“Let him pay to my father ten thousand dollars, with interest for nine years, and I shall be willing to let him off.”
“And you, Mr. Thatcher?”
“I leave the matter in Tom’s hands.”
Before John Simpson left the cottage, which he had entered for a very different purpose, he had entered into a covenant to pay the sum demanded.
In a subsequent interview he offered Mr. Thatcher his house, furniture, and large manufactory, in lieu of the money, and, as they were amply worth that, the offer was accepted, Mr. Thatcher having a desire to return to his old business.
With the remnant of his fortune, Mr. Simpson left town, and established himself in a Western State. He couldn’t bear to see daily the man whom he had attempted to murder.
Here he was induced to engage in speculations, lost all his money in the course of a few years, and died of grief. Rupert, now reduced to penury, found his way back to Wilton, and obtained a position as workman in the shop which his father had once owned. His pride had had a severe fall.
Tom became his father’s junior partner, and at twenty-one is really acting-manager and responsible head of the great shop where he once worked for three dollars a week. Of course, Mr. and Mrs. Thatcher now live in the handsome house once owned by John Simpson, while Rupert, rather curiously, is a boarder in the humble cottage once occupied by the Thatchers.
No one in Wilton understands how this wonderful change was brought about, for Tom and his father kept Mr. Simpson’s guilt and restitution a secret. It is popularly supposed that Mr. Thatcher was very fortunate in California, and made his fortune there.
It is not certain that Tom will remain long in Wilton, or in his present business. He has a handsome offer from Samuel Perkins, of Pearl Street, New York, whose papers he restored, and as he would like a larger field of action he may remove to New York and become a commission merchant. Indeed, as his father is willing to retire from business it is likely that he will accept the first fair offer for his manufactory and establish himself in the city.