“I’m going home.”
“To be arrested?”
“No, to ask some questions.” 219
“Don’t be a fool. You’ll be arrested at the station.”
“No, I sha’n’t. I’ve done a little dodging lately. I shall travel to some other place, and walk home. I’ve faced worse things than—”
The sentence was never finished. He seemed to realize that there could be nothing worse than to be falsely denounced by his own mother—the mother whom he loved and idolized, the most wonderful mother son ever had, the most beautiful woman in New York, the wife of John Swinton, chosen man of God.
“You’d better not come home,” urged the colonel; “at any rate, as far as we are concerned.”
“Ah, that means you intend to cut me.”
“Yes; and as far as Dora is concerned—Well, the fact is, she’s engaged to Ormsby now.”
“Engaged to Ormsby?”