# Conscience Money

Extracted from The Quiver, 1923 Oct, pp. 1124–1136.
Drawn by S. Seymour Lucas
“She stood by the vestry door waiting for Henry while he counted the money. He took up a handful and put in his pocket and turned”. p. 1127
Conscience Money
by Jennette Lee
IT was a clear summer day—light blue a little breeze from the south-west, and the warm sun flooding down, shining on the peach trees and on the clothes-line in the back yard. A day that made Janet Seymour glad to be alive.
She had been up since daybreak, in and out of the house, busy with Henry's clothes, and now they hung on the line soaking up warmth from the sun and cleanliness from the fresh air.
A long row of coats and trousers and vests flapped in the little breeze from the south-west—empty semblances of Henry. She smoothed a creased leg and examined it sternly, and smoothed out what might have been an incipient moth trace, but proved to be only a bit of chalk dust. She brushed it with careful fingers.
The trousers were Henry's Sunday ones, and the dust came from the blackboard in the Sunday-school room. Henry was superintendent of St. Andrew's Sunday-school. had been superintendent for fifteen years—since two years before their marriage.
She rubbed the bit of dust thoughtfully and looked up at the sun—the line between her eyes came from the brightness of the sun and not from discontent or worry. She did not ask anything better of life than just this usual airing of Henry's clothes.
The row of garments stretched from her down the yard as far as the peach trees, and she went down the line slowly, shaking out the sleeves and pockets and and humming to herself a little new tune that the children were singing yesterday. It was not a Sunday tune and she had rebuked them as they sang at the top of their voices, but it had a catchy rhythm and melody, and she hummed it to herself as she went down the line.
Just as she reached the peach trees, she stopped—her fingers had encountered a little stiffness in the lining of Henry's coat, along the lower edge—his Sunday coat. She poked at it and loosened something, and pushed it up towards a hole in the bottom of the pocket.
The edge of a card appeared in the hole, and she drew it up with a little frown. she tucked it in her dress absently, her fingers examining the hole and pulling at a bit of thread that came away away rapidly. She dropped it with a click of annoyance—nothing but chain-stitch! Henry paid five pounds for the suit, and the ends of the seams not even fastened!
She moved on to the peach trees and sat down. The sun filtering through the trees made shadowy patterns on her lifted face ... the peaches were beginning to redden—they would be ripe in a little while. The soft furry sides gave her a feeling of sensuous content.... She would put up at least a dozen tins, and there would be plenty to give away. It was a part of Janet's pride that there was always plenty to give away.
Her eyes left the branches and rested contentedly on Henry's clothes swaying and shaking in the breeze. They were something more than mere empty semblances to her. She liked to watch them sway and fill in the breeze and flap, not only because they were getting a good airing, but because they were so like Henry! She saw Henry moving in them, working for her and the children, walking to and from the bank twice a day. He never spared himself. It was only where she was concerned that the best must be had—in the kitchen, outside help when she needed it, clothes better than she could afford. Henry would go without himself if necessary, but she must have the best.
But Henry was never shabby. She eyed the line approvingly. He always looked well. She did not see how he managed it, and she had given over trying to understand. But she glowed a little in the comfortable sense of Henry's thrift.... A new car stood in the barn. Henry bought it last week. He would have his licence to-morrow.
She got up and went over to the improvised garage and opened the door, The new car glimmered at her in the dusk. It was not a cheap thing. Henry had waited—he had walked twice a day so as to afford a decent one. She moved over to it and opened the door. She liked the smooth sense of weight the heavy door gave her, and the shining glass and upholstered softness.
After a minute she stepped up into it.... Something white on the rug caught her eye, and she bent and picked it up—a small card covered with figures in Henry's fine, close hand. She turned it over—it was the card from the lining of his coat—it must have fallen from her dress as she bent over in stepping up into the car.... She examined it idly and wondered whether he had missed it. Lucky she found it! There were dates by the figures, the last one yesterday.... She leaned back in the comfortable upholstered seat wondering a little what Henry had been doing with money yesterday—Sunday.... The springs and padded cushions gave her a sense of well-being, and slowly her eyes closed.
When she opened them she started and smiled. Henry stood holding the door, his foot on the running-board.
She rubbed her eyes.
He laughed and climbed in beside her.
“Caught in the act!”
“I went to sleep,” she admitted. She was half ashamed.
“Pretty nice place to sleep—pretty comfortable car!” He laughed again and put his arm along the back of the seat and drew her to him. She rested against him. She knew Henry was pleased. She wondered how long she had slept. She must go in and get luncheon.
“What time is it?”
“Early—I came home little after twelve.”
“I must get luncheon.”
He did not reply-—he was staring at something on her lap—he reached a stiff hand, his lips half set.
She looked down at the card and picked hi up.
“I found it in your coat.” She held it out.
He took it almost roughly. “It was not there this morning,” he said.
She looked out at the clothes flapping in the wind.
“Did you need it this morning?”
“I got along.” The tone was casual.
“It was in the lining, slipped down—your Sunday coat.” Her dark face was drowsy with sleep. She regarded him happily.
He bent and kissed the halt-parted lips. “Glad you found it, Janet! He put the card in his pocket. He was smiling now—wholly at ease. “Suppose I drive down and get the children—get bring them home?” stepped on to the running-board.
“You can't—without a licence!”
He laughed and patted his pocket.
“Did you get it: Her faced glowed.
“I got it!” He was proud and contented—master of her, and of the car, and of all the highways of the State of Ohio.
The rest of the day was filled with excitement—momentous trying out of the car—fear of Henry's driving and pride in it. He was a hero in the eyes of his family—no one ever drove a car before.
It was not till Janet was falling asleep that she recalled the card as it lay in her lap. She saw Henry's face looking down at it, and the last date beside the figures. It was stamped on her brain—the fifteenth. That was yesterday, she thought drowsily. What had Henry been doing with money yesterday—on Sunday? Oh, yes, of course! The question laughed itself away—the collections in the church and Sunday-school. No rest for him even on Sunday.... She must remember to mend the hole in his pocket. And she fell asleep.
And beside her Henry Seymour lay looking before him in the darkness. He knew he should not sleep for hours. He put out an arm and encircled the quiet shoulders. He wanted to feel her nearness.
There had been an awkward moment there in the garage. He drew a deep breath—she was not likely to guess! His arm on the shoulders tightened. No one could guess, and Janet would be the last. More likely Colonel Dole—or Tait! No; Dole was fool. But Ambrose Tait? There was a Sunday morning last summer when he had leaned forward peering at the money on the plate as if he could not believe his eyes. But Tait could not question the Teller of the City National Bank. In the darkness Henry's mouth set in a little grim line of satisfaction. He had not played the game for fifteen years for nothing—or to be caught now.
He lay with the grim look on his face. Let them get a better man—if they could! He knew, and they knew, what his name stood for. There would be a good many empty pews in St. Andrew's next Sunday morning if it were not for Henry Seymour, erect and unimpeachable, on the left of the middle aisle. The figures on the little card were only a percentage—on his name and time. The percentage would have to stop—ought to have stopped long ago. They had not needed it for years now—the little fiddling sums each week—only he'd got the habit! He smiled in the darkness. That was it—just a bad habit! Well, he'd get the habit of paying back, that was what he had kept the card for—it held a record of every cent he had “borrowed.” Fool not to have looked in the lining this morning when he searched hurriedly.
But she had not guessed. He drew the sleeping shoulder closer. His lips touched her hair. There was nothing in the world he would not do for Janet. He would sell his soul for her—he wondered how much his soul was worth! He was sleepy now, his mind at rest. He would he begin to pay back.
“Amen!” he said aloud. She stirred dreamily.
“What is it, Henry?”
“Nothing.”
“I thought I heard you speak.”
“No. You dreamed it, I guess.”
“Perhaps I did.” She smiled and slept again, her head on his shoulder.
II
IT was when she was mending the hole in the pocket next day that she first knew—became sure. She stared at it unbelieving.
She could not have told how or when the suspicion touched her, it seemed to her she knew it all in a minute.
Perhaps in the hours of sleep while Henry Seymour was explaining so carefully to himself that it was only a percentage, perhaps then it filtered through to her.
But of this Janet had no glimpse, only the sudden, final pang when she knew.
There might have been a dozen suspicions ignored in the past ... she could not tell, she only felt as if the fatal card had burned a hole down through the lining of Henry's coat into her own soul.
She put her hands to her head, pushing back the hair, staring at something. She saw herself the first year they were married—she was wearing a new costume and a new hat—Easter morning. She stood by the vestry door waiting for Henry while he counted the money on the plate. He took up a handful and put in his pocket and turned. How he had laughed out suddenly—high and shrill—not a bit like Henry's laugh. But she had no suspicion, and no suspicion when he laid a crackling new bill on the plate and explained that he was making change. She shivered now, looking blankly at the coat in her lap. He had given her some change next morning to pay the laundress he insisted on her having. Of course, that was why he needed change—to leave for the laundress. He explained it casually when he handed her the money. He need not have explained.
She put the coat from her as if it scorched. Thief and hypocrite!
She could have loved a thief—a man who took his own where he found it and stood up to it. But superintendent of the Sunday-school, treasurer of the church.... She felt a little sick, and her hands were cold.
Her dark, smooth face as she sat staring before her had something countrified and humble in its dazed look. It had been considered a step up in the world for Henry Seymour when he married her—she knew that. But for herself she had never had any pride. Her pride was all in her husband, making his way unaided—pride in him and in the children who had such a father.
A dozen confirmations of her fear rushed in on her. How had she been so blind? She covered her eyes. The church would have to know—everybody would know. She shivered.
If she could earn money—save money—put it in the collection plate each Sunday! What could she save or earn? How much did the figures on the card come to? She tried to think, but her head ached. If she put money in the plate every Sunday Henry would be taking——
She threw the thought from her and stood up. It sickened her—all those men in black coats and the women in Easter hats looking at the minister quiet and still in the stained glass light! Henry's face at the end of the pew reticent and grave.
A horn was sounding from the back of the house. She put her hands quickly to her ears. Then she took them down. She went to the screen door and looked out. The new car was coming out of the garage—Henry at the wheel, his face eager in his new toy.
She saw the bees circling about the peach trees. Henry was tooting the horn and smiling at her. She felt suddenly very lonely. How did people pray—not merely mumble, but pray—when they needed to?
She turned back into the room.
III
HE called to her at the side door, then he honked and waited, and called again. He prolonged the call, making it pulse a little. He liked the sense of his new voice—his finger on a valve honking gently. A sense of extended power ran from the honk up into his arms and down into his legs. He could run and not be weary, walk and not faint—with a six-cylinder attachment! He smiled at the thought—the familiar words made a kind of chant in his mind. Run and not be weary, walk and not faint.
He leaned back in the car and honked gently and persistently. Power came to a man like that! Saving, and pinching, and hard work—watching it grow—the beginning of power. Men ceasing to ignore him, ceasing to snub him, deferring to him—afraid! His finger on the button sent out a shrill call. He opened its throat and called for Janet.
She came to the window and looked out through the curtain.
“Ready?” he called happily.
She shook her head. “I don't think I will go, Henry.”
“Not go!” He opened the door of the car and sprang out. His feet in their thin shoes struck the steps lightly as he came up. Her eyes followed them—every detail of his neat, trim figure.
She turned, shrinking a little, as he came in the door.
“What's up?” he demanded.
“I am busy—dozens of things to do!” She faltered at his look as if she were the guilty one,
“Leave them!” His tone was expansive and tender. He came over to her, but she drifted from the window, and the table came between. He halted.
“Come on!” he said coaxingly. “We'll just make it—pick up the children and go for a spin!”
But she shook her head. “I'd rather not, Harry. I'd really rather not.” She had not called him Harry for years, and a little look of pity touched the name, but he ignored it,
“What's the matter?” he asked. He studied her face.
“I have to mend your coat, for one thing.” She hurried on breathless. Why had she mentioned the coat? “And I went yesterday, you know, for a long drive—all the afternoon.”
“It takes away all my pleasure not to have you with me.”
“Yes, I know.” A little sigh escaped her.
“Please, Henry!” She spread out her hands.
“Oh, all right!” He turned away. He did not offer to come round the table to touch her, and a breath of relief crossed her face.
He looked back from the door.
“I'll get the children—take 'em a little way and then come back. It's no fun without you!”
She smiled wanly. She hoped the strained lines in her face did not show. She suspected she was grimacing, and she knew she was trembling all through. She heard him get in and slam the door—the rich, heavy slam of the well-built door—and she listened for the noiseless, smooth-rolling wheels as the car slid away. She sank to her knees by the table, crouching a little and holding on ... down the street she heard the faintly calling horn—the Sunday-school superintendent's new car signalling someone to get out of the way.
She brought the coat to the window and pulled up the lining of the pocket and threaded her needle. Her mouth was set in a stern line.
She was not clever—like some women. All she could think and feel was that would not touch the money—she would never touch it! But the children must have things. They must have clothes and schooling, such as other children had. Why did she mind so fiercely for the children?
They were his children.
The hands on the coat gripped it. He was as close to her as that! Her children shared the Seymour blood, and now they were sharing the blood-money! She laughed hysterically. She gathered up the coat in her hands. Was she going crazy?
She went to her room and hung up the coat and washed her hands, rubbing them hard with soap and using the brush harshly on them. Suppose she took the children away? Would the law let her have the children? Was there any law about children and hypocrites? If you shrink from a man's soul more than his body—is there any law about that?
Her hands shook. She rinsed them carefully, and dried them and hung up the towel. She would have to tell. Everyone would know the taint in their blood.
She heard the children's voices in the yard. She went down hastily.
They came running in, breathless and excited.
“He wouldn't go but just a little way. He said it's no fun without you, mother. Come on, mother, go and get your hat and come on. Just a little way. Oh, please do!”
She quieted them and set them to helping her get supper.
How was she to face to-morrow, and the next day? She saw that the car would come between her and the children.
At supper she saw Henry watching her covertly, but she would not let him guess that she knew. She must not let him guess. That would bring him close to her in spirit—she would never let him come near again—she fought against it. She would not share his shame with him.
After supper, when the children had finished their lessons, she sent them to bed. She was very tired and longed to go herself, but after an instant's hesitation she went out and sat on the porch.
Henry had been drifting restlessly about the house. Now she heard the clink of tools in the garage. She watched a flashlight twinkle. He was doing something to the car.
He came in at last and washed his hands, and sat on the lower step, pushing back his hair.
“Warm work,” he said.
“Yes, there is always a good deal to do on a car, isn't there?” Her tone was cool and even.
“Quite a lot. To-morrow I've got the day off, and we're going by ourselves—just you and me, the two of us.”
“Oh, I can't!”
He turned a little on the step.
“Too busy, I suppose?” There was a hint of hardness in his voice—a note she had never heard in it before.
“It isn't just that. I find I don't care for the car—I don't enjoy it as I expected to.”
There was silence a minute.
“Then I shall sell it.”
“Very well, perhaps it would be best.”
He stared at her, up through the dusk towards her.
“You mean that?”
“If you do—yes.”
He was quiet a minute.
“You're afraid of my driving. You don't trust my driving, that's it!”
Her heart leaped. Here was the way opened to her.
“Perhaps it is that,” she said thoughtfully, “that I don't quite trust—your driving.”
After a moment he laughed contemptuously.
“Any grocer's boy can drive,” he said.
She did not reply. And they sat in silence. After a time he got up and went towards the garage. A moon shone just above the peach trees, and the yard glimmered faintly. The figure crossing the yard seemed to move unsteadily and the bent shoulders stooped and wavered. The door of the garage rolled together with a dull thud.
IV
IN his office at the bank Henry Seymour sat making listless marks on a piece of paper. They were not investments nor computations, just meaningless, idle marks while his brain wrestled.
He saw her there on the porch with the moon touching her faintly. What had brought that look to her face? She had never criticized him, even in little things. The hand making the listless marks trembled. She trusted him with everything, even to buying her clothes and selecting her hats. The thin mouth smiled. He saw Janet, and the waiting look turned to him in the milliner's shop, and the milliner's frank amusement.
That first time—that Easter hat. The marks went more slowly. He wanted her to have it, and he “borrowed” the money next day—Easter Sunday. He meant to put it back, but she needed things, and the children. And he “borrowed” again. He had done it with his eyes open. The bent shoulders shrugged a little. Other men borrowed—to go to college, to start business, to build a house. Well, he had borrowed money to make his wife happy and by God he'd done it—till this thing happened! What had happened—what was the matter? His lips contracted with thought.
He figured a minute on the pad.
He looked at it thoughtfully.
Drawn by Sydney Seymour Lucas
“'Every Sunday for more than fifteen years money has been taken from the collection plate of St. Andrew's Church'”—p. 1135
He would begin to pay next week. He must not put too much back at any one time—he must be careful.
He turned over various plans. A subscription to the Medical Mission—a good, big one that everyone would know about, talk about. His shoulders expanded subtly as he figured.
He shook his head. Janet would have to know about that, and he could never persuade her to endow a hospital when her own children might need a doctor. Janet was a fierce mother. His eyes smiled, then they remembered, and questioned. What was the trouble? He must find out—he would make her tell him. He was master yet. He had never failed to get his will. His shoulders straightened. He returned to his figures.
He dallied with the idea of putting in a stained-glass window—in memory of his mother. The look in his eyes narrowed. He saw his mother, a small, thin woman, weak and afraid; he heard her petty lies to the neighbours—white lies! He saw the light from the window falling on Janet's face, and on his own hair growing whiter with the years—a respectable old age in the pew in St. Andrew's Church.
His hand shook, and he tried to work it all over into stained-glass.
V
AFTER a few days it came to be understood that the new car was not ready to use. It needed something done to it before he could take them out.
When they besought him to hurry he only nodded vaguely. The smug serenity of his face was broken up; he went about gazing furtively at Janet, and at the children, and at the directors of the bank.
The first time Janet found the puzzled, broken look fixed on her she turned away hastily.
One of the children developed a cough, and she moved to the child's room to take care of her.
He wondered whether Caroline's cough was really very bad. He wakened in the night once or twice and heard it, and heard Janet's soothing voice.
Yes, of course it was the cough—it was quite croupy. He went to sleep comforted. But in the morning he was not so sure.
Janet's glance never rested on him. She was busy with the children. And when he came from the bank she was sewing or reading. He was thirsty for one of the long, slow glances from her dark eyes, that had built up his life—the foundation stones on which his home rested—that trustful look in Janet's eyes. His own shifted in furtive distress.
He shivered in his loneliness and tried to draw nearer to her. There seemed to be a thin wall of ice that lay between them. He could see her through it and hear her voice, but he could not touch her.
And curiously not for a minute did he suspect that she had surprised his secret. He had been safe so long that he had lost all sense of fear towards it—he could not conceive of her knowing his secret.
On the following Sunday he slipped a generous contribution into the plate before he deposited it on the table in front of the altar. Then he turned with his slow, soft, discreet step to the pew on the left of the middle aisle.
Janet, sitting with downcast eyes, did not look up as he approached, and when he sat down he did not feel the little filaments of love and pride reach out and surround him.
He was very lonely as he bowed his head on the pew-rail in front and listened to the blessing invoked on the offering of the day.
The next week he managed to make a small return to the bank. He had kept the way open, and the discrepancy was not discovered. He would be able to pay back all his “loans” like this a little at a time. His investments had prospered beyond his most hopeful expectation, and he devoted himself with a kind of grim intensity to paying off. He ever developed a kind of zest in devising ways in which he might do right without being found out.
He thought with his little grim smile that paying took more skill sometimes than borrowing. His thin keen face grew watchful.
On the fourth Sunday when alone in the vestry he bent to the collection plate, stacking silver and copper in neat piles and smoothing crumpled notes, he received a shock.
Among the little scattered brown envelopes containing weekly offerings he opened one and took out the contents.
His near-sighted glasses bent closer.
A little label was folded round the notes and marked “Conscience Money.”
He took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead and replaced the handkerchief.
His fingers trembled.
They opened the notes slowly and counted them—five pounds, and in the bottom of the envelope three loose shillings.
He shook out the shillings and stacked them with the others and threw the envelope aside.
After a minute he picked it up and put it with the slip of paper in his pocket. His lips moistened themselves slowly.
A sudden glow of relief spread through him—he was not alone in the world. Someone else in the church was a sinner—like himself.
He sat staring at it; his head fell forward to the table where the money lay untouched. He drew a long breath. He had not guessed how lonely he had been.
His heart went out to this other man—groping. He gathered up the money and put it away, and took his hat from the table.
In the vestibule he met Colonel Dole and stopped to speak to him—his eyes did not shirk or shift away. It might be the colonel who was lonely—as lonely as he was. He went home with slow, thoughtful step.
Passing the Catholic church he looked up, then he hurried with swift feet. He had a sudden vision of himself entering the high door and passing into the incense-laden air, straight up to one of those narrow confessional boxes. There with his lips to the opening he would....
VI
THE next Sunday he watched with quick veiled glance each envelope laid on the plate as he passed it into the pews and received it again in circumspect hands. He felt sure the money with the label would be paid in more than once; it would be easy to detect what hand dropped on the plate if he watched carefully.
Yes, it was there when with almost feverish hands, he opened the envelopes. The inscription lay before him:
“Conscience Money,” printed in small, neat letters.
He could not be sure. Where had it come from? Somewhere there on the middle aisle. That was the important part of the church. He ran them over in his mind. All the pillars were in the middle aisle.
He scanned the inscription and put it in his pocket with the other. It comforted him to feel it there. His loneliness hurt less. Whoever the man was who had put the money in the plate he was less lonely for the man.
His thought ran to other men who did wrong. He began to search out the words of Christ for them. There was the parable of the Prodigal Son. Why his father made a feast for him!
He rather liked the Prodigal Son. He read it over several times. He grew to watching men who came to the bank, and when old Simon Foster asked a loan of thirty days he granted it. He knew old Foster was not quite straight—he would have turned it down a month ago. Now he protected the bank, but he made the loan.
He had a sense that the furtive look left the man's eyes when he told him the bank would accept his note. His shoulders straightened a little. Henry Seymour, looking at him with half-hungry eyes, had a feeling of rejoicing. The fellow would make good! They would show Ambrose Tait with his cast-iron goodness a thing or two!
“Remember,” he said as the man was leaving the room, “we're taking a risk on you and stretching a point on that extra hundred.”
The man turned and looked at him.
“I shall make good,” he said. At the door he looked back. “You needn't be afraid,” he nodded.
And Henry Seymour sat looking at the closed door. There was a little tightening at his throat. He went into the vault and brought out a ledger and made a brief entry. Then he stepped out of range of the grilled window and made a transfer of notes to an envelope, and carried the envelope and ledger back to the vault. No one would ever trace it!
He came out with his head held high. It was his last payment. He would never be found out.
VII
AND each Sunday he watched the plate for the tell-tale envelope. The first glimmer of the truth that flashed to him left him speechless.
All that week as she went about her duties, quiet and controlled, his eyes followed her. Janet was paying conscience money! The irony of it scorned him.
Then the next Sunday he knew to a certainty.
He sat a long time in the vestry, the money spread on the table before him. Through the window came the sound of a street car clanging by. What had Janet done?
“Conscience Money”—in secret!
He counted the notes slowly, his fingers trembling.
What had Janet needed money for—more money than he could give her? The question wrenched him with a pang. He had sold his soul—such as it was—and it was not enough.
But it must have been earlier—before they were married. He drew a breath. He saw her dark face and trustful eyes looking at him—Janet when he first knew her. His heart gathered her up and shielded her—she must never know he had guessed.
He put the “conscience money” back in the brown envelope and tucked it in his pocket, placing an equivalent in the plate.
As he walked home he blessed the good fortune that made him treasurer of the church funds. Suppose some other man were in his place? He saw again her gentleness, the dark eyes with their quiet look; he could not let her be lonely.
All that week he gave no thought to the money he had taken; his thought was centred on Janet, to make her less unhappy. He gave her a larger allowance, and she took it without comment.
The next Sunday the conscience envelope contained it all. He put it into the collection with grim look.
If it had eased the trouble in her face he would not have begrudged it, but she seemed only to withdraw more into herself, and he could not follow her.
Then suddenly the thought came to him. Suppose he told her—let her know that he understood? Told her everything. No, he could not do that. He saw her look of withdrawal change to loathing. Whatever Janet had done she had not stolen from the Lord—trust money! He could not bear that look of hers. But if it made her less lonely?
It was in the vestry the thought came to him. He had taken the money from the envelope and was counting it, and suddenly Janet's face came between him and the notes in his hand—to make her less lonely. He stopped counting.
He sat a long time looking at it. He saw his sin in Janet's eyes, as they would look when he told her. For the first time he knew it as sin—it grew a hideous thing in its smallness. He had betrayed his trust, and he must tell Janet. So sin was like this! And Janet suffered like this! She despised herself, and she was alone with herself, despising herself!
When he came in she looked up—the first time in weeks it seemed to him—only a flitting glance. But he saw deep into her eyes—the horror and suffering there—before he turned away. Every breath of his body belonged to her; they might break his bones and he would not cry out if it saved her a pang. He would give his naked soul for her.
After dinner he asked her timidly to go for a walk. She hesitated, and then got her hat. There was no excuse she could give, and it seemed a relief to get away from the house for a few hours. The house was so full of memories that had turned to bitterness. The hill-sides would be clean.
She came down looking almost care-free, and he glanced at her happily. The furtive look left his eyes, they were only alert to protect her. He took a book she carried in her hand.
“I thought we might like to read,” she said.
“Yes.” He understood. She was too burdened to talk; it would be easier to read. He longed to surround her and lift her—carry her spirit in his heart.
They passed out of a gate at the rear of the house. The closed door of the garage might have drawn their gaze as they passed, but they did not glance towards it, yet each knew that the other was thinking of the shining car shut away in the dimness.
“Want to go Willow-brook way?” he asked, as they passed into a vacant lot.
She assented, and they struck across another field that led to a lane, and came out by a brook edged with willows.
They climbed the slope from its bank and turned looking back to the town. The roof showed among the trees, and the church spire above them lifted a pointing finger. After a minute she turned away. The birds were migrating. A flock of warblers flitted in the willows.
He made a place for her to sit at the foot of a birch tree, and threw himself on the ground near her. She leaned back against the smooth trunk, her eyes closed and her hands listless in her lap.
Looking up under half-lifted lids he saw the worn face—its look of loneliness and gentle pain.
He reached his hand to the book and opened it. Presently he began to read.
It was a collection of essays on human behaviour and life. As he read on in his smooth, well-modulated voice the quiet about them deepened.
Suddenly he stopped and thrust the book from him.
“What does he know about life?” he said. “What do men like that know?”
Her eyes opened, startled.
“What is it, Harry?”
He touched the book. “How can he know what we need, or don't need, or what men will do—tor love? His voice sank. His eyes were on her hungrily.
She looked away hastily and shivered.
His eyes looked up to her face. “You can do anything you like with me, Janet,” he said low. “I belong to you body and soul. You know that.”
“Yes.” She stirred a little.
“We do not need to speak—tell each other anything. But I want to tell you something, because I just love you and want to.”
She caught her breath. She did not look at him.
“It's been a long time——” His voice was low, but he spoke the words clearly. “I thought we needed money. I've been taking it right along—years.” He swallowed a little. “It isn't just the money. I've stolen it from the collection plate every Sunday for years.” There was a long silence. He did not dare look up at her face looking down at him. “I never meant you to know. But now I want you to know, I want to tell you everything.” He reached out and touched her hand.
“It isn't what we are or what we do, Janet. It is what we are determined to do, and what we will to be....” He waited a minute. A warbler flitted in the eaves and sang. “I don't want to excuse it. I've been thinking my way back, wondering how I came to it. It never seemed so very bad, what I've been doing—till just lately.” She did not turn her eyes, but her lip trembled. He looked at it and looked away quickly. “Don't you know—don't you know that I am all alone and I want to be close to you?” He put up his hand and she took them, dazed.
His face was on her lap, her hand touched his hair. She stroked it a minute. The bird singing in the willow stopped and then went on.
She listened to it, her eyes shining.
She felt his lips touch her hand. The lips that had confessed. She bent to him.
He looked up to her and smiled like a boy.
“You didn't need to say anything Janet, or tell me anything. Just keep on loving me—now you know.”
“But I knew before you told me,” she said low, “and I have been alone too,”
He drew her face down to his. “I've learned a lot of things I never knew!” He waited a minute and released her, looking before him.
“I want to tell the vestry, Janet.”
She sat looking before her, the radiance in her face was dimmed. She was seeing Henry Seymour. She drew a quick breath.
“Yes, we must tell them,” she said.
VIII
THE vestry sat waiting with expectant faces. Henry Seymour had asked them to come together at eight o'clock. He had something to bring before them.
They knew it would be worth while. Henry Seymour would not waste their time. It was a little odd, though, his summoning them for a special meeting.
They looked to the door. It opened quietly, and Janet Seymour came in. Her husband followed her and closed the door. As she came towards the table the men about it rose.
“My wife would like to be present at the meeting,” said Henry Seymour, coming forward. His face was quiet and grave.
They bowed, and someone placed a chair for her. She sat where the light fell on her face. It was turned to her husband.
He did not sit down, but stood waiting till the little bustle of their entrance subsided.
“I have a matter to bring before you that will tax your utmost charity and your wisdom,” he said slowly. The group stirred. Their faces became impenetrable.
There has been for years a great wrong going on, of which no one but myself has known.” He paused. Little drops stood on his forehead. He lifted his glance to the men about the table.
“Every Sunday for more than fifteen years money has been taken from the collection plate of St. Andrew's Church.”
A man looked up sharply. It was Ambrose Tait. He stroked his chin thoughtfully.
Colonel Dole's fine, shrewd face wore a little puzzled line between the eyes. It wrestled with this unbelievable statement of the treasurer of St. Andrew's.
How do you know?” he asked.
“I am the man.”
There was silence. The eyes of twelve men were fixed on the shining mahogany table. If they looked up they might meet the glance of Henry Seymour's wife.
They could not guess its shining radiance.
He looked at her with a little grave smile.
“The money will, of course, be refunded. I have already begun, and I have an exact accounting.” He drew a paper from his pocket and read from it the added amounts for the fifteen years. He laid the paper on the table.
“I shall leave this with you. The question of the money you do not need to deal with. The matter I bring before you is what must be done in addition—what in your judgment should be exacted of a man who has abused your trust and the trust of the church you represent.”
He waited. There was silence about the table.
“Perhaps you would like to appoint a committee to consider the matter,” he said, after a minute.
Ambrose Tait rose to his feet. “I think the vestry should have a few more facts,” he said drily. “Why you took the money and so on. There may be extenuating circumstances.” He glanced half apologetically at Janet Seymour, and sat down.
A breath went through the room.
Henry Seymour straightened his shoulders.
“There are no extenuating facts,” he said. “I took the money because I wanted to get on in the world, and to make my wife happy.”
A faint clear colour came to her cheeks. But her eyes were shining. One man after another looking up was startled at the light in them.
“She is proud of him!” they thought swiftly.
Colonel Dole cleared his throat softly. He looked up at Henry Seymour.
“What I am wondering, Henry, is why you're telling us now—after these fifteen years. You could have paid it back and nobody known.”
Henry Seymour dropped a look to him. He stood a moment. Then he lifted his head and began the recital of what he had done, and how he had tried to evade the issue.
The men about the table became conscious that he was laying bare his heart to them. He was speaking of things that men only think of at night in the darkness, and hope other men will not know.
Yet the recital was simple, almost matter-of-fact in detail.
A sense of freedom was in the room. The men seemed to breathe more easily. Janet Seymour, praying inaudibly, felt with a glow of pride that they had ceased to judge her husband. A look of humbleness had come to their listening faces. He was telling of his loneliness and of the understanding that comes to a man.
“I thought of a medical mission,” he said with a faint smile, “or giving a stained-glass window to the church.”
“That was before I understood what I had done,” he added simply. His voice dropped a note.
Someone got to his feet. It was Colonel Dole, his thin, fine face turned to them.
“I've known Henry, man and boy, for thirty years,” he said slowly. “But I feel as if I knew a new Henry to-night—there's a new man born. It's come to me while he's been talking that what we've come together for is not to judge the old Henry Seymour, but just to be here awhile with the new one. I'd like to do something that when we look at it will remind us how we've known him to-night. I don't know why Henry shouldn't give us a stained-glass window—a memorial window if you call it that. Those of us here round the table will know what it stands for, and the rest of the church will just see the beauty shining through.” He sat down.
There was a quick movement of men. Someone grasped Henry Seymour's hand. His wife watched their faces while they spoke with him. They did not judge him—these men. The vestry of Andrew's saw what she saw.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1951, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 72 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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