CHAPTER IX
It was on the following morning that Jean and Frank returned, their faces glowing with country sunshine and spring wind, their hearts quickened with anticipation. In the train coming home they had exchanged many confidences. Could he possibly manage to get married before he went out to India? Frank wondered. Would Lucas have to wait till he had sold a few more pictures? wondered Jean. He ran whistling up the steps and rang the bell. She burst radiantly into the somber hall. And then, at twelve o'clock in the morning of an ordinary working week-day, they found the junior partner at home to receive them. Such a portent had never before been seen.
"Where's father?" asked Jean.
Andrew's cheeks twitched nervously; yet on the whole he maintained a compassionate expression highly honorable to his fraternal instincts. In a hushed voice he addressed his sister.
"I want to have a word with you," said he.
He took her apart from her brother and shut the library door securely. Frank was such a hot-tempered young fellow; and he had suffered one physical outrage already. In a voice as appropriate as his face he gently broke the news—
"Our father has been removed to an asylum."
"Removed—to an asylum!" gasped Jean.
She did not strike him, but on the whole he was even more glad when that interview came to an end than when he saw the widow's muscular back at last turn from the front door.
A few days afterwards a tall man in a sportsmanlike ulster walked up the gangway of a steamship bound for a port in South America. He was followed on board by a friend with very blue eyes and a cavalier mustache. They talked for a few minutes and then shook hands affectionately.
"Well, Lucas, good-by, old fellow," said the passenger. "And remember now what you're to tell them. They're not to drop a hint—not a whisper of what they know. Just keep your tails up all of you, as best you can. Handy thing, this revolver we chose. I must practise shooting from the hip pocket. I say, take special care of Jean. Tell her I know how plucky she is—she'll be staunch—she'll wait. Tell her I'll often be thinking—Hullo, last bell; you'd better get on shore."
A little later the steamer was in the middle of the gray Thames, bearing Heriot, his fortunes, and his six-shooter far, far from the office of Walkingshaw & Gilliflower. The protagonist of virtuous respectability sat there triumphantly enshrined. He had done everything a good man could reasonably be expected to do; only he had not imagined Lucas Vernon waving a farewell to his late partner.