‘Ah!’ cried John, with a keen and quick sensation as if he had been startled and could not draw his breath.
‘Of course the information doesn’t come direct from them. They wouldn’t be likely to do anything so friendly. Prince heard all about it from one of their men. We can have him in, and you can ask him any questions you like. Even if I hadn’t known by what you told me, I should have felt sure it was you who had done it,’ said William Barrett, secure in his own command of the situation. Then he added to the man who answered his bell, ‘Ask Mr. Prince to step this way.’
Mr. Prince had stepped that way; he had walked up to Mr. Barrett’s table, in his precise little manner, smiling ingratiatingly when he met his master’s eye, and had told his story before John said anything more. He stood a little behind Prince, so startled that he could scarcely understand what was being said, though he heard it all—recalling his recollections and making it plain to himself what had happened. He had not been in the habit of doing rash things, nor was he one who gave his confidence and trust easily; but as he stood in the office, hearing the clerk’s glib story—and feeling himself like the spectator of the strangest little scene on the stage, instead of standing, so to speak, on his trial, and listening to the evidence of the principal witness against him—a rush of suggestions was going through John’s head.
The extraordinary fact which never had seemed at all strange to him before, that he had taken into his house and into his confidence a man of whom he knew nothing, except that he was a returned convict, showed itself all at once to him in the clearest light. Even in his suddenly awakened consciousness of what had happened, he felt that to call the man whom he had thus trusted a returned convict, hurt himself as if it had been a stab. It was on this ground he had made acquaintance with him, because he was a man who had been punished for crime, and might fall into crime again if he were not bolstered up by friendly help and saved from temptation. This was what John had attempted to do, and, lo, here was the result. He came gradually to himself through the hot and painful confusion of this critical moment, and put a few questions to the clerk which left no doubt on the subject. When Mr. Prince’s examination was over, William Barrett turned to the young man, his natural good nature and friendliness modified by the triumph of having gained a complete victory.
‘Sandford,’ he said, ‘I don’t pretend to understand your conduct one way or another. You came back from your holiday before your time, to tell me of this scheme of yours. I neither said nor did anything to discourage you, more than one does naturally to a young man. You were engaged in our work, and bred up in our office: that should have been reason enough against going to any other firm.’
‘It is a thing which never entered into my mind.’
‘But it did into your actions, apparently,’ said the junior partner, with a not unnatural sneer.
‘It is what I have expected all along,’ said Mr. Barrett, piously folding his hands. ‘It is what his mother expected, an excellent, much-tried woman, for whose sake——’
‘Prince, you may go,’ said William Barrett, ‘and, for heaven’s sake, father, stick to the question. Don’t bring in other things which have nothing to do with it.’
John had a great struggle with himself. The foregone conclusion against him with which he had so often been confronted was the one thing which overcame his good sense and self-control. Ever since his grandfather’s death it had been intolerable to him, and it was all he could do to suppress the boiling-over of passionate resistance to this systematic injustice; but with a great effort he restrained himself. He stopped the departing witness with a wave of his hand.