And the father—his scandalous success; his tainted millions; his name a byword. Those bawlings in the streets; those disgraceful and degrading pictures; the stench of the whole scandal.
His oars dropped idly, and he sat with his eyes fixed on the bottom of the boat.
But the old man would die. Yes; and then would come the division of the spoil. If there had been so much trouble in a poor sixty or eighty thousand, how much more might there be in all these millions? If he had found such difficulty in getting restitution from McDowell—a restitution so incomplete as to be even yet largely in the future—what might there be to expect from other brothers-in-law and from other new relations that so much money would be sure to bring?
He ran his troubled eyes along the shore. A party of children were wading and splashing at the foot of a high, wooded point.
That money—those millions! It was the talk of the bank that Burt, on his wedding-day, was to have five hundred thousand dollars as an out-and-out gift. And if Burt, why not Abbie—in the proper degree? Those shameful, indecent millions—millions that it would be a disgrace to receive, to handle.
"Boat ahoy!" A sloop swept by. He dodged its bowsprit and was tossed by its wake. He threw out his oars to steady himself.
The husband of a rich wife—another Valentine. My house—my furniture!
Then, he had meant to get on—in business, in society. Was he to marry a recluse?—a girl inexperienced in the ways of his world—perhaps incapable of adapting herself to them—surely careless of them.
Abbie was before him in her tender and steadfast serenity, in her stanch and genuine capability. He set his teeth, and took up his oars again, and rowed half a mile with a furious vigor. He stopped, panting and exhausted, in a clump of reeds off a sedgy shore, near a group of linden-trees. He had left Abbie behind.