“Clarence?” queried Vandemar.
“Yes,” said Jack. “No news comes from that out-of-the-way place from which we have providentially escaped with our lives, and what is worth more, our wives to-be. Poor Clarence does not yet know of the death of his father. I will go and talk the whole matter over with Bertha, and we will decide what is best to write him.”
Clarence Glynne’s recovery had been rapid after the arrival of his wife. He had not been affected so much by the exhibit of his father’s enmity towards him as he was by the supposed loss of his wife, whom he dearly loved. The departure of his father in quest of Bertha made him virtual master of Buckholme, and he lost no time in installing his wife as its mistress. He had explained matters to Mr. Lake, giving him a most liberal douceur, and had received the detective’s promise that no publicity would be given to the affair of Glynne vs. Glynne.
Clarence resumed his position as head of the mercantile house of Walmonth & Company, and everything moved along much more smoothly and happily than it had before.
“The day of reckoning will come some time,” he said to his wife, one morning at breakfast.
“Well, Clarence,” she replied, “there is an old adage about not borrowing trouble. When the day of reckoning comes, we will figure up both sides of the account and see to whom the balance is due. I know you will pardon me when I say that I think your father has been playing a deep game. So far as you are concerned, there is no reason why the truth should not be known, but I don’t think he will be willing to have it divulged. In such a case the balance will be on your side. You suspect what the truth is, and if you should mention your suspicions to the authorities, the truth would have to come out.”
“That may be so,” said Clarence, “but a man doesn’t like to get his father in a hole, and then shake a stick at him and tell him he can’t come out unless he pays up.”
“I don’t say, Clarence, but that you are indebted to your father for your existence, but I really think you owe him very little love, and I am sure I have never had any for him, nor he for me.”
Jennie might have said more, but conversation was cut short by the entrance of Brinkley with the morning mail.
Clarence was so busily engaged with his breakfast that Jennie took the letters. She glanced over them quickly, throwing them, one by one, upon the table. The postmark of the last one she regarded attentively.