"Completely!" replied Sir Stephen in a low voice, his head drooping. "I had staked everything on this venture, had staked even more than I possessed. I cannot explain all the details, the ramifications, of the scheme which I have been working. You could not understand them if I were to talk to you for a week. Suffice it, that if I had failed to get this concession, I should have been an utterly ruined man, should have had to go through the bankruptcy court, should have been left without a penny. And not only that: I should have dragged a great many of the men, of the friends who had trusted to my ability, who have believed in me, into the same pit; not only such men as Griffenberg and Wirsch and the Beltons, but the Plaistows, the Clansdales, and the Fitzharfords. They would have suffered with me, would have, considered themselves betrayed."
Stafford drew a long breath. There seemed to him still a chance of saving himself, the girl he loved, above all—his honour.
"But even if it were so, father," he said; "other men have failed, other men have been defeated, ruined, and left penniless, and yet have risen and shaken the dust from them and fought their way again to the heights. You're not an old man, you are strong and clever, and you are not alone." he said, in a lower voice. "I'm not much use, I know. But I'll try and help you all I can. I've often felt ashamed of myself for living such an idle, useless life; often felt that I ought to do something to justify my existence. There's a chance now; at any rate, there's an occasion, a necessity for my waking up and stepping into the ring to do a little fighting on my own account. We may be beaten by Mr. Falconer; but don't say we're utterly crushed. That doesn't sound like you, sir; and I don't understand why you should chuck up the sponge so quickly."
Sir Stephen raised his head and looked at Stafford with a curious expression of mingled surprise and apprehension.
"What is it you are saying, Stafford?" he asked. "What is it you mean? I don't understand. We're not beaten; Ralph Falconer has offered to make the concession over to me; and no one need know that I have failed, that he had stolen the march on me. You heard what he said: that you were in love with his daughter Maude, and that of course he could not injure his future son-in-law. Stafford!" He sprang to his feet and began to pace up and down the room. "I know that this has touched your pride—I can give a pretty good guess as to how proud you are—but, for God's sake! don't let your pride stand in the way of this arrangement."
"But—" Stafford began; for he felt that he could not longer keep back the truth, that his father must be told not only that there was nothing between Maude and himself, but that he loved Ida Heron.
But before he could utter another word Sir Stephen stopped before him, and with hands thrown out appealingly, and with a look of terror and agony in his face, cried in broken accents:
"If you going to raise any obstacle, Stafford, prompted by your pride, for God's sake, don't say the word! You don't know, you don't understand! You speak of ruin as if it meant only the loss of money, the loss of every penny." He laughed almost hysterically, and his lips twitched. "Do you think I should care for that, except for your sake? No, a thousand times, no! I'm young still, I could begin the world again! Yes, and conquer it as I have done before; but"—his voice sank, and he look round the room with a stealthy glance which shocked and startled Stafford—"the ruin Ralph Falconer threatens me with means more than the loss of money. It means the loss of everything! Of friends, of good name—of hope!"
Stafford started, and his face grew a trifle hard; and Sir Stephen saw it and made a despairing, appealing gesture with his hand.
"For God's sake don't turn away from me, my boy; don't judge me harshly. You can't judge me fairly from your standpoint; your life has been a totally different one from mine, has been lived under different circumstances. You have never known the temptations to which I have been subjected. Your life has been an easy one surrounded by honour, while mine has been spent half the time grubbing in the dust and the mire for gold, and the rest fighting—sometimes with one hand tied behind me!—against the men who would have robbed me of it. I have had to fight them with their own weapons—sometimes they haven't been clean—sometimes it has been necessary to do—to do things!—God! Stafford, don't turn away from me! I would have kept this from you if I could, but I am obliged to tell you now. Ralph Falconer knows all the details of my past, he knows of things which—which, if they were known to the world, would stain the name I have raised to honour, would make it necessary for me to hide my head in a suicide's grave."