“I have given an option on a piece of ground—you may know it—out by the creek, and have received a thousand dollars on account of it. It may be binding on you. It grew out of my necessity. It is not fair for me to talk to you of these things at all. You should take advice of some one else,—just as though there were no sort of tie between us.”
“We are not going to do it that way,” said Zelda, decisively. “We are going to understand this between ourselves. Now this strip of ground that has been practically sold. What is there about that?”
“The money should be returned, or offered to them. Balcomb was managing it—”
“Mr. Jack Balcomb?—then of course it wasn’t regular.”
“It was my fault, Zee.”
“I don’t believe it. He was contriving a pitfall,—that is what might have been expected of him. And he came to our house and pretended to be our friend!”
“Yes; he pretended that; but I pretended much more. Deceit is something that feeds on itself.”
He repeated the words, “It feeds on itself,” as though he found satisfaction in them. He was quite willing now to yield everything to Zelda’s hands. The very way in which she asked questions was a relief to him.
“Mr. Balcomb gave you a thousand dollars to bind a bargain—is that what they call it?—for the sale of the creek strip. I think I understand that. But are there debts,—are there other things that must be paid? And if we still have two houses we can get money for them. We must face the whole matter now,—please keep nothing back.”
“I have told you everything. I have squandered your money in speculations,—gambling is the name for it; but I have kept the farm and this house, untouched. Everything else has gone and I have given an option for the sale of that strip of ground on the creek. And I sold a block of lots belonging to you, in an irregular way. I could not sell property without an order of court—that was required by your mother’s will; but my necessities were great, and Balcomb arranged an abstract to suit himself—but I let him do it. I am the guilty one; it is my crime.”