Heart to heart

Henry Cross walked on until the edge of the lake was reached and the greater number of private cottages and hotels were left behind. He was in a turmoil of conflicting emotions, and it appeared to ease him somewhat to move along rapidly in the open air. He traversed a long stretch of sandy beach, gazed vacantly out upon the clear waters, which sparkled in the bright sunlight, and then suddenly seated himself upon a flat rock.

“I wouldn’t do it out of regard for him,” he muttered. “Why should I? He was no friend of mine; I believe he actually hated me as much as a man of his easy-going nature could hate anybody. But for Maud’s sake, poor girl! It’s a shame.”

He arose, as if unable to bear his thoughts just then, and continued on his way. A hundred steps farther, and he came to a deep gully, where a mountain brook had cut its way down through brush and stones to the lake.

There was a bridge across the gully, but a man stood leaning on the hand rail; a sporty-looking city chap. Henry Cross at that moment was in no mood to encounter him, and he turned up the gully, and along a well-worn footpath which led to a country road, where there was a second bridge. He did not know that the eyes of the sporty-looking chap were on him until he was out of sight.

By the time Cross reached the second bridge his thoughts had taken a new turn. He wondered how Maud Willowby was faring, how she would get along in the future, and what the outcome of the whole miserable affair would be.

“I will stop at the door, send in my message of sympathy, and ask for news. Perhaps old Aunty Motley can tell me something. The old colored woman has the whole run of the house, and she is very friendly to me.”

He turned away from the gully, and now hurried along the road in the direction of the town. He passed several farmhouses, then half a dozen newly built country mansions, and finally came to a halt before the tall iron gate leading into the spacious grounds of the Willowby estate.

As if afraid to make a noise that might disturb the repose of the young lady who had but a few short hours before been so sorely afflicted, Henry Cross did not attempt to open the creaky iron gate. Instead he passed around to the drive-way, which stood open, and hurried up the gravel path to the side door of the great house, every blind of which was now tightly closed.

“Cross!”

The young man started slightly at being so unexpectedly addressed. He had hesitated at the side door, debating if he had not better, after all, go around to the front entrance, and make the call a formal one. He turned and beheld the colonel standing behind him. He had come up from the heart of the town by a short cut, which led to the rear garden.

“Colonel Willowby!” The young man took his hand. “I trust you have somewhat recovered from the fearful shock you have sustained. I called to make inquiries concerning Miss Maud. If I can be of any assistance in this matter——”

The colonel uttered a groan, and followed it with a long, deep breath. He looked more bent and haggard than ever. Turning suddenly, he clutched Henry Cross’ arm convulsively.

“Come into the library, Cross. Perhaps you can do something for me, if you will. I am fearfully upset. Come!”

The colonel staggered up the steps, unlocked a door, and led the way through a richly furnished hallway into his library. He motioned the young man to a chair and dropped wearily into another. He rang a bell, and presently an old colored woman appeared.

“Has the doctor come, Nancy?” he asked.

“Yes, sah. He’s upstairs wid Miss Maud now.”

“Thank Heaven. He understands her condition, and ought to be able to do something. I am helpless—I can do nothing. You may go.”

The colored woman had glanced toward Henry Cross in some surprise. It had been many a day since she had seen him in that house. She bowed politely, and then withdrew.

“What doctor have you? Not the one at inquest?”

“Oh, no, no! We have Spriglehem, an old friend of the family. No, Maud must not speak with any one who has seen that ghastly sight. A description of the unfortunate man, lying lifeless in his own gore, might drive her mad.”

A dull pain filled Henry Cross’ heart. She was suffering—and because of her love for another. But he closed his lips and made no sign. He had borne defeat and bitter agony of heart before; he would bear whatever came now.

“Yes, it is fearful!” went on the colonel, after a short silence. “I cannot as yet realize the sad blow myself.”

“I imagine the best thing you can do is to take Maud on a long trip—to California or South America, for instance. It will do you both good.”

“I cannot do it, Cross; that is one of the bad features of the case. I must remain here, and in New York.”

“Surely your business can be placed in other hands, colonel. I know how attentive you usually are in such matters, but you owe it to yourself as well as to your daughter to try a change of scene.”

Again Colonel Willowby groaned, deeper than before. He sprang up, his face livid with agony. He took a turn up and down the room and then faced Cross.

“I might as well tell you all, since it will be common property in a day or two,” he said brokenly. “The death of Allen Chesterbrook has ruined me. I am a beggar.”

“What!” and in his intense surprise Henry Cross leaped to his feet. “You surely do not mean that.”

“I mean just that, nothing less. I am a beggar. All is gone—this house and grounds, my other real estate, my bonds, my honor.” The colonel’s voice sank into a whisper. “I almost wish that I, too, were dead!”

Henry Cross stared at the man. Was he in a dream? What was the colonel saying? “A beggar!” he faltered.

“That word expresses my condition. Yes, a beggar!”

“But, but—how is this—how has Allen Chesterbrook brought you to this state?”

“I did not say he brought me to it. It is his death that has wrought all this woe, this misery that cannot be escaped. I will tell you all, but, perhaps, you do not care to hear. You cannot be interested in my private affairs.”

“Excuse me, sir, but I am very much interested. And let me add, if I can help you in any way, I am at your service. I would certainly not see you and Maud in distress.”

“But you—you are not like other men, Cross; I mean, you do not stand in the same relationship here as others would. I know something of the past—of your hopes—and of how they were shattered.”

The young man straightened up with a flushed face.

“Let the past take care of itself, Colonel Willowby. I am speaking of the present. I am your friend and the friend of your daughter, and I am willing, nay, anxious, to assist you in your trouble, as far as lies in my power.”

“Thank you for that assurance!” The colonel grasped his visitor’s hand feverishly. “I wish——” he broke off. “Sit down and I will tell you all.”

The two took seats close together. For a few seconds only the sound of the clock on the old secretary in the corner could be heard. Then Colonel Willowby’s voice arose in a half whisper, broken more than once by intense emotion.

“I do not know if you are aware that for some time past, for six months or more, I have been backing up the Lakeview Land Improvement Company. President Bixby is an old friend, and when he showed me the scheme by which it looked as if millions could easily be made, I went into it. At first I took only one-fifth of the shares, the par value of which amounted to fifty thousand dollars. Then I bought more of the shares from the Cresson estate, and, finally, Bixby and myself virtually carried the entire enterprise upon our shoulders alone.

“We made a number of improvements to Burr Point and around the cove, at a cost of quite a large sum. Then the Branders estate and the Cheeseborough were put in the market and we took them up, and also bought out the Snow Improvement Company, giving notes for all, for ninety days and six months. I indorsed the notes individually, thinking all would go well.

“Hardly had the notes been issued when suit was brought against us by the old Lakeview Real Estate Company, and all the property was involved in litigation. The matters have been in the courts for two months——”

“Yes, I know of this,” interrupted Henry Cross. “It has bothered us slightly in buying up the right of way for the Riverhead Railroad.”

“I suppose so. Well, to cut the story short, so long as the matter is in litigation we can do nothing with the land. Yet the notes first issued have matured, and others will soon be due. Bixby has no cash, and every effort to raise the sum has proven a failure. I have used up every dollar in lawyers’ fees and in paying off the back debts.

“But up to ten o’clock this morning I was not alarmed. Allen had promised to help me; he was to indorse the new notes of the company before he and Maud started off on their wedding tour. He was willing to take any risk that was attached to the deal, feeling as Bixby and I do, that all would result well. Now the new notes will not be indorsed, the old company will push us to the wall—they have been hungry for a chance to get in on us—and the end is that we will be squeezed out of everything.” The colonel gave a deep sigh. “Ah, it is hard, after one has worked so many years. I am no longer young——”

He broke off, and again silence fell, which Henry Cross interrupted by asking:

“For what amount are the new notes?”

“Sixty thousand dollars. That sum would tide us over, and extricate us from all permanent difficulties. I feel certain of it.”

The young man’s face fell. “Sixty thousand dollars! Could it not be made less?”

“I wanted to make it forty, but Allen said to make it sixty, and be sure. But even forty thousand, when a thing is in litigation——”

“If thirty thousand can help you, Colonel Willowby, the sum is at your service.”

The old man stared at the speaker as if he had not heard aright. The face of Henry Cross betrayed no excitement; indeed, he acted as if he had made but the commonest kind of a proposition.

“You will lend me thirty thousand—you!”

“Yes, colonel, gladly, if you think it will pull you through.”

“But I did not know you had so much—that is, at command.”

“By my uncle’s death, last month, I received eighteen thousand dollars. I can raise the balance in various ways.”

He did not state that he would be compelled to sell out almost his entire stock in the new Riverhead Railroad, something that was expected to pay big when once in operation.

“You are indeed a friend, Cross. Thirty thousand might do it; Bixby and I could, I think, manage to scrape up the rest somewhere. And we would be saved.” Colonel Willowby breathed a sigh of relief as a drowning man might when drawn from the water. “But I did not expect it of you. No, not of you.”

“That shows you did not know me,” returned the young man, with a faint smile of pleasure.

“That is true, I did not know your worthiness, your generosity. Nor did Maud.”

Henry Cross paled a trifle. He turned toward the window, where the light came in faintly through the closed shutters.

“Colonel,” he said, turning back, “I wish to have your promise on one point, if I do this favor for you.”

“I grant it, Cross. I know you will not exact too much.”

“Your daughter must not know of what I do.”

“What, Maud! But—but——”

“I do not wish her to think I am currying favor—that I—I——”

“I understand you now, Cross. I would have understood before, but was thinking of my own affairs. But she ought to know what a noble young man you are.”

“It is my wish that this matter shall not be mentioned to your daughter.”

“Well, then, it shall be as you say. You do not know how you have relieved me! It was bad enough to have Allen murdered without having my poor daughter and myself turned out of our home as beggars.”

Henry Cross caught at the word “murdered” and once again the color left his cheeks. He walked to the windows to make sure they were tightly closed, then to the door, which he opened to gaze out into the empty hallway.

“Colonel Willowby,” he said, in a half whisper, “I have a secret on my mind that I must tell some one—tell you. Promise me that you will not disclose—or, no, you need promise nothing; you may do as you think best.”

“I am willing to keep any secret you may intrust to me, Cross.”

“It is not my secret, it is a dead man’s—Allen Chesterbrook’s.”

“Allen’s! What do you mean?”

“Hush; not so loud, or some one may overhear you. It is a secret that must be kept, for your sake and for Maud’s. The world must not know of this disgrace.”

“But you talk in riddles. What is the secret? Out with it.”

The colonel was all attention at once.

“Allen Chesterbrook was not the man you took him to be—honest, conscientious, willing to keep his word at any risk. He was a reckless trifler.”

“Cross, what strange disclosure is this?”

“It is true, sir. And he was not murdered,” the young man’s voice sank still lower. “He committed suicide.”

The secret that had been locked in Henry Cross’ breast ever since he had picked up that bit of paper in front of the desk was out at last. No longer was the responsibility of keeping silent his alone.

“A suicide!” The colonel fairly choked over the word. “Never!”

“It is true, sir.”

“You lie, you young——But, excuse me, Cross. No, no, not that!”

“It is a sad state of affairs, but, nevertheless, true. At the last moment he discovered that he had made a mistake in becoming engaged to your daughter, and rather than marry her, the coward—I can express it in no other term—took his own life.”

“But the proof, man! Where is the proof?”

“I have it here. There is a slip of paper I found in his room. It is part of a letter he started to write to your daughter, and then tore up. It betrays the condition of his mind; it shows under what emotions he was laboring.”

“Give me the slip. Oh, if this is really true! But I remember now how cold he was when last I saw him. I fancied he had regretted his offer to aid me. Turn on the lights, my eyesight is none of the best now. Ah, it is his handwriting—I know that well! That will do; I can see it now.”