At this stage – or at about this stage – a saying like this was dropped at bedtime – with a sigh, usually – by the head of each of the nineteen principal households:
“Ah, what could have been the remark that Goodson made?”
And straightway – with a shudder – came this, from the man’s wife:
“Oh, don’t! What horrible thing are you mulling in your mind? Put it away from you, for God’s sake!”
But that question was wrung from those men again the next night – and got the same retort. But weaker.
And the third night the men uttered the question yet again – with anguish, and absently. This time – and the following night – the wives fidgeted feebly, and tried to say something. But didn’t.
And the night after that they found their tongues and responded – longingly:
“Oh, if we could only guess!”
Halliday’s comments grew daily more and more sparklingly disagreeable and disparaging. He went diligently about, laughing at the town, individually and in mass. But his laugh was the only one left in the village: it fell upon a hollow and mournful vacancy and emptiness. Not even a smile was findable anywhere. Halliday carried a cigar-box around on a tripod, playing that it was a camera, and halted all passers and aimed the thing and said “Ready! – now look pleasant, please,” but not even this capital joke could surprise the dreary faces into any softening.
So three weeks passed – one week was left. It was Saturday evening after supper. Instead of the aforetime Saturday-evening flutter and bustle and shopping and larking, the streets were empty and desolate. Richards and his old wife sat apart in their little parlor – miserable and thinking. This was become their evening habit now: the life-long habit which had preceded it, of reading, knitting, and contented chat, or receiving or paying neighborly calls, was dead and gone and forgotten, ages ago – two or three weeks ago; nobody talked now, nobody read, nobody visited – the whole village sat at home, sighing, worrying, silent. Trying to guess out that remark.
The postman left a letter. Richards glanced listlessly at the superscription and the post-mark – unfamiliar, both – and tossed the letter on the table and resumed his might-have-beens and his hopeless dull miseries where he had left them off. Two or three hours later his wife got wearily up and was going away to bed without a good-night – custom now – but she stopped near the letter and eyed it awhile with a dead interest, then broke it open, and began to skim it over. Richards, sitting there with his chair tilted back against the wall and his chin between his knees, heard something fall. It was his wife. He sprang to her side, but she cried out:
“Leave me alone, I am too happy. Read the letter – read it!”
He did. He devoured it, his brain reeling. The letter was from a distant State, and it said:
I am a stranger to you, but no matter: I have something to tell. I have just arrived home from Mexico, and learned about that episode. Of course you do not know who made that remark, but I know, and I am the only person living who does know. It was Goodson. I knew him well, many years ago. I passed through your village that very night, and was his guest till the midnight train came along. I overheard him make that remark to the stranger in the dark – it was in Hale Alley. He and I talked of it the rest of the way home, and while smoking in his house. He mentioned many of your villagers in the course of his talk – most of them in a very uncomplimentary way, but two or three favorably: among these latter yourself. I say ‘favorably’ – nothing stronger. I remember his saying he did not actually like any person in the town – not one; but that you – I think he said you – am almost sure – had done him a very great service once, possibly without knowing the full value of it, and he wished he had a fortune, he would leave it to you when he died, and a curse apiece for the rest of the citizens. Now, then, if it was you that did him that service, you are his legitimate heir, and entitled to the sack of gold. I know that I can trust to your honor and honesty, for in a citizen of Hadleyburg these virtues are an unfailing inheritance, and so I am going to reveal to you the remark, well satisfied that if you are not the right man you will seek and find the right one and see that poor Goodson’s debt of gratitude for the service referred to is paid. This is the remark “You are far from being a bad man: go, and reform.”
Howard L. Stephenson.
“Oh, Edward, the money is ours, and I am so grateful, oh, so grateful, – kiss me, dear, it’s forever since we kissed – and we needed it so – the money – and now you are free of Pinkerton and his bank, and nobody’s slave any more; it seems to me I could fly for joy.”
It was a happy half-hour that the couple spent there on the settee caressing each other; it was the old days come again – days that had begun with their courtship and lasted without a break till the stranger brought the deadly money. By-and-by the wife said:
“Oh, Edward, how lucky it was you did him that grand service, poor Goodson! I never liked him, but I love him now. And it was fine and beautiful of you never to mention it or brag about it.” Then, with a touch of reproach, “But you ought to have told me, Edward, you ought to have told your wife, you know.”
“Well, I— er— well, Mary, you see—”
“Now stop hemming and hawing, and tell me about it, Edward. I always loved you, and now I’m proud of you. Everybody believes there was only one good generous soul in this village, and now it turns out that you— Edward, why don’t you tell me?”
“Well – er— er Why, Mary, I can’t!”
“You can’t? Why can’t you?”
“You see, he— well, he— he made me promise I wouldn’t.”
The wife looked him over, and said, very slowly:
“Made – you – promise? Edward, what do you tell me that for?”
“Mary, do you think I would lie?”
She was troubled and silent for a moment, then she laid her hand within his and said:
“No . . . no. We have wandered far enough from our bearings – God spare us that! In all your life you have never uttered a lie. But now – now that the foundations of things seem to be crumbling from under us, we – we—” She lost her voice for a moment, then said, brokenly, “Lead us not into temptation . . . I think you made the promise, Edward. Let it rest so. Let us keep away from that ground. Now – that is all gone by; let us be happy again; it is no time for clouds.”
Edward found it something of an effort to comply, for his mind kept wandering – trying to remember what the service was that he had done Goodson.
The couple lay awake the most of the night, Mary happy and busy, Edward busy, but not so happy. Mary was planning what she would do with the money. Edward was trying to recall that service. At first his conscience was sore on account of the lie he had told Mary – if it was a lie. After much reflection – suppose it was a lie? What then? Was it such a great matter? Aren’t we always acting lies? Then why not tell them? Look at Mary – look what she had done. While he was hurrying off on his honest errand, what was she doing? Lamenting because the papers hadn’t been destroyed and the money kept. Is theft better than lying?
That point lost its sting – the lie dropped into the background and left comfort behind it. The next point came to the front: Had he rendered that service? Well, here was Goodson’s own evidence as reported in Stephenson’s letter; there could be no better evidence than that – it was even proof that he had rendered it. Of course. So that point was settled . . . No, not quite. He recalled with a wince that this unknown Mr. Stephenson was just a trifle unsure as to whether the performer of it was Richards or some other – and, oh dear, he had put Richards on his honor! He must himself decide whither that money must go – and Mr. Stephenson was not doubting that if he was the wrong man he would go honorably and find the right one. Oh, it was odious to put a man in such