She led him to the table and talked to him brightly on irrelevant matters. The situation was now in her own hands and she would not fail again. She usually visited the kitchen after breakfast to make her list for the grocer; but this morning she went back to the sitting-room with her father. The autumn morning was cool, and she bent and lighted the fire.
“Now,” she said, rising quickly and smiling at him, “there are those bothersome business matters that we were talking about last night. I wish to sign that paper—”
He shook his head.
“You can’t do it, Zee. You have lighted the fire with it.” The deed had been torn to pieces and thrown upon the kindling in the grate,—half had already been destroyed.
“That is probably just as well. We shall make a new one,” she said, in a matter-of-course tone. “I wish you would tell me, so that I may understand, just what it is that has happened.”
“It’s a long story. I thought I should be able to make a great fortune for you. It was my greed,—my greed.”
“Let us not use ugly words about ourselves, father. A great many people lose their money. It isn’t so terribly tragic. Only,—there mustn’t be any further trouble.”
“What I proposed about the deed was purely selfish—to shield myself. It is a grave matter—I have betrayed you—I have betrayed your mother’s trust. I have robbed you.”
“I haven’t been robbed, father, and I don’t intend that anybody shall use such words to me. We shall make the deed; no one need ever know that anything has happened.”
“You are kind; you are more than generous, Zee; but I was mad when I asked you to re-create the trust last night. I am a bad man; I must face my sins; I have lived a lying, evil life. I am a thief, worse than a thief.”