St. George half raised himself from his bed: “You have seen him?”
“Yes—and I wish I hadn't. But I hunted everywhere for you and then got a horse and rode out home. He didn't know me—that is, I'm pretty sure he didn't—but he cursed me all the same. My mother and old Alec, I hope, will come in to-day—but father's chapter is closed forever. I have been a fool to hope for anything else.”
“Drove you out! Oh, no—NO! Harry! Impossible!”
“But he did—” and then followed an account of all the wanderer had passed through from the time he had set foot on shore to the moment of meeting Todd and himself.
For some minutes St. George lay staring at the ceiling. It was all a horrid, nightmare to him. Talbot deserved nothing but contempt and he would get it so far as he was concerned. He agreed with Harry that all reconciliation was now a thing of the past; the only solution possible was that Talbot was out of his senses—the affair having undermined his reason. He had heard of such cases and had doubted them—he was convinced now that they could be true. His answer, therefore, to Harry's next question—one about his lost sweetheart—was given with a certain hesitation. As long as the memory of Rutter's curses rankled within him all reference to Kate's affairs—even the little he knew himself—must be made with some circumspection. There was no hope in that direction either, but he did not want to tell him so outright; nor did he want to dwell too long upon the subject.
“And I suppose Kate is married by this time, Uncle George,” Harry said at last in a casual tone, “is she not?” (He had been leading up to it rather skilfully, but there had been no doubt in his uncle's mind as to his intention.) “I saw the house lighted up, night before last when I passed, and a lot of people about, so I thought it might be either the wedding or the reception.” The question had left his lips as one shoots an arrow in the dark—hit or miss—as if he did not care which. He too realized that this was no time to open wounds, certainly not in his uncle's heart; and yet he could wait no longer.
“No—I don't think the wedding has taken place,” St. George replied vaguely. “The servants would know if it had—they know everything—and Aunt Jemima would be the first to have told me. The house being lighted up is no evidence. They have been giving a series of entertainments this winter and there were more to come when I last saw Kate, which was one night at Richard Horn's. But let us close that chapter too, my boy. You and I will take a new lease of life from now on. You have already put fresh blood into my veins—I haven't felt so well for weeks. Now tell me about yourself. Your last letter reached me six months ago, if I remember right. You were then in Rio and were going up into the mountains. Did you go?”
“Yes—up into the Rio Abaste country where they had discovered diamonds as big as hens' eggs—one had been sold for nearly a quarter of a million dollars—and everybody was crazy. I didn't find any diamonds nor anything else but starvation, so I herded cattle, that being the only thing I knew anything about—how to ride—and slept out on the lowlands sometimes under a native mat and sometimes under the kindly stars. Then we had a revolution and cattle raids, and one night I came pretty near being chewed up by a puma—and so it went. I made a little money in rawhides after I got to know the natives, and I'm going back to make some more; and you are going with me when we get things straightened out. I wouldn't have come home except that I heard you had been turned out neck and crop from Kennedy Square. One of Mr. Seymour's clerks stopped in Rio on his way to the River Plate and did some business with an English agent whom I met afterward at a hacienda, and who told me about you when he learned I was from Kennedy Square. And when I think of it all, Uncle George, and what you have suffered on account of me!”—Here his voice faltered. “No!—I won't talk about it—I can't. I have spent too many sleepless nights over it: I have been hungry and half dead, but I have kept on—and I am not through: I'll pull out yet and put you on your feet once more if I live!”
St. George laid his hand tenderly on the young man's wrist. He knew how the boy felt about it. That was one of the things he loved him for.
“And so you started home when you heard it,” he went on, clearing his throat. “That was just like you, you dear fellow! And you haven't come home an hour too soon. I should have been measured for a pine coffin in another week.” The choke was quite in evidence now. “You see, I really couldn't go to Coston's when I thought it all over. I had made up my mind to go for a week or so until I saw this place, and then I determined I would stop with Jemima. I could eke out an existence here on what I had left and still feel like a gentleman, but I couldn't settle down on dear Peggy Coston and be anything but a poltroon. As to my making a living at the law—that was pure moonshine. I haven't opened a law book for twenty years and now it's too late. People of our class”—here he looked away from his companion and talked straight at the foot of the bed—“People of our class my boy,” he repeated slowly—“when they reach the neck and crop period you spoke of, are at the end of their rope. There are then but two things left—either to become the inmate of a poorhouse or to become a sponge. I prefer this bare room as a happy medium, and I am content to stay where I am as long as we three can keep body and soul together. There is—so Pawson told me before I left my house—a little money coming in from a ground rent—a few months off, perhaps, but more than enough to pay Todd back—he gives Jemima every cent of his wages—and when this does come in and I can get out once more, I'm going to order my life so I can make a respectable showing of some kind.”