And so matters were drifting when chance threw Fanny Prescott in his way and something about her reminded him of the days when he had walked with Helen Tracy through the woods and pastures of Ridgefield, and when Uncle Zacheus had believed in him implicitly, disclaiming all taint of heredity which might have come to him from ’Tina. He had no thought that Fanny was his daughter, but she was like the people he used to know,—like Helen and Alice and Craig, and she sent his thoughts back to them with a vividness which almost made him feel that he was like them again. He would not harm her, nor have her harmed.
“It’s no use talking,” he said, when Tom unfolded his plan of stopping the coach in which she was to leave the valley. “I’m tired of it all, and would give half the remainder of my life if the scroll could be unrolled and all the black writing erased.”
To this resolution he stood firm, wondering what he could do to prevent the catastrophe. It came to him like an inspiration to send Inez with the driver, knowing that with her tall figure she would be readily seen from the point where Tom would probably stand concealed and make his observations. That something might happen he feared when he found that Nero had gone after the coach. He would recognize Tom and springing upon him in his delight, as he had a habit of doing, he might unmask him and the secret be revealed. To threaten to do this himself was one thing, and to have it done was another, and he was waiting impatiently for the result when he at last saw Inez coming up the path on the bay mare. Her face was pallid as a corpse and her eyes so unnaturally large and black that he could see their blackness in the distance and felt himself shrinking from meeting them. Tom was near her, with his head bent down and his feet dragging heavily as if walking were difficult for him.
“I must face it,” Mark said to himself, and hurrying to meet them he asked what had happened.
“Don’t ask me, and don’t touch me,” Inez answered, motioning him away. “Tom, your colleague, will tell you.”
She sprang from the horse and went into the house without looking at her father, who turned to Tom for an explanation.
CHAPTER IX.
MARK AND TOM.
The explanation was given concisely and fully, with nothing added or withheld. As he listened Mark felt that he had neither strength, nor muscle, nor nerve left. His sin had found him out, and the iron grip of the law could not have hurt him as he was hurt with the knowledge that Inez despised him.
“You think she knows everything?” he asked in a strange voice, for his tongue felt thick and heavy.
“Everything. The game is up, and I wish I had died before I began it; died in the old hogshead where I slept when you found me,” Tom replied.