“And this man, this Dandy Sutherland, as you call him, am I to understand that he is an associate of my son’s, or is he my boy himself?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, forlorn and afflicted parent,” said Laura Stanbridge, “Dandy Sutherland, with his fifty aliases and his thousand crimes, is no other than the youth whom I had the honour of initiating into his profession.”
The mother did not speak. She stared at Laura stupidly as if she had not understood her, but she turned pale, and breathed very hard.
“I repeat,” said Laura, “that your son is now called, by the thieving fraternity, Dandy Sutherland, and that he has been compelled to fly from the officers of justice in consequence of a burglary and murderous outrage he has been engaged in, and, I think, seeing that he is wanted by the police, that it is very doubtful about your finding him—for some time to come at all events. If he is caught they’ll give it him pretty hot, I fancy,” remarked Laura, carelessly, as she sipped her parfait amour.
“And you will be glad to see him in trouble. If you say that again I will throttle you,” cried Mrs. Grover, with a sudden burst of passion.
“Now don’t be noisy, my dear old friend,” returned her companion, with a smile. “It is, of course, very dramatic, but we don’t want to bring down the house just now—we don’t, indeed.”
The unhappy mother fell into a chair, and the tears streamed in hot torrents from her eyes. Suddenly she sprung to her feet.
She snatched a handkerchief from her bosom, and showed Laura Stanbridge a golden ring and a slip of paper, on which the ink was brown and faded, as if it had been written years before.
“I will save him yet!—I will save him yet!” cried the woman. “Do you know what I will do?”
“Can’t possibly imagine.”