"You acknowledge, then, the error?"
"I do, I do! I imputed to you the deed which proved to have been accomplished through the agency of my most confidential clerk. I learned the truth almost immediately; but too late, alas! to recall you. Then came the news of your death, and I felt that the injury had been irreparable. But it was not strange, Philip; you must allow that. Archer had been in my employment more than twenty years. I believed him trustworthy."
"No! oh, no!" replied Philip. "It was nothing strange that, a crime committed, you should have readily ascribed it to me. You thought me capable only of evil."
"I was unjust, Philip," answered Mr. Graham, with an attempt to rally his dignity; "but I had some cause."
"Perhaps so," responded Philip; "I am willing to grant that."
"Let us shake hands upon it, then," said Mr. Graham, "and endeavour to forget the past."
Philip acceded to this request, though there was but little warmth in the manner of his compliance. Mr. Graham looked relieved from a burden which had been oppressing his conscience for years, and, subsiding into his arm-chair, begged the particulars of Philip's experience during the last twenty years.
The outline of the story was soon told, Mr. Graham listening to it with attention, and inquiring into its particulars with an interest which proved that, during a lengthened period of regret and remorse, his feelings had sensibly softened towards the step-son, with every memory of whom there had come to his heart a pang of self-reproach.
Mr. Amory was unable to afford any satisfactory explanation of the report of his own death which had been confidently affirmed by Dr. Jeremy's correspondent at Rio. Upon a comparison of dates, however, it seemed probable that the doctor's agent had obtained this information from Philip's employer, who had every reason to believe that the young man had perished of the prevailing infection.
To Philip himself it was almost an equal matter of wonder that his friends should ever have obtained knowledge of his flight and destination. But this was easily accounted for, since the vessel in which he had embarked returned directly to Boston, and there were among her crew and officers those who could reply to the inquiries which the benevolent doctor had set on foot some months before, accompanied by the offer of a liberal reward.