BUT to bring himself to the point where he could speak freely and without reserve to Benson, was more difficult even than Stephen had conceived it would be. With singular patience and tact, Wade left him alone with his purpose, and when they met, carefully avoided all allusion to the half-hearted promise Stephen had given him that day they left his aunt's.
The days wasted, and he did nothing. He would tell Benson some evening. But for a week Gibbs was a guest at dinner each night, and the opportunity was denied him. His courage grew cold, his self-imposed task became more and more difficult as he waited.
The responsibility he had assumed, imbittered him against his aunt, and he hated the very sight of Wade. Why had he ever been urged to this step! If Benson promptly turned him into the street, it would be no more than he might expect; certainly he should never question the justice of the act.
But at last his opportunity came. They were at last alone together. Gibbs had gone home from the office, and they had dined by themselves; now was his chance. But he was slow to avail himself of it. However, Benson himself furnished him with an opening. They had left the dinner-table and were seated in the library.
“Stephen,” he said quietly, “what was it that Crittendon sent your aunt, have you ever heard?”
Stephen started.
“Oh, yes,” he said.
“I didn't know; you never mentioned the matter. I trust your aunt was not distressed on receiving the papers—they were papers, were they not?”
“Yes, papers.”
“A letter, perhaps?” said Benson. Stephen's reticence struck him as being odd. He glanced sharply at him.
“No, it was not a letter,” said Stephen slowly. “Merely some business papers.”
Benson turned toward him quickly.
“What is that you tell me?” he asked. “All of Stephen Landray's papers were in my hands.”
“Not business in that sense, Uncle Jake; accounts and memorandum of one sort and another.”
“Oh, I see,” said Benson drily.
“There is one matter they don't quite understand,” faltered Stephen.
“What's that?” asked Benson.
“Why, it seems it is something about a thousand acres of land,” he hesitated.
“Yes?” said Benson, but his cheeks grew like white parchment. There was a brief pause.
“It seems”—said Stephen, with stolid determination—“It seems my grandfather and his brother owned some land my aunt knew nothing about—” he came to a painful pause.
“What do you mean, Stephen?” asked Benson in his usual calm voice. “She was certainly informed by me.”
“No, she only knew of one thousand acres, and it appears there were two thousand.”
“And I suppose your aunt does not understand,” said Benson, smiling faintly.
Stephen took heart at this.
“I told them there was some mistake!” he said impulsively.
The lawyer drew in his breath sharply.
“Oh, it's that, is it; and you told them it was a mistake? Whom do you mean by—them?” he added sharply.
“Ben Wade, and my aunt.”
“So Ben's advising her.” Benson seemed to be making a mental note of this for subsequent reference.
“He's been going over the old accounts for her—yes.”
“And what do they find?” demanded Benson calmly.
The young fellow looked at him wretchedly.
“You can speak quite frankly to me, Stephen,” he said with dignity. “In almost fifty years of active practice this is not the first explanation that has been asked of me. I am not so sensitive as you appear to think.”
“My aunt was always under the impression, uncle Jake, that she sold you only a thousand acres of land.”
“I was not the purchaser. She'd better refresh her memory there. Stark bought the land, I merely acted for her in the matter.”
“She is sure Stark only paid for a thousand acres.”
“The deed will show what he bought, and what she sold,” said Benson, with cold composure. “Unfortunately, Stark is dead, and the land has probably changed hands many times in all these years; but the deed will show what she sold—”
“The records show that she sold two thousand acres.”
“How do you know that?”
“I have seen the copies.”
“Humph! They have sent for those?”
“Yes.”
Benson meditated in silence for a moment.
“It's a great pity your aunt's acquaintance with her own affairs should have been so imperfect, but perhaps I should have seen that every point was clear to her mind. Since the records show that she sold two thousand acres, it is quite evident she parted with all the land she owned in Belmont County; and Stark is dead; however, I blame myself for the obscurity which seems to have surrounded the transaction. I will take on myself the responsibility of seeing that she is satisfied, though I admit no legal claim, I was merely her lawyer. In the morning I will send her check in payment for this thousand acres which she thinks she did not sell, but which according to the records Stark seems to have bought. It is hardly worth while to enter into a dispute about so trivial a matter. Stark paid five thousand dollars, as your aunt supposed, for a thousand acres; I will send her a like sum for the other thousand.”
Stephen gulped a great free breath. This was a simple dignified solution of the whole difficulty, but in the same breath he remembered that it was not five thousand but forty-five thousand dollars than his aunt expected to recover. How was he going to explain this to Benson. He sat staring blankly at the carpet at his feet.
“I think”—and the lawyer's voice was frigid, while a thin smile relaxed his shaven lips—“I think Ben Wade will find I am not to be trifled with in this manner. I have been disposed to think well of him in the past. I trust I shall be able to make my displeasure sufficiently evident in the future.”
But Stephen said nothing to this, he was not caring just then what happened to Wade. Benson's resentment and displeasure could take what form it might there, it mattered not to him.
“Certainly I have no explanation to offer,” said the lawyer haughtily. “For many years I managed your aunt's affairs to the best of my ability; she is a troublesome, a dangerous, and an ungrateful woman. Yet I hold Wade responsible; of course, he is back of the whole agitation.”
But Stephen's silence, and Stephen's face, which spoke plainly of his utter misery, distressed Benson more than he could have thought possible. He had no feeling of resentment toward Stephen, but he wanted to hear him speak, to hear him declare himself; he longed to hear him say generously that his confidence and affection were unshaken. For years he had felt entirely self-sufficient; he had desired nothing of any man; but now he found that he was suddenly hungry for these expressions of trust and love. The loneliness of his life came back and smote him. He was growing old, and only Stephen had brought youth to his door. Did the boy doubt him? In his first feverish impulse to bind him to him at any price, he was almost tempted to tell him the whole truth, of his love for Virginia Lan-dray, that so base a motive as that of gain had never entered into his mind, but this he put aside as a momentary weakness. He would not offer any explanation to any one, but in the morning he would send for Wade, and pay for that land, this done, he would have saved himself with dignity and self-respect, and he would have saved himself in the boy's eyes. And then he thought of the price he had received for the land, in the excitement of the moment he had quite overlooked this point. Was it possible that Wade had carried his investigation as far as that! He could believe that once started he would go to the bottom of things. He remembered to have heard Stephen tell Gibbs only the night before that Wade had been out of town for a day or two recently. Very white of face he turned to Stephen, who met his glance miserably enough, and with a mute appeal.
“Go on!” he commanded harshly. “What more have you to tell me?”
“There's something about the price you got for that land,” said the young man huskily.
Benson shook his head.
“You'll have to be more explicit, Stephen,” he said cautiously; “and you seem to have forgotten that I have just told you Stark bought that land.”
“They say he transferred it to you.”
“Subsequently he did, but that is neither here nor there. It was my privilege to buy it from Stark if I wished to.” He smiled almost tolerantly. “I hope your friend Ben Wade does not dispute my right in that particular.”
“He seems to think that Stark merely acted for you; that you were the actual purchaser.”
“That is the merest conjecture, Stephen. I must say that Ben's imaginative faculty is well developed.” He was feeling tolerably secure again, evidently Wade had not gone as deep as he had at first feared was the case. But Stephen's next words undeceived him.
“I haven't made it clear to you, Uncle Jake,” he said, in a low voice. “But Ben asserts that you sold the land for fifty thousand dollars, that you induced Aunt Virginia to sell it by representing that it was valueless—or nearly so.”
Stephen felt that the worst was over with; now Benson knew all that he knew. He did not look at him, he could not meet his glance. There was a long pause, then Benson said slowly.
“To have handed over five thousand dollars was one thing, I might do that to save myself from possible annoyance; but when they talk of sums like this, I am not so sure that my first idea was not a mere weakness.” He rose from his chair. “Good-night, Stephen. I think I will go to my room.” He made an uncertain step toward the door, and Stephen sprang to his side.
“For God's sake, don't think—don't think—” he could not bring himself to say it. It was like a fresh insult to this hurt man.
“What am I not to think?” asked Benson.
“That I knew anything of this until they sent for me! They wanted me to tell you, and I agreed, I thought it would be less painful to you if you heard it from me, otherwise Wade—'
“Wade! That scum! That scoundrel! He'd better keep out of my way!” cried the old man, his eyes blazing.
“I told them,” Stephen hurried on, “that they were mistaken.”
“You were right, Stephen, they are mistaken—but the ingratitude of it!” he stumbled weakly toward the door.
“Let me go with you to your room!” cried Stephen, with a sudden feeling of great tenderness, but Benson waved him away with a tremulous hand.
“Good-night,” he murmured in a broken voice, and went from the room.
Stephen heard his slow step in the hall, his slow step as he mounted the stairs, and knew that he was clinging weakly to the hand-rail as he climbed. He threw himself down in his chair. He had done all they had demanded of him; and he felt that in doing this he had dealt a mortal blow to the man, who more than any other, claimed his love and faith. In that moment of shame and great bitterness, he hated his aunt, he hated Wade, even as he hated and despised himself.
But what if Benson offered no explanation, what if he refused to see Wade or his aunt; and he believed him capable of some such course of action; the hideous thing would have to go forward; his aunt would be urged on by Wade's implacable zeal. He sunk his head in his hands, and endeavoured to think of some way in which matters could be adjusted. He had confidently expected Benson to offer an explanation that would be full and conclusive, and show luminously the utter futility of further action; but he had not done this.
“He knows it is not necessary with me,” the boy thought generously. “He knows just where I stand.” Yet he was far from satisfied. Benson owed it both to himself and to his aunt, to explain the whole circumstance of the sale of the land, and his part in it; otherwise, and the conviction made him sick and dizzy, his aunt's only course would be to take the case into the courts, and there force the explanation from him that he was unwilling to make. He thought he understood Benson's pride, and his sense of offended honour; he could sympathize with him here fully, but he felt that it was not wise to preserve silence in the face of these charges; he must be made to see this; in the morning when he was calmer and less shaken by his emotion he would himself tell him.
And in the morning Benson ate his eggs and toast, and drank his coffee, in placid dignity and apparently at peace with all the world, but under his calm of manner there lurked an austerity that warned Stephen that he must not revive the subject of the preceding evening.
Benson was in haste to quit the house, and Stephen finished his breakfast with no companion but his own troubled thoughts. He felt the need of some one with whom he could talk, and decided that he would see Wade at once and tell him what had happened. He wanted to learn what Ben would do now that Benson had declined to make any explanation.
Early as it was, he found Wade at his office, but he had evidently not taken up the business of the day for he was in his shirt-sleeves and smoking a cob pipe; his feet rested on the corner of his desk, and his chair was comfortably tilted at a convenient angle. When Stephen entered the room, the unusual gravity of his aspect told Wade that he had a purpose in his call, and he guessed the purpose. He brought his feet down with a thud to the floor, and slewed his chair around until he faced his caller.
“Well, what's wrong, Landray?” he asked briskly. “First though make yourself comfortable, will you smoke?”
“Everything's wrong,” said Stephen shortly, as he threw himself down in a chair.
“You've had your little talk with Benson then?” said Wade quickly.
“Yes.”
“How do you stand with him now?”
“How should I stand?” demanded Stephen indignantly.
“Oh, he took what you had to say in good part, did he? Well, I'm glad of that, Steve.”
“Certainly,” said Stephen.
“Well, I am glad,” said Wade. “Just before you came in I was thinking—it hadn't occurred to me before—that in asking you to bring this matter to his notice, we were requiring too much of you. You see, it might have prejudiced your own interests with him,” He glanced sharply at Stephen. “But it didn't.”
“No,” said Stephen drily. “It didn't.”
“Well, I am glad,” repeated Wade, in a tone of hearty good-will. “I suppose you have something to tell me. What's he going to do?” he added.
“So far as I know—nothing.”
“You don't mean to say that he is going to try and ignore us? Do you mean to tell me he has no explanation to offer?” said Wade vehemently.
“I don't think you'll ever get a word out of him,” said Stephen.
“You don't! Oh, yes, I will,” said Wade easily. “I bet I get a good many words out of him before I'm done with him. He can't ignore me, for I've no notion of being ignored! A dignified silence won't work with me. But it's pretty clear that the reason he wants to keep quiet is because there is nothing he can say. You don't want to think it, and maybe you can't—but it's as clear a case of fraud as one would want to see. Now, I know Jake Benson, and if there was anything he could say, he'd say it fast enough; he'd never run the risk of his coming to trial, not for one minute he wouldn't! You are sure he feels all right toward you?” he gazed into his friend's face with a comprehensive eye.
“No, he doesn't blame me,” Stephen assured him wearily.
“I suppose it's me,” said Wade grinning. It pleased his vanity to realize that he had suddenly become of importance to Benson. It raised him pleasantly in his own estimation.
“Yes, it's you. He blames you altogether.”
“But it's quite wrong of him to have any personal feeling—I haven't, you know. I suppose, though, he's had that money so long he thinks he ought to be let alone to enjoy it for the rest of his days. Well, I'm sorry for the old gentleman; it's hard lines; but don't it beat all how these things round in on a fellow? You think the skeleton's laid away, and then, by golly! it takes on flesh and stalks out of your closet with the bloom of youth on its cheeks, and ready to play hell with you!”
Stephen stared gloomily at him.
“What are you going to do next?” he asked at last.
“Why, get the thing to trial as soon as I can,” said Wade briskly. “Look here, I've got the complete record of the transaction, not a paper missing. You may as well look it over; it shows up strong.'
“No,” said Stephen shortly.
“Suppose you tell me just how the matter came up, and what he said. I promise you I'll use nothing of what you say.”
Stephen's cheeks reddened angrily.
“I thought this was a matter of mutual confidence,” he said haughtily.
“Well, so it is, that's what I say, but I'd like to bet that Benson said nothing that would be of any use to anybody. But I understand just how you feel, and frankly, I don't see how you can afford to take sides with us. I am trying to make your aunt see this, but she will only see that you are a Landray, and that this is a holy war we are going to wage against Benson for the recovery of the Landray fortune. For the money itself as money, I don't think she cares the snap of her finger; and if you'll believe me, Steve, she's doing the whole thing for you!”
“For me!” cried Stephen.
“For you. She has no confidence in Benson, you see, and she doesn't think he will ever do anything for you, so she's going to take care of your future. She's a remarkable character; her motives are as plain and straight as a string; no ins and outs to her mental processes!”
“Do you think I could induce her to drop the whole affair right here and now?” demanded Stephen eagerly.
“Not if I can balk you,” said Wade, with simple candour. “Steve, if this thing goes through I'll be building one of those dinky little Queen Anne's up along side of Norton's big house. He's got a vacant lot he ain't going to want, and it's at my disposal the minute I'm ready to build. Elinor says she's told you all about Clara. Wait until you see her!—there is a girl!” he sucked at his pipe with smiling wistful lips. “Don't you take a hand in this and spoil my little romance! I've had a hell of a hard row to hoe, and old Benson won't mind the loss of forty or fifty thousand dollars once he familiarizes himself thoroughly with the idea; and I'm not alone in wanting to see the thing pushed for all there is in it. Mrs. Walsh and the Nortons are tremendously anxious to see your aunt get the best of Benson”—he chuckled at some memory—“Mrs. Walsh thinks it would be lovely for her to get all that money—I heard her say, 'You know you need it, Virginia, and deserve it.' And look here, Steve, your aunt's got nothing much to anticipate in the way of money unless she sells her cottage and rents or buys a cheaper place. You're interested in Benson. Now, try and see her side of it, too. I understand she did everything she could for your father; and you owe her something on his account, just as you owe Benson something on your own account. Now, I've looked into Benson's affairs as far as I could, and I've learned some things about him that are not generally known. In the first place, when your grandfather. Thomas Benson, failed in business, Benson was involved with him. From what I can learn I understand that he was pretty nearly ruined, and that he came out of the failure up to his neck in debt. It was at this critical moment in his fortunes that he got hold of that land. The price he got for it put him on his feet; he was shrewd and he was fortunate in all his investments. That was the beginning of his great wealth. Of course, he's been kind to you; one step in the wrong direction don't prove that a man's soul is sown to corruption; but the way I look at it, it was really your aunt's money you have been spending. That he was able to be generous to you, must have been a sort of sop to his conscience.”
Stephen writhed in his chair. Wade, seeking to palliate and explain Benson's wrong doing was more painful than Wade denouncing him for it, for his argument seemed born of the gospel of expediency; and what Stephen saw in the situation, Wade, thick-skinned and callous, with a shrewd intelligence that he had developed at the expense of all finer feeling, did not see even vaguely. He was remote from spiritual consciousness of any sort; he dwelt in an atmosphere of unrelated facts.
“I've gotten all the points your aunt can give me,” said Wade. “And I've heard from Southerland, who seems ready enough to help us. He came here to make his first offer for the land. He wanted to pick it up cheap, but Benson wouldn't have it. He went on and saw the land himself, saw there was coal on it; then he told your aunt he had found a buyer for it and on behalf of this buyer offered five thousand dollars; mind you, he was her legal representative at the time; she had absolute confidence in him. He told her the land was of no value, and urged her to sell. Your aunt always supposed the sale was made to Stark, but Stark never actually held the land; he at once turned it over to Benson, who was then ready to do business with Southerland. Is this clear to you?”
It was horribly clear to Stephen. These facts that Wade had gathered, could only point to one thing. Wade continued:
“I've looked over the old records here, of that time, and I find that Benson held not a single unencumbered piece of property; but within a few weeks of the transaction with Southerland he began to clear things off; and from that time on, the records are thick with transfers of real estate to him. I venture to say, that but for that money he wouldn't be worth a hundred thousand dollars to-day. Of course, I'm outside the strictly legal aspects of the case, but I want to know my ground, and you and I, Stephen, are bound to consider the matter with a dash of sentiment thrown in. Of course we can realize just how great a temptation had presented itself to him. Your aunt had no one, she trusted him absolutely; your father was in the army, he was not a man of any wide business experience and there was nothing to fear from him. Benson had convinced your aunt that the land was worthless, and that she had better get out of it what she could. The game played itself, and he had the strongest motives for dishonesty. Such an opportunity could not have come at a time when he would have been more likely to use it to his own advantage.”
“How do you know all this?” demanded Stephen, astonished at the array of facts Wade had gathered.
“The old records at the court-house, what your aunt remembers, and then my father learned his trade in the old Benson shops, and knows a good deal about your grandfather's failure; and I've picked up a good deal in talk about town.”
In spite of himself conviction was fastening itself upon Stephen, just as Wade intended it should. These facts—many of them outside the cognizance of the law, as he knew—Ben had gathered solely for his benefit. To Stephen the situation took on tragic and awful possibilities. The justice that his aunt demanded, found an echo in his own heart. But there was Benson, the man who had done everything for him, who had denied him nothing, who had been a father to him. He would have liked to escape from the whole miserable tangle, but there was no escape for him, and it was apparent to him that he would either have to sacrifice his aunt or Benson.
He quitted his chair and fell to pacing the floor, and as he tramped to and fro, Wade's relentless logic, the logic of stubborn facts and figures, poured in a steady stream into his ears.
Then Wade went into the purely legal aspects of the case. He told Stephen just what he hoped to do, and how he hoped to do it. Perhaps this was not entirely discreet, but the case he saw, with its spectacular and dramatic possibilities, was like wine to him, it loosed his tongue and made him reckless.
At last Stephen paused in his walk to say,
“But you don't imagine, do you, that Mr. Benson will remain inactive? Suppose he comes forward with facts that offset your facts.”
Wade shook his head.
“He can't do it, Steve. We've run him to earth, and he knows it. The game played itself for him, and now it's playing itself for us.”
THE position Benson had taken and which he was evidently determined to maintain, was inexplicable to Stephen. He was absolutely silent on this matter that had become of vital significance. He never alluded to it, and he never permitted Stephen to allude to it in his presence. His whole manner toward him, however, was one of increasing kindness and affection, dependence even; and Stephen often encountered his gaze, wistful and searching, fixed upon him as if he were seeking to read his thoughts. Beyond this there was no change that he could discern; yet there was a change, for Gibbs said to him one day.
“What's the matter with your Uncle Jake, Steve? Will you tell me what's got into him?”
“Matter!” repeated Stephen doubtfully. “Nothing that I know of.”
“He's a mass of nerves. I don't seem able to please him with anything I do; I wonder if he's sick. Why don't he take a rest? That office will be the death of him! He's grinding his soul out in the hunt for dollars—it's growing on him; and he's getting awful cranky! Why, only yesterday I said something about Ben Wade, and he flared up in my face, just went all to pieces. Do you reckon Wade has offended him?”
“I guess not,” said Stephen evasively. He meditated on what Gibbs had told him. Then Benson was suffering, and suffering keenly. He was hiding it from him, but at the office he had not been able to do this, and poor old Gibbs thought it was overwork.
Stephen had kept away from his aunt, he had kept away from Elinor; in spite of a consuming desire to know what they were doing, thinking, saying, he was quite cut off from them. He harked back and forth over those points Wade had marshalled for his benefit, and in the end it became as impossible to think that a hard-headed fellow like Ben could be mistaken, as it was to think that he could possibly be right in this particular instance.
Wretched days passed in uncomfortable companionship with his own thoughts. At last it was not to be longer borne. He must see and talk with some one. Wade had told him that the Nortons were wholly in his aunt's confidence; he would see the banker and get his opinion. He had the utmost respect for his judgment. He wondered he had not gone to him before.
He went down to the bank, but it was already late in the afternoon and Norton had left for home. He would not be back that day. Stephen went at once to the house, where Norton received him with frank cordiality; and Stephen felt his heart flow toward him. Here was a sane and reasonable judgment on which he felt he could rely.
“I was asking Wade only last night where you'd hidden yourself away, Stephen. Come in,” said Norton, for Stephen had paused irresolutely at the door, and he led the way into the house.
“I suppose,” began Stephen, when they were seated, “that you have heard about Wade's discoveries.”
“Yes, certainly, rather sensational, too. Upon my word, I was in a muddle for days after they told me of them.”
“Of course, I don't need to ask how Mrs. Norton feels in the matter.”
“You don't, Stephen. My wife agrees with her mother, and her mother agrees with Mrs. Landray. She always has and she always will.”
“I suppose then, the facts, if we are to consider them facts, are as well known to you as they are to me.”
“Probably, yes. They are hard to go back of, Stephen,” said Norton, with grave kindness.
“What are they going to do?” asked Stephen.
“I suppose it will mean a lawsuit; it certainly will if Wade can bring it about. Have you seen your aunt?”
“Not recently.”
“I think you should, Stephen.”
“Well, perhaps; but look here, either I must stop this thing coming to trial, or I must leave Uncle Jake's house. I think if I asked her to, my aunt would drop the whole matter; and if I remain in my present relation with Uncle Jake, I feel it's my duty to ask her to do this. And if I don't, it's my duty to leave him. Now I can't well ask her to abandon what may mean a comfortable fortune to her; something's due her.”
“Very much is due her,” said the banker decidedly.
“Well, yes,” admitted Stephen. “But see, it's not that I fear to lose any benefits that some day may come to me from Uncle Jake, I don't care the snap of my finger for all his money, but what I do care about is having him think that I'm a base ungenerous brute. Mind, I don't for one minute admit that I think he's ever taken advantage of my aunt—I don't, I can't—I won't!”
“Naturally,” said the banker kindly. “You have the greatest regard for him. You'd be singularly unworthy if you hadn't; but really, Stephen, he is not acting as a man should who knows he is in the right and has nothing to fear. If he can explain the transaction, he can explain it as well now as later on, and save himself a lot of annoyance into the bargain; you must realize this. Now we know Mr. Benson, and if he is one thing more than another, he is dispassionate and reasonable; he has neither false pride nor weak vanity; he is a cool, level-headed man of large affairs who has lived a long time in the world, and who must be fully conscious of the folly and weakness of the stand he has taken in this case; he is silent then because there is nothing he can say.”
“Then you agree wholly with Wade?”
“I am sorry to have to say it to you, Stephen, but I do. And you can't question your aunt's right, her perfect right, to go ahead with this matter. You must try and see it as she sees it. All her affairs were in his hands, and he took the basest and most contemptible advantage of her trust.”
“I can't believe it!” cried Stephen.
“My dear boy, some facts are so plain and simple they can not be doubted. The facts Wade has gathered are absolutely convincing in themselves, and you don't doubt them really; you are only unwilling to believe them. At first I felt much as you feel, but after one or two talks with Wade I had to come around to his way of thinking; there was no help for it.”
“Well, I wish I knew what to do,” said Stephen gloomily. He had secretly hoped that Norton would be unpersuaded.
“I think you should consider your aunt somewhat, Stephen; she has no more land to sell unless she sells the cottage. In a way, you owe her more than you do Benson, for when General Gibbs brought you here, you went to her. Benson's interest in you was aroused later; and just fancy what a wrench it was to her when she relinquished all claim upon you.”
“I never quite understood that she did,” said Stephen.
“That was the condition Mr. Benson imposed. Of course she's hard and embittered; and can you wonder at it?”
“No, I suppose not.”
“You'll find my wife and daughter strong partisans of your aunt's. There comes Elinor now.”
Stephen glanced from the window and saw her approaching the house. He quitted his chair.
“Don't go,” said Norton. “We need not mention this before her.” A moment later Elinor entered the room. After a few words with Stephen and her father, she said:
“I am just starting to Aunt Virginia's, Stephen; don't you think you should see her, too?”
“Why?”
“You have not been there in days. She is very anxious about you. Come with me, it will make her so happy. She is afraid she will lose you; that Mr. Benson will object to your coming to see her.” Stephen bridled at this.
“Mr. Benson will not interfere with me. I am as free as I ever was. Yes, I'll go to Aunt Virginia's with you, there is no reason why I shouldn't.”
He walked in silence by her side as they strolled up the street toward Virginia's cottage. At last he said, “Elinor, this can only end in much ill-feeling and the breaking of all friendships. You must see this; I wish you cared.”
“I do care, Stephen; you know I care,” she said gently. “Whatever I do, I am going to be bitterly dissatisfied with myself. You're convinced; you cannot understand how I'm not, and you will never appreciate my motives; you'll always question them. This makes my love all the more hopeless.”
“Never mind that now, Stephen,” said Elinor. “Just promise me one thing. Aunt Virginia has been so distressed at not seeing you, I think she would agree to anything to spare you; but you must be fair to her. She has no right to sacrifice herself even for you.”
“Do you think she cares that much for me?”
“Cares for you!” cried Elinor. “She is devoted to you! You don't know her at all, or you would know this. There is no sacrifice she would not be capable of making for your sake.”
“I shall insist upon her being guided by your father and Wade.”
“Isn't he wonderful; Ben, I mean—I don't think any one else would or could have done all he has done!”
Stephen heard her in stony silence; for in his heart he cursed Wade for his zeal and shrewdness.
It was not Virginia's habit to show emotion, but Stephen saw that his call was as much a pleasure to her as it was a surprise and he was glad for Benson's sake, that he had come with Elinor, if only to properly present him; they would know now that much as they doubted him, he was at least superior to all littleness, and scorned to make use of him in any small revenge he might have taken. Elinor and Mrs. Walsh did not follow them into the parlour, and Stephen understood that Virginia had something to say to him.
“I've wanted to see you, Stephen,” she began gently. “Perhaps I should have sent for you, only I did not know that Mr. Benson would want you to come here.”
“Uncle Jake shows no inclination to interfere with me,” said Stephen quietly.
“After all, Stephen, perhaps you were right; perhaps nothing should be done—about the land, I mean. At first I was very bitter toward Mr. Benson, I could only see that he should be punished; but I am more tolerant now; at least, I don't want to involve you, or make your position difficult, and I don't see how this can be avoided if suit is begun. You are his only relative.” He saw that this admission cost her something, for it was made reluctantly. “I am going to tell Mr. Wade my decision to-morrow. I think this will be best.”
“But my dear Aunt Virginia, you can't do this, I can't let you make any such sacrifice for me!”
“For whom else would I make it, Stephen?” she asked simply. “But it is not so great a sacrifice as you imagine.”
“I can't allow it, Aunt Virginia. If Uncle Jake has done what you think, it is only just that he should make reparation.”
“Don't you think it is very strange that he will say nothing, will explain nothing?”
“Perhaps he will, if you will be patient,” said Stephen.
But Virginia had nothing to say to this.
“I can only see that the thing will have to go on,” he said, but perhaps he spoke half-heartedly; for after all if she dropped the matter, it offered him an easy escape from his difficulties; and he had even thought of asking her to do this very thing, though now that she suggested it of her own free will he was rather appalled by the proposal, since the burden of it would rest on him. He pictured Wade's rage and chagrin; and how would Elinor and the Nortons feel about it! The difficulties of his position became more and more apparent. No, the thing must go on, no sacrifice of his aunt's interests would right matters; only the law offered a solution of the problem, and even the solution might be an imperfect one, for who could foresee the end!
“The thing's started, and it will have to go on,” he said with dogged insistence.
“But do you need to be involved?” she questioned.
“I don't know. Just at present I seem to be a friend with all factions, but how long this can continue is more than I can say. No, I am not fit to advise you; it will have to be Wade or Mr. Norton, and they have already declared themselves.”
But afterward he was moody and preoccupied; and when he walked home with Elinor that night, he left her at the door and would not go in.
He reached home, and let himself in with his night-key. Benson called to him from the library, and Stephen turned with a sinking heart. Benson's habits were regular and old-fashioned; he retired early, and rose early; what was he doing up at that hour?
“Come in here, Stephen,” called the lawyer.
Stephen entered the room.
With great deliberation Benson put aside the book he had been reading.
“Sit down, Stephen,” he said, indicating a chair. There was a firm set to his lips, and Stephen felt that he had waited up for him, impelled by a purpose that might not be entirely pleasant. “Stephen, when did you see your aunt last?” said the old lawyer sharply.
“To-day—to-night, I took supper there. I went there from the Nortons.”
Benson smoothed the thin white hair that lay on his temples, with thin well-shaped hand.
“I suppose,” he began thoughtfully, “that your aunt has few, if any, secrets that exclude them.”
“If she has, I don't know what they are,” said Stephen.
“And her opinions are their opinions. Was my name mentioned?”
“Yes—they—”
“Never mind the connection, Stephen,” he interjected austerely. He was silent for a moment, but the movement of his hand continued. “Naturally you can't quite agree with them.” He favoured Stephen with a shrewd scrutiny.
“I do not,” and Stephen met his glance frankly.
“Thank you.” There was a droop to his eyelids and his glance sought the floor at his feet. “That being the case,” he began slowly, “you will agree with me, I think, when you have time to consider the point, that in future it will be more agreeable to you not to see your aunt or the Nortons. Feeling as you tell me you do, the acquaintance cannot be entirely pleasant.”
“It is more than an acquaintance,” said Stephen. He felt rebellious of the condition Benson was seeking to impose.
“You must hear many pleasant things of me,” said the lawyer, with cynical humour. “It must be pleasant for you to sit and listen to them denounce me—eh? Or are they more tactful in your presence?”
But Stephen was silent. There was no answer he could make to this, but he felt his cheeks redden.
“Humph!” said Benson. “You don't answer me,” he added in the same breath; “but you don't need to. I suppose you see that scoundrel Wade?”
“No, I haven't seen him in days.”
“Don't you think you would enjoy travel?” asked Benson. Stephen stared at him blankly. “Why not go abroad?”
“No, I can't go abroad—I don't wish to, and—no, I don't wish to—”
“I merely suggested it as an easy way of breaking with these people. You might be gone a year, two years, I might even arrange my affairs, and join you later.”
“You don't understand, Uncle Jake, I have no desire to break with my aunt; as for the Nortons—” Benson's glance became hostile, menacing, and Stephen felt a quick sense of resentment. This was a man he had never known before, a side of Benson's character with which he had never come in contact.
“I don't quite see how you can remain a member of my household and also remain friendly with your aunt, for instance. The time has come when you will have to choose finally between us. I had hoped you would see this, that you would be sufficiently alive to your own best interests, and that is would not be necessary for me to recall them to your mind.”
“My own best interests have nothing to do with the situation; but just as I owe much to you, I owe something to my aunt, one obligation is as urgent as the other.”
“The ways separate here and now,” said Benson coldly. “If you remain under my roof. I must ask certain things of you. It is not much to require under the circumstances.”
“It is a great deal for me to agree to, I find,” said Stephen.
Benson glanced at him frowningly.
“I am rather surprised to hear you, Stephen. I am sorry to say it. I was hurt when I learned that you had spent the afternoon at the Nortons, and I was still more hurt when you told me you had spent the evening at your aunt's. I had hoped that you might see what was due me, without my having to call your attention to it.”
Stephen was rapidly losing control of himself. The strain under which he had lived for days, was beginning to tell. Here was opposition, and his temper rose to meet it. He felt that Benson was unjust in his demands; surely his aunt had been more generous. But what hurt him most, was the fact that Benson should have made an appeal to his self-interest. That was the last thing he considered. In his present frame of mind it seemed of no importance whatever.
“I owe something to my aunt,” he repeated, with dogged insistence.
“What has she done for you?”
“That is not the measure of my regard either in her case or yours.”
“Humph!” said Benson.
“Am I to understand clearly and distinctly that I am not to see my aunt again? That it is your wish, and that you equally object to my seeing the Nortons?”
“Yes, that is exactly what I mean.”
“I think I'd better tell you that my interest in Elinor Norton is not mere friendship.”
“The Lord save us!” cried the lawyer, with unpleasant mirth. “What has that to do with it?”
“A good deal I think,” said Stephen haughtily.
“What are your prospects that you can consider taking a wife?”
“As good as the prospects of most men who have nothing,” retorted Stephen stoutly.
“If you are reasonable in this one thing, you will have something better than that to offer the woman you marry—only it will not be Miss Norton.”
“It will be no one else,” said Stephen quietly.
For a moment they gazed at each other with flashing eyes and set lips; then Benson came quickly to his feet.
“Think it over, Stephen,” he said, and abruptly left the room.