Part 14 (1/2)

There was no life in his hands, and hers slipped away unrestrained.

”How sweet the lilacs smell to-night,” he said as he drew in a deep breath. He leaned back that he might breathe more freely, and added as he sighed, ”I shall smell them through eternity--Molly.” Then he rose and broke off a spray. He helped her rise and said, ”Well--so this is the way of it.” His handsome fair face was white in the moonlight, and she saw that his hair was thinning at the temples, and the strange flash of familiarity with it all came again as she inhaled the fragrance of the lilacs.

She trembled with some chill of inner grief, and cried vehemently, ”Oh, Bob--my boy--my boy--say you hate me--for G.o.d's love, say you hate me.” She came so close to him that she touched him, then she crumpled against the side of the seat in a storm of tears, but he looked at her steadily and shook his head.

”Come on, Molly. It's too cool for you out here,” he said, and took her hand and walked with her to the steps. She was blinded by her weeping, and he helped here to the veranda, but he stopped on a lower step where his face was on a level with hers, and dropping her hand, he said, ”Well, good night, Molly--good night--” and as he half turned from her, he said in the same voice, ”Good-by.”

He went quickly down the walk--a tall stalwart figure, and he carried his hat in his hand, and wiped his forehead as he went. At the gate he looked back and saw her standing where he had left her; he could still hear the pitiful sobs, but he made no sign to her, and she heard him walking away under the elms into the night. When his steps had ceased she ran on tiptoe, holding her breath to silence her sobs, through the hall, up the stairs of the silent home to her room, and locked the door. When she could not pray, she lay sobbing and groaning through a long night.

CHAPTER XIV

The next morning John Barclay gave Robert Hendricks the keys to the bank. Barclay watched the town until nine o'clock and satisfied himself that there would be no run on the bank, for during the early part of the morning young Hendricks was holding a reception in his office; then Barclay saddled a horse and started for the wheat fields.

After the first hours of the morning had pa.s.sed, and the townspeople had gone from the bank, Robert Hendricks began to burrow into the books. He felt instinctively that he would find there the solution of the puzzle that perplexed him. For he was sure Molly Culpepper had not jilted him wantonly. He worked all the long spring afternoon and into the night, and when he could not sleep he went back to the bank at midnight, following some clew that rose out of his under-consciousness and beckoned him to an answer to his question.

The next morning found him at his counter, still worrying his books as a ferret worries a rat. They were beginning to mean something to him, and he saw that the bank was a worm-eaten sh.e.l.l. When he discovered that Brownwell's notes were not made for bona fide loans, but that they were made to cover Barclay's overdrafts, he began to find the truth, and then when he found that Colonel Culpepper had lent the money back to the bank that he borrowed from Brownwell,--also to save John's overdrafts,--Bob Hendricks' soul burned pale with rage. He found that John had borrowed far beyond the limit of his credit at the bank to buy the company's stock, and that he had used Culpepper and Brownwell to protect his account when it needed protection. Hendricks went about his work silently, serving the bank's customers, and greeting his neighbours pleasantly, but his heart was full of a l.u.s.t to do some bodily hurt to John Barclay. When John came back, he sauntered into the bank so airily that Hendricks could not put the hate into his hands that was in his breast. John was full of a plan to organize a commission company, buy all of the wheat grown by the Golden Belt Wheat Company and make a profit off the wheat company for the commission company. He had bargained with the traffic officers of the railroad company to accept stock in the commission company in return for rate concessions on the Corn Belt Railroad, which was within a few months' building distance of Sycamore Ridge.

As John unfolded his scheme, Bob eyed his partner almost without a word. A devil back in some recess of his soul was thirsting for a quarrel. But Bob's sane consciousness would not unleash the devil, so he replied:--

”No--you go ahead with your commission company, and I'll stick to the wheat proposition. That and the bank will keep me going.”

The afternoon was late, and a great heap of papers of the bank and the company lay before them that needed their time. Bob brushed his devil back and went to work. But he kept looking at Barclay's neck and imagining his fingers closing upon it. When the twilight was falling, Barclay brought the portmanteau containing the notes into the back room and turning to the ”C's” pulled out a note for nine thousand dollars signed by Gabriel Carnine, who was then county treasurer.

Barclay put it on the table before Hendricks and looked steadily at him a minute before saying, ”Bob--see that note?” And when the young man answered, the other returned: ”We had to do that, and several other things, this spring to tide us over. I didn't bother you with it--but we just had to do it--or close up, and go to pieces with the wheat scheme.”

Hendricks picked up the note, and after examining it a moment, asked quickly, ”John, is that Gabe's signature?”

”No--I couldn't get Gabe to sign it--and we had to have it to make his account balance.”

”And you forged his note,--and are carrying it?” cried Hendricks, rising.

”Oh, sit down, Bob--we did it here amongst hands. It wasn't exactly my affair, the way it got squared around.”

Hendricks took the note to the window. He was flushed, and the devil got into his eyes when he came back, and he cried, ”And you made father do it!”

Barclay smiled pacifically, and limped over to Hendricks and took the note from him and put it back into the portmanteau. Then Barclay replied: ”No, Bob, I didn't make your father--the times made your father. It was that or confess to Gabe Carnine, who swelled up on taking his job, that we hadn't paid the taxes on the company's land, though our check had been pa.s.sed for it. When it came in, we gave the county treasurer credit on his daily bank-book for the nine thousand, but we held out the check. Do you see?”

”Yes, that far,” replied Hendricks.

”Well, it's a long story after that, but when I found Gabe wouldn't accommodate us for six months by giving us his note to carry as cash until we could pay it,--the inspectors wouldn't take mine or your father's,--and our books had to show the amount of gross cash that the treasurer deposited before Gabe came in, your father thought it unwise to keep holding checks that had already been paid in the drawer as cash for that nine thousand, so we--well, one day he just put this note in, and worked it through the books.”

Hendricks had his devil well in hand as he stared at Barclay, and then said: ”John--this is mighty dangerous business. Are we carrying his account nine thousand short on our books, and making his pa.s.s-book balance?”

”That's it, only--”

”But suppose some one finds it out?” asked Hendricks.

”Oh, now, Bob, keep your s.h.i.+rt on. I fixed that. You know they keep two separate accounts,--a general maintenance account and a bond account, and Gabe has been letting us keep the paid-off bonds in the vault and look after their cancelling, and while he was sick, I was in charge of the treasurer's office and had the run of the bank, and I squared our account at the Eastern fiscal agency and in the bond account in the treasurer's office, and fixed up the short maintenance account all with nine thousand dollars' worth of old bonds that were kicking around the vault uncancelled, and now the job is hermetically sealed so far as the treasurer and the bank are concerned.”

”So we can't pay it back if we want to? Is that the way, John?” asked Hendricks, his fingers twitching as he leaned forward in his chair.