Meantime she ought to go and see her father. From this she shrank. How could she talk with him from any other standpoint than that in which she had always known him? A man of wealth and power in the business world, she felt that he must be utterly bowed down. He had always, in a lofty, aristocratic way, attached full importance to wealth. How was he going to endure being suddenly thrown to the bottom of the ladder, when he had for so many years rested securely on the top round?
However, it was folly for her to avoid such an evident duty. She chose an hour when Mrs. Erskine would be undoubtedly engaged down-stairs, and slipped away to the train, having said nothing of her intention to her husband when he went to town an hour before, and without having as yet succeeded in arranging a single sentence that she felt would be helpful to her father, she suddenly and silently presented herself before him, in the little room off the library which was sacred to his private use. He sat at the table, writing, his face pale, indeed, but quiet, not exactly cheerful, yet certainly peaceful.
He glanced up as the door opened, and then arose quickly. “Well, daughter,” he said, “you have come to see father in his trouble. That is right. Come in, dear, and have a seat.” And with the old-time courtesy he drew an easy chair for her and waited while she seated herself. Then he sat down again, in his large arm-chair, before her.
“Yes,” he said, “I must begin again. I shall not get to where I was before. On your account I regret it. I wanted to leave you a fortune to do good with, but your husband has enough, and it is all right. The Lord can choose what money he will have spent for him.”
“You certainly need not think of me, father. As you say, Judge Burnham has enough.” And even at this moment there was a pang in Ruth’s heart that she would not have had her father see for worlds, as she wondered how much power she could have over his wealth to turn it into sources for good.
“My chief anxiety is, What are you going to do?”
“Well,” he said, and there was a gleam of a smile on his face, “I am going to climb up again with my wife’s help. It isn’t poverty, you know, thanks to her. Isn’t it marvelous how she can have saved so much out of the paltry yearly sums? Haven’t you heard about it? Why, she actually has at interest about fourteen thousand dollars; invested in my name, too. Isn’t that a reward for the indignities I heaped upon her?” His voice broke, and the tears started in his eyes. “I tell you,” he said, tremulously, “I bore it all better than that. I knew I was not to blame for the financial downfall, but to find that the woman whom I had wronged had been all these years heaping coals of fire on my head just unmanned me,” and he wiped the great tears from his cheeks, while Ruth moved restlessly in her seat. She did not like to hear about his having wronged “that woman,” neither did she like to have her father beholden to her for support.
“It is fortunate that she saved it,” she said, and her voice was most unsympathetic. “But, after all, father, it is your money.”
“No, daughter, no; not a penny of it. Ten times that sum ought to belong to her. Think of trying to make money repair the injury which I was doing her! But it is most comforting to feel that I am to be beholden to her, rather than to any other human being.”
Ruth did not think so.