“Mary, Mary, be calm!”
“I’m going to him now,” she cried. “We’ll see who will be worsted in the fight. I’ll silence his taunts. There’ll be no more chuckling over his daughter’s misery—no more insults and abuse of you, John.”
“My dear Mary, you mustn’t think of going now. You’re unsprung, overcome. You’ll do something rash. Let us be satisfied for the present with this great change of fortune. One ghost at least is laid—the terror of poverty. The way lies open now for our honorable confession. You see that, don’t you?” he pleaded. “We can delay no longer. There is no excuse. By the return of our boy, the ground was cut from beneath our feet. What does it matter what the world says of us, when we have made things right with our God, when we have done justice by our brave son?”
“Oh, no—think of Netty.”
“Ah, Netty is in trouble, dearest. She’s had bad news to-day. Harry Bent talks of canceling his engagement. 305 The scandal has reached the ears of his family, and his money-affairs are dependent on his mother, whom he can’t offend. You see, darling, the sins of the fathers have begun to descend on the children—Dick and Netty both stricken. We must confess!—confess!”
“I can’t, John, I can’t—I can’t. Dick won’t hear of it.”
“Dick has no voice in the matter at all. It is the voice of God that calls.”
“Yes, yes, I know, John, but—wait till I’ve seen father once more. I won’t listen to you, I won’t eat, I won’t sleep, until I’ve seen him. I’ll go to him at once.”
“I must come, too,” urged the rector weakly. Yet, the thought of facing the miser’s taunts at such a time filled him with unspeakable dread. And he could not tell her that Dick’s arrest was imminent.
“Have some food, dearest, and go afterward.”