CHAPTER VI
A SCOUNDREL
If anything could break through her father's state of dazed misery, Jo Morley's sympathy was that thing.
Mr. Morley sank into his chair at the table and buried his tired face in his hands.
"You're a good girl, Jo," he said, and, reaching up, patted the hand that rested on his shoulder. "I'm a little tired, that's all. I'll be better after I've had something to eat."
Catching Jo's eye, Mrs. Morley gestured to her and the girl slipped noiselessly into her seat.
They unostentatiously served the meal, chatting pleasantly the while until Mr. Morley raised his head and looked about him with more animation.
Jo, seeing that her chatter lightened the general gloom, entered into a whimsical account of the afternoon's doing that appeared to interest her father.
"What a tragedy it might have been!" cried Mrs. Morley. "That poor helpless Emma Harrison alone in her room, unable to save herself!"
"It was lucky for her that our Jo happened along," said Mr. Morley, smiling.
"And Nan Harrison and Sadie Appleby!" Jo retorted. "They had as much to do with the rescue as I, remember!"
Mr. Morley knew better than to argue with Jo's obstinate conviction, but he shook his head and smiled to himself as if to say that he had his own ideas on that subject!
It was only after dinner was over and the dishes cleared away that Mr. Morley's deep depression returned.
When Mrs. Morley went upstairs to get some mending, Jo wandered into the library and saw her father seated in his favorite easy chair, the very picture of discouragement.
In the doorway Jo hesitated, then went swiftly forward and seated herself on the arm of her father's chair.
She ran her fingers through his graying, curly hair, a caressing habit that had been hers since she was a very small child.
Mr. Morley looked up at her sadly.
"Such a good girl, Josie," he said, "deserves the best of everything."
Jo put a hand over his mouth.
"Don't let's talk about me," she wheedled. "I want to talk about you."
Mr. Morley sighed heavily and turned his gaze once more toward the fire that burned in the grate.
There was a long silence broken only by the snapping of the blazing logs. Then Jo ventured softly:
"I wish you would tell me just what is wrong in your business, Dad. I don't think I quite understand."
"It's hard for older heads than yours to understand, Jo," returned her father. "How a trusted employee of a company can deliberately betray the secrets of that company and ruin his employer——"
"Oh, so it's a man who has made all the trouble!" Jo cried impulsively.
"A man who is either a maniac or one of the most contemptible scoundrels alive," her father returned bitterly. "The name of the scoundrel is Andrew Simmer, and he was my trusted clerk. You've seen him. You know what he looks like."
"What—what happened to him?" queried Jo, after another interval of unhappy silence.
"He decamped with some of the company's money and bonds," said Mr. Morley, speaking harshly despite his great fatigue. "And for the rest, he has left the company's affairs in such an involved condition that it looks as if utter ruin stretched before me."
"Ruin!" Jo repeated incredulously. "You mean we shall have—no money—at all?"
Mr. Morley glanced up at the girl and his face was haggard. He made a gesture of denial.
"I should not have said so much," he said after a pause and in a changed tone. "I am tired to-night and probably things seem worse to me than they actually are. We won't talk about it any more, poor Jo, poor little Jo."
Jo almost cried after that, and to save adding her tears to her father's already heavy burden ran from his presence up to her room where she buried her face in the pillows and wept long and furiously.
"That Andrew Simmer!" she cried, clenching her fist angrily. "What a scoundrel he must be! No wonder Dad looks savage when he speaks of him!"
Jo went downstairs no more that night, and when her mother came to her to ask why she did not join the family group as usual in the library, Jo pleaded a headache and said that she was going to bed.
She went to bed but not to sleep—not for many long hours afterward. In fact, the first shadowy light of dawn was creeping in at her windows before she fell into an uneasy, dream-tormented sleep.
The result was that Jo slept late and did not come downstairs until her father had been gone for some time. This was just as well, she thought, since her father could scarcely fail to notice the signs left by her sleepless night, the shadows under her eyes, the pallor of her cheeks. This would worry him and Jo wished more than anything in the world not to add to his burden of trouble just then.
From her mother Jo learned the rest of the story concerning Andrew Simmer.
"He seems to have been an extraordinarily clever young man," Mrs. Morley explained. "There are those who say now, in the light of later events, that he was more crafty and cunning than clever. Some even go so far as to say they think he was a bit touched in the head."
"Crazy?" asked Jo, her eyes intent upon her mother's face.
"I don't know as to that. But the fact remains that Simmer was clever, or crafty, enough to find out for himself some of the secrets of the business that your father has kept carefully guarded from every one else."
"Did he take much money?" Jo asked breathlessly.
"I was coming to that." There was something of rebuke in Mrs. Morley's tone. "He found out—how, nobody knows—the combination of the office safe. After that it was an easy matter to take what he could find of negotiable paper and money and decamp with it."
"He's gone, then? Run away?" cried Jo.
"Disappeared overnight, leaving no trace behind him," returned Mrs. Morley, distress again clouding the usual good nature of her face. "Your father has notified the police, of course, and set detectives on his trail; but so far without result. It actually looks as if the earth had opened and swallowed him up."
"Which of course it hasn't," muttered Jo, thinking her thought aloud.
"What did you say, dear," queried Mrs. Morley.
"I was just wondering," Jo returned vaguely. "Andrew Simmer must be somewhere, and since that's true, the detectives are sure to find him sooner or later."
"Probably later," returned her mother pessimistically. "And so much later that it won't do your father much good. He will be hopelessly ruined long before that time."
Jo paled, and, as she did so, remembered her father's haggard face as it was lifted to hers the night before in the library.
"Mother, is that what Dad—what all of us—are facing—actual ruin?"
Mrs. Morley hesitated, then turned her steady, kindly gaze upon her daughter.
"I don't see any reason why you should not know the truth, Jo," she said. "In fact, I think it is your right to know. We may lose everything we have in the world, dear."
As she spoke she put her arm about the girl's tense shoulders.
"This house?" asked Jo, in a voice scarcely above a whisper.
Mrs. Morley nodded.
"I'm afraid so, honey."
Jo was silent for so long a time that Mrs. Morley looked at her anxiously.
At last the girl spoke.
"What will Dad do?"
"Start all over again, I suppose—at the bottom," came wearily from her mother. "What else can he do?"
"Poor Dad," said Jo, the tears stinging her eyes. "It will be mighty hard on him. We—we've got to help him, Mother, you and I."
Mrs. Morley's grip about Jo's shoulders tightened.
"I am glad you take it this way, dear," she said. "Your father will need all the help we can give him." After a short pause she added: "I think one of the greatest trials he has to bear just now is that he can't send you to Laurel Hall. He has counted on it—almost as much as you have, I think."
Jo's lips quivered.
"There—there's some one on the porch, I think," she said and, rising, hastily left the room.
This was a mere pretense on Jo's part in order to get away from her mother before the latter saw how much the disappointment meant to her. But when Jo reached her front door she saw that some one actually was on the porch.
Nan and Sadie were there, arm in arm, and Sadie was in the act of ringing the bell when Jo forestalled her by opening the door in person.
"Hello! Just the person we want to see!"
There was a joyful ring in Nan's voice that jarred upon Jo's mood of depression.
"Go get your hat," Sadie added. "It's too nice a day to waste in the house. We're going for a walk."
"All right," said Jo, and turned back into the house to get her hat, all unsuspecting of what was in store for her.