by Bret Harte
CHAPTER V
The apartment he entered was really only a lumber-room or loft over thewing of the house, which had been left bare and unfinished, and whichrevealed in its meagre skeleton of beams and joints the hollow sham ofthe whole structure. But in more violent contrast to the fresherglories of the other part of the house were its contents, which werethe heterogeneous collection of old furniture, old luggage, andcast-off clothing, left over from the past life in the old cabin. Itwas a much plainer record of the simple beginnings of the family thanMrs. Mulrady cared to have remain in evidence, and for that reason ithad been relegated to the hidden recesses of the new house, in the hopethat it might absorb or digest it. There were old cribs, in which theinfant limbs of Mamie and Abner had been tucked up; oldlooking-glasses, that had reflected their shining, soapy faces, andMamie's best chip Sunday hat; an old sewing-machine, that had been wornout in active service; old patchwork quilts; an old accordion, to whoselong drawn inspirations Mamie had sung hymns; old pictures, books, andold toys. There were one or two old chromos, and, stuck in an oldframe, a colored print from the "Illustrated London News" of aChristmas gathering in an old English country house. He stopped andpicked up this print, which he had often seen before, gazing at it witha new and singular interest. He wondered if Mamie had seen anything ofthis kind in England, and why couldn't he have had something like ithere, in their own fine house, with themselves and a few friends? Heremembered a past Christmas, when he had bought Mamie that now headlessdoll with the few coins that were left him after buying their frugalChristmas dinner. There was an old spotted hobby-horse that anotherChristmas had brought to Abner--Abner, who would be driving a fasttrotter to-morrow at the Springs! How everything had changed! Howthey all had got up in the world, and how far beyond this kind ofthing--and yet--yet it would have been rather comfortable to have allbeen together again here. Would THEY have been more comfortable? No!Yet then he might have had something to do, and been less lonelyto-morrow. What of that? He HAD something to do: to look after thisimmense fortune. What more could a man want, or should he want? Itwas rather mean in him, able to give his wife and children everythingthey wanted, to be wanting anything more. He laid down the printgently, after dusting its glass and frame with his silk handkerchief,and slowly left the room.
The drum-beat of the rain followed him down the staircase, but he shutit out with his other thoughts, when he again closed the door of hisoffice. He set diligently to work by the declining winter light, untilhe was interrupted by the entrance of his Chinese waiter to tell himthat supper--which was the meal that Mulrady religiously adhered to inplace of the late dinner of civilization--was ready in the dining-room.Mulrady mechanically obeyed the summons; but on entering the room theoasis of a few plates in a desert of white table-cloth which awaitedhim made him hesitate. In its best aspect, the high dark Gothicmahogany ecclesiastical sideboard and chairs of this room, which lookedlike the appointments of a mortuary chapel, were not exhilarating; andto-day, in the light of the rain-filmed windows and the feeble rays ofa lamp half-obscured by the dark shining walls, it was most depressing.
"You kin take up supper into my office," said Mulrady, with a suddeninspiration. "I'll eat it there."
He ate it there, with his usual healthy appetite, which did not requireeven the stimulation of company. He had just finished, when his Irishcook--the one female servant of the house--came to ask permission to beabsent that evening and the next day.
"I suppose the likes of your honor won't be at home on the ChristmasDay? And it's me cousins from the old counthry at Rough-and-Ready thatare invitin' me."
"Why don't you ask them over here?" said Mulrady, with another vagueinspiration. "I'll stand treat."
"Lord preserve you for a jinerous gintleman! But it's the likes ofthem and myself that wouldn't be at home here on such a day."
There was so much truth in this that Mulrady checked a sigh as he gavethe required permission, without saying that he had intended to remain.He could cook his own breakfast: he had done it before; and it would besomething to occupy him. As to his dinner, perhaps he could go to thehotel at Rough-and-Ready. He worked on until the night had welladvanced. Then, overcome with a certain restlessness that disturbedhim, he was forced to put his books and papers away. It had begun toblow in fitful gusts, and occasionally the rain was driven softlyacross the panes like the passing of childish fingers. This disturbedhim more than the monotony of silence, for he was not a nervous man.He seldom read a book, and the county paper furnished him only thefinancial and mercantile news which was part of his business. He knewhe could not sleep if he went to bed. At last he rose, opened thewindow, and looked out from pure idleness of occupation. A splash ofwheels in the distant muddy road and fragments of a drunken song showedsigns of an early wandering reveller. There were no lights to be seenat the closed works; a profound darkness encompassed the house, as ifthe distant pines in the hollow had moved up and round it. The silencewas broken now only by the occasional sighing of wind and rain. It wasnot an inviting night for a perfunctory walk; but an idea struckhim--he would call upon the Slinns, and anticipate his next day'svisit! They would probably have company, and be glad to see him: hecould tell the girls of Mamie and her success. That he had not thoughtof this before was a proof of his usual self-contained isolation, thathe thought of it now was an equal proof that he was becoming at lastaccessible to loneliness. He was angry with himself for what seemed tohim a selfish weakness.
He returned to his office, and, putting the envelope that had beenlying on Slinn's desk in his pocket, threw a serape over his shoulders,and locked the front door of the house behind him. It was well thatthe way was a familiar one to him, and that his feet instinctivelyfound the trail, for the night was very dark. At times he was warnedonly by the gurgling of water of little rivulets that descended thehill and crossed his path. Without the slightest fear, and withneither imagination nor sensitiveness, he recalled how, the winterbefore, one of Don Caesar's vaqueros, crossing this hill at night, hadfallen down the chasm of a landslip caused by the rain, and was foundthe next morning with his neck broken in the gully. Don Caesar had totake care of the man's family. Suppose such an accident should happento him? Well, he had made his will. His wife and children would beprovided for, and the work of the mine would go on all the same; he hadarranged for that. Would anybody miss him? Would his wife, or hisson, or his daughter? No. He felt such a sudden and overwhelmingconviction of the truth of this that he stopped as suddenly as if thechasm had opened before him. No! It was the truth. If he were todisappear forever in the darkness of the Christmas night there was noneto feel his loss. His wife would take care of Mamie; his son wouldtake care of himself, as he had before--relieved of even the scantpaternal authority he rebelled against. A more imaginative man thanMulrady would have combated or have followed out this idea, and thendismissed it; to the millionaire's matter-of-fact mind it was adeduction that, having once presented itself to his perception, wasalready a recognized fact. For the first time in his life he felt asudden instinct of something like aversion towards his family, afeeling that even his son's dissipation and criminality had neverprovoked. He hurried on angrily through the darkness.
It was very strange; the old house should be almost before him now,across the hollow, yet there were no indications of light! It was notuntil he actually reached the garden fence, and the black bulk ofshadow rose out against the sky, that he saw a faint ray of light fromone of the lean-to windows. He went to the front door and knocked.After waiting in vain for a reply, he knocked again. The second knockproving equally futile, he tried the door; it was unlocked, and,pushing it open, he walked in. The narrow passage was quite dark, butfrom his knowledge of the house he knew the "lean-to" was next to thekitchen, and, passing through the dining-room into it, he opened thedoor of the little room from which the light proceeded. It came from asingle candle on a small table, and beside it, with his eyes moodilyfixed on the dying embers of t
he fire, sat old Slinn. There was noother light nor another human being in the whole house.
For the instant Mulrady, forgetting his own feelings in the mutepicture of the utter desolation of the helpless man, remainedspeechless on the threshold. Then, recalling himself, he steppedforward and laid his hand gayly on the bowed shoulders.
"Rouse up out o' this, old man! Come! this won't do. Look! I've runover here in the rain, jist to have a sociable time with you all."
"I knew it," said the old man, without looking up; "I knew you'd come."
"You knew I'd come?" echoed Mulrady, with an uneasy return of thestrange feeling of awe with which he regarded Slinn's abstraction.
"Yes; you were alone--like myself--all alone!"
"Then, why in thunder didn't you open the door or sing out just now?"he said, with an affected brusquerie to cover his uneasiness. "Where'syour daughters?"
"Gone to Rough-and-Ready to a party."
"And your son?"
"He never comes here when he can amuse himself elsewhere."
"Your children might have stayed home on Christmas Eve."
"So might yours."
He didn't say this impatiently, but with a certain abstractedconviction far beyond any suggestion of its being a retort. Mulrady didnot appear to notice it.
"Well, I don't see why us old folks can't enjoy ourselves withoutthem," said Mulrady, with affected cheerfulness. "Let's have a goodtime, you and me. Let's see--you haven't any one you can send to myhouse, hev you?"
"They took the servant with them," said Slinn, briefly. "There is noone here."
"All right," said the millionaire, briskly. "I'll go myself. Do youthink you can manage to light up a little more, and build a fire in thekitchen while I'm gone? It used to be mighty comfortable in the oldtimes."
He helped the old man to rise from his chair, and seemed to haveinfused into him some of his own energy. He then added, "Now, don'tyou get yourself down again into that chair until I come back," anddarted out into the night once more.
In a quarter of an hour he returned with a bag on his broad shoulders,which one of his porters would have shrunk from lifting, and laid itbefore the blazing hearth of the now lighted kitchen. "It's somethingthe old woman got for her party, that didn't come off," he said,apologetically. "I reckon we can pick out enough for a spread. Thatdarned Chinaman wouldn't come with me," he added, with a laugh,"because, he said, he'd knocked off work 'allee same, Mellican man!'Look here, Slinn," he said, with a sudden decisiveness, "my pay-roll ofthe men around here don't run short of a hundred and fifty dollars aday, and yet I couldn't get a hand to help me bring this truck over formy Christmas dinner."
"Of course," said Slinn, gloomily.
"Of course; so it oughter be," returned Mulrady, shortly. "Why, it'sonly their one day out of 364; and I can have 363 days off, as I amtheir boss. I don't mind a man's being independent," he continued,taking off his coat and beginning to unpack his sack--a common "gunnybag"--used for potatoes. "We're independent ourselves, ain't we,Slinn?"
His good spirits, which had been at first labored and affected, hadbecome natural. Slinn, looking at his brightened eye and freshercolor, could not help thinking he was more like his own real self atthis moment than in his counting-house and offices--with all hissimplicity as a capitalist. A less abstracted and more observantcritic than Slinn would have seen in this patient aptitude for realwork, and the recognition of the force of petty detail, the dominanceof the old market-gardener in his former humble, as well as his latermore ambitious, successes.
"Heaven keep us from being dependent upon our children!" said Slinn,darkly.
"Let the young ones alone to-night; we can get along without them, asthey can without us," said Mulrady, with a slight twinge as he thoughtof his reflections on the hillside. "But look here, there's somechampagne and them sweet cordials that women like; there's jellies andsuch like stuff, about as good as they make 'em, I reckon; andpreserves, and tongues, and spiced beef--take your pick! Stop, let'sspread them out." He dragged the table to the middle of the floor, andpiled the provisions upon it. They certainly were not deficient inquality or quantity. "Now, Slinn, wade in."
"I don't feel hungry," said the invalid, who had lapsed again into achair before the fire.
"No more do I," said Mulrady; "but I reckon it's the right thing to doabout this time. Some folks think they can't be happy without they'regetting outside o' suthin', and my directors down at 'Frisco can't doany business without a dinner. Take some champagne, to begin with."
He opened a bottle, and filled two tumblers. "It's past twelveo'clock, old man, so here's a merry Christmas to you, and both of us ezis here. And here's another to our families--ez isn't."
They both drank their wine stolidly. The rain beat against the windowssharply, but without the hollow echoes of the house on the hill. "Imust write to the old woman and Mamie, and say that you and me had ahigh old time on Christmas Eve."
"By ourselves," added the invalid.
Mr. Mulrady coughed. "Nat'rally--by ourselves. And her provisions,"he added, with a laugh. "We're really beholden to HER for 'em. If shehadn't thought of having them--"
"For somebody else, you wouldn't have had them--would you?" said Slinn,slowly, gazing at the fire.
"No," said Mulrady, dubiously. After a pause he began morevivaciously, and as if to shake off some disagreeable thought that wasimpressing him, "But I mustn't forget to give you YOUR Christmas, oldman, and I've got it right here with me." He took the folded envelopefrom his pocket, and, holding it in his hand with his elbow on thetable, continued, "I don't mind telling you what idea I had in givingyou what I'm goin' to give you now. I've been thinking about it for aday or two. A man like you don't want money--you wouldn't spend it. Aman like you don't want stocks or fancy investments, for you couldn'tlook after them. A man like you don't want diamonds and jewellery, nora gold-headed cane, when it's got to be used as a crutch. No, sir.What you want is suthin' that won't run away from you; that is alwaysthere before you and won't wear out, and will last after you're gone.That's land! And if it wasn't that I have sworn never to sell or giveaway this house and that garden, if it wasn't that I've held out aginthe old woman and Mamie on that point, you should have THIS house andTHAT garden. But, mebbee, for the same reason that I've told you, Iwant that land to keep for myself. But I've selected four acres of thehill this side of my shaft, and here's the deed of it. As soon asyou're ready, I'll put you up a house as big as this--that shall beyours, with the land, as long as you live, old man; and after that yourchildren's."
"No; not theirs!" broke in the old man, passionately. "Never!"
Mulrady recoiled for an instant in alarm at the sudden and unexpectedvehemence of his manner, "Go slow, old man; go slow," he said,soothingly. "Of course, you'll do with your own as you like." Then,as if changing the subject, he went on cheerfully: "Perhaps you'llwonder why I picked out that spot on the hillside. Well, first, becauseI reserved it after my strike in case the lead should run that way, butit didn't. Next, because when you first came here you seemed to likethe prospect. You used to sit there looking at it, as if it remindedyou of something. You never said it did. They say you was sitting onthat boulder there when you had that last attack, you know; but," headded, gently, "you've forgotten all about it."
"I have forgotten nothing," said Slinn, rising, with a choking voice."I wish to God I had; I wish to God I could!"
He was on his feet now, supporting himself by the table. The subtlegenerous liquor he had drunk had evidently shaken his self-control, andburst those voluntary bonds he had put upon himself for the last sixmonths; the insidious stimulant had also put a strange vigor into hisblood and nerves. His face was flushed, but not distorted; his eyeswere brilliant, but not fixed; he looked as he might have looked toMasters in his strength three years before on that very hillside.
"Listen to me, Alvin Mulrady," he said, leaning over him with burningeyes. "Listen, while I have bra
in to think and strength to utter, whyI have learnt to distrust, fear, and hate them! You think you know mystory. Well, hear the truth from ME to-night, Alvin Mulrady, and donot wonder if I have cause."
He stopped, and, with pathetic inefficiency, passed the fingers andinward-turned thumb of his paralyzed hand across his mouth, as if tocalm himself. "Three years ago I was a miner, but not a miner likeyou! I had experience, I had scientific knowledge, I had a theory, andthe patience and energy to carry it out. I selected a spot that hadall the indications, made a tunnel, and, without aid, counsel orassistance of any kind, worked it for six months, without rest orcessation, and with scarcely food enough to sustain my body. Well, Imade a strike; not like you, Mulrady, not a blunder of good luck, afool's fortune--there, I don't blame you for it--but in perfectdemonstration of my theory, the reward of my labor. It was no pocket,but a vein, a lead, that I had regularly hunted down and found--afortune!
"I never knew how hard I had worked until that morning; I never knewwhat privations I had undergone until that moment of my success, when Ifound I could scarcely think or move! I staggered out into the openair. The only human soul near me was a disappointed prospector, a mannamed Masters, who had a tunnel not far away. I managed to concealfrom him my good fortune and my feeble state, for I was suspicious ofhim--of any one; and as he was going away that day I thought I couldkeep my secret until he was gone. I was dizzy and confused, but Iremember that I managed to write a letter to my wife, telling her of mygood fortune, and begging her to come to me; and I remember that I sawMasters go. I don't remember anything else. They picked me up on theroad, near that boulder, as you know."
"I know," said Mulrady, with a swift recollection of the stage-driver'saccount of his discovery.
"They say," continued Slinn, tremblingly, "that I never recovered mysenses or consciousness for nearly three years; they say I lost mymemory completely during my illness, and that by God's mercy, while Ilay in that hospital, I knew no more than a babe; they say, because Icould not speak or move, and only had my food as nature required it,that I was an imbecile, and that I never really came to my senses untilafter my son found me in the hospital. They SAY that--but I tell youto-night, Alvin Mulrady," he said, raising his voice to a hoarseoutcry, "I tell you that it is a lie! I came to my senses a week afterI lay on that hospital cot; I kept my senses and memory ever afterduring the three years that I was there, until Harry brought his cold,hypocritical face to my bedside and recognized me. Do you understand?I, the possessor of millions, lay there a pauper. Deserted by wife andchildren--a spectacle for the curious, a sport for the doctors--AND IKNEW IT! I heard them speculate on the cause of my helplessness. Iheard them talk of excesses and indulgences--I, that never knew wine orwoman! I heard a preacher speak of the finger of God, and point to me.May God curse him!"
"Go slow, old man; go slow," said Mulrady, gently.
"I heard them speak of me as a friendless man, an outcast, acriminal--a being whom no one would claim. They were right; no oneclaimed me. The friends of others visited them; relations came andtook away their kindred; a few lucky ones got well; a few, equallylucky, died! I alone lived on, uncared for, deserted.
"The first year," he went on more rapidly, "I prayed for their coming.I looked for them every day. I never lost hope. I said to myself,'She has not got my letter; but when the time passes she will bealarmed by my silence, and then she will come or send some one to seekme.' A young student got interested in my case, and, by studying myeyes, thought that I was not entirely imbecile and unconscious. Withthe aid of an alphabet, he got me to spell my name and town inIllinois, and promised by signs to write to my family. But in an evilmoment I told him of my cursed fortune, and in that moment I saw thathe thought me a fool and an idiot. He went away, and I saw him nomore. Yet I still hoped. I dreamed of their joy at finding me, andthe reward that my wealth would give them. Perhaps I was a little weakstill, perhaps a little flighty, too, at times; but I was quite happythat year, even in my disappointment, for I had still hope!"
He paused, and again composed his face with his paralyzed hand; but hismanner had become less excited, and his voice was stronger.
"A change must have come over me the second year, for I only dreadedtheir coming now and finding me so altered. A horrible idea that theymight, like the student, believe me crazy if I spoke of my fortune mademe pray to God that they might not reach me until after I had regainedmy health and strength--and found my fortune. When the third yearfound me still there--I no longer prayed for them--I cursed them! Iswore to myself that they should never enjoy my wealth; but I wanted tolive, and let them know I had it. I found myself getting stronger; butas I had no money, no friends, and nowhere to go, I concealed my realcondition from the doctors, except to give them my name, and to try toget some little work to do to enable me to leave the hospital and seekmy lost treasure. One day I found out by accident that it had beendiscovered! You understand--my treasure!--that had cost me years oflabor and my reason; had left me a helpless, forgotten pauper. Thatgold I had never enjoyed had been found and taken possession of byanother!"
He checked an exclamation from Mulrady with his hand. "They say theypicked me up senseless from the floor, where I must have fallen when Iheard the news--I don't remember--I recall nothing until I wasconfronted, nearly three weeks after, by my son, who had called at thehospital, as a reporter for a paper, and had accidentally discovered methrough my name and appearance. He thought me crazy, or a fool. Ididn't undeceive him. I did not tell him the story of the mine toexcite his doubts and derision, or, worse (if I could bring proof toclaim it), have it perhaps pass into his ungrateful hands. No; I saidnothing. I let him bring me here. He could do no less, and commondecency obliged him to do that."
"And what proof could you show of your claim?" asked Mulrady, gravely.
"If I had that letter--if I could find Masters," began Slinn, vaguely.
"Have you any idea where the letter is, or what has become of Masters?"continued Mulrady, with a matter-of-fact gravity, that seemed toincrease Slinn's vagueness and excite his irritability.
"I don't know--I sometimes think--" He stopped, sat down again, andpassed his hands across his forehead. "I have seen the lettersomewhere since. Yes," he went on, with sudden vehemence, "I know it,I have seen it! I--" His brows knitted, his features began to workconvulsively; he suddenly brought his paralyzed hand down, partlyopened, upon the table. "I WILL remember where."
"Go slow, old man; go slow."
"You asked me once about my visions. Well, that is one of them. Iremember a man somewhere showing me that letter. I have taken it fromhis hands and opened it, and knew it was mine by the specimens of goldthat were in it. But where--or when--or what became of it, I cannottell. It will come to me--it MUST come to me soon."
He turned his eyes upon Mulrady, who was regarding him with anexpression of grave curiosity, and said bitterly, "You think me crazy.I know it. It needed only this."
"Where is this mine," asked Mulrady, without heeding him.
The old man's eyes swiftly sought the ground.
"It is a secret, then?"
"No."
"You have spoken of it to any one?"
"No."
"Not to the man who possesses it?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because I wouldn't take it from him."
"Why wouldn't you?"
"Because that man is yourself!"
In the instant of complete silence that followed they could hear thatthe monotonous patter of rain on the roof had ceased.
"Then all this was in MY shaft, and the vein I thought I struck therewas YOUR lead, found three years ago in YOUR tunnel. Is that youridea?"
"Yes."
"Then I don't sabe why you don't want to claim it."
"I have told you why I don't want it for my children. I go further,now, and I tell you, Alvin Mulrady, that I was willing that yourchildren should squander it, as they were doi
ng. It has only been acurse to me; it could only be a curse to them; but I thought you werehappy in seeing it feed selfishness and vanity. You think me bitter andhard. Well, I should have left you in your fool's paradise, but that Isaw to-night, when you came here, that your eyes had been opened likemine. You, the possessor of my wealth, my treasure, could not buy yourchildren's loving care and company with your millions, any more than Icould keep mine in my poverty. You were to-night lonely and forsaken,as I was. We were equal, for the first time in our lives. If thatcursed gold had dropped down the shaft between us into the hell fromwhich it sprang, we might have clasped hands like brothers across thechasm."
Mulrady, who in a friendly show of being at his ease had not yetresumed his coat, rose in his shirt-sleeves, and, standing before thehearth, straightened his square figure by drawing down his waistcoat oneach side with two powerful thumbs. After a moment's contemplativesurvey of the floor between him and the speaker, he raised his eyes toSlinn. They were small and colorless; the forehead above them was low,and crowned with a shock of tawny reddish hair; even the rude strengthof his lower features was enfeebled by a long, straggling, goat-likebeard; but for the first time in his life the whole face was impressedand transformed with a strong and simple dignity.
"Ez far ez I kin see, Slinn," he said, gravely, "the pint between youand me ain't to be settled by our children, or wot we allow is doo andright from them to us. Afore we preach at them for playing in theslumgullion, and gettin' themselves splashed, perhaps we mout ez wellremember that that thar slumgullion comes from our own sluice-boxes,where we wash our gold. So we'll just put THEM behind us, so," hecontinued, with a backward sweep of his powerful hand towards thechimney, "and goes on. The next thing that crops up ahead of us isyour three years in the hospital, and wot you went through at thattime. I ain't sayin' it wasn't rough on you, and that you didn't haveit about as big as it's made; but ez you'll allow that you'd hev hadthat for three years, whether I'd found your mine or whether I hadn't,I think we can put THAT behind us, too. There's nothin' now left toprospect but your story of your strike. Well, take your own proofs.Masters is not here; and if he was, accordin' to your own story, heknows nothin' of your strike that day, and could only prove you were adisappointed prospector in a tunnel; your letter--that the person youwrote to never got--YOU can't produce; and if you did, would be onlyyour own story without proof! There is not a business man ez wouldlook at your claim; there isn't a friend of yours that wouldn't believeyou were crazy, and dreamed it all; there isn't a rival of yours ezwouldn't say ez you'd invented it. Slinn, I'm a business man--I amyour friend--I am your rival--but I don't think you're lyin'--I don'tthink you're crazy--and I'm not sure your claim ain't a good one!
"Ef you reckon from that that I'm goin' to hand you over the mineto-morrow," he went on, after a pause, raising his hand with adeprecating gesture, "you're mistaken. For your own sake, and the sakeof my wife and children, you've got to prove it more clearly than youhev; but I promise you that from this night forward I will spareneither time nor money to help you to do it. I have more than doubledthe amount that you would have had, had you taken the mine the day youcame from the hospital. When you prove to me that your story istrue--and we will find some way to prove it, if it IS true--that amountwill be yours at once, without the need of a word from law or lawyers.If you want my name to that in black and white, come to the officeto-morrow, and you shall have it."
"And you think I'll take it now?" said the old man passionately. "Doyou think that your charity will bring back my dead wife, the threeyears of my lost life, the love and respect of my children? Or do youthink that your own wife and children, who deserted you in your wealth,will come back to you in your poverty? No! Let the mine stay, withits curse, where it is--I'll have none of it!"
"Go slow, old man; go slow," said Mulrady, quietly, putting on hiscoat. "You will take the mine if it is yours; if it isn't, I'll keepit. If it is yours, you will give your children a chance to sho whatthey can do for you in your sudden prosperity, as I shall give mine achance to show how they can stand reverse and disappointment. If myhead is level--and I reckon it is--they'll both pan out all right."
He turned and opened the door. With a quick revulsion of feeling,Slinn suddenly seized Mulrady's hand between both of his own, andraised it to his lips. Mulrady smiled, disengaged his hand gently, andsaying soothingly, "Go slow, old man; go slow," closed the door behindhim, and passed out into the clear Christmas dawn.
For the stars, with the exception of one that seemed to sparklebrightly over the shaft of his former fortunes, were slowly paling. Aburden seemed to have fallen from his square shoulders as he steppedout sturdily into the morning air. He had already forgotten the lonelyman behind him, for he was thinking only of his wife and daughter. Andat the same moment they were thinking of him; and in their elaboratevilla overlooking the blue Mediterranean at Cannes were discussing, inthe event of Mamie's marriage with Prince Rosso e Negro, thepossibility of Mr. Mulrady's paying two hundred and fifty thousanddollars, the gambling debts of that unfortunate but deeplyconscientious nobleman.
