“No honor can be lost, John, where no dishonor has been done. What have you done? What has Harold done? There is no question of honor.”
The old man shook his head, but Harold had already called together his clear practical sense, which for an instant in the presence of this frightful blow had deserted him.
“The mater is right, dad,” said he. “It is bad enough, Heaven knows, but we must not take too dark a view of it. After all, this insolent letter is in itself evidence that I had nothing to do with the schemes of the base villain who wrote it.”
“They may think it prearranged.”
“They could not. My whole life cries out against the thought. They could not look me in the face and entertain it.”
“No, boy, not if they have eyes in their heads,” cried the Admiral, plucking up courage at the sight of the flashing eyes and brave, defiant face. “We have the letter, and we have your character. We'll weather it yet between them. It's my fault from the beginning for choosing such a land-shark for your consort. God help me, I thought I was finding such an opening for you.”
“Dear dad! How could you possibly know? As he says in his letter, it has given me a lesson. But he was so much older and so much more experienced, that it was hard for me to ask to examine his books. But we must waste no time. I must go to the City.”
“What will you do?”
“What an honest man should do. I will write to all our clients and creditors, assemble them, lay the whole matter before them, read them the letter and put myself absolutely in their hands.”
“That's it, boy—yard-arm to yard-arm, and have it over.”