George Benson’s face took upon it a terrible expression.
“Oh, you think you are going to see Annie, do you? Well, know the truth, and if it kills you it serves you right, for Annie was here only the other day, begging to see you, and I sent her away starving with her child. She will not see you again, for a thinner girl never applied for alms to any one before.”
“Shame, shame,” cried the lawyer, as the old man toppled back in his bed and covered his face with his hands. “Shame on a man who would torment a dying father. You are a brute, Benson, and I am glad you have been foiled.”
The younger man’s passion had spent itself, and George realized that he had made a bad break; that he had lost his temper and forgotten that he might undo the deed done that day. He turned upon his heel and ran out of the room.
“I do not want to be left alone,” moaned Mr. Benson. “There is no telling what he might do to me in that temper, and to think that my little girl has been here, maybe time and time again, and I did not know it. Oh, my good friend, you must help me find her.”
The lawyer, promising and saying that he would leave instructions with Mr. Benson’s valet and that he would take the new will with him, for fear it would be tampered with, went away.
After that everything known to science and law was done to bring the old man and his daughter together. The doctor gave tonics, and the lawyer advertised for the girl.
George Benson bitterly regretted his rash speech, for he had opened avenues whereby the chance of his regaining his old position was gone.
One day he stole into the library and looked hastily about.
“I’ve got to have money, and I might as well take these diamonds,” he said to himself. “There is no telling how soon I shall be ordered from the mansion. What tommy rot all this bustle is, for they won’t find the girl—or, at least, I hope they won’t.”