Yet he had not strength to battle against the storm that the idolized young wife called up—the storm that was to sweep from him again the long-lost, bitterly mourned son. Ah! well; it is not hard to fancy how she strained every nerve to wrest from another the happiness once within her own reach. Had she not bartered away her peace when she ruthlessly deserted the man she loved? And should some other woman be happier than she? No! Let them all be wrecked together. What cared she? Her husband; bah! Her child, yes; she strained him to her breast, and bemoaned him, and caressed him, and said that he was to be robbed by that wicked, wicked man, who had come to disturb their quiet happiness. That his unnatural father was about to squander on his undutiful older son, who had deserted him and disgraced him for years, the fortune she had been so sparing of—knowing that she would be left alone in the world some day, with no one to provide for herself and her child. And she would take her child now—a fresh burst of hysterical grief—right now, and start out into the cold world to earn her daily bread, or beg, for her child—for it would come to that, now that this cruel, hard-hearted man had undertaken to provide for his profligate, vagabond son.
And the child, little knowing how useful a tool he was in his mother's hands, wept with her, and would not be comforted by the distracted father, but clung to his mother's neck, crying, when she made a feint of leaving the house at the dead of night. Then the old man in his anguish promised to abandon his "vagabond" son, and was but too happy to have peace restored to his troubled home at this price. After all, the boy had lived away from him so many years; had never troubled himself about him; then why should his father heap all this trouble on his own head for what might be only a passing whim of the boy's?
The third day had dawned since the long-lost son's return. Friend Luke again sat in his counting-room, in company with his early Havana, his meditations were disturbed by a boy, who was shown in by one of the clerks. "A note for you, sir," and he had vanished.
But the young merchant seized his hat when he had glanced at the contents, and repaired, breathlessly, to his friend's hotel. Cold sweat stood on his forehead when he knocked at the door, and it was opened by a stranger. One glance at the bed and at those standing around it was sufficient.
"I was his friend," he said, and they respectfully made room for him.
He touched the cold hand, and gently lifted the cloth that hid the rigid face. His friend had always been a good shot, and Luke groaned as he replaced the cloth.
"Poor girl, poor girl—and I am to break the news to her!"
The doctor who had been called in, a shock-headed, spectacled German, looked at him, first from under his glasses, then over them, and at last through them. "Aha!" he said, with evident satisfaction, catching at Luke's words, "now we have it. It vas a voman who made dis misfortune, after all."
"A woman"—Luke repeated, softly; "yes, but her name was Sylvia."