His wife agreed with him on these points; but on the question of confessing their sin—their joint sin it had become now—she was obdurate. She had yielded to his entreaties so far as to face the ordeal of an interview with her father, she agreed to the most painful economies; but further she would not go.
If Herresford consented to add lie to lie, and to exonerate Dick by acknowledging the checks, all might yet be well.
Now, when his wife came in, with flushed face and lips working in anger, he cried out, tremulously:
“Well, Mary?”
“It is useless, worse than useless!” she answered. “He is quite impossible, as I told you.”
“Then, he will not lend us the money?”
“No, indeed, no. Worse, John, he knows.”
“Knows what?”
“That I did it. He understood Dick well enough, in spite of his wicked abuse of him, and he had made him his heir. He accused me of altering the checks, and—I couldn’t deny it.”