第84章

The Judge walked slowly down to the gate; spoke to the man he had employed in Sam Warden's place, a Scotchman who had begun to refresh the lawn with a garden hose; bowed affably in response to the salutation of the elder Louden, who was passing, bound homeward from the factory, and returned to the house with thoughtful steps.In the hall he encountered his wife; stopped to speak with her upon various household matters; then entered the library, which was his workroom.He locked the door; tried it, and shook the handle.

After satisfying himself of its security, he pulled down the window-shades carefully, and, lighting a gas drop-lamp upon his desk, began to fumble with various documents, which he took from a small safe near by.But his hands were not steady;he dropped the papers, scattering them over the floor, and had great difficulty in picking them up.

He perspired heavily: whatever he touched became damp, and he continually mopped his forehead with his sleeve.After a time he gave up the attempt to sort the packets of papers; sank into a chair despairingly, leaving most of them in disorder.

A light tap sounded on the door.

"Martin, it's supper-time."

With a great effort he made shift to answer:

"Yes, I know.You and Mamie go ahead.I'm too busy to-night.I don't want anything."A moment before, he had been a pitiful figure, face distraught, hands incoherent, the whole body incoordinate, but if eyes might have rested upon him as he answered his wife they would have seen a strange thing; he sat, apparently steady and collected, his expression cool, his body quiet, poised exactly to the quality of his reply, for the same strange reason that a young girl smiles archly and coquettes to a telephone.

"But, Martin, you oughtn't to work so hard.

You'll break down--"

"No fear of that," he replied, cheerfully."You can leave something on the sideboard for me."After another fluttering remonstrance, she went away, and the room was silent again.His arms rested upon the desk, and his head slowly sank between his elbows.When he lifted it again the clock on the mantel-piece had tinkled once.It was half-past seven.He took a sheet of note-paper from a box before him and began to write, but when he had finished the words, "My dear wife and Mamie," his fingers shook so violently that he could go no further.He placed his left hand over the back of his right to steady it, but found the device unavailing: the pen left mere zigzags on the page, and he dropped it.

He opened a lower drawer of the desk and took out of it a pistol; rose, went to the door, tried it once more, and again was satisfied of his seclusion.

Then he took the weapon in both hands, the handle against his fingers, one thumb against the trigger, and, shaking with nausea, lifted it to the level of his eyes.His will betrayed him; he could not contract his thumb upon the trigger, and, with a convulsive shiver, he dropped the revolver upon the desk.

He locked the door of the room behind him, crept down the stairs and out of the front-door.

He walked shamblingly, when he reached the street, keeping close to the fences as he went on, now and then touching the pickets with his hands like a feeble old man.

He had always been prompt; it was one of the things of which he had been proud: in all his life he had never failed to keep a business engagement precisely upon the appointed time, and the Court-house bell clanged eight when Sam Warden opened the door for his old employer to-night.

The two young people looked up gravely from the script-laden table before them as Martin Pike came into the strong lamplight out of the dimness of the hall, where only a taper burned.He shambled a few limp steps into the room and came to a halt.Big as he was, his clothes hung upon him loosely, like coverlets upon a collapsed bed; and he seemed but a distorted image of himself, as if (save for the dull and reddened eyes) he had been made of yellowish wax and had been left too long in the sun.Abject, hopeless, his attitude a confession of ruin and shame, he stood before his judges in such wretchedness that, in comparison, the figure of Happy Fear, facing the court-room through his darkest hour, was one to be envied.

"Well," he said, brokenly, "what are you going to do?"Joe Louden looked at him with great intentness for several moments.Then he rose and came forward."Sit down, Judge," he said."It's all right.Don't worry "