Bertha flushed, but looked steadily at him. “I do not know anything except what Mrs. Fricker said in her letter to her son, that you had been manager or agent to a company which failed, and the shareholders believed you to be guilty of deceiving them, and treated you accordingly.”
“Then Mrs. Fricker let me down very gently, which is like her, for she is a kind and very noble woman,” he said, smiling, although his eyes were sad. “However, it seems that I am to be cleared at last, after having lain under a cloud for more than two years. I have a letter here from Mr. Mallom, my stepfather, who tells me that one of the directors has just died, and, at the end, confessed to having thrown the entire blame on me for making certain investments, when all the time I was only working under orders, and very stringent orders at that. I came very near having to stand my trial for embezzlement also. Indeed, seeing the charges against me, I never quite understood how it was that I was not arrested; but this confession, of course, explains that the real culprits feared to go quite so far, lest a criminal enquiry might reveal that I was only the scapegoat. So they stopped at taking away my character, making me a byword among honest men, so that I have found it impossible to get work of a responsible sort. It has been a bitter experience, and I have been an Ishmael among my kind, until I have almost forgotten what it feels like to be able to hold up my head in public, or to walk abroad without having the finger of scorn pointed at me.”
“But some people have always believed in you,” she reminded him gently.
“Thank God, yes; and first among these has always been my stepfather, who offered to spend every dollar he possessed in the attempt to clear me. But I would not have it, for I knew that the people who were shielding themselves behind me had longer purses than we had, and so it would be victory to those who could hold out longest, and my good stepfather would have been left penniless in his old age. Moreover, I have always believed in the ultimate triumph of right, and this result proves my belief to be justified.”
“What will you do now?” asked Bertha, expecting to hear him say that as soon as he had seen her safe at Duck Flats he should go east as fast as steam could get him there.
But he only gave a low, quiet laugh of intense satisfaction as he replied, “Why, just at first I shall do nothing at all, save enjoy the fact that no one any longer will call me thief, swindler, and the like. Then I shall look round for the most responsible post that I can find, and boldly ask for it. I find that really to appreciate the fact of having a good name, one needs to live under a cloud for a while.”
Bertha was silent for a little time, and then she said, “I suppose that you will not go back to work on the railway again?”
“No; but that settled itself yesterday when the contractor’s man told me that if I was not at my work this morning I need not trouble to come again. Kind man, he has saved me the trouble of sending him a civil resignation!”
“Oh, and it was on my account that you lost your work. I was afraid that you would have to suffer for doing so much for me,” said Bertha, in distress.
Edgar laughed again. It was impossible not to feel light-hearted when such a cloud had been lifted from him.