第124章

They say I really don't know anything at all.And I'm not only a fool, they say, I'm a dishonest fool into the bargain!""But who says such twaddle as that?" she returned consolingly.

The violence of his emotion disturbed her."You mustn't imagine such things.You are among friends here.

Other people are your friends, too.They have the very highest opinion of you.""I haven't a friend on earth but you!" he declared solemnly.

His eyes glowed fiercely, and his voice sank into a grave intensity of tone."I was going to kill myself.I went on to the big bridge to throw myself off, and a policeman saw me trying to climb over the railing, and he grabbed me and marched me away.Then he threw me out at the entrance, and said he would club my head off if I came there again.

And then I went and stood and let the cable-cars pass close by me, and twenty times I thought I had the nerve to throw myself under the next one, and then I waited for the next--and I was afraid! And then I was in a crowd somewhere, and the warning came to me that I was going to die.

The fool needn't go kill himself: God would take care of that.It was my heart, you know.I've had that terrible fluttering once before.It seized me this time, and Ifell down in the crowd, and some people walked over me, but some one else helped me up, and let me sit down in a big lighted hallway, the entrance to some theatre, and some one brought me some brandy, but somebody else said I was drunk, and they took it away again, and put me out.

They could see I was a fool, that I hadn't a friend on earth.And when I went out, there was a big picture of a woman in tights, and the word 'Amazons' overhead--and then I remembered you.I knew you were my friend--the only one I have on earth."

"It is very flattering--to be remembered like that,"said Sister Soulsby, gently.The disposition to laugh was smothered by a pained perception of the suffering he was undergoing.His face had grown drawn and haggard under the burden of his memories as he rambled on.

"So I came straight to you," he began again.

"I had just money enough left to pay my fare.The rest is in my valise at the hotel--the Murray Hill Hotel.

It belongs to the church.I stole it from the church.

When I am dead they can get it back again!"Sister Soulsby forced a smile to her lips."What nonsense you talk--about dying!" she exclaimed."Why, man alive, you'll sleep this all off like a top, if you'll only lie down and give yourself a chance.Come, now, you must do as you're told."With a resolute hand, she made him lie down again, and once more covered him with the fur.He submitted, and did not even offer to put out his arm this time, but looked in piteous dumbness at her for a long time.

While she sat thus in silence, the sound of Brother Soulsby moving about upstairs became audible.

Theron heard it, and the importance of hurrying on some further disclosure seemed to suggest itself.

"I can see you think I'm just drunk," he said, in low, sombre tones."Of course that's what HE thought.

The hackman thought so, and so did the conductor, and everybody.But I hoped you would know better.I was sure you would see that it was something worse than that.

See here, I'll tell you.Then you'll understand.

I've been drinking for two days and one whole night, on my feet all the while, wandering alone in that big strange New York, going through places where they murdered men for ten cents, mixing myself up with the worst people in low bar-rooms and dance-houses, and they saw Ihad money in my pocket, too, and yet nobody touched me, or offered to lay a finger on me.Do you know why?

They understood that I wanted to get drunk, and couldn't.

The Indians won't harm an idiot, or lunatic, you know.

Well, it was the same with these vilest of the vile.

They saw that I was a fool whom God had taken hold of, to break his heart first, and then to craze his brain, and then to fling him on a dunghill to die like a dog.

They believe in God, those people.They're the only ones who do, it seems to me.And they wouldn't interfere when they saw what He was doing to me.But I tell you Iwasn't drunk.I haven't been drunk.I'm only heart-broken, and crushed out of shape and life--that's all.And I've crawled here just to have a friend by me when--when I come to the end.""You're not talking very sensibly, or very bravely either, Theron Ware," remarked his companion."It's cowardly to give way to notions like that.""Oh, I 'm not afraid to die; don't think that,"he remonstrated wearily."If there is a Judgment, it has hit me as hard as it can already.There can't be any hell worse than that I've gone through.

Here I am talking about hell," he continued, with a pained contraction of the muscles about his mouth--a stillborn, malformed smile--as if I believed in one!

I've got way through all my beliefs, you know.I tell you that frankly.""It's none of my business," she reassured him."I'm not your Bishop, or your confessor.I'm just your friend, your pal, that's all.""Look here!" he broke in, with some animation and a new intensity of glance and voice."If I was going to live, I'd have some funny things to tell.Six months ago I was a good man.I not only seemed to be good, to others and to myself, but I was good.I had a soul; I had a conscience.

I was going along doing my duty, and I was happy in it.

We were poor, Alice and I, and people behaved rather hard toward us, and sometimes we were a little down in the mouth about it; but that was all.We really were happy;and I--I really was a good man.Here's the kind of joke God plays! You see me here six months after.

Look at me! I haven't got an honest hair in my head.

I'm a bad man through and through, that's what I am.