“It was the cruellest thing and the most heroic thing ever done in the world,” said he in a low voice. “It was to me your father told the truth about that confession of his, and he did so only on my promising in the most solemn way that I would keep the matter a secret. I often wonder if I was justified in adhering to my promise.”
“When he told me the story he rather prided himself on his judgment in selecting you as his confidant,” said Winwood. “Yes; he said that he knew he could trust you to keep his secret.”
“I don’t think that I would have kept it if he had entrusted it to me before he had suffered his imprisonment,” said Sir Creighton. “He did not do so, however, until his release and when he was on the point of sailing for South America—it was for South America he sailed, not Australia.”
“He remained for nearly five years in Rio Janeiro,” said Winwood. “The training which we received at the engineering works he was able to turn to good account at Rio, and so far as I could gather he made enough money to give him a start in Australia. He succeeded and I think he was happy. It was not until he had reached his last year that he told me the story.”
“He did so without any bitterness in regard to the other man, I am sure,” said Sir Creighton.
“Without a single word of reproach,” said Win-wood. “He really felt glad that the other man had prospered—he told me that he had prospered and that he had reached a high position in the world.”
“You see your father rightly thought of himself as having saved the man from destruction; not merely from the disgrace which would have been the direct result of his forgery being discovered, but from the contemptible life which he was leading. I don’t know if your father told you that one of the conditions of the strange compact between them was that he would change his life; and for once the man fulfilled that part of his compact. Your father saved him.”
Winwood nodded in assent, while he still allowed his head to rest on his hand, as if he were lost in thought.
Suddenly he turned his eyes upon Sir Creighton, then drew his chair closer to him, and leaning forward, said:
“Sir Creighton, will you tell me what is the name of that man?”