After that the stillness in the room grew oppressive to Elsie. Her heart seemed to be beating too fast, and her head throbbed with pain. It seemed to her that she had done no good at all and had been very cruel. Joseph was not in any sense of the word a “hard” man, she assured herself; she had been a member of his household long enough to be sure of that. A reserved, silent man he might be; a disappointed man in many ways, and one harassed by daily anxieties; all this was plain enough; she ought to have been doing something to help him, instead of telling him what would open old wounds and set them to bleeding. Yet how could she avoid it? Derrick Forman’s name ought to be cleared of reproach, and who could desire this more than his own brother? Even while he groaned over the thought of all that might have been had he known the truth, would he not be glad over the fact that his brother had never forgotten him for an hour, but had loved him to the end? Suddenly a new fear struck her, and she spoke, abruptly:
“Joseph, you know, don’t you, that he—died?”
“Yes,” came after a moment of tense silence, “Evarts told me that.”
The emphasis on the last word was strong; it was plain that he suspected their brother Evarts of unfair dealing; she could not blame him for that; her own indignation was almost beyond control. It appeared that Mr. Forman had no intention of hiding his belief.
“What possible object could Evarts have had in keeping me in ignorance of all this?” was his next word.
She found it easier to reply from this standpoint than to try to keep up the pretence that Evarts was not in it; yet she felt the need for caution. Nothing was to be gained by widening unnecessarily the chasm that already separated the half-brothers. She began timidly:
“Long ago, before Derrick’s reputation had been cleared, for others, I know Evarts was afraid your brother would appeal to you, some time, for help that he—that Evarts did not think he deserved; and that you, because you were tenderhearted, would cripple yourself and injure him, by sending him money. Then afterwards—I don’t think Evarts ever placed as full confidence in that young man’s confession as the facts warranted—he never wrote a line himself to Derrick; he just lived along through the years, half distrusting him. Joseph, I hope you can forgive me, but that is what I honestly thought you were doing, yourself. Remember, I did not know that you had not been told the facts. Evarts must have judged you by himself, and decided that the less said about it the better. I don’t uphold him in it, though; and I can hardly realize even yet that any of this is new to you.”
“If I could only tell him!” This was the cry that suddenly broke from the man who was crushed under the feeling that he had been untrue to the trust imposed on him by his dying mother, and he could never explain to any of them.
Later there would undoubtedly be room for fierce indignation; later he would think of those two letters that would have changed everything, and that ought to have reached him. His sister felt sure that he would try to ferret out the truth. She knew that one letter had been directed to the old home, and that Joseph was not there, and that Evarts had charge of the daily mail. Could he possibly have—And then she shut her lips firmly, as if by so doing she could shut out thought; she must not think further in that direction; she must remember that Evarts at the time was only a head-strong, self-sufficient boy. And yet Joseph could not be blamed for being determined to know the truth. It was all beyond her management.
But after all, the uppermost feeling of her heart at the moment was the longing to comfort Joseph. He was more stricken than she had supposed he could be after all these years. That bitter cry, “If I could only tell him!” had thrilled her soul. Wasn’t there something she could say to help him? She began timidly: