Cobwebs and Cables

Excerpt

ABSCONDED.

Late as it was, though the handsome office-clock on the chimney-piece had already struck eleven, Roland Sefton did not move. He had not stirred hand or foot for a long while now; no more than if he had been bound fast by many strong cords, which no effort could break or untie. His confidential clerk had left him two hours ago, and the undisturbed stillness of night had surrounded him ever since he had listened to his retreating footsteps. "Poor Acton!" he had said half aloud, and with a heavy sigh.

As he sat there, his clasped hands resting on his desk and his face hidden on them, all his life seemed to unfold itself before him; not in painful memories of the past only, but in terrified prevision of the black future.

How dear his native town was to him! He had always loved it from his very babyhood. The wide old streets, with ancient houses still standing here and there, rising or falling in gentle slopes, and called by quaint old names such as he never heard elsewhere; the fine old churches crowning the hills, and lifting up delicate tall spires, visible a score of miles away; the grammar school where he had spent the happiest days of his boyhood; the rapid river, brown and swirling, which swept past the town, and came back again as if it could not leave it; the ancient bridges spanning it, and the sharp-cornered recesses on them where he had spent many an idle hour, watching the boats row in and out under the arches; he saw every familiar nook and corner of his native town vividly and suddenly, as if he caught glimpses of them by the capricious play of lightning.

And this pleasant home of his; these walls which inclosed his birth-place, and the birth-place of his children! He could not imagine himself finding true rest and a peaceful shelter elsewhere. The spacious old rooms, with brown wainscoted walls and carved ceilings; the tall and narrow windows, with deep window-sills, where as a child he had so often knelt, gazing out on the wide green landscape and the far distant, almost level line of the horizon. His boy, Felix, had knelt in one of them a few hours ago, looking out with grave childish eyes on the sunset. The broad, shallow steps of the oaken staircase, trodden so many years by the feet of all who were dearest to him; the quiet chambers above where his mother, his wife, and his children were at this moment sleeping peacefully. How unutterably and painfully sweet all his home was to him!

Very prosperous his life had been; hardly overshadowed by a single cloud. His father, who had been the third partner in the oldest bank in Riversborough, had lived until he was old enough to step into his place. The bank had been established in the last century, and was looked upon as being as safe as the Bank of England. The second partner was dead; and the eldest, Mr. Clifford, had left everything in his hands for the last five years.

No man in Riversborough had led a more prosperous life than he had. His wife was from one of the county families; without fortune, indeed, but with all the advantages of high connections, which lifted him above the rank of mere business men, and admitted him into society hitherto closed even to the head partner in the old bank; in spite even of the fact that he still occupied the fine old house adjoining the bank premises....