"Will you come into the garden, Miss Crossley?" said Hewson, gravely. "I could explain better out-of-doors."
In silence she followed him, and they found two chairs under a shady tree.
"Ferguson," he began, quietly, "the man who was down here a month ago, was a pretty smart gentleman. He did a business deal with your father which, legally speaking, was quite in order. He possessed two thousand five hundred Rio Lopez, which, at that time, were standing at two pounds. He sold these shares to your father knowing perfectly well that they were only standing at such a figure because of a distinctly shady artificial boom which had been given them. He knew they were bound to slump—that is, fall in price. So he—finding your father supremely ignorant of finance—unloaded those shares on to him, and left him—as the saying goes—to carry the baby. In other words, shares that your father paid two pounds each for, he would only get four shillings for to-day. This morning I interviewed Mr. Ferguson in his office. And I persuaded him—how, is immaterial—to refund your father the money. That's all there is to it."
"I see," said the girl. "It was very good of you. But if my father only paid two pounds for each share—that makes five thousand. The cheque he's got is for ten. How did he double his capital?"
Hewson bit his lip: how indeed?
"Oh! please be frank, Mr. Hewson. Have you given my father five thousand pounds?"
His fingers beat a tattoo on the arm of his chair.
"Yes," he said at length. "I have. The dear old man thought the shares were standing at four pounds: he read the four and threepence in the paper as four pounds three shillings. And," he turned appealingly to the girl, "if you could only dimly guess what pleasure it's given me, Miss Crossley."
"Oh! stop, please." With a little cry that was half a sob she rose. "I suppose you meant it for the best: thought you were being kind. I don't suppose you realized your—your impertinence. Because we offer you lunch, Mr. Hewson, it gives you no right to dare to give my father money. And now it's going to be doubly hard for him—when I tell him. He'll be so—so ashamed."
She turned away, hiding her face in her hands, and for a while there was silence in the sunny garden. And in that moment the man knew that the quest was over, the quest—conscious or unconscious, it matters not—that has been man's through the ages. But no hint of it sounded in his level voice as he spoke: the time for that was not yet.