Argosy, Vol. 1 (1882) — page 262: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

BY FORCE OF CIRCUMSTANCE. My courage is not equal to the task you have set me. I cannot come. I cannot carry out the plan you have made. You will say that Iam a scoundrel. Be it so. I am one. I have always been one. I will remain one to the end. I am without honor, but you are not, and I know that you will not be- tray me—I know that for the sake of others (not for my sake) you cannot, so I leave it there. I can only make you one promise that I can keep; you will never see me nor hear from me again. Let things go on as they were, Ashton. The old man and Hope believe that I am dead; let them continue to think so. The money that I took from the bank night be- fore last, I will keep. You should not have left me there while you went to keep your engagement, Ashton. The temptation was too strong and I am too clever an expert with lock tumblers for such confidence. You see it is your fault after all, Ashton, and you must bear the blame. Of course, you can show this letter to the old man, but I know that you will not. You love him too well to do that—and you love Hope too well to let her know that her departed brother has come to life out of a Western prison, an ex convict, to betray your confidence, to rob his father’s bank, and—but what’s the use? It’s done, and I’m going to keep the money. You'll tell the old man that you took it, and he'll forgive you; and Lord, what a love feast you'll have over it, after all. But I'll keep that last promise. From this hour on, I’m teetotally dead to you all. Brace up, now, and face the music like a man: or, if you are fool enough to do it, go to the wall just as I did when you were—but I won't be mean enough to say that. And now, for the first time in many years, and for the last time in my life, I sign myself, FRANKLIN HOLLISTER. Ashton read the letter through twice. Then he laid it upon the table while he produced his pocket match safe, and having abstracted a match therefrom, he struck it, and, holding the letter be- tween his fingers, touched the flame to the edge and watched it while the only earthly evidence of his own innocence was consumed. When the flame became hot against the hand that held the paper, he per- mitted it to fall to the table, where it burned on and on, slowly scorching the cloth covering, and wrinkling into a black mass of feathery carbon. He did not disturb it or look at it 253 again. The envelope on the floor he totally forgot. Then he began again that restless pacing up and down, up and down. “A hundred thousand dollars,” he mused aloud. “ He said that he could bring back ninety thousand, and IJ be- lieved him. Believed that he would do it for his father’s sake—for the sake of the sister who was not born till after he went away. I raised the other ten thousand today. I have it here ’—and he tapped the breast pocket of his coat —‘ I pledged all the securities that I had, that were my own, to make the amount good—to make him good—to induce him to make himself known to his father ; and he promised. He prom- ised and he has_ failed—failed miser- ably. “My God! What is there left for me?’ Dishonor, perhaps prison—death ! Hope—Hope! What will she say? Must I lose Hope because of the work of this scoundrel? Fool! Why did 7 destroy the letter? It might—but no, no! It is better as it is. Better that they should both think me guilty than that they should know the infamy of the son and brother.” He sank into the chair in a shrunken heap, but presently he straightened up and looked at his watch. “ Twelve minutes past one,” he mur- mured. ‘ It is-time he was here.” Even as he spoke, the electric buzz sounded a second alarm, which startled him into sudden alertness, and after taking a moment in which to compose - his features, he went slowly to the door and opened it, but he started back in sudden dismay when he perceived that the man whom he had expected was not alone. Beside him, in the shadow, was a woman. They were the banker, Henry Hollister, and his daughter. Hope had come with her father from the reception they had attended together. Fate had willed that she should be present to witness John Ashton’s disgrace. For an instant the thought unmanned CONMIGO <S CO