William found his uncle at a writing-table, sheets of paper and a note-book before him, a fountain-pen in his hand. He looked up and smiled a pleasant greeting. "Thought you had turned in," he chuckled, softly. "I told Lessie I had a book to read, but it wasn\'t that, really. I\'ve been here figuring on my holdings. I love to do it. It makes the things I\'ve fought and won stand out, you see, before my eyes, as you might say. It furnishes me with a fresh surprise every time I do it. It always seems bigger, solider, you see. Sit down, my boy; take a cigar—there are several pretty good ones. No, you won\'t? I see, it will keep you awake, eh? Well, I must say I admire it in you. The best business men are careful, and you are one of them. I owe you a lot, my boy," he went on, as William sat down and clasped his cold knee-caps with his shaking hands. "Do you know what you did for me? I see; you are too modest to confess it. Well, you actually did this: I had practically given up the financial game. I was trifling my time and income away in Europe when this great family trouble clutched me and pulled me back into harness. And what has been the result? Why, I\'ve not only enjoyed the game of defending our blood, but every venture I have made has shoveled gold into my bin."
William nodded. He could not find his voice. He was glad that his uncle\'s enthusiastic face was bent over his writing.
"And don\'t think I am not realizing that I\'m no longer young, either," the steady voice went on. "I\'m not a silly fool. I sha\'n\'t claim more than ten years more of life, at the furthest, and what do you think I expect to do with my effects? You saw the little item in The Transcript the other day, stating that I might make a big donation to several charitable institutions? I know you must have seen it. Well, nothing could be farther from my intentions. I am going to leave all I have to a young fellow that I think had a pretty hard time of it. Of course, you don\'t know who I mean, Billy. I didn\'t think I\'d ever want to provide for any particular person, but when I got back from Europe and saw you haggard and unstrung, putting up practically all you had in the world to pull our name from the mire—well, it changed me on the spot. You see, it was a quality I didn\'t think a man could have, and I\'d found it in you."
"Wait! Stop, please!" William gulped. "I—I—"
"Too modest, eh?" the old man laughed. "Now you keep quiet. I am holding the floor, and the chairman says you are out of order. Huh! if you are too modest to want this for yourself, think of your wife and child. I\'ve grown to love them as if they were child and grandchild of my own. I want to see them happy, and when I make them so you will be, too, Billy, in spite of the rascally thing that has been done to you. You shall be president of the bank; you shall run the whole thing, and I\'ll sit back and take life easy to the end. Do you know that old men enjoy life more than the young? Well, it is true. Aside from the bad conduct of your brother—the lasting sting of it—there is nothing in my life to regret. I am actually happy in the realization that I am doing so much for the happiness of you and yours—and mine. Yes, they are mine, too."
There was a pause, but William was unable to fill it. He reached out and took one of the cigars from the table; he struck a match and lighted it, but it burnt for an instant only. The old man was looking at him steadily. "You are not well to-night, are you, Billy?" he asked, in a sudden swirl of affectionate concern.
"No, not very," William heard himself saying. "I—I—"
"Well, perhaps you\'d better turn in," his uncle suggested. "This is your day of rest, you know. Later I\'ll give you the details of what I am going to do for you."
"Uncle," said William, desperately, standing up and leaning forward like a storm-blown human reed, "I am unworthy, absolutely unworthy of—"
"Bosh! Go to bed!" the old man cried, in an ecstasy of delight. "I\'m to be the judge of worthiness in this case. It is a scarce commodity these days, and when I see a man actually trying to stave off his just rewards—why, he is a miracle, that\'s all—a miracle of unselfishness! Stupid, think of that bonny child of yours! Don\'t you want to see her take her proper place in the social world? What have you lived and toiled for? I\'ll bet Lessie won\'t treat this thing as you do. I\'ll bet she will kiss her old uncle, and—"
William lost the remainder of the remark. A sudden sense of respite brooded over him like a protecting cloud. Had he the right now to step between his wife and child and such a princely inheritance? In the face of it would Lessie herself not feel impelled to take a different stand? What normal mother would not? To disillusion the old idealist now would ruin the chances of a good woman and a helpless child. Yes, at any rate, he told himself, he must see Celeste and lay the matter in its new form before her.
"Well, I\'ll go up," he said, as casually as was in his depleted power. "I\'ll see you at breakfast. I—I am rather tired."
"Yes. Good night, my boy. Sleep will do you good."
Somehow William had the odd sense of being bodiless as he ascended the stairs. As he approached his wife\'s room he saw the handle of her door move, and then he knew that she was standing waiting for him just inside the room. They faced each other in the deflected flare of the street lamp. She reached out and took his hands and clung to them.
"I\'ve been listening. I expected a scene, a commotion, but I heard nothing of the sort," she whispered. "It must have simply stunned him. The blow was too deep even to stir his fury."
William pressed her hands convulsively, appealingly. He put an arm around her, a shaking, half-palsied arm.
"Lessie," he panted, raspingly. "I found out down there—Wait, wait! Give me time." He cleared his throat. "I found out—It was like this, darling. You know how rapidly he talks at times? Well, he wouldn\'t give me a chance to break in; and finally he told me something that made me—forced me to feel that if you had been there—I mean—"
"What? Go on! Go on!" Celeste breathed quickly.
"He was in a jolly mood. He spoke more freely than ever before. He let out the fact that he is worth several millions and that he intends to leave it all to us—I mean to you and Ruth. He has no idea of donating anything to charity, but all to you two. So you see—you see, it put me where I simply had to—to lay it before you. It strikes me as a reasonable idea that with all that money at your disposal you could—why, Lessie, you could make Charlie rich, and surely you cannot stand between our child and all that good fortune. Don\'t you see, dear? The truth would so infuriate uncle that he would—would drop us all—you, me, Ruth, Charlie—everybody! Old men are like that; they can\'t seem to recuperate after such a blow. I didn\'t tell him. I confess I didn\'t even mention it, for it was my duty to—to show you how matters stand. I\'d not be a natural husband and father if—if I had acted otherwise. We have got in this awful mess. How are we going to get out? Remember, dear, I was trying to earn money for you and the baby when it happened, so how can I bear to—to think of going to jail and leaving you penniless? He would be mad enough to send me to jail, dear; he is just that vindictive, and he would not take care of you two, either. You don\'t seem to realize that it would make him the laughing-stock of the public, and he so sensitive and hot-tempered. You see, I have forced him to be my active accomplice in covering it all up, and he would have to remain silent or turn me over to the authorities. Oh, it is awful—awful! He puts such a high and unjust value on me that when he finds he has been fooled he will—why, he won\'t know how to control himself! It would be like him to leave the house to-night—this very night—and go to a hotel, where he would chatter even to the bell-boys. Think of Ruth—if not of me; have pity on that sweet, inoffensive child."
"Oh, but Charlie! Charlie!" Celeste found voice to say.
"But don\'t you remember that Charlie himself proposed going away? Why, he was down and out—sick of Boston and everything in it. He said he never wanted to come back or to be heard of again. That was to save me—just me—from—from trouble. Is it likely that he would be willing to have me—to have any of us take a step like this now? How do you know that—that he\'d like to—to have his old life raked up again? He is evidently playing a part of some sort. Have we the right, without consulting him, to have all this put in the papers and flashed from end to end of the country?"
Celeste stood like a statue, cold and motionless, in his half-embrace. The dim light disclosed her marble cheek to his sight. Her wide-open eyes caught the flare from the street lamp and gave it back in gleams of indecision.
"You say he spoke of Ruth\'s inheritance?" she gasped.
"More of her than you or me," said William, grasping at the straw. "He fairly dotes on her. But don\'t think he would stand by her if—if we anger him by this exposure. He would hate us all, Ruth along with us. In a burst of fury he would cut us all out. Oh, I know him, Lessie," went on William, imbibing hope from the dead stare turned on him. "I have been right at his elbow for over a year. He has given me his innermost thoughts."
"I know," Celeste whispered. "I\'ve noticed it, and knew why it was. He looked upon you as a paragon of nobility because you—because he thought you were sacrificing so much to atone for Charlie\'s conduct. He told me once that it had given him a new faith in men—that he had not thought such a thing possible. But that was wrong—cursed of God. It was hypocrisy as black as the lowest vats of hell. And I helped you in it. I feared all along that my intuition was telling me the truth, but because I didn\'t know where Charlie was, because I thought he might be dead, I kept silent. But, husband, it is different now—oh—oh! so different! God has sent us this trial. Charlie\'s life and happiness are at stake. If we are untrue he will bear the burden meant for us. God knows he has suffered enough for his boyish escapades&mda............