When Lucy went to attend to some household duties, Conrad sauntered out to the veranda, where he found Miss Dent with her sewing. He happened to refer to his boyhood; and she asked some questions that led him to speak of his youthful struggles. She was interested, and wanted to know the cause of his father’s financial ruin. He hesitated before replying, the matter touched so nearly the secret core of his life and thought. Few, even among his intimates, knew anything about the vengeful purpose that had motived half his life, and he disliked ordinarily to say anything about the cause of his early misfortunes. But the habit of close and friendly speech into which he and Louise had fallen, coupled perhaps with a softening of feeling toward her sex that had been going on within him, moved him to openness. “It won’t matter,” he thought. “She’s such a level-headed woman; and I’ve told Aleck already.”
“I don’t often speak about it,” he said, “but I don’t mind telling you, for you are such a good friend of the Bancrofts, and Aleck knows the story. Of course, you’ll understand that I don’t care to have it discussed generally. My father’s disasters all came from his getting caught in a specious financial scheme engineered by one Sumner L. Delafield of Boston.”
An indrawn breath, sharp and sudden, made him look quickly at his companion. “Have you hurt yourself?” he asked solicitously.
“Oh, I jabbed my needle under my thumb nail. Such an awkward thing to do! It gave me a little shock, that’s all. Go on, please. What sort of a scheme was it?”
He told her briefly the story of his father’s ruin and death, and outlined the transactions that led to Delafield’s failure. As he spoke his heart waxed hot against the man who had caused the tragedy, as it always did when he thought long upon the subject, and he went on impulsively to tell her of his long-cherished purpose of revenge. She listened with drooped eyelids, and when she spoke, at his first pause, there was a slight quaver in her voice.
“You don’t mean that you really intend to kill the man?”
“I do, that very thing. What’s more, it’s my notion that killing is too gentle for his deserts. For, of course, my case is only one out of many. And any man who would deliberately bring ruin and death into so many households—don’t you think yourself he’s worse than any murderer?”
She forced herself to raise her eyes and, once she had met his gaze, her own was cool and steady. But if Curtis had not been so absorbed in their discussion he might have seen that her face was paler than usual and her manner nervous, as she replied earnestly:
“But you forget, Mr. Conrad, that the man had no intention of doing these things, and that probably he involved himself in as much financial disaster as he did others. I’ve heard of the case before; I knew some people once who—were concerned in it—who lost money by it—and I’ve always understood that the failure was due more to Delafield’s sanguine temperament and over-confidence in his plans than to any deliberate wrongdoing. Don’t you think, Mr. Conrad, that killing is a rather severe punishment for mistakes of judgment?”
He answered with the rapid speech and quick gestures he was wont to use when under the stress of strong feeling. “I can’t take that lenient view of the case, Miss Dent. My conviction is that he got some money out of the affair, though not as much as he is generally supposed to have taken, and ran away with it. I’ve studied the case pretty thoroughly, and I’ve trailed him along from one place to another for years. I’m hot on his tracks now; and he knows it. I’ve followed him into New Mexico, and I know he’s somebody in this Territory, prosperous and respectable. He can’t escape me much longer.”