CHAPTER LV.
HOW SANDY WILSON SPEAKS OUT HIS MIND.
Early in the morning, the father and daughter met. Not very many words passed between them. Mr. Harman knew that Mrs. Home had told Charlotte all. Now, coming to his side, she put her arms about him, and knelt, looking into his face.
"Charlotte, you know what I have been," he said.
"Father, I know what you are now," she answered.
After these few words, she would scarcely allow him to speak again, for he was very weak, too weak to leave his bed; but later on, in the course of the day, they had a long talk together, and Charlotte told her father of her own suffering during the past weeks. There was no longer need of concealment between them, and Charlotte made none. It was a very few days later that two trustees of the late Mr. Harman's will saw each other for the first time.
Sandy Wilson had often looked forward to the moment when he could speak out his mind as to the enormity of the crime committed by Mr. Harman. Hitherto, this worthy man had felt that in this respect circumstances had been hard on him. His Daisy, his pretty little gentle sister, had been treated as hardly, as cruelly, as woman could be treated, and yet the robber—for was he not just a common robber?—had got off scot free; he was to get off scot free to the very end; he was to be let die in peace; and afterwards, his innocent child, his only daughter, must bear the brunt of his misdeeds. She must be put to grief and shame, while he, the one on whose head the real sin lay, escaped. Sandy felt that it would have been some slight relief to his wounded feelings if he could find some one to whom he could thoroughly and heartily abuse Mr. Harman. But even this satisfaction was denied him. Mr. Home was a man who would listen to abuse of none; and even Charlotte, though her eyes did flash when his name was mentioned, even she was simply silent, and to all the rest of the world Sandy must keep the thing a secret.
There was no doubt whatever that when, the day after Mr. Harman's confession, the Homes came to Uncle Sandy and told him, not only all, but also that at any moment he might receive a summons to visit Mr. Harman, he felt a sense of exultation; also that his exultation was caused, not by the fact that his niece would now get back her own, for he had supplied her immediate need for money, but by the joyful sense that at last, at last, he, Sandy, could speak out his full mind. He could show this bad man, about whom every one was so strangely, so absurdly silent, what he thought of his conduct to his dear little sister. He went away to Prince's Gate, when at last the summons came, bristling over with a quite delightful sense of power. How well he would speak! how cleverly he would insert the arrow of remorse into that cruel heart! As he entered the house he was met by Miss Harman. She held out her hand to him without a word, and led him to the door of her father's study. Her eyes, however, as she looked at him for a moment, were eloquent. Those eyes of hers had exercised a power over him in Somerset House; they were full of pleading now. He went into Mr. Harman's presence softened, a little confused, and with his many excellent, to the point, and scathing remarks running riot in his brain.
Thus it came to pass that Sandy said no word of reproach to the broken-down man who greeted him. Nay, far from reproaching, he felt himself sharing in the universal pity. Where God's hand was smiting hard, how could man dare to raise his puny arm?