“You didn’t think of me four years ago when you asked my wife to run away with you.”
A look of sincere surprise passed over Charley’s face.
“Are you mad at me about that?” he asked in a puzzled way. “I thought you were mad because I didn’t come to your party.”
Michael did not answer.
“I supposed she’d told you about that long ago,” went on Charley. “I couldn’t help it about Marion. I was lonesome and you two had each other. Every time I went to your house you’d tell me what a wonderful girl Marion was and finally I—I began to agree with you. How could I help falling in love with her, when for a year and a half she was the only decent girl I knew?” He looked defiantly at Michael. “Well, you’ve got her, haven’t you. I didn’t take her away. I never so much as kissed her—do you have to rub it in?”
“Look here,” said Michael sharply, “just why should I lend you this money.”
“Well—” Charley hesitated, laughed uneasily, “I don’t know any exact reason. I just thought you would.”
“Why should I?”
“No reason at all, I suppose, from your way of looking at it.”
“That’s the trouble. If I gave it to you it would just be because I was slushy and soft. I’d be doing something that I don’t want to do.”
“All right.” Charley smiled unpleasantly. “That’s logical. Now that I think, there’s no reason why you should lend it to me. Well—” he shoved his hands into his coat pocket and throwing his head back slightly seemed to shake the subject off like a cap, “I won’t go to prison—and maybe you’ll feel differently about it tomorrow.”
“Don’t count on that.”
“Oh, I don’t mean I’ll ask you again. I mean something—quite different.”
He nodded his head, turned quickly and walking down the gravel path was swallowed up in the darkness. Where the path met the road Michael heard his footsteps cease as if he were hesitating. Then they turned down the road toward the station a mile away.
Michael sank into his chair, burying his face in his hands. He heard Marion come out of the door.
“I listened,” she whispered. “I couldn’t help it. I’m glad you didn’t lend him anything.”
She came close to him and would have sat down in his lap but an almost physical repulsion came over him and he got up quickly from his chair.
“I was afraid he’d work on your sentiment and make a fool of you,” went on Marion. She hesitated. “He hated you, you know. He used to wish you’d die. I told him that if he ever said so to me again I’d never see him anymore.”
Michael looked up at her darkly.
“In fact, you were very noble.”
“Why, Michael—”
“You let him say things like that to you—and then when he comes here, down and out, without a friend in the world to turn to, you say you’re glad I sent him away.”
“It’s because I love you, dear—”
“No it isn’t!” he interrupted savagely. “It’s because hate’s cheap in this world. Everybody’s got it for sale. My God! What do you suppose I think of myself now?”
“He’s not worth feeling that way about.”
“Please go away!” cried Michael passionately. “I want to be alone.”
Obediently she left him and he sat down again in the darkness of the porch, a sort of terror creeping over him. Several times he made a motion to get up but each time he frowned and remained motionless. Then after another long while he jumped suddenly to his feet, cold sweat starting from his forehead. The last hour, the months just passed, were washed away and he was swept years back in time. Why, they were after Charley Hart, his old friend. Charley Hart who had come to him because he had no other place to go. Michael began to run hastily about the porch in a daze, hunting for his hat and coat.
“Why Charley!” he cried aloud.
He found his coat finally and, struggling into it, ran wildly down the steps. It seemed to him that Charley had gone out only a few minutes before.
“Charley!” he called when he reached the road. “Charley, come back here. There’s been a mistake!”
He paused, listening. There was no answer. Panting a little he began to run doggedly along the road through the hot night.
It was only half past eight o’clock but the country was very quiet and the frogs were loud in the strip of wet marsh that ran along beside the road. The sky was salted thinly with stars and after a while there would be a moon, but the road ran among dark trees and Michael could scarcely see ten feet in front of him. After awhile he slowed down to a walk, glancing at the phosphorous dial of his wrist watch—the New York train was not due for an hour. There was plenty of time.
In spite of this he broke into an uneasy run and covered the mile between his house and the station in fifteen minutes. It was a little station, crouched humbly beside the shining rails in the darkness. Beside it Michael saw the lights of a single taxi waiting for the next train.
The platform was deserted and Michael opened the door and peered into the dim waiting room. It was empty.
“That’s funny,” he muttered.
Rousing a sleepy taxi-driver, he asked if there had been anyone waiting for the train. The taxi-driver considered—yes, there had been a young man waiting, about twenty minutes ago. He had walked up and down for awhile, smoking a cigarette, and then gone away into the darkness.
“That’s funny,” repeated Michael. He made a megaphone of his hands and facing toward the woods across the track shouted aloud.
“Charley!”
There was no answer. He tried again. Then he turned back to the driver.
“Have you any idea what direction he went.”
The man pointed vaguely down the New York road which ran along beside the railroad track.
“Down there somewhere.”
With increasing uneasiness Michael thanked him and started swiftly along the road which was white now under the risen moon. He knew now as surely as he knew anything that Charley had gone off by himself to die. He remembered the expression on his face as he had turned away and the hand tucked down close in his coat pocket as if it clutched some menacing thing.
“Charley!” he called in a terrible voice.
The dark trees gave back no sound. He walked on past a dozen fields bright as silver under the moon, pausing every few minutes to shout and then waiting tensely for an answer.
It occurred to him that it was foolish to continue in this direction—Charley was probably back by the station in the woods somewhere. Perhaps it was all imagination; perhaps even now Charley was pacing the station platform waiting for the train from the city. But some impulse beyond logic made him continue. More than that—several times he had the sense that someone was in front of him, someone who just eluded him at every turning, out of sight and earshot, yet leaving always behind him a dim, tragic aura of having passed that way. Once he thought he heard steps among the leaves on the side of the road but it was only a piece of vagrant newspaper blown by the faint hot wind.
It was a stifling night—the moon seemed to be beating hot rays down upon the sweltering earth. Michael took off his coat and threw it over his arm as he walked. A little way ahead of him now was a stone bridge over the tracks and beyond that an interminable line of telephone poles which stretched in diminishing perspective toward an endless horizon. Well, he would walk to the bridge and then give up.