“Oh, what is it?–what is it?”
“The note–Burgess’s note! Its language was sarcastic, I see it
now.” He quoted: “‘At bottom you cannot respect me, KNOWING, as
you do, of THAT MATTER OF which I am accused’–oh, it is perfectly
plain, now, God help me! He knows that I know! You see the
ingenuity of the phrasing. It was a trap–and like a fool, I walked
into it. And Mary–!”
“Oh, it is dreadful–I know what you are going to say –he didn’t
return your transcript of the pretended test-remark.”
“No–kept it to destroy us with. Mary, he has exposed us to some
already. I know it–I know it well. I saw it in a dozen faces
after church. Ah, he wouldn’t answer our nod of recognition–he
knew what he had been doing!”
In the night the doctor was called. The news went around in the
morning that the old couple were rather seriously ill–prostrated by
the exhausting excitement growing out of their great windfall, the
congratulations, and the late hours, the doctor said. The town was
sincerely distressed; for these old people were about all it had
left to be proud of, now.
Two days later the news was worse. The old couple were delirious,
and were doing strange things. By witness of the nurses, Richards
had exhibited cheques–for $8,500? No–for an amazing sum–$38,500!
What could be the explanation of this gigantic piece of luck?
The following day the nurses had more news–and wonderful. They had
concluded to hide the cheques, lest harm come to them; but when they
searched they were gone from under the patient’s pillow–vanished
away. The patient said:
“Let the pillow alone; what do you want?”
“We thought it best that the cheques–”
“You will never see them again–they are destroyed. They came from
Satan. I saw the hell-brand on them, and I knew they were sent to
betray me to sin.” Then he fell to gabbling strange and dreadful
things which were not clearly understandable, and which the doctor
admonished them to keep to themselves.
Richards was right; the cheques were never seen again.
A nurse must have talked in her sleep, for within two days the
forbidden gabblings were the property of the town; and they were of
a surprising sort. They seemed to indicate that Richards had been a
claimant for the sack himself, and that Burgess had concealed that
fact and then maliciously betrayed it.
Burgess was taxed with this and stoutly denied it. And he said it
was not fair to attach weight to the chatter of a sick old man who
was out of his mind. Still, suspicion was in the air, and there was
much talk.
After a day or two it was reported that Mrs. Richards’s delirious
deliveries were getting to be duplicates of her husband’s.
Suspicion flamed up into conviction, now, and the town’s pride in
the purity of its one undiscredited important citizen began to dim
down and flicker toward extinction.
Six days passed, then came more news. The old couple were dying.
Richards’s mind cleared in his latest hour, and he sent for Burgess.
Burgess said:
“Let the room be cleared. I think he wishes to say something in
privacy.”
“No!” said Richards; “I want witnesses. I want you all to hear my
confession, so that I may die a man, and not a dog. I was clean–
artificially–like the rest; and like the rest I fell when
temptation came. I signed a lie, and claimed the miserable sack.
Mr. Burgess remembered that I had done him a service, and in
gratitude (and ignorance) he suppressed my claim and saved me. You
know the thing that was charged against Burgess years ago. My
testimony, and mine alone, could have cleared him, and I was a
coward and left him to suffer disgrace–”
“No–no–Mr. Richards, you–”
“My servant betrayed my secret to him–”
“No one has betrayed anything to me–”
– “And then he did a natural and justifiable thing; he repented of
the saving kindness which he had done me, and he EXPOSED me–as I
deserved–”
“Never!–I make oath–”
“Out of my heart I forgive him.”
Burgess’s impassioned protestations fell upon deaf ears; the dying