Chapter 8 SAW THE BLACK FACE, GRIM, WITHOUT A SMILE.

It was nearly daylight when Bodney reached home. As he stood on the steps, after unlocking the door, he looked toward the east and said aloud: "The sun will soon draw to his flush. But he always makes it. God, what a night I've had. It is the last one, for here at the threshold of a new day I swear that I will never touch another card. And Goyle-I'll have nothing more to do with him." He went in, still repeating his vow, and as he passed the door of the office, was surprised to see a light within; and halting, he heard footsteps slowly pacing up and down.

He stepped in and stood face to face with the Judge.

"Why, Judge, are you up so soon, or haven't you gone to bed?"

"I haven't been to bed. And you?"

"I have been sitting up with a sick friend. Don't you think you'd better lie down now?"

"No, I think nothing of the sort. It is better to stand in hell, sir, than to wallow in it." Bodney sat down and the old man stood facing him. "But I can hardly realize that it was not a nightmare, George. Go over it with me; tell me about it. How did it happen?"

"Why, we simply came in here together and found-him. That's all."

"Yes, that's all, but it is enough."

"Was there very much money involved?" Bodney asked, not knowing what else to say.

"Money! I haven't once thought of the amount. It is the fact that I have been shot with an arrow taken from my own quiver, and poisoned. And yet, when I look at him, as I did today at dinner, I can hardly bring myself to believe my own eyes."

"You haven't-haven't said anything to him, have you?"

"In the way of accusation? No. It would leap from him to his mother. And I charge you to breathe it to no one."

"Not even my sister, who is to be his wife?"

"No. I will take her case in hand."

"But will you permit them to marry?"

"Not in a house of God; not in the presence of a guest. If she is determined to marry him against my protest, it must be in secret, as his deed was."

"I hope, sir, that everything may-may come out right."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Why, I hope that you may forgive him. I don't think that he's dishonest at heart."

"Then you are a fool."

"I admit that, Judge. I am a fool, an infamous fool."

"But you are not a scoundrel, not a thief."

"I might be worse."

"Enough of that. You are trying to debase yourself to raise him. Don't do it. You can't afford it. You have an honest living to make, and through you I must now look to the future." He turned away, and for a time walked up and down in silence; then, coming back, resumed his place in front of Bodney. "It all comes from my over-confidence in modern civilization. I did not presume to instruct or even advise him as to a course of reading, permitting him to exercise his own fancy; and it led him to that running sore on the face of the earth-Paris. He read French books, the germs thrown off by diseased minds. He lived in a literary pest house, and how could he come out clean? He was prepared for any enormity against nature, and why then should he have drawn the line between me and any of his desires?" He turned away, walking up and down, sometimes rubbing his hands together, as if washing them, then putting them behind him; halting at the desk to gaze down at something; going once to the safe and putting his hand upon it, but snatching it away as if the iron were hot. Bodney followed him about with his eyes, seeing him through cards, hearts and spades. His mind flew back to the game, and he could see the players sitting just as he had left them, the offensive fellow and the regular, behind a redoubt of chips. Only ten dollars more would have saved him; he had fancied so before, but now it was not fancy but almost a perfect knowledge. Why had he not asked the preacher for twenty instead of ten?

"'But it is so strange," said the old man, sitting down with one arm straight out upon the green baize table; and the wretch with his mind on the game thought that it would be but an ungainly position for a player to take; he ought to sit facing the table with his hands in front of him. "Stranger than truth," said the Judge, and Bodney looked at him with a start. For a moment the game vanished and darkness fell upon the players, but soon a blue curtain was pulled aside, a black face, grim, without a smile, showed glistering behind the glass, the door was opened, and there again were the players in the light, the offensive fellow drawing one card, the regular solemn and confident with a hand that was pat. "Stranger than the strangest truth that I have ever encountered," the Judge went on, turning his back to the table and looking over Bodney's head at something on the wall. "But I brood too much."

"One card," said Bodney, in a thick muse.

"What's that?"

The young man started. "Nothing."

"You said something about a card."

"Yes, sir; it was sent in to me tonight while I was with my sick friend-man wanted to see him on business and insisted upon coming in, and it was all I could do to put him off."

"Brood too much," the Judge repeated, after a brief interval of silence. "The mind mildews under any one thing that lies upon it long. A continuous joy might be as poisonous as a grief." He leaned forward with his head in his hands, and talked in a smothered voice.

"The sun is coming up," said Bodney. "Don't you think you'd better lie down?"

"You go to bed. Don't mind me."

"Believe I will. I am worn out, and I don't see how you can stand it as well as you do."

"In worry there is a certain sort of strength. Go to bed."

Bodney got up and went to the door, but turned and looked at the old man, bowed over with his fingers pressed to his eyes. The coming of the sun had driven the game further off into the night, and now the wretch's heart smote him hard. He could lift that gray head; into those dull eyes he could throw the light of astonishment, but they would shoot anger at him and drive him out of the house. If he could only win enough to replace the money taken from the safe, to give himself the standing of true repentance, he would confess his crime. Win enough! He could not conceive of getting it in any other way; all idea of business had been driven from his mind. He had no mind, no reason; what had been his mind was now a disease on fire, half in smoke and half in flame, but he felt that if he could get even, the fire would go out and the smoke clear away. The old fellow who turned moralist could have told him that he had for more than half a life-time struggled to get even, that the poker fool is never even but twice, once before he plays and once after he is dead. And the scholar who had forgotten his grammar in the constant strain of the present tense would have assured him that the hope to get even was a trap set by the devil to catch the imaginative mind.

The Judge groaned, and Bodney took a step toward him, with his hands stretched forth as if he would grasp him and shake him into a consciousness of the truth, but the old man looked up and the young man faltered. "I thought you were going to bed, George."

"I am, sir."

"Then, why do you stand there looking at me?"

"I-I don't know," he stammered, in his embarrassment.

"Yes, you do know," said the Judge, giving him a straight and steady look. "You know that you are hanging about to plead the cause of your-your friend; but it is of no use. Friend! I would to God he had been my friend. Confess, now; isn't that the reason you are standing there?"

"You read my mind, Judge," said the wretch.

"Do I? Then read mine and go to bed."

As Bodney turned toward the door, he met William coming in. The old fellow carried his coat thrown across one arm and was trying to button his shirt collar. It was his custom to begin dressing at his bedside, grabbing up the first garment within reach, and to complete his work in the office, the basement, or even the back yard. "Hold on a minute," he said to Bodney. "Button this infernal collar for me." Bodney halted to obey. "Can't you take hold of it? Is it as slick as all that? Do you think I wear an eel around my neck? Confound it, don't choke the life out of me. Get away. I can do it better myself. Didn't I tell you to quit? Are you a bull-dog, that you have to hang on that way?"

Bodney trod heavily to his room. The old fellow threw his coat on the table and began to walk about, tugging at his collar.

"Do you think you can button it here better than in your own room?" the Judge asked, straightening up and looking at him. "Has this office been set aside as a sort of dressing parade ground for you?"

William was muttering and fuming. "I was Judge Lynch out West, once, and was about to set a horse-thief free, but just then I incidentally heard that he had sold collars and I ordered him hanged. Did you speak to me, John?"

"I asked you a question."

"I knew a Universalist preacher that changed his religion on account of a collar-swore that its inventor must necessarily go to the flames. What was the question you asked me, John?"

"One that would have no more effect on you than a drop of water on the back of a mole."

William buttoned his collar, tied his cravat, took a seat opposite his brother and looked hard at him. "John, I see that your temper hasn't improved. And you have got up early to turn it loose on me. Now, what have I done? Hah, what have I done?"

"I have never heard of your doing anything, William."

"That's intended as an insult. Oh, I understand you. You never heard of my doing anything. You haven't? You never heard of my electing two governors out West. You bat your eyes at the fact that I sent a man to the United States Senate. Why, at one time I owned the whole state of Montana, and a man who had never done anything couldn't-couldn't make that sort of showing."

"What did you do with the state?"

"What did I do with it? A nice question to ask a man. What did Adam do with the Garden of Eden?"

"You were not driven out of Montana, were you?"

"Driven out? Who said I was driven out?"

"But Adam was driven out of the garden."

"Oh, yes, of course. I merely spoke of the Garden of Eden for the reason that Adam's claim on it was only sentimental, if I may call it such. I mean that I owned the good opinion of every man in the state. I could have had anything within the gift of the commonwealth."

"Then, why didn't you go to the Senate, or elect yourself governor? Why were you so thoughtless a prodigal of your influence?"

"That's a nice question to ask a man. Why didn't you buy an acre in this town that would have made you worth millions? Why didn't I go to the Senate? I had something else on my mind. Every man is not ambitious to hold office. There's something higher than politics. I was educated for a different sphere of action. I was, as you know, educated for a preacher, but my faith slipped from under me. But it is of no use to talk to you."

"Not much, William, I admit."

"But can't you tell me why this peculiar change has come over you? It worries me, and you know why."

The Judge made a gesture. "Don't-it's not that. My mind is perfectly sound."

"Then, what's the trouble?"

"I can't tell you."

"Am I ever to know?"

"I hope not."

"I don't see why you should give me the keen edge of your temper and not tell me the cause that led you to whet it against me."

"I have not whetted it against you-it has been whetted on my heart. Go away, William, and leave me to myself."

"I would if you were yourself, but you are not. There is something the matter with you."

"I grant that."

"And in it there is cause for alarm, both for you and for myself."

"Now, please don't allude to that again. My mind is perfectly sound, I tell you."

"And so one dear to us often declared."

The Judge got up. "I shall have to command you to leave this room."

"Then, of course, I'll go. Here comes your wife. Rachel, there is something radically wrong with John, and I advise you to send for the best physician in this town."