“Yes; they assumed that I was Harpar, and as I took no steps to undeceive them, there I remained till they seemed to have forgotten all about me.”
Harpar questioned me closely and keenly as to the reasons that prompted this act of mine,—an act all the more remarkable, as, to use his own words, “We were men who had no friendship for each other, actually strangers; and,” added he, significantly, “the sort of fellows who, somehow, do not usually 'hit it off' together. You a man of leisure, with your own dreamy mode of life; I, a hard worker, who could not enjoy idleness; and in this sense, far more likely to hold each other cheaply than otherwise.”
I attempted to account for this piece of devotion as best I might, but not very successfully, since I was only endeavoring to explain what I really did not well understand myself. Nor could a vague desire to do something generous, merely because it was generous, satisfy the practical intelligence of him who heard me.
“Well,” said he, at last, “all that machinery you have described is so new and strange to me, I can tell nothing as to how it ought to work; but I'm as grateful to you as a man can be for a service which he could not have rendered himself, nor has the slightest notion of what could have prompted you to do. Now, let me hear by what chance you came here?”
“You must listen to a long story to learn that,” said I; and as he declared that he had nothing more pressing to do with his time, I began, almost as I have begun with my reader. On my first mention of Crofton, he asked me to repeat the name; and when I spoke of meeting Miss Herbert at the Milford station, he slightly moved his chair, as if to avoid the strong light from the window; but from that moment till I finished, he never interrupted me by a word, nor interposed a question.
“And it was she gave you that old seal-ring I see on your finger?” said he, at last.
“Yes,” said I. “How came you to guess that?”
“Because I gave it to her the day she was sixteen! I am her father.”
I drew a long breath, and could only clutch his arm with astonishment, without being able to speak.
“It's all well-known in England, now. Everybody has been paid in full, my creditors have met in a body, and signed a request to me to come back and recommence business. They have done more; they have bought up the lease of the Foundry, and sent it out to me. Ay, and old Elkanah's mortgage, too, is redeemed, and I don't owe a shilling.”