Main-Travelled Roads Part 51

He knew he could not deceive his wife's ears and eyes just then, so he remained silent. "We've got to leave, Nell," he admitted at last.

"Why? What for?"

"Because I'm busted-broke-gone up the spout-and all the rest!" he said desperately, with an attempt at fun. "Mrs. Bingham and Mrs.

McIlvaine have busted me-dead."

"Why-why-what has become of the money-all the money the people have put in there?"

"Gone up with the rest."

"What 've you done with it? I don't-"

"Well, I've invested it-and lost it."

"James Gordon Sanford!" she exclaimed, trying to realize it. "Was that right? Ain't that a case of-of-"

"Shouldn't wonder. A case of embezzlement such as you read of in the newspapers." His tone was easy, but he avoided the look in his wife's beautiful gray eyes.

"But it's-stealing-ain't it?" She stared at him, bewildered by his reckless lightness of mood.- "It is now, because I've lost. If I'd'a won it, it 'ud 'a' been financial shrewdness!"

She asked her next question after a pause, in a low voice, and through teeth almost set. "Did you go into this bank to-steal this money? Tell me that!"

"No; I didn't, Nell. I ain't quite up to that."

His answer softened her a little, and she sat looking at him steadlly as he went on. The tears began to roll slowly down her cheeks. Her hands were clenched.

"The fact is, the idea came into my head last fall when I went up to Superior. My partner wanted me to go in with him on some land, and I did. We speculated on the growth of the town toward the south. We made a strike; then he wanted me to go in on a copper mine. Of course I expected-"

As he went on with the usual excuses her mind made all the allowances possible for him. He had always been boyish, impulsive, and lacking in judgment and strength of character. She was humiliated and frightened, but she loved and sympathized with him.

Her silence alarmed him, and he made excuses for himself. He was speculating for her sake more than for his own, and so on.

"Cho-coo!" whistled the far-off train through the still air.

He sprang up and reached for his coat.

She seized his arm again. "Where are you going?" she sternly asked.

"To take that train."

'When are you coming back?"

"I don't know." But his tone said, "Never."

She felt it. Her face grew bitter. "Going to leave me and-the babies?"

"I'll send for you soon. Come, goodbye!" He tried to put his arm about her. She stepped back.

"Jim, if you leave me tonight" ("Choo-choo!" whistled the engine) "you leave me forever." There was a terrible resolution in her tone.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I'm going to stay here. If you go-I'll never be your wife-again-never!" She glanced at the sleeping children, and her chin trembled.

"I can't face those fellows-they'll kill me," he said in a sullen tone.

"No, they won't. They'll respect you, if you stay and tell 'em exactly how-it-all-is. You've disgraced me and my children, that's what you've done! If you don't stay-"

The clear jangle of the engine bell sounded through the night as with the whiz of escaping steam and sc.r.a.pe and jar of gripping brakes and howl of wheels the train came to a stop at the station.

Sanford dropped his coat and sat down again.

+ "I'll have to stay now." His tone was dry and lifeless. It had a reproach in it that cut the wife deep-deep as the fountain of tears; and she went across the room and knelt at the bedside, burying her face in the clothes on the feet of her children, and sobbed silently.

The man sat with bent head, looking into the glowing coal, whistling through his teeth, a look of sullen resignation and endurance on his face that had never been there before. His very att.i.tude was alien and ominous.

Neither spoke for a long time. At last he rose and began taking off his coat and vest.

"Well, I suppose there's nothing to do but go to bed."

She did not stir-she might have been asleep so far as any sound or motion was concerned. He went off to the bed in the little parlor, and she still knelt there, her heart full of anger, bitterness, sorrow.

The sunny uneventfulness of her past life made this great storm the more terrifying. Her trust in her husband had been absolute. A farmer's daughter, the bank clerk had seemed to her the equal of any gentleman in the world-her world; and when she knew his delicacy, his unfailing kindness, and his abounding good nature, she had accepted him as the father of her children, and this was the first revelation to her of his inherent moral weakness.

Her mind went over the whole ground again and again, in a sort of blinding rush. She was convinced of his lack of honor more by his tone, his inflections, than by his words. His lack of deep regret, his readiness to leave her to bear the whole shock of the discovery--these were in his flippant tones; and everytime she thought of them the hot blood surged over her. At such moments she hated him, and her white teeth clenched.

To these moods succeeded others, when she remembered his smile, the dimple in his chin, his tender care for the sick, his buoyancy, his songs to the children-How could he sit there, with the children on his knees, and plan to run away, leaving them disgraced?

She went to bed at last with the babies, and with their soft, warm little bodies touching her side fell asleep, pondering, suffering as only a mother and wife can suffer when distrust and doubt of her husband supplant confidence and adoration.

IV

The children awakened her by their delighted cooing and kissing.

It was a great event, this waking to find mamma in their bed. It was hardly light, of a dull gray morning; and with the children tumbling about over her, feeling the pressure of the warm little hands and soft lips, she went over the whole situation again, and at last settled upon her action.

She rose, shook down the coal in the stove in the sitting room, and started a fire in the kitchen; then she dressed the children by the coal burner. The elder of them, as soon as dressed, ran in to wake "Poppa" while the mother went about breakfast-getting.

Sanford came out of his bedroom unwontedly gloomy, greeting the children in a subdued maimer. He s.h.i.+vered as he sat by the fire and stirred the stove as if he thought the room was cold. His face was pale and moist.

"Breakfast is ready, James," called Mrs. Sanford in a tone which she meant to be habitual, but which had a cadence of sadness in it.

Some way, he found it hard to look at her as he came out. She busied herself with placing the children at the table, in order to conceal her own emotion.

"I don't believe I'll eat any meat this morning, Nellie. I ain't very well."

She glanced at him quickly, keenly. "What's the matter?"

"I d'know. My stomach is kind of upset by this failure o' mine. I'm in great shape to go down to the bank this morning and face them fellows."

"It's got to be done."