“We all sat very still, unable to speak, ashamed even to look at one another. Robert Kirby again was the first to break the silence.
“‘He should be stopped; he must be put under arrest,’ he said, but your father got up and stood with his back against the door.
“‘If it is true that my brother is guilty, and Heaven grant it is not so,’ he declared, ‘all the money shall be repaid at once. This matter is to go no farther.’
“We never saw Jack again. Your father had a letter from him, saying that of course he considered himself responsible for the losses to the company since his own folly had brought them about. ‘Other people may think I am guilty if they like. If you and Anna do not believe in me I do not care what decision Robert Kirby and his friends come to,’ he added. He had disposed of all the property left to him by our father and was turning over the sum realized to cover the defaulted amount. There was a little lacking, a few hundred dollars, and this he was obliged—you could see even in that business-like letter how it hurt him to do so—to ask your father to advance. In return he was delivering to him the title deeds ‘to that piece of land in Montana, Anna can tell you about it, there is no time to sell that in a hurry and I want this infernal business closed.’ That was the only letter we ever received from him, and that was ten years ago.
“The land he spoke of was this bit of hillside, with the cabin, where we are living now. We took a gay journey, during one of Jack’s vacations, just vaguely ‘West’ because he had always said there was the best opening for a man in the Western States, and he hoped to live there some day. His grandmother had given him a thousand dollars, ‘just to see how he would invest it,’ she said, and was a little dismayed when he came back and told her he had purchased a part of a mountain in Montana. We had been to the Coast; we had seen the Grand Cañon and Yellowstone Park. It was a man we met in the Park who persuaded Jack to buy this piece of land, saying that the timber on it was worth a good deal and there was always the chance of a mine. We come over to see the purchase and spent a day in Ely, though most of it was put in riding through the hills and scrambling over as many steep trails as we could find. We climbed so high we could see valley after valley spread out below us, and the air was so clear one felt that it was possible to see halfway round the world if only the mountains did not block the way. There were two or three riders scattered over the trail below, tiny black figures like toys, although everything was so still we could hear their voices shouting to one another and could hear the plunge and splash of a waterfall a mile away. It had been snowing on the peaks, but where we were it was hot in the blazing sunshine. Jack sat staring, staring, and staring into the valley and at last he said:
“Anna, from a height like this you ought to be able to see what sort of a place the world really is.”
“I have never forgotten.”
A burning pine cone fell from the heap of coals and rolled out on the hearth. Beatrice, who had been listening so intently that she had not moved, rose now and fell to mending the fire.
“And did you never find any trace of him?” Nancy gently brought Aunt Anna back to her story.
“Never, my dear, though we tried in every way you could imagine. He was determined to disappear out of our lives, and we were not able to prevent it. A year or two later the same contractor was proved to be connected with some such scandalous frauds that he was sent to the penitentiary. The first matter was dropped on account of your father’s influence and the fact that Jack had made restitution, so that the man was bolder when he tried again. Your father had made some effort to procure proof against him, but there was nothing definite enough to exonerate Jack before the world. When the man was finally convicted, we thought that must surely clear my brother’s name. Yet I was present when your father laid the facts before Robert Kirby, who only grunted and said that nothing could convince him that they had not worked together the first time. When I say my prayers and come to the place where we must forgive our enemies, I have to struggle with myself all over again to forgive Robert Kirby, although all the time I know him to be nothing but a misled, ignorant, obstinate old man.”