“I wanted to ruin nobody!” cried my brother, finding his voice in a wail of despair. “I’m desperate, that’s all—desperate to escape—and he offers me little more than he’d give to a beggar.”
“I tell him I’m not far from one myself! He won’t believe it. He threatened me, Renalt. He brought the hideous time back again.”
A light broke upon me, as from a furnace door snapped open.
“Dad,” I said, gently, “will you go to your room and leave the rest to me?”
I helped him to his feet—across the room. His eyes watched the other all the time. It was pitiful to see his terror of him.
Jason stood where he had planted himself, waiting my return with hanging head and fingers laced in front of him.
I led the old man to the foot of the stairs. Then I returned to the room and stood before my brother.
“I understand it all now,” I said, in a straight, quiet voice. “The ‘some one else’ you suspected, or pretended to, was our father!”
No answer.
“While I was in London you traded upon this pretended knowledge to force money out of the old man.”