking violently to and fro; he could scarcely keep his feet.

"Wake up, you're drunk. Is Miss Porter down stairs?"

"Porter, Porter, yesh, Portersh gal; thatsh what I said. Whatsh matter with you?--leg-go. Keep cool, don't get excited."

"Here, get out--go down stairs!" And he did, hurriedly.

Crane had followed him down. Allis was standing just within the hall door.

"Good afternoon, Miss Porter," he said. "It was good of you to come.

I've got something very important to tell you, and it's better that we have quiet--it doesn't seem quite the usual order of things here.

Should you mind coming upstairs to the sitting room, where we shall be undisturbed?"

"I don't mind," answered the girl, simply.

"Have a chair," he said, motioning to the one Ca.s.s had lately sat in.

Crane did not take the other seat, but paced restlessly up and down the room; it cooled the fever of his mind.

"I hope it isn't more bad news, Mr. Crane," Allis said; for her companion seemed indisposed to break the silence.

"It is--" the girl started--"for me," Crane added, after a little pause; "and yet I am glad."

"That sounds strange," Allis commented, wonderingly.

"What I am going to say to you means the destruction of the dearest hope I have in life, but it can't be helped. Now I wouldn't have it any other way."