Part 76

"My manhood!" The bitterest self-contempt was voiced in those two words. He raised his head, and the look he gave to the man opposite bordered on the inimical.

"Yes, your manhood. Do you, in your supreme egotism, suppose that you, Champney Googe, are the only man in this world who has sinned, suffered, gone under for a time? Are you going to lie down in the ditch like a craven, simply because you have failed to withstand the first assaults of the devil that is in you? Do you think, because you have sinned, there is no longer a place for you and your work in this world where all men are sinners at some time in their lives? I tell you, Champney Googe,--and mark well what I say,--your sin, as sin, is not so despicable as your attitude towards your own life. Why, man, you're alive--"

"Yes, alive--thanks to you; but knocked out after the first round," he muttered. The priest noted, however, that he still held his head erect. He took fresh courage.

"And what would you say of a man who, because he has been knocked out in the first round, does not dare to enter the ring again? So far as I've seen anything of life, it is a man's duty to get on his feet as quickly as he can--square away and at it again."

"There's nothing left to fight--it's all gone--my honor--"

"True, your honor's gone; you can't get that back; but you can put yourself in the running to obtain a standard for your future honor. Champney, listen;" he drew his chair nearer to him that the table might not separate them; "hear me, a man like yourself, erring, because human, who has sinned, suffered--let me speak out of my own experience. Put aside regret; it clogs. Regret nothing; what's done is done past recall. Live out your life, no matter what the struggle. Count this life as yours to make the best of. Live, I say; live, work, make good; it is in any man's power who has received a reprieve like yours. I know whereof I am speaking. I'll go further: it would be in your power even if you had been judged and committed."

The man, to whom he was appealing, shuddered as he heard the word "committed."

"That would be death," he said under his breath; "last night was nothing, nothing to that--but you can't understand--"

"Better, perhaps, than you think. But what I want you to see is that there is something left to live for; Champney--your mother." He had hesitated to speak of her, not knowing what the effect might be.

Champney started to his feet, his hand clenched on the table edge. He breathed short, hard. "O God, O God! Why didn't you let me go? How can I face her and live!" He began to pace the room with rapid jerky steps. Father Honore rose.

"Champney Googe,"--he spoke calmly, but with a concentrated energy of tone that made its impression on the man addressed,--"when you lay there last night," he motioned towards the cot, "I thanked my God that she was not here to see you. I have telegraphed her that you are alive. In the hope that you yourself might send some word, either directly or through me, I have withheld all detail of your condition, all further news; but, for her sake, I dare not keep her longer in suspense. Give me some word for her--some assurance from yourself that you will live for her sake, if not for your own. Reparation must begin here and now, and no time be lost; it's already late." He looked at his watch.

Champney turned upon him fiercely. "Don't force me to anything. I can't see my way, I tell you. You have said I was a man. Let me take my stand on that assurance, and act as one who must first settle a long-standing account with himself before he can yield to any impulse of emotion. Go to bed--do; you're worn out with watching with me. I'll sit here by the window; I promise you. There's no sleep in me or for me--I want to be alone--alone."

It was an appeal, and the priest recognized in it the cry of the individual soul when the full meaning of its isolation from humankind is first revealed to it. He let him alone. Without another word he drew off his boots, turned out the electric light, opened the inner blinds, and laid himself down on the cot, worn, weary, but undaunted in spirit. At times he lost himself for a few minutes; for the rest he feigned the sleep he so sorely needed. The excitation of his nerves, however, kept him for the greater part of the night conscious of all that went on in the room.

Champney sat by the window. During that night he never left his seat. Father Honore could see his form silhouetted against the blank of the panes; his head was bowed into his hands. From time to time he drew deep, deep, shuddering breaths. The struggle going on in that human breast beside the window, the priest knew to be a terrible one--a spiritual and a mental hand-to-hand combat, against almost over-powering odds, in the arena of the soul.

The sun was reddening the east when Champney turned from the window, rose quietly, and stepped to the side of the cot. He stood there a few minutes looking down on the strong, marked face that, in the morning light, showed yellow from watching and fatigue. Father Honore knew he was there; but he waited those few minutes before opening his eyes. He looked up then, not knowing what he was to expect, and met Champney's blue ones looking down into his. That one look was sufficient to assure him that the man who stood there so quietly beside him was the Champney Googe of a new birth. The "old man" had been put away; he was ready for the race, "forgetting those things that are behind."

"I've won out," he said with a smile.

The two men clasped hands and were silent for a few minutes. Then Champney drew a chair to the cot.

"I'd like to talk with you, if you don't mind," he said.

In the priest's soul there was rejoicing. He was anticipating the victorious outcome of the struggle to which, in part, he had been witness. But he acknowledged afterwards that he had had not the faintest conception, not the remotest intimation of the actual truth. It remained for Champney Googe to enlighten him.

"I've been digging for the root of the whole matter," he began simply. His hand was clenched and pressed hard on his knee, otherwise he showed no sign of the effort that speech cost him. "I've been clearing away all obstructions, trying to look at myself outside of myself; and I find that, ever since I can remember, I've had the ambition to be rich--and rich for the power it apparently gives over other men, for the amplitude of one kind of living it affords, for the extension of the lines of personal indulgence and pleasure seemingly indefinitely, for the position it guarantees. There has been but one goal always: the making of money.

"I rebelled at first at the prospect of the five years' apprenticeship in Europe. I can see now that those six years, as they proved to be, fostered my ambition by placing me in direct and almost daily contact with those to whom great wealth is a natural, not an acquired thing." (Father Honore noted that throughout his confession he avoided the mention of any name, and he respected him for it.) "On my return, as you know, I was placed in a position of great responsibility, as well as one affording every opportunity to further my object in life. I began to make use of these opportunities at once; the twenty thousand received from the quarry lands I invested, and in a short time doubled the sum. I was in a position to gain the inside knowledge needed to manipulate money with almost a certainty of increment; this knowledge, I was given to understand, I might use for any personal investment of funds; I took advantage of the privilege.

"I soon found that to operate successfully and largely, as I needed to in order to gain my end and gain it quickly, I must have a larger amount of cash. For this reason, I re-invested the forty thousand on the strength of my knowledge of a rise that was to be brought about in certain stocks within two months. This rise was guaranteed, you understand; guaranteed by three influential financiers. It would double my investment. They let it be known in a quiet way and in certain quarters, that this rise would occur at about such a date, and then forced the market up till they themselves had a good surplus. All this I know for a fact, because I was on the inside. Just at this time the syndicate intrusted to me three hundred thousand as a workable margin for certain future investments. My orders were to invest in this prepared stock only after October fifteenth. Meanwhile the manipulation of this amount was in my hands for eight weeks.

"I knew the forty thousand I had purposely invested in these stocks would double itself by the fifteenth of October; this was the date set. I knew this because I had the guaranty of the three men behind me; and, knowing this, I took a hundred thousand of the sum intrusted to me, in order to make a deal with a Wall Street firm which would net me twenty thousand within two weeks.

"I knew perfectly well what I was doing--but there was never any intention on my part of robbery or embezzlement. I knew the sum eighty thousand, from my personal investment of forty thousand, was due on October fifteenth; this, plus the twenty thousand due from the Wall Street deal, would insure the syndicate from any loss. In fact, they would never know that the money had been used by me to antedate the investment of the three hundred thousand--a part of the net yearly working profits from the quarries--intrusted to me."

He paused for a moment to pass his hand over his forehead; his eyebrows contracted suddenly as if he were in pain.

"The temptation to take this money, although knowing well enough it was not mine to take, was too great for me. It was the resultant of every force of, I might say, my special business propulsion. This temptation lay along the lines on which I had built up my life: the pursuance of a line of action by which I might get rich quick.--Then came the crash. That special guaranteed stock broke--never to rally in time to save me--sixty-five points. The syndicate sent out warning signals to me that I was just in time to save any part of the three hundred thousand from investment in those stocks. Of course, I got no return from the forty thousand of my personal investment, and the hundred thousand I had used for the deal went down too. So much for the guaranty of the multi-millionaires.--Just then, when everything was chaotic and a big panic threatened, came a call from the manager of the quarries for immediate funds; the men were getting uneasy because pay was two weeks overdue. The syndicate told me to apply the working margin of three hundred thousand at once for this purpose. Of course there was a shortage; it was bound to be discovered. I tried to procrastinate--tried to put off the payment of the men; then came the threatened strike on account of non-payment of wages. I knew it was all up with me. When I saw I must be found out, I fled--

"I never meant to rob them--to rob any one, never--never--" His voice broke slightly on those words.

"I believe you." Father Honore spoke for the first time. "Not one man in ten thousand begins by meaning to steal."