The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg | Page 7

. Lead us not into . . . Ah,
who would be hurt by it?--and no one would ever know . . . Lead us . . .
" The voice died out in mumblings. After a little she glanced up and
muttered in a half-frightened, half-glad way -
"He is gone! But, oh dear, he may be too late--too late . . . Maybe
not--maybe there is still time." She rose and stood thinking, nervously

clasping and unclasping her hands. A slight shudder shook her frame,
and she said, out of a dry throat, "God forgive me--it's awful to think
such things--but . . . Lord, how we are made--how strangely we are
made!"
She turned the light low, and slipped stealthily over and knelt down by
the sack and felt of its ridgy sides with her hands, and fondled them
lovingly; and there was a gloating light in her poor old eyes. She fell
into fits of absence; and came half out of them at times to mutter "If we
had only waited!--oh, if we had only waited a little, and not been in
such a hurry!"
Meantime Cox had gone home from his office and told his wife all
about the strange thing that had happened, and they had talked it over
eagerly, and guessed that the late Goodson was the only man in the
town who could have helped a suffering stranger with so noble a sum
as twenty dollars. Then there was a pause, and the two became
thoughtful and silent. And by-and-by nervous and fidgety. At last the
wife said, as if to herself,
"Nobody knows this secret but the Richardses . . . and us . . . nobody."
The husband came out of his thinkings with a slight start, and gazed
wistfully at his wife, whose face was become very pale; then he
hesitatingly rose, and glanced furtively at his hat, then at his wife--a
sort of mute inquiry. Mrs. Cox swallowed once or twice, with her hand
at her throat, then in place of speech she nodded her head. In a moment
she was alone, and mumbling to herself.
And now Richards and Cox were hurrying through the deserted streets,
from opposite directions. They met, panting, at the foot of the
printing-office stairs; by the night-light there they read each other's face.
Cox whispered:
"Nobody knows about this but us?"
The whispered answer was:
"Not a soul--on honour, not a soul!"
"If it isn't too late to--"
The men were starting up-stairs; at this moment they were overtaken by
a boy, and Cox asked,
"Is that you, Johnny?"
"Yes, sir."
"You needn't ship the early mail--nor ANY mail; wait till I tell you."

"It's already gone, sir."
"GONE?" It had the sound of an unspeakable disappointment in it.
"Yes, sir. Time-table for Brixton and all the towns beyond changed
to-day, sir--had to get the papers in twenty minutes earlier than
common. I had to rush; if I had been two minutes later--"
The men turned and walked slowly away, not waiting to hear the rest.
Neither of them spoke during ten minutes; then Cox said, in a vexed
tone,
"What possessed you to be in such a hurry, I can't make out."
The answer was humble enough:
"I see it now, but somehow I never thought, you know, until it was too
late. But the next time--"
"Next time be hanged! It won't come in a thousand years."
Then the friends separated without a good-night, and dragged
themselves home with the gait of mortally stricken men. At their homes
their wives sprang up with an eager "Well?"--then saw the answer with
their eyes and sank down sorrowing, without waiting for it to come in
words. In both houses a discussion followed of a heated sort--a new
thing; there had been discussions before, but not heated ones, not
ungentle ones. The discussions to-night were a sort of seeming
plagiarisms of each other. Mrs. Richards said:
"If you had only waited, Edward--if you had only stopped to think; but
no, you must run straight to the printing-office and spread it all over the
world."
"It SAID publish it."
"That is nothing; it also said do it privately, if you liked. There, now--is
that true, or not?"
"Why, yes--yes, it is true; but when I thought what a stir it would make,
and what a compliment it was to Hadleyburg that a stranger should
trust it so--"
"Oh, certainly, I know all that; but if you had only stopped to think, you
would have seen that you COULDN'T find the right man, because he is
in his grave, and hasn't left chick nor child nor relation behind him; and
as long as the money went to somebody that awfully needed it, and
nobody would be hurt