“What would you think, little girl, if I told you that I advised him to do it?” he pleaded as he patted her shoulder to quiet her.
“You couldn’t do it!” Madeleine burst out in an incredulous tone, raising herself on her elbow to look the better into his eyes. “You wouldn’t do it! You are too kind.”
“But I did—as much for your sake and your father’s and brother’s as for his own. All the firm has lost so far is money. That can be replaced. Had Philip not told the truth it would have been their honor. That could never have been replaced.”
And then with her hands fast in his, every thought that crossed her mind revealed in her sweet, girlish face, Adam, his big, frank, brown eyes looking into hers, told her the story of Philip’s resolve. Not the part which the portrait had played—not one word of that. She would not have understood; then, too, that was Phil’s secret, not his, to tell; but the awakening of the dormant nature of an honest man, incrusted with precedents and half-strangled in financial sophistries, to the truth of what lay about him.
“You wouldn’t want his lips to touch yours, my child, if they were stained with a lie; nor could you have worn your wedding-gown if the money that paid for it had been stolen. Your father will see it in the same light some day. Then, if he had a dozen daughters he would give every one of them to men like Philip Colton. The boy wants your help now; he is without a penny in the world and has all his life to begin over again. Now he can begin it clean. Get your arms around his neck and tell him you love him and trust him. He needs you more to-day than he will ever need you in all his life.”
She had crept closer to him, nestling under his big shoulders. It seemed good to touch him. Somehow there radiated from this man a strength and tenderness which she had never known before: In the tones of his voice, in the feel of his hand, in the restfulness that pervaded his every word and gesture. For the first time, it seemed to her, she realized what it was to have a father.
“And won’t you talk to papa again, Mr. Gregg?” she pleaded in a more hopeful voice.
“Yes, if you wish me to, but it would do no good—not now. It is not your father this time, it’s you. Will you help Phil make the fight, little girl? You love him, don’t you?”
“Oh, with all my heart!”
“Well, then, tell him so. He will be here in a few minutes.”