Part 40 (2/2)

”Unless you are too weary to bide with me one little hour?” she replied wistfully; ”it had better be now.”

”You know what an owl I am, Ruth. With returning health my old habits seem to gain strength. I sleep more satisfactorily if I do it after midnight.” He settled back comfortably in his chair, and the fire, encouraged by several small logs, rose to the occasion.

”I've been thinking about--Philip to-night.”

”Poor girl. It was a year ago! To remember Phil best, we should be cheerful, but the subconscious sadness ran through all the evening's fun for you--and me, Ruth.”

”Yes. Ralph, you only knew Phil a few years--never before he was married?”

”No, but he was one of those men who do not belong to time limit nor letters of introduction. His own knew him at a glance. There was no time to be lost with Phil. I've often noticed that faculty for deep and ready friends.h.i.+p among people who are here for only a short life. Others can afford to weigh and consider; they must garner quickly, and the Master seems to have equipped them.”

”Ralph, was Phil a man that you felt you knew, really knew, I mean?”

”Yes; as to essentials. I never saw any one so positive as to the high lights. Honesty, truth, good faith, and a broad humanity. I always knew he had trouble that he did not talk about; he hinted that much to me once or twice, but the silence regarding it only intensified his own personality, of which he gave lavishly.”

The woman bending toward the fire, s.h.i.+vered, and as her head sank lower, one s.h.i.+ning braid of hair dropped forward, s.h.i.+elding her face.

”Ralph--I sometimes think the thing I have to do is the--hardest that ever woman had to do.” The words were uttered with a moan that drove Drew into a silence more eloquent than any question he could have put.

He realized that the woman beside him must tread the rough path of confession alone, and as she could. In his heart he prayed for strength to be beside her when all was done.

”If ever a sin saved, Philip's sin saved him, and yet he counted it as nothing at the last. He bade me do for him what he could not do for himself--I have never been able to begin until--to-night. He said--he had no right to friends nor the trust and favour of love. But he never was able to renounce them; I must strike them down one by one--now he is gone.

”I must do as he would have me do--I see the justice, if the end is to be obtained, but thank G.o.d, I, who loved him--can still love him--and he has been dead a year!”

The pain-racked eyes looked straight into Drew's with a sort of challenge. But Drew was too sincere a man to give, even to friends.h.i.+p, a blind comfort and a.s.surance. He merely smiled at the troubled glance, and said quietly:

”I am sure where you loved, there was much to love.”

”Yes; yes; that is true; and I begin to think the n.o.bility of it all lay in his unconsciousness of the splendid character he builded so patiently and laboriously out of all the wreck.

”Philip had a brother, Ralph! His name was never spoken. He was two years older than Philip, and as different as it was possible for a brother to be.

”John was all strength and concentration; Philip all brightness and charm--in the beginning! Their mother adored Philip; she never understood John, and yet he was a good son, brave and faithful. But he could not show his nature--it lay so far below the surface. It was always easy for Philip. His charm attracted nearly everyone. My father always liked John better. He said there was splendid power in him, and--I must keep nothing from you, Ralph--I loved John--loved him, oh!

how I loved him. I pitied him because he could not win what should have been his--I loved him for myself, and for all the others who were too dull to realize his worth. It was like mother love and all the rest, in one.”

”Yes; the most G.o.d-like love of all. Only women know it, I fancy,” Drew murmured.

”And then”; the agonized eyes seemed to plead even while they confessed, ”then the awful thing happened. John took--he stole many thousands of dollars from men who trusted and honoured him.”

”Ruth!”

”I could never have believed it, but he told me so himself. To the day of his death my father believed the half had never been told, but how could I think that, when John told me himself that he was guilty? Father was a judge--he was to have been the judge before whom John Dale was tried, but they relieved him of that horrible duty. John Dale was sentenced to five years--in prison! They said it was a light sentence.”

”My G.o.d! Poor Phil! How terrible for you all!”

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