Manasseh Part 34

Thus it was, too, that Anna's words came true, and the man despised and rejected of all the world sought refuge in the house where he had been tenderly nurtured as a child. Thus did he return, vanquished in life's battle, to have his wounds bound by the hands of those he had so grievously wronged, and to beg a place in that family circle into which he had done his utmost to bring sorrow and despair.

Mana.s.seh met the police officer at the door, and heard his announcement with perfect composure.

"We have no objection to raise," said he, "against the decree of the government. Benjamin Vajdar was formerly a member of our family, and so we must provide for him. The state allowance of twenty-five florins a month we beg leave to refuse. In our iron works there is a bookkeeper's position open to this man, and we shall ask him to a.s.sume its duties.

Indeed, we shall ourselves probably be the gainers by this arrangement, as the keeping of our books has become too heavy a burden for my wife, and she will be glad to be relieved. But enough of this at present; to-morrow we will discuss the matter more at length. Meanwhile Mr.

Vajdar is welcome to our house."

Benjamin Vajdar's emotions can better be imagined than described. To find himself called upon to lighten Blanka Zboroy's duties and to live in constant sight of her happy home life, after all he had done in the vain attempt to spoil that life, was more than he had counted on. He bit his compressed lips till the blood ran. Opening the door of the chamber into which he had been ushered, he hurried out to seek the freedom of the open air and to set his confused thoughts in order. On his way his attention was caught by an unexpected sight. Through an open door he had a full view of a bier, on which rested a coffin, and in the latter, with hands folded on her bosom, lay the woman he had most cruelly wronged. In those clasped hands he saw a little picture wreathed in evergreen,--his own likeness, which the dead girl had begged her family to bury with her. Now, if never before, the unhappy man saw what a wealth of love he had cast aside, a love that, even in death caused by his base desertion, could forgive him his perfidy and carry his picture in a fond embrace down to the grave. As his guardian angel, she would bear it with her up to G.o.d's throne, and there plead his cause. Overcome at last by a flood of anguish and remorse, the guilty man cried aloud in his despair and fell prostrate beside the coffin, striking his head on its corner as he sank unconscious to the floor.

Mana.s.seh found him there and bore him back to his room. After putting him to bed and ministering to his wants, he went out with Aaron to prepare Anna's grave.

"We must make it wide enough for two," said he; "it was her wish."

When, after several hours of hard work, the two brothers returned home, Mana.s.seh went at once to his guest's room. Before his marriage this chamber had been occupied by him, and he still used it occasionally for writing. In his absence Vajdar had risen and seated himself at the desk.

Searching the drawer for writing-materials, he had come upon a sheet of paper yellow with age, and written upon in ink now much faded. The doc.u.ment proved to be a promissory note, but the signature was so heavily scored through and through as to be hardly legible. Benjamin Vajdar started violently as he took up the faded sheet and saw that the man whom he had so feared and hated had, by his own voluntary act, disarmed himself and put it out of his power to punish the fraud practised upon him by his false friend. As if distrusting his own constancy and the binding force of his promise to his sister, Mana.s.seh had, with a few strokes of his pen, rendered harmless what could otherwise have been used as incriminating evidence against the forger.

On entering the room, Mana.s.seh detected a peculiar odour in the air.

Benjamin Vajdar sat at the writing-desk, a morocco pocketbook open before him. A half-finished letter lay under the writer's hand, but his pen had ceased to move. His eyes met those of his host with a dull stare.

"Don't come near me!" he cried, in warning. "Death is in this room!"

But Mana.s.seh hurried to the window, threw it open, and then, s.n.a.t.c.hing up the pocketbook and the papers scattered over the desk, cast them all into the fire that was burning on the hearth. Thus all the tell-tale doc.u.ments relating to certain fraudulent army contracts went up in smoke, but not before they had done their deadly work on one, at least, of the guilty men involved. Those papers had pa.s.sed through the hands of a second Lucretia Borgia, and not without reason had she applauded herself that night at the opera when she permitted her dupe to extort from her the little key which she wore in her bosom.

Many years of untroubled peace and happiness for the Adorjan family followed these events. The children and grandchildren born to Mana.s.seh and Blanka grew up to call them blessed, the labours of the Toroczko miners and iron-workers were prospered, and Heaven still smiles on the humble homes of that happy valley.

THE END.