“No—no, father, I don’t deny it. Why should I?”
The rector looked at his son helplessly, in agonized appeal. His hands went up, and he bowed his head before him. Dick was the strong man, and he the weak one. Dick was ready to be wiped out of existence, 232 rather than betray his mother. He believed that his father knew nothing.
“Dick—forgive!” The stricken father took a step forward, but his strength gave out, and he dropped upon his knees at his son’s feet. “Dick! Dick! We are sinners, your mother and I. I ask your pardon. Forgive me, boy, forgive—It was my wish from the first that you should be set straight. I knew you were incapable of a fraud, and your mother confessed everything to me. I only consented to the blackening of your name at—at your mother’s entreaty—to save Netty’s life from ruin and your mother from prison.”
“That’s all right, father—that’s all right,” cried Dick huskily, with an affected cheeriness, as he raised the stricken man. “I’m not able to grapple with it all just now. You see, I’ve had enteric, and am still shaky. I’ve thought it all out. Mother was—was foolish. She wanted to set us all straight, to pay my debts and save me from arrest. Well, I can but return the compliment. A fellow can’t see his own mother sent to prison. She did it for love of her husband and children. She only defrauded her own father; and, if he had an ounce of sentiment in him, or was in his right mind, he’d acknowledge the checks, and make us disgorge in some other way. I felt like going up to Asherton Hall first, and strangling the old villain in his bed.” 233
“Dick, my boy, it is not his fault. It is he who has been right, and we who have been wrong. No man should spend money he does not possess. Debts that a man can never pay are robberies. I have condoned, I am worse than she—worse than all of you—I, the clergyman, who have been given the care of souls. Dick, there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, and your mother and I have sincerely repented; but we have not atoned. You must see her to-night, and tell her that you mean to come home. You must tell the truth, and set yourself right in the eyes of all men. Your father and mother don’t matter. You have a life before you, and a name that should go down in history, honored—”
“Oh, nonsense, father! What I’ve been through is nothing to what some of the chaps suffered. Some thriving colony is the place for me under a new name, a new life. So long as mother and you know, and send me a cheery word sometimes, and wish me well, I shall be all right. You see, it’s easier to go when the girl that a fellow loves is—is going to marry another man, a rich man—a cad. But that’s her affair. She thinks I’m a bad lot, and put away under the turf, and she’s going to live her life comfortably like other people, I suppose. Old Dundas was always keen on Ormsby. When she’s married—and settled down—then you must tell her the truth—that 234 I didn’t alter those checks, that I wasn’t such a cheat, nor a coward either. Don’t let her think I died a skunk who wanted to be shot to avoid the consequences of a forgery. Yes, you’ll have to tell her that, father—you’ll have to tell her—”
The words came out with difficulty. Dick, who was standing on the hearthrug, put out his hand blindly for support. It rested on a table for a moment, but only for a moment. His lips parted, and his eyes closed. Ere the rector could rush to his aid, he slipped to the floor in a faint. Emotion, in his present weak state, was too much for him. He had overestimated his strength.
“Dick—my boy!—my boy!” cried the father, raising him tenderly in his arms. “He’ll die—he’ll die after all!”
The study door opened suddenly. Mary in her nightdress, with her hair about her shoulders, and her eyes staring, entered the room, barefooted.
“I heard his voice, John—I heard his voice!” she cried, in shrill fear.