“Ha!” ejaculated Gildart.
“Hum!” responded his friend, “do either of us, I wonder, perceive in ourselves any resemblance to him in this latter point? I suppose it would require a third party to answer that question truly. But, to continue—My father gave Emma, (for he would not consent to see Tom), a thousand pounds, and dismissed her from his presence, as he said, ‘for ever,’ but I am convinced that he did not mean what he said, for he paced about his bedroom the whole of the night after his last interview with poor Emma, and I heard him groan frequently, although the partition that separates our rooms is so thick that sounds are seldom heard through it. Do you know, Gildart, I think we sometimes judge men harshly. Knowing my father as I do, I am convinced that he is not the cold, unfeeling man that people give him credit for. He acted, I believe, under a strong conviction that the course he adopted was that of duty; he hoped, no doubt, that it would result in good to his child, and that in the course of time he should be reconciled to her. I cannot conceive it possible that any one would cast off his child deliberately and for ever. Why, the man who could do so were worse than the beasts that perish.”
“I agree with you. But what came of Tom and Emma?” asked Gildart.
“They went to Australia. Tom got into business there. I never could make out the exact nature of it, but he undoubtedly succeeded for a time, for Emma’s letters to me were cheerful. Latterly, however, they got into difficulties, and poor Emma’s letters were sad, and came less frequently. For a year past she has scarcely written to me at all. Tom has never written. He was a high-spirited fellow, and turned his back on us all when my father cast him and Emma off.”
“Humph!” ejaculated Gildart, “nevertheless his high spirit did not induce him to refuse the thousand pounds, it would seem.”
“You wrong him, Gildart; Emma knew him well, and she told me that she had placed the money in a bank in her own name, without telling him of it. Any success that attended him at first was the result of his own unaided energy and application to business. It is many years now since they went away. Some time ago we heard that they, with their only daughter, little Emma, were coming back to England, whether in wealth or in poverty I cannot tell. The vessel in which they were to sail is named the ‘Hawk,’ and that is the ship that my father has heard of as having been seen yesterday.”
“How comes it, Kenneth, that you have never opened your lips to me on this subject during our long acquaintance? I did not know even that you had a sister.”
“Why, to say truth, the subject was not one on which I felt disposed to be communicative. I don’t like to talk of family squabbles, even to my most intimate friends.”
“So we may look for some family breezes and squalls ere long, if not gales,” said Gildart with a laugh.
Kenneth shook his head gravely.