Read Ebook: Die Geschichte der Dampfmaschine bis James Watt by Geitel Max

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Ebook has 1924 lines and 111316 words, and 39 pages

"There is nothing else to do, Charlie. Don't you see that in this way it will be all over at once? Think of the arrest, the long trial, the certain conviction, the parting, the stripes, the clipped hair! No, no, you must not oppose me. Ruth will forget me then, but, alive and in jail, I'd be a canker on her young soul. Lessie could marry again. God knows I'd want her to do so. Yes, it is the only way out, Charlie."

The drunkard seemed a drunkard no longer. He might have been an impassioned young priest full of a holy desire to comfort as he stood before the wilted man and clasped his hands. He knelt at his brother's knees, he caught the tense fingers in his.

"You shall not kill yourself!" he cried. "God will show you a way to avoid it. I feel it within me. There must be a way--there must!"

"There is no other way!" William groaned. "I've thought of everything under heaven till I'm crazed with it all." He stood up. He put his limp arm about the shoulders of his brother.

"Will it be known at once? Do the directors suspect?" Charles asked.

"Not yet, but you know the bank examiner will be here Thursday. It can't be kept from him. If I were unmolested for three months I could replace the money. I'm sure more than that amount will come out of the Western mining lands I hold. The sale is made, and only a legal technicality holds back the final settlement."

"Ah, then if you confessed the truth to the directors, and promised to replace the money, would they--"

"They would send me to jail, just the same," William answered. "They are that sort, every man of them. In their eyes a man who will steal once will steal again, and they may be right--they may be right."

"Nevertheless, you must not think of--the--the other thing, Billy. For God's sake, don't!" Charles pleaded.

"What else can I do?" William swayed in his brother's embrace and turned toward the door. Charles released him, and stood speechless in sheer helplessness as his brother stalked to the door, opened it, and went slowly down the stairs.

Left alone, the younger man turned to a window and stood staring blankly out into the sunshine. Presently he went to the bureau, opened a drawer, and took out the flask of whisky. Taking a glass, he poured some of the fluid out and then stood staring at it in surprise. A strange thing had happened. It was like a miracle, and yet psychologists have said that it belongs to the regular order of nature. Charles was conscious of no desire for the drink before him; in fact, he was averse to it. He was under the sway of a high spiritual emotion, which the thing in his hand seemed vaguely to oppose. He marveled over the change in himself as he held the glass up to the light.

"I'm asking poor Billy to be a man," he said, "while I am less than one myself. Strange! strange!" he muttered, wonderingly, "but I feel as if I shall never drink again--never, never!" With a hand that was quite steady he took the glass to the window and emptied its contents on the grass in the little plot below. Then he began to shave himself, and after that was done he dressed himself carefully.

The church-bells were ringing.

"Oh, I must save him--I must save them all!" he kept saying. "Something must be done. But what?"

It was Wednesday night. William Browne had not come home to dinner. Charles looked into the dining-room. Celeste and Ruth were in their places at the table.

"William telephoned that he could not come up," Celeste said, as he sat down. "He says he has work to do at the bank to-night."

"Yes. I'm going back myself at once," Charles answered. "In fact, I am not a bit hungry. I had something late this afternoon--sandwiches and tea. If you will excuse me, I won't stay."

As he rose, Celeste lifted an odd stare to his face, but simply nodded as he was leaving the room.

"Don't go, Uncle Charlie," the child protested. "Stay for your dinner."

"No, I must go." He came back, bent over her chair, and kissed her on the cheek, and then hurried away.

It was eight o'clock when he reached the bank. The outer doors were closed, but a dim light could be seen through a plate-glass window in front. Softly inserting his key, he turned the bolt and entered.

"My God! he may not be here, after all!" Charles thought, as he shut the door noiselessly. Then he saw a light in the direction of his brother's private office and went toward it, now more hopefully. He was near the office door when he heard a sound like the hurried closing of a desk drawer.

"Who is that?" a startled voice called out.

"It is I, Billy. May I come in?"

There was no reply, and Charles pushed the door open. The banker sat at his desk in the glare of a green-shaded electric lamp. His face was ghastly pale, and rendered more so by the greenish light that fell upon it.

"What did you come for?" he asked, almost doggedly, and yet without a trace of impatience or anger.

"Because you didn't come to dinner, and because--"

"Because you are still watching me. Say it and be done with it," broke in William, in a tone which was scarcely audible as it rose from his husky throat.

"Yes, Billy. That's it. You have scarcely been out of my sight since Sunday morning. The examiner will be here to-morrow. I know how you feel about that, you see. You told me what you wanted to do. I have seen the thought in your eyes often since then. But it shall not be so, Billy. I love you. You are the only one in the world whom I do love very much. You shall not kill yourself, Billy."

William lowered his head. His chin rested on his chest. "There is nothing else to do," he groaned. "I cannot face this thing. They say men are always insane who do such things, but it is not so. I am mentally sound. I see all that lies ahead of me--everything, even the thoughts that will spring to life in the minds of my wife and child. Go away and leave me, Charlie. I want to be alone."

"What did you put into that drawer just as I entered?" Charles asked, leaning forward.

"Never mind," William said. "Go away."

"I want to know what it was," Charlie protested. He reached down and caught the handle of the drawer.

William made a slight movement as if to stop him, but desisted, uttering a low groan as he did so. Charles opened the drawer. A long revolver lay on the papers within. He took it out, and shuddered as he held it behind him.

"You are not going to shoot yourself, Billy," he said, firmly. "I am not going to permit it."

William made no reply, and with the revolver in his hand, Charles went into the adjoining counting-room and turned on the light at his own desk. For twenty minutes he sat resting his head on his hand, his elbow on the desk, the weapon before him. Presently his eyes began to glow, his face was flushed, his pulse was throbbing. "I have it," he said. "I have it."

Laying the revolver on the desk, he turned back to his brother's office. William sat as he had left him, his limp hands on the arms of his chair, his disheveled head lowered.

"Listen, Billy, listen!" Charles began. "I want to tell you something about myself first, and then about you. You must listen. It is important. It is your chance, and a splendid one."

"My chance?" echoed the banker. "What chance?"

"Billy, I am down and out. I've lost all my friends and social standing. I don't want to remain here longer. I want to go away off somewhere among strangers and begin life over again."

"Well, well, why tell me about it when you see that I--"

"Because it concerns you, Billy. Listen, it is both your chance and mine. I want to live a decent, sober life, and you say if you could stave this thing off for a few months you could replace the missing money."

"I could, but--"

"Then it will be done, and I'll tell you how. It is very simple. I am just now the talk of the town on account of the life I have been leading. People will not be surprised at anything reported of me, the directors least of all. You know they would have discharged me long ago but for your relation to me."

"I don't understand. I can't see what you are driving at," William stared with his bloodshot eyes. "You say you see a way. For God's sake, for God's sake--"

"Yes, but you are not listening. I am coming to it. I am going away to-night, Billy. I'm going away never to return. I am going out of your life as completely as if I'd never been in it. I'll never write back. You will never know whether I'm dead or alive."

"Don't you see what I mean, Billy? It is known that I have access to the vaults during business hours, and when I turn up missing to-morrow the examiner will logically couple me and my bad record with the money that is gone. Now you understand."

With his hands on the arms of his revolving-chair the banker drew himself to his feet. A wild look of hope was in his eyes and on his ghastly face. He groped his way to his brother, his hands outstretched as if to prevent himself from falling.

"You must, because I wish it. I want to be of some use to you and to Lessie and the baby. Oh, I owe you a lot--a lot! Think how you have borne with me--how I have disgraced you."

"Billy, you see, I want to do it as much for myself as you. I want to be absolutely free from old associations. You can replace the money. You can claim that you are doing it, you see, because you were responsible for my staying on when I ought to have been discharged. It will all seem so--so plausible--so very natural."

Turning, his eyes on the floor, William stalked back to his desk. He drew his chair around. "My God! My God!" his brother heard him muttering as he lowered himself into it. Dropping his head to the desk, he was still for a moment. Charles went to him.

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