Sometimes in the full pressure of this thought I found it almost in my mind to hunt and hunt until I found his hiding-place and to commit its remaining treasures to the earth or the waters. Then it would seem a base thing to do—a mean advantage to take of his confidence—and I would put the thought from me.
Still, however I might decide ultimately, this determination dwelt firmly and constantly in me—to oppose by every means in my power any further levying of blackmail on the part of the doctor.
This unworthy eccentricity had not, to my knowledge, been near the mill since that night of my return. That he presently found means, nevertheless, of communicating with his victim, I was to find out by a simple chance.
June had come upon us leading this placidly monotonous life, when, returning one afternoon from a ramble after specimens, I found my father sitting upstairs in a mood so preoccupied that he did not notice my entrance. His head was bowed, his left arm drooping over one end of the table. Suddenly hearing my footsteps in the room, he started and a gold coin fell from his hand and spun and tinkled on the boards.
“What’s that?” I said.
He stooped and clutched it, and hugging it to his breast looked up in my face with startled eyes. But he gave no answer.
“Is it necessary to change another, dad?”
“No,” he muttered.
A thought stung me like a wasp.
“Is it for a bribe?” I demanded. Still he kept silence.