Another early caller upon Mr. Cowdrick was an agent of the Widows’ and Orphans’ Life Assurance Company, in which the banker held a policy. This gentleman, representing a corporation which a week before was preparing to take legal measures to contest Mrs. Cowdrick’s claim, brought with him the Company’s last annual statement, and a formidable array of other documents, with an intent to persuade Mr. Cowdrick to have his life insured for an additional twenty thousand dollars.
Upon the second day after Mr. Cowdrick’s release, also, the De Flukes sent to Mrs. Cowdrick an invitation to a kettle-drum, together with a note explaining that a former unfortunate recall of an invitation was due to the colossal stupidity of a servant who had since been dismissed.
This very considerate behavior on the part of the De Flukes had a favorable effect upon Mrs. Cowdrick’s spirits. She brightened up in a wonderful manner, and there seemed to be every reason for believing that her load of sorrow was lifted at last.
Colonel Hoker, writing in the Crab of the trial and its results, explained to his readers that the verdict was rather technical than indicative of intentional wrong-doing, and he congratulated the community that one of its most enterprising and valuable citizens had succeeded in escaping from the toils of complicated financial transactions in which he had been enveloped by injudicious friends.
Colonel Hoker was disposed to criticise with some degree of severity Coroner McSorley’s absurd, not to say wicked, performances with the unearthed bones; but the violence of the indignation with which he contemplated the phenomenal stupidity and the grasping avarice of the coroner, with respect to the remains in question, was greatly tempered by the consideration that Coroner McSorley’s brother was sheriff of the county, with an advertising patronage estimated by good judges to amount to not less than fifty thousand dollars a year.
When Mr. Cowdrick received the note addressed to him by Mr. Weems, he replied briefly, asking the artist to call upon him at his residence; and when Mr. Weems did so, Mr. Cowdrick received him with gravity, and with some degree of coolness.
“Mr. Weems,” said the banker, “I sent for you because I wished to discuss with you the matter referred to in your note. My first impulse was to take no notice of the communication, for I will not conceal from you that your treatment of my daughter had embittered me against you to such an extent, that I felt as if I could never forgive you. But my child’s happiness must be considered before my own feelings. It is my duty and my privilege so to consider them; and, to be frank with you, her sufferings have been so intense within the last few days, that I have felt myself willing to make almost any sacrifice in order to alleviate them.”
“Miss Leonie is not ill, I trust?” asked Mr. Weems, with an admirably simulated look of alarm upon his countenance.
“Mr. Weems,” said Mr. Cowdrick, seriously, “it may be injudicious for me to say so to you, because it will give you an unfair advantage at the outset; but Leonie has been deeply distressed at your treatment of her. If I were a sentimental man, I should say that her heart is breaking. She refuses food, she is continually downcast and melancholy, and in her broken sleep she babbles continually of you.”
“Poor thing!” said Mr. Weems, wiping his eyes.