204CHAPTER XIXAN UNEXPECTED TELEGRAM
As the days wore on, Dora went through many scenes with her father concerning Vivian Ormsby. The banker pressed his suit remorselessly, yet with a consideration for the girl, which did him the greatest credit. The colonel made no secret of his keen desire for the match; and he informed his friends, as well as Dora, that he looked upon the thing as settled. Naturally, the girl’s name was coupled with Ormsby’s, and, wherever one was invited, the other always appeared.
Ormsby showed himself at his best during this period. He would have made no progress at all but for his tactful recognition of the fact that Dora had loved Dick Swinton, and must be treated tenderly on that account. She was grateful to him, for he seemed to be the only one who respected poor Dick’s memory. Other people were free in their comments, and remorseless in their condemnation of the criminal act which, as the culmination of a long series of follies, must inevitably have brought him to ruin if he had not chosen to end his life at the war.205
Nobody was surprised when the society columns of the newspapers hinted of a coming engagement between the daughter of a well-known soldier and the son of a banker, who came together under romantic circumstances, not unconnected with a regrettable accident.
Later, there was a definite announcement: “An engagement has been arranged between Miss Dundas, daughter of Colonel Herbert Dundas, and Vivian Ormsby, eldest son of William Ormsby, the well-known banker.”
Letters poured in on every side. Polly Ocklebourne drove over to congratulate Dora in person, and found the affianced bride looking very pale, and by no means happy. Dora hastened to explain that the engagement would be a long one, possibly two years at least—and they laughed at her. The girl had given her consent grudgingly, in half-hearted fashion, with the stipulation that she might possibly withdraw from it. Her father coaxed it out of her. But, when people came around and talked of the wedding, and abused her for treating poor Ormsby shabbily by insisting on an engagement of quite unfashionable and absurd length, the thought of what she had done began to terrify her. She knew perfectly well that she did not care for her lover; that, under certain circumstances, she almost hated him. But there was no one she liked better,206nor was there any prospect of her dead heart coming to life again at all. And, in the meantime, Ormsby was constantly by her side.
One morning, Ormsby drove up in his automobile, to propose an engagement for the evening to Dora. Hisfiancée, however, had gone out for a walk, and he was forced to content himself by leaving a message with her father. The two men were chatting together in the library, when a servant entered with a telegram. “For Miss Dundas, sir,” was the explanation.
“I suppose I’d better open it,” murmured the colonel, as he slit the envelope.
He read the message, frowned, swore an oath, turned it over, then read it again, with a look of blank amazement, whilst Ormsby watched.
“Bad news?”
“Read.”
Ormsby took the slip between his fingers. His pale face hardened, and his teeth ground together. His surprise was expressed in a smothered cry of rage.
“It can’t be!” he gasped. “Alive? Then, the story of his death was a lie. His heroic death was a sham.”
“Dora will have to be told,” groaned the colonel.
“No, certainly not,” cried Ormsby. “If he attempts207to show his face in New York, I’ll have him arrested.”
“No, no, Ormsby, you wouldn’t do that. I must confess, it isn’t any pleasure to hear that he’s alive. It’s a confounded nuisance! His death—damn it all! He sha’n’t see her. They mustn’t meet, Ormsby!”
“No, of course not—of course not. We’ll have to send him to jail.”
“Ormsby, you couldn’t do it—you couldn’t.”
“Well, he mustn’t see Dora.”
“No—I’ll attend to that.”
The colonel read the telegram again.
“Arrived at Boston Parker House this morning. Start home this afternoon. Send message. Dying to see you.
“Dick Swinton.”
“What does the fool want to come home for?” growled the colonel. “Hasn’t he any consideration for his mother and father and sister? Everybody thinks he’s dead—why doesn’t he remain dead? He sha’n’t upset my girl. I’ll see to that. I’ll—I’ll meet him myself.”
“A good idea,” observed Ormsby, who had grown thoughtful. “For my part, my duty is plain. A warrant is out for his arrest. I shall give information208to the police that he is in the country again.”
“No, Ormsby—no!” pleaded the colonel. “You’ll utterly upset yourself with Dora. You won’t stand a ghost of a chance.
“A hero with handcuffs doesn’t cut an agreeable figure, or stand much of a chance. Dora has glorified him, you must remember. There will be a reaction of feeling. She’ll alter her opinion, when she knows he’s a criminal, flying from justice. They gave him his life, I suppose, because he hadn’t the courage to die, and keep his country’s secrets. The traitor!”
They resolved to say nothing of the arrival of the telegram. The colonel gave out that business affairs necessitated a journey to Boston, and Dora was to be told that he would be back in the evening.
Ormsby drove the colonel to the station in his motor. Afterward, he called at police-headquarters, and then at the bank. There, he wrote a letter to Herresford, reopening the matter of the seven thousand dollars, which had lain dormant all this time, true to the promise made to Dora. He had let the quarrel stand in abeyance in case of accidents. This was characteristic of the cautiousOrmsbys, and quite in keeping with the remorseless character of the man who never forgave, and never desisted in any pursuit where personal gain was the paramount consideration.209
Colonel Dundas had been genuinely fond of Dick Swinton—up to a point. The kind of regard he had for him was that which is accorded to many self-indulgent, reckless young men who are their own greatest enemies. He was always pleased to see him; but he would never have experienced pleasure in contemplating him as a possible son-in-law. His supposititiously heroic death had surrounded him with a halo of romance dear to the colonel’s heart; but his sudden reappearance in the land of the living, with a warrant out for his arrest, and Dora’s happiness in the balance, excited a growing anger.
All the way to Boston, the colonel fumed and swore. He muttered to himself and thumped the arms of his chair, rehearsing the things he meant to say when the rascal confronted him. How dare Dick send telegrams to his innocent child without her father’s knowledge, in order that he might work upon her feelings! Perhaps, he thought of persuading her to elope with him—elope with a criminal! By the time he reached Boston, the colonel had built up a hundred imaginary wrongs that it was his duty to set right by plain speaking.
As he entered the vestibule of the hotel, he saw Dick Swinton—or someone like him—wrapped in a long, ill-fitting coat, walking up and down very slowly. The young man caught sight of the ruddy face of Colonel Dundas, and he tried to hurry, but210his step was slow and uncertain. As they came near each other, he seized the colonel’s arm.
“Colonel! Colonel!” he cried. “How glad I am to see you! Is Dora with you?”
“Dora—no, sir! What do you take me for? Good God! what a wreck you are! Where have you been? How is it you’ve come home?”
“I—I thought she would come!” gasped Dick, who looked very white. His eyes were unnaturally large, and his cheeks sunken, and his hands merely bones.
“Here, come out of the crowd,” said the colonel, forgetting his tremendous speeches. He seized the young man by the arm, but gripped nothing like muscle. “Why, you’re a skeleton, boy!” he exclaimed, adopting the old attitude in spite of himself.
“Yes, I’m not up to the mark,” laughed Dick. “I thought you knew all about it.”
“Knew all about it, man? You’re dead—dead! Everyone, your father and mother and all of us, read the full story of your death in the papers.”
“Yes; but I corrected all that,” cried Dick, “My letters—they got my letters?”
“What letters?”
“The two I sent through by the men that were exchanged. Young Maxwell took one.”
“Maxwell died of dysentery.”211
“Ah, that accounts for it. The other I gave to a sailor. He promised to deliver it.”
“To whom did you write?”
“To Dora. I asked her to go to mother and explain things, so as not to give too great a shock. You don’t mean to say that my mother doesn’t know!”
“No, of course not—not through Dora, at any rate.”
“Good heavens! Let’s get to a telegraph-office, and I’ll send her word at once. And father, too—dear old dad—he’s had two months of sorrow that might have been avoided. What a fool I was! I ought to have telegraphed from Copenhagen.”
“Copenhagen!”
“Yes; I escaped—nearly died of hunger—got on board a Danish ship as stowaway, and arrived at Copenhagen half-starved. But I wasn’t up to traveling for a bit. I’m pulling around, gradually. I’m—well, to be sure! And mother doesn’t know. What a surprise it will be! What a jollification! What a—!”
“Here, hold up, Dick—hold up, man—you’re tottering.”
The colonel’s strong hand kept Dick on his feet. He led the young man gently through the vestibule.
“Here, come to a quiet place. You mustn’t be seen in public,” growled the colonel.212
“Why not?” asked Dick. “I’m a little faint. You see, I haven’t much money. I had to borrow. A square meal, at your expense, would do me a world of good, colonel. Let’s go to the dining-room.”
“Very well. We can get a quiet table there. But I want you to understand at once that, though I’m here, I’m not your friend.”
“Eh? What?”
“Well, you can’t expect it.”
“Oh, you’re angry with me because I’m fond of Dora. I suppose you saw my telegram and—intercepted it.”
“Yes.”
“Then Dora doesn’t know!”
“No, Dora doesn’t know—nor will she know. Better be dead, my boy—better be dead!”
“I beg your pardon?” queried Dick, gazing at the colonel with dull, tired eyes.
The colonel vouchsafed no explanation, but led the way into the dining-room. He selected a table in a corner, and thrust the menu over to Dick. The sick man’s eyes ran listlessly down the card, and he gave it back.
“I’m too done. You order. Perhaps, a drink’ll pull me up.”
The colonel ordered brandy. He was now able to get a better look at the returned hero. The change213in the young man shocked him, and he could see that the hand of death had clutched Dick harshly before letting him go.
“What was it—fever?” he asked, with soldier-like abruptness, as he scanned the lean, weary face.
“Enteric and starvation, and a bit of a wound, too. I was taken prisoner, but, when the ambulance cart was left in a general stampede, I was just able to cry out to a nigger to cut my bonds. He set me free; but, afterward, I think I went mad. I was in our lines, I know. It was a good old Yankee who set me free; but, when reason came, I was again in the wrong camp. The ambulance cart had got into its own lines again. At any rate, I was in different hands, with a different regiment, packed off to a proper prison camp. I sent word home, or thought I’d sent word. I thought you all knew. By Jove, what a lark it will be to turn up and see their faces!”
Dick took a long draught at the brandy, and a little color came into his face.
“I suppose they’ll be glad and all that, as I’m something of a hero,” he continued. “A chap on the train told me that the story of my capture got into the papers, and was written up for all it was worth. Another smack in the eye for Ormsby, that! Nutt got away, and told you I was dead, I suppose.”214
“Yes,” answered the colonel, gloomily; then, leaning across the table: “Dick, my boy, I don’t want to be hard on you. We are all liable to err. Don’t you think it would have been better if you had remained dead?”
Dick looked blankly into his friend’s face for some moments. A look of fear came into his eyes.
“What’s the matter? What’s happened? Dora’s—alive?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And my father and mother?”
“Oh, yes, yes, they’re well—as well as can be expected under the circumstances.”
“Well, what’s the matter, then? What’s happened?”
“Dick, you must know perfectly well what has happened. Your grandfather found out—the—er—what you did before you went away.”
“What I did before I went away?”
“Well, it’s no good skirmishing. Let’s call it by its proper name—your forgery. Those two checks you cashed at the bank, originally for two and five dollars. I daresay you thought that your grandfather never looked at his pass-book. You were mistaken. And what a confounded fool you must have been to think that two amounts of such magnitude as two thousand and five thousand dollars could be overlooked.”215
Dick’s lower jaw had dropped a little, and he looked at the colonel in blank surprise, yet with more listlessness than would a man in rude health when amazed. The colonel misread the signs, and saw only the astonishment of guilt unmasked.
“Your mother got the checks for you: but you added to the figures in another ink. The forgery was discovered, and by Ormsby, too, unfortunately, who is no friend of yours. The matter was hushed up, of course. You have to thank Dora for that. A warrant was out for your arrest, but Dora begged Ormsby to stay his hand for the sake of your mother and father. And—er—well, the long and short of it is that Ormsby was prepared to lose seven thousand dollars, rather than ruin your family. The news of your death—your heroic death, as we imagined—came at the opportune moment to help people to forget your folly.”
Dick sat like a stone, calm, pale, holding his glass and listening intently. For an instant he seemed about to faint.
“Of course, we all thought,” continued the colonel, “that you had put yourself into a tight corner on purpose, that you might respectably creep out of your difficulties by dying and troubling nobody. And we respected you for that. Everybody knew that you were up to your eyes in debt, and at loggerheads with your grandfather, that the old man216had disinherited you, and all that. But surely you didn’t owe seven thousand dollars!”
“Are you talking about the checks my mother gave me before I went away?” Dick asked, quietly.
“Of course I am. You know the circumstances better than I do. It’s no good playing the fool with me, and I don’t intendtohave my daughter upset by telegrams and surreptitious communications. So, now, you know. You’ve done for yourself, my lad, and you’d better face it and remain dead.”
“But my mother—she has explained?”
“Of course, she has, and it’s nearly broken her heart. Think of her awful position, to have to confess that her son altered her checks—checks actually drawn in her name—and the money filched from the bank by a dirty trick! The bank’s got to lose it. Your grandfather won’t pay a cent.”
“But my mother—?” faltered Dick again, leaning forward heavily on the table, and gazing at the colonel with eyes so full of horror that the elder man wondered whether suffering had not turned Dick’s brain.
“Ah, you may well ask about your mother. She tried to do her best, I believe, to get your grandfather to pay up; but the shame of the thing is what I look at. That’s why I came to you here, to-day. If your mother knows no more than Dora and all the rest—if they still think you’re dead—well,217why not remain dead? It’s only charity—it’s only kind. Your father and mother think that you died a hero’s death, and, naturally, aren’t disposed to look upon your crime quite in the same light as other people. Why, in heaven’s name, when you got a chance of slipping out of life, and out of the old set, and making a fresh start, didn’t you seize it?”
“You mean, why didn’t I get shot?” asked Dick, slowly.
“Well, not exactly that. You know as well as I do that lots of chaps go to the front to get officially shot, and have their names on the list of the killed—men who really mean to turn over a new leaf, and get a fresh lease of life in another country, under another name, when the war is over. Others get put right out of the way, because they haven’t the courage to do it themselves.”
“But my mother could have explained!” cried Dick, huskily. He was so weak that he was unable to cope with agitation.
“Tut, tut, man, your mother could explain nothing. She could only tell the truth—that she gave you two checks for small amounts, and you put bigger amounts to them, and cashed them at the bank; in short, that her son was a forger.”
“My mother said that!”
“Yes.”
“God help her!” gasped Dick, with a gulp. He218put his hand to his throat, and fell forward on the table, senseless.
The colonel jumped up in alarm. Waiters rushed forward, and they revived the sick man by further applications of brandy. He recovered quickly, and food was again set before him.
He ate mechanically, and for a long time there was silence between the two men. The colonel wished himself well out of the business, and felt the brutality of using harsh words to a man in such a condition of health. Yet, he was resolute in his purpose.
Dick appeared somewhat stronger after the meal. Every now and again, he would look up at the colonel in a dazed fashion, as if unable to believe the evidence of his senses. At last, he spoke again.
“I suppose—my brain isn’t what it was. But I’m feeling better. Tell me again what my mother said—and my father.”
The colonel detailed all that he knew, displaying considerable irritation in the process. This attitude of ignorance and innocence nettled him. He wound up with a soldier-like abruptness.
“Well, are you going to live, or do you intend to remain dead?”
“I’m going home.”
“To be arrested?”
“No, to ask some questions.”219
“Don’t be a fool. You’ll be arrested at the station.”
“No, I sha’n’t. I’ve done a little dodging lately. I shall travel to some other place, and walk home. I’ve faced worse things than—”
The sentence was never finished. He seemed to realize that there could be nothing worse than to be falsely denounced by his own mother—the mother whom he loved and idolized, the most wonderful mother son ever had, the most beautiful woman in New York, the wife of John Swinton, chosen man of God.
“You’d better not come home,” urged the colonel; “at any rate, as far as we are concerned.”
“Ah, that means you intend to cut me.”
“Yes; and as far as Dora is concerned—Well, the fact is, she’s engaged to Ormsby now.”
“Engaged to Ormsby?”
Dick put out his hand almost blindly to take his cap, and adjusted it on his head like a man drunk. He arose and staggered from the table. This was the last straw.
“Look here, boy—you want some money,” exclaimed the colonel, brusquely. “I’ve come prepared. You’ll find some bills in this envelope. Put it in your pocket.”
Dick’s hands hung limply at his sides. The colonel seized him by the loose front of his ulster, and220kept him from swaying, at the same time thrusting the envelope into one of his pockets. Then, he took the young man’s arm, and led him out into the vestibule.
“Bear up, my boy—bear up,” he whispered. “You’ve got to face it. You’re dead—remember that. Nobody but myself knows the truth. Be a man, for God’s sake—for your mother’s sake—for your father’s. You’ve got the whole world before you. If things go very wrong—well, you can rely upon me for another instalment—just one more, like the one in your pocket. Write to me under some other name. Call yourself John Smith—do you hear?”
“Yes—John Smith,” echoed Dick, huskily.
“Well, good-bye, my boy—good-bye,” the colonel exclaimed. “I must catch my train.” He tried to say something else. Words failed him. He turned and ignominiously escaped, leaving Dick standing alone, helpless and dazed.
“I’m going home—I’m going home,” muttered Dick, as he thrust his hands into his ulster pockets, and tottered along toward the elevator, for he felt that he must get to his room at once.
“My own mother!—I can’t believe it.”
221CHAPTER XXTHE WEDDING DAY ARRANGED
When the colonel suppressed Dick’s telegram, and as he fondly imagined, silenced the young man in Boston, he left out of the reckoning a prying servant, who secretly examined the message which the colonel had thrown into a wastebasket torn across only twice. In consequence of this, hundreds of persons, presently, were discussing a rumor to the effect that Dick Swinton was still alive. Dora, as it chanced, heard nothing; but Vivian Ormsby—who thought that he alone shared the colonel’s secret—heard the gossip circulating through the city.
“Dick Swinton is not dead,” said the report, “he is hiding in New York.”
Mr. Barnby spoke of this as laughable. But Ormsby knew that the truth must out sooner or later, and it was necessary that he should be ready. The police were on the alert—reluctantly alert, for they respected the rector. The banker, however, was a more important person than the clergyman, and his evident anxiety to lay hands on the forger was a thing not to be overlooked. There was also a little private reward mentioned.222
The colonel, when Ormsby arrived to continue his courtship, heard of these rumors with alarm, and took every precaution to keep them from Dora by maintaining a constant watch over her. He was as impatient at the protracted engagement as was Ormsby himself, and one morning he attacked Dora upon the question of the marriage.
“Dora, your engagement is a preposterous thing, child. It’s a shame to keep Ormsby waiting and dangling at your heels as you do. To look at you, no one would suspect you two were lovers.”
“We are not, father. You know that very well.”
“Fiddlesticks! You’re willing enough to let him fetch and carry for you, and motor you all over the country, and smother you with flowers, and load you with presents. Yet, you are always as glum as a church-warden while he’s here. And, when he’s away, you seem to buck up and show that you can be cheerful, if you like.”
“I have submitted to an engagement with Mr. Ormsby more to please you, father, than to please myself.”
“Then, my child, why can’t you please me by settling things right away. Marriage is a serious responsibility. It is a woman’s profession, and the sooner she gets the hang of it, the quicker her promotion. I’m getting an old man, and I want to see you married before I die.”223
“Don’t talk like that, father.”
“Well, I’m not a young man, am I? The doctor told me this morning—but what the doctor told me has nothing to do with your feelings for Ormsby.”
“Father, father, you’re not keeping anything from me. What did the doctor say?”
The colonel saw his advantage, and, although he was inclined to smile, pulled a long face, and sighed.
“My child, I want to see you comfortably settled before I die. You wouldn’t like me to leave you here alone with no one to look after you—”
“Father, father! What are you saying? I’m sure the doctor has told you something. I saw you looking very strange yesterday, and holding your hand over your heart.”
The colonel wanted to exclaim, “Indigestion!” but he shook his head, and sighed mournfully once more.
“It’s anxiety, my child, about your welfare. It’s telling on me.”
“I don’t want to be an anxiety to you, father. I know I’ve not been a cheerful companion lately, but—it will be worse for you when I get married.”
“Nothing of the sort, my girl. Ormsby and I have settled that we are not to be separated. He’s looking out for a big place, where there’ll be a corner for an old man. Come, come, have done with this shilly-shallying. What on earth is the use of a two years’224engagement? At the end of the two years, do you suppose you will be able to break your word and Ormsby’s heart? No, my girl, it’s not right. Either you are going to marry Ormsby, or you are not. If you are, then it might as well be to-morrow as next month, and next month as next year. And as for two years—bah! Come, now, I’ll fix it for you: four weeks from to-day.”
“Impossible, father—impossible! I couldn’t get my clothes ready—”
“Clothes be hanged! He’s going to marry you, not your kit. You’ve got clothes enough to supply a boarding-school. Six weeks—I give you six weeks.—Ah! here’s Ormsby. Ormsby, it’s settled. Dora is to marry you in six weeks, or—she’s no child of mine.”
“I—I didn’t say so, father,” cried Dora, blushing hotly.
“I’m the happiest man in America!” cried Ormsby, coming over with outstretched hands, and a greater show of feeling than he had ever before displayed. He looked exceedingly handsome, and almost boyish.
“Say it is true!—say it is true!” he cried.
“Oh, as you please, as you please.” And, turning to her father to hide her embarrassment, Dora murmured, “You’re not really ill, father?”
“I tell you, my child, I shall be,” roared the colonel,225with a wink at Ormsby, “if this anxiety goes on any longer. Publish the date, Ormsby. Put it in the papers.”
“At once!” cried the delighted lover. “I saw Farebrother to-day, and he assures me he has just the place we want, not twenty miles out. Shall we go over in the motor, and look at it? Will you come and choose your home—our home, Dora?”
“Of course she will,” cried the colonel, starting up with wonderful alacrity for a sick man. “I’ll go and order the motor, this minute.”
226CHAPTER XXIDICK’S RETURN
The deepest stillness of night had settled down on Riverside Drive, when Dick Swinton came cautiously along the cross-town street, and paused near the corner, looking suspiciously to left and to right. Convinced, at last, that no one was about, he advanced toward his home in the shadow of the houses, going warily. At the beginning of the rectory grounds, he stopped and leaned against the wall, peering into the shadows for signs of a watching figure. All was silent as the grave. He slipped to the side gate without meeting anyone. Still going cautiously, he entered without a sound. The place was in shadow, but from a window on the ground floor a narrow beam of light shot out on the drive and across the lawn. It came from between the half-closed curtains of his father’s study.
The rector was at work. It was Friday. Dick had chosen the day and the hour because he knew that it was his father’s custom to sit up far into the night, preparing his Sunday sermon. Sunday morning’s discourse was prepared on Friday evening; the evening homily on Saturday.227
He crept to the window, and looked in. The light from the lamp was shining on his father’s hair. How white it was! The iron-gray streaks were quite gone. And yet how little time had elapsed! The rector’s Bible was at his elbow, lying open, and the desk was covered with sheets of manuscripts, spread about in unmethodical fashion. At the moment when Dick looked in, the rector picked up his Bible, and laid it open before him on the desk.
“He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth them shall have mercy.”
John Swinton arose from the table, and closed the book abruptly. His study fire had burned low, yet the sermon was only half-finished.
For weeks past, his life had been a hideous burden. It was unendurable. Every time he opened his Bible, he read his own condemnation; and, as he slowly paced his study, he muttered text after text, always dealing with the one thing—confession.
He was between the devil and the deep sea. His wife’s arguments for silence were unanswerable. The call of his conscience was unanswerable, too, except in one way—by confession. He was a living lie; his priesthood, a mockery. There was not a father or a mother in his congregation who would not turn from him in horror, if it were known that he shielded the guilty beneath the pall of the honorable dead.
As the rector walked up and down the room, Dick228was able to look upon his father’s face unobserved. The change shocked him. Was it grief for a dead son, or grief for an erring one, that had whitened his hair and hollowed his cheeks?
In the few days that had elapsed since his interview with Colonel Dundas, Dick had pulled up wonderfully. He had not come on to New York until he felt himself strong enough to face the ordeal before him. He had forgiven his mother from the first. What she did must have been done with the best intentions. The poverty of her son and the dire distress of his father had tempted her to obtain possession of money by forgery. The bank had at once suspected the ne’er-do-well son. The son had been proclaimed dead, and the mother had chosen silence.
These things, so unforgivable, were at once condoned by the tender-hearted lad, who only remembered his mother’s caresses and her constant anxiety for his welfare from the day of his birth. It was the loss of Dora that stung him most—the thought that she had believed him dead and disgraced. His father’s attitude puzzled him more, and he naturally jumped to the conclusion that John Swinton knew nothing; that he was deceived by his wife, like the rest; otherwise, he would have scouted the lie on the instant, no matter what the consequences. Such was the son’s belief in his father’s integrity.
What would his father’s reception be?229
He raised his finger to tap at the window, but paused as this thought occurred to him. The rector could not fail to receive him back from the dead joyfully; but there would be the inevitable reckoning to pay. Even now, the lad hesitated, wondering whether, after all, Colonel Dundas were not right in declaring him better dead. But he was not without hope; and his determination to be set right in Dora’s eyes was inflexible.
He tapped at the window, gently. The rector started and listened, but hearing nothing further, supposed that he had been mistaken as to the sound.
The prodigal tapped again, this time with a coin. There was no mistaking the summons. The rector went to the window, flung back the curtains, and peered out, standing between the window and the light.
Dick pressed himself close to the glass, and took off his cap.
“Father!” he cried. “Open the window.”
It was Dick’s voice, but not Dick’s face.
“Open the window.”
Like a man in a dream, the rector loosened the catch, and opened the casement.
“Father—father! It is I—Dick—alive! and glad to be home.”
The clergyman retreated as from a ghost—afraid.230
“Don’t be afraid of me. The report of my death was all a mistake, father.”
“Dick—Dick—my boy—back—alive!”
The father folded his son to his heart, with a cry of joy and a sudden rush of tears. He babbled incoherently, and gasped for breath. Dick supported the faltering steps to the chair by the desk. Then, he closed the window silently, and flinging his cap upon the table, slowly divested himself of the long ulster.
The inevitable pause of embarrassment followed.
“I’ve come to have a talk with you, father,” said Dick, cheerily. He seized the poker, and raked together the embers of the dying fire, as naturally as though no interval of time had elapsed since he was there last.
The rector wiped his eyes and pulled himself together, realizing, after the first rush of emotion, the terrible situation created by his son’s return. His natural impulse was to rush upstairs to Mary, and tell her the glad news—glad, yet terrible. But Dick forestalled him by remarking quite casually:
“I want to see you first, father, before telling mother. My coming back will be a shock; and she ought to be prepared.”
“Yes—you’ve taken me by surprise, my boy. Why didn’t you write? Why didn’t you let us know? Why didn’t you telegraph?”231
“I did write, and I thought you knew all about it, and would be expecting me, and, as soon as I landed, I telegraphed to Dora Dundas, thinking she would call on mother. But the colonel intercepted my telegram, and came himself, and told me of the—of the—”
The rector looked down at his desk; he could not face his son. His hand involuntarily clenched as it rested on the table.
“He told me of the mess I’ve got myself into over the bank business—told me they would arrest me if I came home. But I couldn’t keep away, father.” There were tears in Dick’s voice now. “I just wanted to see you before—before emigrating.”
“Emigrating, my boy! Why should you emigrate?”
This was hardly the tone that Dick expected: no reproach, no questioning.
“It’s no good running the risk of a prosecution, is it, father? And, as I’ve disgraced the family, I’d—”
“You mean to say that you don’t deny the bank’s charge of forgery?”
“No—no, father, I don’t deny it. Why should I?”
The rector looked at his son helplessly, in agonized appeal. His hands went up, and he bowed his head before him. Dick was the strong man, and he the weak one. Dick was ready to be wiped out of existence,232rather than betray his mother. He believed that his father knew nothing.
“Dick—forgive!” The stricken father took a step forward, but his strength gave out, and he dropped upon his knees at his son’s feet. “Dick! Dick! We are sinners, your mother and I. I ask your pardon. Forgive me, boy, forgive—It was my wish from the first that you should be set straight. I knew you were incapable of a fraud, and your mother confessed everything to me. I only consented to the blackening of your name at—at your mother’s entreaty—to save Netty’s life from ruin and your mother from prison.”
“That’s all right, father—that’s all right,” cried Dick huskily, with an affected cheeriness, as he raised the stricken man. “I’m not able to grapple with it all just now. You see, I’ve had enteric, and am still shaky. I’ve thought it all out. Mother was—was foolish. She wanted to set us all straight, to pay my debts and save me from arrest. Well, I can but return the compliment. A fellow can’t see his own mother sent to prison. She did it for love of her husband and children. She only defrauded her own father; and, if he had an ounce of sentiment in him, or was in his right mind, he’d acknowledge the checks, and make us disgorge in some other way. I felt like going up to Asherton Hall first, and strangling the old villain in his bed.”233
“Dick, my boy, it is not his fault. It is he who has been right, and we who have been wrong. No man should spend money he does not possess. Debts that a man can never pay are robberies. I have condoned, I am worse than she—worse than all of you—I, the clergyman, who have been given the care of souls. Dick, there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, and your mother and I have sincerely repented; but we have not atoned. You must see her to-night, and tell her that you mean to come home. You must tell the truth, and set yourself right in the eyes of all men. Your father and mother don’t matter. You have a life before you, and a name that should go down in history, honored—”
“Oh, nonsense, father! What I’ve been through is nothing to what some of the chaps suffered. Some thriving colony is the place for me under a new name, a new life. So long as mother and you know, and send me a cheery word sometimes, and wishmewell, I shall be all right. You see, it’s easier to go when the girl that a fellow loves is—is going to marry another man, a rich man—a cad. But that’s her affair. She thinks I’m a bad lot, and put away under the turf, and she’s going to live her life comfortably like other people, I suppose. Old Dundas was always keen on Ormsby. When she’s married—and settled down—then you must tell her the truth—that234I didn’t alter those checks, that I wasn’t such a cheat, nor a coward either. Don’t let her think I died a skunk who wanted to be shot to avoid the consequences of a forgery. Yes, you’ll have to tell her that, father—you’ll have to tell her—”
The words came out with difficulty. Dick, who was standing on the hearthrug, put out his hand blindly for support. It rested on a table for a moment, but only for a moment. His lips parted, and his eyes closed. Ere the rector could rush to his aid, he slipped to the floor in a faint. Emotion, in his present weak state, was too much for him. He had overestimated his strength.
“Dick—my boy!—my boy!” cried the father, raising him tenderly in his arms. “He’ll die—he’ll die after all!”
The study door opened suddenly. Mary in her nightdress, with her hair about her shoulders, and her eyes staring, entered the room, barefooted.
“I heard his voice, John—I heard his voice!” she cried, in shrill fear.
“Mary! Help, help! He’s here—Dick—alive! He’s fainted!”
The table stood between her and the dark form in the shadow on the floor. She advanced slowly.
“Dick—not dead!” she screamed.
Her cry rang through the house and awakened everybody. Netty heard the words upstairs, and sat235up in bed, trembling. The servants heard them, and began to dress hurriedly.
Dick was lifted by his father from the floor to the couch, and the conscience-stricken mother looked on with drawn, white face. Love conquered her fear, and she put her arms about him and kissed him; but, when he opened his eyes, she drew away out of sight, fearing reproach. His first words might be bitter denunciation.
“He knows all; he understands,” whispered the rector.
The study door stood open, and in another moment they became conscious of the half-clad figure of Jane, the housekeeper, looking in.
“Mr. Dick!” she screamed. “Mr. Dick! Not dead!” She turned and rushed upstairs to Netty’s room.
She found Netty in a panic, pale and trembling.
“What has happened?”
“Mr. Dick—he’s alive! alive! He’s come home.”
“He’ll be arrested,” was Netty’s only thought, and she thrust Jane out of the room, telling her to hold her tongue. It was bitterly cold, and she went back to bed. She guessed that there must be a painful interview in progress down in the study, and her own joy—if any—at the return of her disgraced brother could wait.236
She had no two points of view. She was sorry that Dick had returned. She regretted that the forger was not dead. It was so hideously inconvenient when one wanted to get married to have a disreputable brother in the family. She then and there resolved that Dick need not think he would ever get money out of Harry Bent.
It was a strange home-coming for the prodigal. His intention to emigrate as soon as he had seen his father and mother was frustrated by an attack of weakness, which made it impossible for him to be moved. He was helped to bed, miserably conscious that self-sacrifice would entail more than emigration. If he took upon his shoulders the family burden, it would be as a prisoner and a convict. The secret of his home-coming could not be kept, and Ormsby’s warrant must take effect.