The Guinea Stamp Part 14

'I don't know, uncle. You best know what your own hope is,' she replied.

'I have no hope, and I don't see myself how anybody can presume to have any. It's all conjecture about a future life. How does anybody know?

n.o.body has ever come back to tell the tale.'

'No; but we know, all the same, that there are many mansions in heaven, and that G.o.d has prepared them for His children.'

'You would not call me one of them, I guess?' said the old man, with a touch of sarcasm, yet there was something behind--a great wistfulness, a consuming anxiety, which betrayed itself in his very eye, as he awaited her reply. It was a curious moment, a curious scene. The old, toilworn, world-weary man, who had spent his days in the most sordid pursuit of gold--gold for which he would at one time almost have sold his soul, hanging on the words of a young, untried maiden, whose purity enabled her to touch the very gates of heaven. It was a sight to make the philosopher ponder anew on the mysteries of life, and the strange anomalies human nature presents.

She turned her sweet face to him, and there was a mixture of pathos and brightness in her glance.

'Why not, uncle? I may not judge. It is G.o.d who knows the heart.'

'Ay, maybe. But what would you think yourself? You have shrewd enough eyes, though you are so quiet.'

'But I cannot know this, uncle; only if you believe that Christ died for you, you are one of G.o.d's children, though'--she added, with a slight hesitation--'you may not have served Him very well.'

'Then you think I have not served Him, eh?' he repeated, with strange persistence.

'Perhaps you might have done more, uncle. If you get better you will do more for others, I feel sure,' she said. 'But now you must be still and keep quiet. I shall not talk another word to you, positively not a word.'

'Ay,' he said dryly, and, turning on his pillow, closed his eyes--not to sleep, oh no, brain and heart were too full of conflicting and disturbing thought.

In the dull hours of the early morning Gladys dozed a little in her chair, imagining the sick man slept. When the light grew broader she roused herself, and began to move about with swift but noiseless steps, fearing to awake him. But he did not sleep. Lying there, with his face turned to the wall, Abel Graham held counsel with himself, reviewing his life, which lay before him like a tale that is told. None knew better than he what a poor, mean, sordid, selfish life it had been, how little it had contributed to the good or the happiness of others, and these memories tortured him now with the stings of the bitterest regret. It was not known to any save himself and his Maker what agony his awakened soul pa.s.sed through in the still hours of that spring day. Seeing him lie apparently in such restfulness, the two young creatures spoke to each other at their breakfast only in whispers, and when Walter went up to the warehouse, Gladys continued to perform her slight tasks as gently and noiselessly as possible; but sometimes, when she looked at the face on the pillow, with its closed eyes and pinched, wan features, she wished the doctor would come again.

About half-past nine a knock came to the door, and Gladys ran out almost joyfully, expecting to see the young physician with the honest face and the pleasant eyes, but a very different-looking personage was presented to her view when she opened the door. A man in shabby workman's garb, dirty, greasy, and untidy--a man with a degraded type of countenance, a heavy, coa.r.s.e mouth, and small eyes looking out suspiciously from heavy brows. She shrank away a little, and almost unconsciously began to close the door, even while she civilly inquired his business.

'Is Wat in? I want to see my son, Walter Hepburn,' he said; and when he opened his mouth Gladys felt the smell of drink, and it filled her with both mental and physical repulsion. So this was Walter's father? Poor Walter! A vast compa.s.sion, greater than any misery she had before experienced, filled the girl's gentle soul.

'Yes, he is in, up-stairs in the warehouse. Will you come in, please?'

she asked; but before the invitation could be accepted, Wat came bounding down the stairs, having heard and recognised the voice, and there was no welcoming light in his eye as he gazed on his father's face.

'Well, what do you want?' he asked abruptly; and Gladys, slipping back hastily, left them alone.

And after she had returned to the kitchen she heard the hum of their voices in earnest talk for quite five minutes. Then the door was closed, and she heard Walter returning to his work. It appeared to her as if his step sounded very heavy and reluctant as it ascended the stair.

Presently her uncle roused himself up, and asked for something to eat or drink.

'Are you feeling better?' she asked, as she shook up his pillows, and did other little things to make him comfortable.

'No; there's a load lying here,' he answered, touching his chest, 'which presses down to the grave. If they can't do something to remove that, I'm a dead man. No word of that young upstart doctor yet?'

'Not yet. Shall I send for him, uncle?'

'No, no; he'll come sure enough, and fast enough--oftener than he's wanted,' he answered. 'Who was that at the door?'

'Walter's father.'

'Eh? Walter's father? What did he want? Is he smelling round too, to see if he can get anything?' he said querulously. 'When you've given me that tea, I wish you to take my keys from my coat pocket and go up to the safe. When you've opened it, you'll find an old pocket-book, tied with a red string. I want you to bring it down to me.'

'Very well.'

Gladys did exactly as she was bid, and, leaving the old man at his slender breakfast, ran up to the warehouse. To her surprise, she found Walter, usually so active and so energetic, sitting on the office stool with his arms folded, and his face wearing a look of deepest gloom. Some new trouble had come to him, that was apparent to her at once.

'Why, Walter, how troubled you look! No bad news from home, I hope?'

'Bad enough,' he answered in a kind of savage undertone. 'I knew something was going to happen. Haven't I been saying it for days?'

'But what has happened? Nothing very bad, I hope?'

'So bad that it couldn't be worse,' he said. 'Liz has run away.'

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XII.

SETTING HIS HOUSE IN ORDER.

Gladys opened her eyes.

'Run away! How? Where? I don't understand.'

'All the better if you don't,' he answered harshly. 'She's run away, anyhow, and it's their blame. Then they come to me, after the mischief's done, thinking I can make it right. I'm not going to stir a foot in the matter. They can all go to Land's End for me.'

He spoke bitterly--more bitterly than Gladys had ever heard him speak before. She stood there, with the keys on her forefinger, the picture of perplexity and concern. She did not understand the situation, and was filled with curiosity to know where Liz had run to.

'Have they quarrelled, or what?' she asked.

'No; I don't suppose there's been any more than the usual amount of scrimmaging,' he said, with a hard smile. 'I don't blame Liz; she's only what they've made her. I'll tell you what it is,' he said, suddenly clenching his right hand, his young face set with the bitterness of his grief and shame, 'if there's no punishment for those that bring children into the world and then let them go to ruin, there's no justice in heaven, and I don't believe in it.'

Gladys shrank back, paling slightly under this torrent of pa.s.sionate words. Never had she seen Walter so bitterly, so fearfully moved. He got up from his stool, and paced up and down the narrow s.p.a.ce between the boxes in a very storm of indignation; and it seemed to Gladys that a few minutes had changed him from a boy into a man.

'Dear Walter,' she said gently, 'try to be brave. Perhaps it will not be so bad as you think.'

'It's so bad for Liz, poor thing, that it won't be any worse. She's lost, and she was the only one of them I cared for. If she'd had a chance, she'd have been a splendid woman. She has a good heart, only she never had anybody to guide her.'

Gladys could not speak. She had only the vaguest idea what he meant, but she knew that something terrible had happened to Liz. A curious reticence seemed to bind her tongue. She could not ask a single question.

'Just when a fellow was beginning to get on!' cried Walter rebelliously, 'this has to happen to throw him back. It was a fearful mistake trying to better myself. I wish I had sunk down into the mud with the rest. If I do it yet, it will be the best thing for me.'

Then Gladys intervened. Though she did not quite comprehend the nature of this new trouble which appeared so powerfully to move him, she could not listen to such words without remonstrance.

'It is not right to speak so, Walter, and I will not listen to it.

Whatever others may do, though it may grieve and cut you to the heart, it cannot take away your honour or integrity, always remember that.'

'Yes, it can,' he said impetuously. 'That kind of disgrace hangs on a man all his days. He has to bear the sins of others. That is where the injustice comes in. The innocent must suffer for and with the guilty always. There is no escape.'