Chapter 11

At thirty-five I have the face and gait of a feeble man of sixty. When I catch a glimpse of my reflection, I am like a stranger in my own eyes, yet feeble as is my body, the _motive_ for which I live is strong within me.

By every glimpse into a warm, cosey fireside where the happy husband and wife and children gather, I renew my vow to find the man who wrecked my life, to meet him face to face, to unmask his villainy, to let him see Barbara, his wife, turn from him in horror and loathing, to have his craven life at last! This desire, continually thwarted, never extinguished, upholds me. It is meat, and drink, and clothing to my famished, shivering body. I must be the chosen instrument of God's vengeance, or I should have died of sheer despair before now. Die? No, not yet. I must press on. Who knows but I may be even now near the goal?

_March, 187-._

I am stranded here in a little western town where a false trail has led me. I am growing weaker. A slow fever is burning out my life. The last three months have been terrible. I have had but little work, and I have suffered--oh my God, how I have suffered--from cold and hunger.

My appearance is such that I am taken for a tramp. I have barely escaped arrest several times as a suspicious character. It is hard for me to see little children run away at my approach, and women turn pale and tremble as they open the door to me. So far I have only asked for work, though I have often slept supperless in sheds and barns. I have found a little work at my old trade. When it is done I shall push on. What with this fever in my blood, and the deadly longing in my heart, I have no rest.

_December, 187-._

I have found a new trail--the clearest I have come across. Chance threw into my hand a newspaper in which the name of him I am seeking is mentioned, _honorably_ mentioned, in connection with the politics of a certain State. It may not be he. Another man may bear the same name, but new life has entered my veins since I saw it. Last night I dreamed I had my hand on his throat.

_December, 187-._

I have found him! From this hill-top where I am sitting I see the town where he lives in comfort and honor--the very house that shelters him. The smoke of his fire comes up to me. It is a bitter cold day, and I have eaten nothing, but I feel neither cold nor hunger. From the day when I started on this last sure trail everything has been against me. I have been sick; I have found no work; I have begged my bread; I have been hunted for the crimes of others; I have borne abuse, scorn, insult. The very lowest depth of misery and humiliation has been reached. But that is all nothing: my purpose is to be accomplished. The end is near.

I reached this spot to-day at noon, and sat down here to rest a bit before going down into the town to make assurance sure. Soon after, a party of children came up the hill with their sleds. When they saw me they ran, except one little lass of seven or eight. She stood still and looked at me, as if too scared to move. I know I am terrible to look at--I have seen my face in pools of water as I drank--but I would not fright the child, and I tried to make my voice gentle as I said:

"Don't be scared, little one; I won't hurt you."

Just then the sun came out of a cloud and struck across her face and hair. I cried out, I could not help it. It was Barbara's face and hair, but the eyes were _his_.

"Stop!" I said, as the child started off. "What is your name?"

"Barbara," she answered, and then: "If you are hungry," she said, "mamma will give you something to eat. We live down yonder in the brown cottage."

I stared at her, shutting my teeth together.

"Maybe papa would give you some money," she said again. "He is such a good man, my papa is."

I burst into a laugh. The little lass's fear came back, and she turned and ran away.

I have not moved from the spot since she left me. I have carefully cleaned and loaded the weapon I have carried so long--the instrument in my hand of God's vengeance. Before another sun rises it will be over.

I sit and look at the cottage the child pointed out. I can see that it is neat and comfortable. The sun is going down, and the windows on this side are red as blood. So is all the snow between this place and that. I shall wait until night. I feel no fear, no remorse; and yet, if the child had not had _his_ eyes----

* * * * *

Meanwhile the men who were waiting for Dixon's return became a little restive, as the minutes dragged along and he did not appear. Even those ready means of beguiling time common to men of their stamp--the telling of highly-seasoned and _apropos_ stories interspersed with frequent libations, began to pall. Some of them stole away to their neglected dinners, returning shortly with a renewed sense of wonder as they still found him absent.

And the stark figure lay there in their midst, itself for the time forgotten in the stories and conjectures its presence had evoked, the faint smile frozen on its unshaven lips, the half-open eyes fixed seemingly upon the door with a terrible intentness.

At last one of the men who was near a window overlooking the street, said:

"He's comin'!" and a moment or two later, "I swear, he's paler'n the dead man his self!"

"Mebbe it's his long-lost brother!" suggested the vagabond Shanks, who was given to pleasantries of this sort.

"He was always that a way!" declared another. "They's men as can't look at a corpse without turnin' white around the gills, an' Dixon's one on 'em! I've seen him a-fore. An' he ain't no coward, neither!"

"No! _He_ ain't no coward!" chorused the others, and a moment or two later Dixon pushed open the door and came in. Every man's eye was drawn to his face, but he saw no one. He looked straight before him into space.

"Buckey," he said, addressing that worthy in one of his many capacities, that of undertaker, "I knew this--man. Make arrangements to have the--the body brought to my house, at once, and to have the funeral from there to-morrow morning."

He paused a moment, a kind of click in his throat, and then added, "Let every man and woman who knows me be present."

He turned and went out, and they saw him, with his head sunk on his breast, walking homeward.

At the appointed hour the small front room of Dixon's cottage was filled with men and women, drawn thither in part through deference to his expressed desire, in part through curiosity excited by the rumors which had filled the air since the day before.

The body of the stranger, now shrouded and coffined, rested upon a bier in the centre of the room. At its head sat the minister of the one church of which the town could boast.

The people were very silent, even more so than the occasion seemed to warrant, but they studied each other's faces furtively, as if each sought in the other some clue to the mystery which was to himself impenetrable.

They were plain, hard-working people, and, for the most part, decent, law-abiding citizens. The man in whose house they were assembled had been with them for years. What he had been before he came among them they had never asked. It may be that some of them had something in their own past they would fain have forgotten. He had won their respect and confidence, and in time their affection, for, as has been said, he was generous, brave and helpful. He had been their chosen leader. They had honored him with such small honors as they had to bestow, and as his reputation as a political writer and speaker spread, other and higher honors were more than hinted at.

To-day they were disturbed and restless, as if under the shadow of some impending change or calamity. They waited in a tense, constrained silence for what might happen. At length a door opened noiselessly and Dixon stood before them. A thrill ran through every breast as they saw him. A score of years might have passed over him, and not have wrought the change of this one night. The assured carriage, the look of strength and power and pride had vanished. The broad shoulders stooped. The hair was matted over his brow, the features pinched and livid.

He let his eyes wander over the faces of those present a moment; then, in a strained, husky voice, began speaking.

"You who have been my friends," he said, "who for years have given me your respect and confidence and support, look at the man lying there in his coffin! _That is my work!_"

He paused. Every face blanched perceptibly. No one moved, but all hung, with parted lips, upon the next words that strange, toneless voice might utter. It began again:

"That man was my friend, and I was his; but he possessed one thing I wanted--the love of a woman, his betrothed wife. Up to the time I began to covet this woman's love, I was as truly his friend as he was mine. Up to the hour when the devil put it into my power to swear away his good name I had never dreamed of being false to him, though I had reason to believe that the woman I loved cared for him only as a sister might, and I might have fairly won her. He was accused of a crime, and my word might have cleared him. Instead of that, it convicted him. On my false testimony he went, an innocent man, to prison, and I came with the woman I had perjured my soul to win as my wife to this country.

"For years I tried to forget. I could not. My sin followed me day and night, and poisoned every moment of my existence. At last I made up my mind to go back to the old place and give myself up, and make amends for what I had done. I left my wife and child here, and worked my passage back to England. I was too late. Justice had been done so far as human law could do it. The real criminals had been found, and he I had wronged was free. And he had gone to America. I knew what for. He was slow to anger, but, when once aroused, his anger was terrible. I knew that he was seeking me, and I knew that he would find me. From that time I never lay down to sleep but my last thought was, 'It may be to-morrow!' I never rose in the morning that I did not say to myself, 'Perhaps it may be to-day!' For years I have lived with this spectre of vengeance at my elbow. What my life has been since I came among you, you think you know. What it really has been, no mortal man can guess. At last, what was to be came to pass. He found me."

A shudder shook the speaker, and he was silent an instant. Then he continued:

"He found me. I have read in his own hand-writing _how_ he found me, and all the history of his ruined life. He has stood at my window with my life in his hands, and at the last moment--God alone knows why, perhaps for the sake of the woman he loved and her child--he has spared my life. I have seen the print of his feet where he must have stood outside in the bitter cold looking in upon my warmth and comfort. I have found the very weapon with which he would have taken my life lying at my door where he must have flung it, and I have traced his steps where he must have fled across the field to hide himself in the darkness, only to die almost within a stone's-throw of this house. He had sworn to meet me face to face, and it was to be--like this! The hand of God was in it. I might have kept silent. The secret was in my hands alone. No human law could reach me now that his tongue is silent; but lying there, as he lay yesterday, dead, in rags, he has spoken as no living man could speak! He has accused and convicted and sentenced me, as no human law could have done!"

He ceased as abruptly as he had began. He stood there, broken, self-accused, in a humiliation so deep, a despair so utter, that the sternest of his listeners was moved to a compassion which fought desperately with the horror his story had inspired. Involuntarily, unconsciously, those nearest him had shrunk away until he stood apart, alone, at the foot of the coffin, from which the dead, half-opened eyes seem to hold him in a stony, unrelenting stare.

For a time there was a complete, terrible silence. Then the minister, who had sat all this time at the head of the coffin, his venerable head bowed upon his hands, rose, and went across the room, his mild face illumined with a look of divine pity. He laid his withered hands upon Dixon's folded arms, and spoke:

"'When I kept silence my bones waxed old. Day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me.

"'Mine iniquities are gone over my head, as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. I am troubled. I am bowed down greatly. My sorrow is continually before me. I will declare my iniquity. I will be sorry for my sin. Forsake me not, O Lord! Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation!'"

All heads were bowed. From the corner where the women sat together came the sound of suppressed sobbing.

The minister went back to his place, and folding his hands above the coffin, said:

"Let us pray."

When the prayer was ended, the coffin was closed, and, followed by the entire assemblage, was borne to the place prepared for it.

The day was mild. A dense, soft snow was falling, through which the figures of men and women moved with phantasmal noiselessness. Dixon walked foremost by the side of the clergyman. When all was over, he raised his eyes from the icy clods of the new-made grave. The venerable man stood silent at its foot. Otherwise he was alone.

At the door of his cottage, the old man, too, left him, with a strong, long hand-pressure. He stood for some time before the door. The air was thick with the great flakes of snow, the footprints beneath the window and across the frozen field were already hidden from sight, but he knew that they were there, and always would be.

At last, very slowly and heavily, he turned and went into the house. It was cold and silent. The door of the front room stood open, and the chairs were as the people had left them. He went into the room and tried to restore things to their customary appearance. With a visible shudder he crossed the middle of the room where the coffin had stood, and threw open the windows. Then he went out, closing the door carefully. In the passage he listened a moment, but it was still silent. He knew that the child had been sent to a neighbor's, and that he should find his wife in her own room.

He found her sitting by the window. She did not move as he entered, and he stood near her for some moments waiting vainly for some sign that she was aware of his presence. Then he spoke her name.

She turned slightly toward him. That was all.

Dixon threw himself upon a chair near her, with a groan.

"Barbara!" he cried, in a voice of anguish, "Barbara! Is this all you have to give me?"

She turned toward him a wan, drawn face with dazed, tearless eyes that seemed to look at him as from afar off.

"I trusted you so completely," she said, her words falling as slowly and coldly as the snowflakes outside, "so completely! I never knew that such things _could_ be! I shall never forgive myself that I believed him guilty, never! I shall never forgive myself that I helped to drive him to despair. I shall never forgive----"

"Don't say it, Barbara! For _God's_ sake, don't say it!" her husband cried, throwing himself at her feet, and burying his face upon her lap. He felt her whole body recoil from his touch, and shrank back, hiding his face upon his arms.

"I was such a child," she went on, "such a foolish, weak child--but I might have known better. I shall never forgive myself!"

Dixon groaned aloud. "But I am ready, quite ready," she continued in the same voice.

"Ready?"

He started up, and stared at her wildly. He feared for her reason.

"Yes," she said, "ready to go with you, away from here, anywhere, at any time. You cannot stay here?"

There was something in her voice and face impossible to describe--a deadly apathy, an icy coldness, a stony acceptance of a hopeless situation.

For the first time in twenty-four hours the color returned to Dixon's face. His eyes flashed, his teeth were set, as he sprang to his feet. In that instant he set his face against the power that would fling him into bottomless abysses of shame and ruin.

"I _will_ stay here!" he said, fiercely. "I will _not_ fly again! The worst that could happen _has_ happened. Where should I go to escape my fate? Why should I attempt it? No! I swear to live my life here, and to live it as a man should live with God's help, and _yours_, Barbara!" he implored. "Will you drive me to despair? Will you forsake me, or will you help me?"

A shiver shook the woman's slight form, and she passed her hand across her eyes once or twice, before reaching it toward him. A piteous smile quivered across her lips, but her eyes did not seek his.

He seized her hand, and again threw himself before her.

"I am your wife, Jamie," she said, gently. "Your wife, for better or for worse. Whatever I can do to help you, I will do."

Then at last the eyes of the two met in a long, long gaze, and in that moment Dixon read his fate.

Everything else might, and did, come back to him--the esteem and confidence of his fellow-men, worldly success, aye, and the blessing of God upon the work to which he dedicated the best portion of his remaining years--the raising up of the fallen and unfortunate; all these things came to him in time, but one thing he forever missed--the old look of perfect, unquestioning trust in one woman's eyes, the eyes of the woman for whose sake he had sinned.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise every effort has been made to remain true to the authors' words and intent.

End of Project Gutenberg's Stories by American Authors, Volume 10, by Various