Will you cavil any longer when you realize that by denying them to me you will land me in prison and brand your future children with the disgrace of a convict grandfather? I would say more, but the time allotted me for writing this letter is about up. Answer it as you will, but remember that however you may writhe under the yoke, you are blood of my blood and your honor can never be disassociated from mine in this world or the next.
Your loving father,
Ephraim Earle.
P. S. I have Brown, Shepherd, & Co.’s written promise that with the payment of this last five thousand, all proceedings against me shall be entirely stopped, and that neither as a firm nor as individuals will they remember that Ephraim Earle and Simeon Halleck are one.
XVII.
MIDNIGHT AT THE OLD IZARD PLACE.
CLARKE knew when he began to read this letter what effect it was likely to have on his own prospects, but he was little prepared for the change it was destined to make in Polly. She, who at its commencement had been merely an apprehensive child, became a wan and stricken woman before the final words were reached; her girlish face, with its irresistible dimples, altering under her emotions till little of her old expression was left. Her words, when she could speak, showed what the recoil of her whole nature had been from the depths of depravity thus heartlessly revealed to her.
“Oh, what wickedness!” she cried. “I did not know that such things could be! Certainly I never heard anything like it before. Do you wonder that I have always felt stifled in his presence?”
Mrs. Unwin and Clarke tried to comfort her, but she seemed to be possessed of but one idea. “Take me home!” she cried; “let me think it out alone. I am a disgrace to you here; he is a thief and I am the daughter of a thief. Until every cent that he has taken is returned, I am a participator in his crime and not worthy to look you in the face.”
They tried to prove to her the fallacy of this reasoning, but she would not be convinced. “Take me home!” she again repeated; and Clarke out of pure consideration complied with her request. She was still living with the Fishers, but when they reached the humble doorstep which had been witness to many a tender parting and loving embrace, Polly gave her lover a strange look, and hardly lingered long enough to hear his final words of encouragement and hope.