_ CHAPTER XX. THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT
Frederik came impatiently up the home walk. The old house was bathed in moonlight; the walk itself leading up to it was sweet with the scent of wet flowers. The whole place carried a peaceful air, as if a blessing rested upon it. But Frederik heeded nothing--saw none of the beauty and mystery. His mind was filled with quite different things.
He had waited for hours at the hotel, expecting Hicks or his lawyer. When no one arrived at the hour agreed upon, Frederik felt a bit uneasy, but he tried to persuade himself that Hicks had merely missed the train and would come on the next one. With growing apprehension he waited, smoking innumerable cigarettes while the evening wore on, till finally the last train had come and gone. There was nothing to do but go back to the house, and face the
other matter. And he dreaded it! Oh, how he dreaded it!
He could not bear the thought of Kathrien's eyes that had first doubted, then accused, then condemned him. All the while he had waited at the hotel, he had remembered those eyes. If he had not loved her sincerely the situation would have been comparatively easy for him; he could simply have cleared out--spent the rest of his days in Europe, if necessary, so that he might never see or hear of any one connected with Grimm Manor again in all his life.
But Kathrien! Who could have been near her and
ever forget her? The turn of her head, the absolute sweetness of her--the sunshine she radiated, made it utterly impossible for one to think of forgetting--of living all one's long life without her. Frederik threw away his cigarette and lighted another as he stood outside the windows of the house and looked in.
Oom Peter was there--how could he go in then? Common sense told him that he had been smoking too much and his nerves had gone bad--that he had become an old woman with his fears and tremblings; yet--he knew Oom Peter was there--Well (he shrugged his shoulders), about all the harm that could be done
had been done, and he had the money now, anyway, so he might as well go in and find out the present state of affairs. There might be, there ought to be, some word from Hicks by this time. With tight-shut lips, he walked quickly up the "stoop" steps and into the house.
As he came into the living-room he glanced at the doctor, who, with bulky form crouched over the little table, was still busily writing and heard nothing.
Frederik half-unconsciously looked toward Kathrien's room, then removed his silk hat with its mourning band, and his black gloves, and laid them with his cane on the hall table.
Then he turned toward Dr. McPherson.
"Good-evening, Doctor," he said shortly. "Any of them come to their senses yet?"
There was a defiant ring in the last sentence, though he knew in his heart that his cause was lost.
The doctor looked up long enough to say:
"Oh, Frederik, you're back again, are you?" then went on with his writing.
Frederik glanced furtively around the shadowy room, and then lighted some candles in an effort to make the place more cheerful. Suddenly his eye was riveted on the telegram resting conspicuously on his uncle's desk. On the very spot, so it happened, where he had burned Anne Marie's letter. He put down his cigarette quickly.
"Is that telegram for me?" he asked in an eager tone.
"Yes," snorted Dr. McPherson.
"Oh----" Frederik said. "It will explain perhaps why I--I've been kept waiting at the hotel--I had an appointment to meet a man who wanted to buy this business."
"Ha!" The doctor grunted indignantly.
Frederik cleared his throat.
"I may as well tell you--I'm thinking of selling out root and branch."
At this amazing news the doctor got up slowly, and turning his bushy head toward Frederik, fixed his keen eyes upon him. He was all attention now.
"Yes----?"
Then with a sheepish laugh Frederik abruptly changed the subject.
"You'll think it strange," he said, "but I simply cannot make up my mind to go near the old desk of my uncle's--peculiar, yes--isn't it?"
He smiled rather a sickly smile at the doctor, and hesitated.
"I've got a perfect--Ha! Ha!--terror of the thing!"
His laughter was quite mirthless and his fear made him a pitiable object.
The doctor, not trying to hide his contempt for him, went to the desk, took the telegram, and threw it in Frederik's direction, not even troubling to aim accurately.
It hit the floor about two feet away from the younger man's trimly shod feet, and he quickly reached over sideways and seized it. He tore it open. Then, as his eyes took in the message it contained, he drew a long breath.
He sat down mechanically, looking straight ahead of him.
"Billy Hicks," he said slowly in a dazed voice, "Billy Hicks, the man I was to sell out to, is de--I knew it--This afternoon when he phoned--something told me--but I wouldn't believe it."
Slowly he put the telegram in its envelope, and then put the envelope into his pocket; but the dazed look never left his eyes, and his face was grey white.
"Doctor," he said, turning his eyes at last, "as sure as you live, somebody else is doing my thinking for me in this house."
Dr. McPherson's heavy eyebrows met in an earnest frown as he studied Frederik.
"What?" he queried.
"To-night--here in this room," Frederik went on in a voice full of awe, "I thought I saw my uncle
there----"
He pointed toward the desk with a little shudder.
"Eh?" said the doctor, with popping eyes, coming a step nearer. "You really mean that you thought you saw
Peter Grimm?"
"And just before I--I saw him--I--I--had the strangest impulse to go to the foot of the stairs and call Kitty--give her the house--and run--run--get out."
"Oh!" cried the doctor sarcastically. "A good impulse. I see! Some one else
must have been thinking for you--certainly."
"When I wouldn't do it," the scared voice went on, "I thought he gave me a terrible look." He covered his eyes with his hand. "A
terrible look."
"Your uncle?" demanded Dr. McPherson.
"Yes," breathed Frederik. "
Och! God! I won't forget
that look!" he cried excitedly, uncovering his eyes again. "And as I started from the room--he blotted out--I mean I saw him blot out--Then I left the photograph on the desk, and----"
"Ah!" exclaimed the doctor triumphantly. "That's how Willem came by it. Had you never had this impulse before--to give up Kathrien--to let her have the cottage?"
"
Not much--I hadn't!" said Frederik decidedly, walking back and forth a moment.
Then, looking toward the desk, he reached out his hand until it touched the back of a chair beside it, and, giving the chair a quick pull out of what was evidently to him a danger zone, he sat down.
"I told you some one else was
thinking for me," he said. "I don't want to give her up. I love her." (His eyes went dark.) "But if she's going to turn against me for--well, I'm not going to sit
here and cry about it. But I'll tell you one thing: from this time I propose to think for myself. I've done with this house," he cried, getting up. "I'd like to sell it along with the rest and let a stranger"--he flung the chair recklessly against the desk--"raze it to the ground.
"When I walk out of here to-night she can have it."
He looked thoughtfully at the desk a moment.
"Oh, I wouldn't sleep here--I give her the house because--well, I----"
"You want to be on the safe side in case he
was there!" scoffed Dr. McPherson.
Frederik dropped his voice almost to a whisper, and there was perplexity in it as well as awe.
"How do you account for it anyway, Doctor?" he asked.
Instead of answering, the doctor asked another question.
"Frederik," he said, "when did you see Anne Marie last?"
"Now," said Frederik disagreeably, "I'm not answering questions."
"I think it only fair to tell you," said Dr. McPherson, "that it won't matter a damn whether you answer me or not. Don't fret yourself that I'm not going to find her. This has come home to me. I'm off to the city to-morrow. I'll have the truth from her; if I have to call in the police to trace her."
Frederik looked drearily at the doctor, then took up his gloves and began to put them on. After a pause he said dully, mechanically:
"Oh, I saw her about three years ago."
"Never since?" probed the doctor.
"No."
"What occurred the last time you saw her?"
"Oh," said Frederik lifelessly. "What
always occurs when a young man realises that he has his life before him--and that he must be respected, must think of his future?"
"A scene took place, eh?"
"Yes," Frederik agreed laconically.
"Was Willem present?" went on the interrogation.
"Yes, she held him in her arms."
"And then--what happened?" the doctor insisted.
Frederik dropped his eyes.
"Oh," he said, "then I left the house."
He found his hat and cane as he spoke, and walked slowly toward the door.
"Then it's all true," cried Dr. McPherson in wonderment, staring abstractedly at the floor. He raised his head suddenly and looked with stern eyes at Frederik.
"What are you going to do for Willem?" he demanded.
"Well," temporised that noble soul, "I'm a rich man now--and if I recognise him--there might be trouble. His mother's gone to the dogs anyway----"
He left the speech unfinished and turned his head away uncomfortably. He could not say such things and meet the doctor's scorching look.
"You damned young scoundrel!" bellowed McPherson in wrath. "Oh, what an act of charity if the good Lord took Willem!--And I say it with all my heart. Out of all you have--not a crumb for----"
"I want you to know that I've sweated for that money," Frederik turned on the doctor long enough to say. "I've sweated for it, and I'm going to keep it!"
"You
what?" howled Dr. McPherson jeeringly.
"Yes," Frederik cried in the greatest excitement, all his calmness forsaking him utterly. "I've sweated for it! I went to jail for it. Every day I have been in this house has been spent in prison. I've been doing time. Do you think it didn't get on my nerves? What haven't I had to do! I've gone to bed at nine o'clock and lain there thinking how New York was just waking up at that time, and how miserably I was out of it all. Lord! I've got up at cock-crow to be in time for grace at the breakfast table. Why, didn't I take a Sunday-school class to please him?
"Lord! Didn't I hand out the infernal cornucopias at the Church's silly old Christmas tree," he went on quickly, "while he played Santa Claus? What more can a fellow do to earn his money? Don't you call that sweating? No, sir! I've danced like a damned hand-organ monkey for the pennies he left me, and I had to grin and touch my hat and make believe I liked it. Now I'm going to spend every cent for my own personal pleasure."
Once more Frederik started to go.
"Will rich men never learn wisdom?" soliloquised Dr. McPherson as he began to prepare some medicine for Willem.
"No, they won't," Frederik flung back over his shoulder. "But in every fourth generation there comes along a
wise fellow--a spender. Well, I'm the spender here."
He pulled out another cigarette, lighted it, and put on his hat.
"Shame on you!" cried the doctor indignantly. "Your breed ought to be exterminated!"
"Oh, no," Frederik declared. "We're as necessary as you are. We're the real wealth distributors. I wish you good-night, Doctor."
And he was gone.
Disgust was still written all over the doctor's face as he measured the medicine carefully and emptied it into a glass of water. He picked up the candelabrum in his other hand, and was just starting toward the stairs and Willem's room when Kathrien came in.
"Kathrien!" he cried in a ringing voice. "Burn up your wedding dress! We've made no mistake. I can tell you that!"
A moment more and he climbed the stairs and had disappeared into Willem's room, leaving Kathrien motionless, her face lighted with happy serenity. Then she went softly to Oom Peter's worn old desk chair, and, standing behind it, put her arms around its sides lovingly, almost protectingly--quite as if its former owner were sitting there and could feel her gentle caress.
"Oom Peter," she whispered tenderly, and her dreamy eyes grew dreamier, "Oom Peter--I know I am doing what you would have me do." _