"Again, if you please," he said, and a shade of color returned to his cheeks. "The water was uncommonly cold tonight. How much better the sea would be, if the Lord had mixed in a dash of spirits. There is a coat in the locker, Brutus, and you may find some splints and a piece of twine. I fear my arm is broken."
Mademoiselle had taken Brutus' knife and was cutting away his sleeve, half soaked with blood. He sighed and smiled a little sadly.
"So Sims hit me after all," he said. "It must be age. I was not so clumsy once. The bandages, Brutus."
He watched us with a mild interest, and then his mind turned to other matters, and he seemed regardless of the pain we caused him.
"My son," he said, turning to me, "you made a statement a while ago which interested me strangely. I was preoccupied, and perhaps I did not hear you aright, but it seemed you said I should know what had become of your mother's money. What am I to understand by that?"
"You are hurt, sir," I replied. "Why go into a painful matter now? We have kept it quiet long enough. Only three people knew that it happened, and one of them is dead. Let us forget it, father. I am willing if you are."
My father raised his eyebrows, and it seemed to me that pain had made his face look older, and not even the smile on his lips concealed little lines of suffering.
"And what are we to forget?" he asked.
"Surely you know," I said.
"No," said my father, "I do not. Out with it—what are we to forget?"