Two Boys and a Fortune Part 37

"You will have to help me up to the door, I guess," he whispered faintly; "but don't ring; knock lightly."

There was no one pa.s.sing at the moment, nor did any light s.h.i.+ne from the interior of the place, Roy knocked against the gla.s.s in the door, and the latter was opened on the merest crack.

"Who's there?" came the demand in a quivering old woman's voice.

"Sydney Pell. I am ill, but I was bound to come. My two brothers are with me. Can't they help me in to a seat? They will then go away again."

"No, no; they can't come in," was the quick response. "There must be no noise. It's a risk to have you here."

"Then can you open the door wide enough to help me in?" returned Sydney.

The answer was the swinging back of the door and the reaching out of the old lady's arm.

"Go back to the carriage, boys, and wait," said Sydney, and the next instant he had disappeared within the mysterious dwelling.

CHAPTER x.x.x

SYDNEY FREES HIS MIND

"You're pretty weak, aren't you?" This was Mrs. Fox's remark as she eased Sydney down into a rocking chair in the little parlor. It was quite dark, save for the faint light that came in from the street lamp over the curtain pole in the window.

"I suppose I was too weak to venture to come," Sydney answered, "but I felt that I must. Did you understand all that I meant to say in my note?"

"I understand that you know of a great sum of money that is coming to Maurice Darley. It's strange, very strange."

"Why is it? Did you know anything about it? Did you expect it?"

There was a note of alarm in Sydney's tones.

"No, not that in particular. But you must tell me all the details before I dare to tell any more."

The old lady seated herself on a low chair close to Sydney's side. It was extremely weird, this confidential talk in the darkness.

"What details do you want?" Sydney asked.

"Why, proofs that there is really something to this fortune. Maurice has talked too much about others that have nothing to them."

"You see him often, then," exclaimed Sydney eagerly. "He's here, perhaps."

"S'h!" commanded the old Lady in a stern whisper. "Yes, he is here. He is in the back room yonder. I am so afraid he will hear us. That is why I had you come at midnight, when he would be sound asleep."

"But why can I not see him?"

"Because he is weak-- weak in his mind. He is all the while fancying that he is rich. A talk about money would excite him so that I fear the consequences."

"And you say he knew Mr. Tyler?" Sydney remembered and spoke this name very softly.

"Yes, he talks of him continually now."

"Was he in his office once?"

"Yes, I believe so."

"One more question. Has this Mr. Darley any children?"

"He had one once-- a boy. But it must have died when a baby, soon after Mrs. Darley did. And now do you know why I do not want you to come here with stories of riches for Maurice Darley? He's daft on the subject already. I do not want him to go so far that they will take him away from me."

"You are fond of him, then?" asked Sydney.

"He is all I have. If he goes I must live alone. It is my delight to care for him. The little money David left me is enough for my simple wants, Maurice lives like a lord in his fancies. Why do you want to come and disturb us in our content?"

"Because I must," Sydney broke out, as pa.s.sionately as he could in restrained tones. "Don't you understand that the money which belongs to Maurice Darley I have been diverting to other uses? It was left to him by Mr. Tyler, but I tore up the will. He made it about three hours after another one, in which he had left everything to the woman who had acted as a mother to me for twenty years.

"He was a vacillating old man. I felt that he might change his mind back again if he should live three hours longer, so when he was dead I tore up the last will. I alone knew what it contained, and I have been a miserable man ever since."

Sydney bowed his head on his hands, and there was silence in the little room for a moment or two.

"You-- you are a criminal, then?" said the old lady presently.

Sydney winced at the term, but at the same time he felt a sense of relief, as one does after taking a plunge into cold water. At any rate the shock of the first contact was over.

"Yes, I suppose I am," he answered. "And I am ready to suffer the penalty. The only excuse I have to offer is the fact that what I did, I did not for myself, but for those I love, who have done so much for me. And now it is not joy, but misery, I shall bring them."

"You are repentant, though," murmured the old lady softly. "It is not as if you were hardened and only gave up when some one else found it out and forced you to. There is hope for you in that. But how much money is there?"

"Nearly half a million. But some of it has been used, put into a house, which of course will be given up to Mr. Darley."

"Then you will take him away from me?" It was almost a wail with which the old lady said this.

"No, you can come with him, of course."

"No. It will be his taking care of me then, and that will be so different. Oh, why did you come to disturb us?" She seemed quite forgetful for the time of the presence of any one else in the room, of her own caution to Sydney to speak quietly. Suddenly she appeared to recollect this latter necessity.

She ceased the half moaning she had begun and clutched Sydney's arm tightly.

"I suppose," she whispered, "that it would not be right to ask you to keep this money?"

"I can't keep it," Sydney replied. "I have suffered enough from it already."

"But how can you give it to a man who is not in his right mind? He thinks he is a wealthy man. I have given him a quant.i.ty of gilt paper to play with. He is like a child, you know. The possession of real money will not make him any happier."

"But there is the son," suggested Sydney.

"I told you he was dead."

"I am not so sure of that. I think I have seen him. Would he not be about seventeen now?"

"Yes, and you have seen him?"