[CHAPTER V.]
"LET THE DEAD PAST BURY ITS DEAD."
The insulting peroration of Dr. Carson's effusion was suppressed by Mallow; for Olive was already suffering severely under the knowledge of her father's misdeeds. He was a murderer, a blackmailer, a thief--he, her dearly-loved father, whom from a child she had set up as her idol. Who could cherish, nay, even respect, the memory of a man guilty of what she now learned he had been guilty? Small wonder, indeed, that he had implored her to conceal that guilt, even though it cost her a life's happiness in the doing. She had a rigid sense of right and wrong, and, despite herself, her idol crashed from off the pedestal whereon she had so lovingly set it up just as Mr. Brock had prophesied it would. And with it went all her dearest memories--all the recollections which she had cherished for so long--which in the cherishing had become a part of her self--perhaps, even the better part. She wept bitterly at the ruin of her world. And Mallow let her weep. He felt it was better so. And when she grew more composed he left her, holding over the fire, as he rose from his seat, the leaves that had brought such sorrow with them. She divined what he would do, and sanctioned it with a slow bend of her head. And then the flames destroyed for ever the tangible evidence of Mark Bellairs' sins.
When Mallow returned she was more herself. She had dried her eyes. "Would you like to talk about this, Olive?"
"No, dear, no. Of what use! Nothing we can say can alter such truths as these."
"Perhaps not; but we can at least hide them. No one save you and I knows this story. No one must know it, Olive--for your father's sake."
"Mr. Brock knows it?"
"Mr. Brock, yes. But we can trust Mr. Brock. Indeed, he has done all a man could do to spare you. I feel I am in no small degree myself to blame for the knowledge of this having reached you at all. I urged him to it."
"Oh, it is better I should know it, Laurence. At least, we know the worst now. Nothing--oh, surely nothing could be worse than this. Poor father is gone. But, Laurence dear, I have you, Laurence--I always have you. Thank God for you, Laurence."
"But remember, Olive, if your father sinned, he repented--bitterly repented."