"Yes, I'll go. And I'll remember," cried Leyburn fiercely. "You can shout now, but I'll remember everything. You won't have to set that machinery in motion, but when the time comes—and I'll be looking for that time all my life—you'll find I have remembered everything, both for you and—your bastard son."
As his last words leaped from between his clenched teeth he moved swiftly across to the door. Hendrie shot a quick glance at Angus, and the watchful Scot promptly followed him out.
"It's a pretty story, Frank."
Hendrie's lips were smiling, but his eyes were half anxious, half questioning.
"Guess it hasn't gained niceness from that feller," he went on. "No," he added thoughtfully. "Nothing ever gained in niceness from those lips. Tug never had pleasant ways. Still, there it is—and——" In spite of himself his eyes were wholly anxious now—"it's true, when you clean his tone off it."
Frank rose from his chair and moved away across the room. His movement seemed objectless, yet his father understood. He knew that a great conflict was going on within that silent heart, and he wondered.
But Leyburn's venomous manner of telling his, Hendrie's, story had satisfied the millionaire. He preferred that his son should know it from its worst possible aspect. That was why he had forced it from the labor man's lips. He desired no smoothing over of the roughnesses of his past character. Certainly not for his own son's benefit. He was determined that this boy should sit in judgment upon him with his eyes wide open to all his shortcomings. He wanted him to know his father as he was.
"I wanted him to tell Monica, too," Hendrie went on, after a pause. "But she's not fit to hear it—yet. Now I'll have to tell her myself. I shan't cover things up, anyway. There's just one thing I want to add. It's right I should add it. Leyburn didn't know it." He smiled. "Guess no one knew it but me. I wanted the truth from him, so we'll have it all. I want to tell you, after your mother got down to civilization I spent most of Tug's gold trying to find her—to marry her. It took me weeks and weeks. Then I found she was dead, and you—I had lost you, too."
Frank turned round, and there was thankfulness and no condemnation in the eyes that looked into his father's across the room. Instantly Hendrie's face became set.
"Say," he cried quickly, "don't think I'm squealing. Don't think I'm shuffling. These are just facts, same as the others. Get a grip on things, boy. I'm wholly unrepentant for the things I've done. Especially for—helping myself to Tug's gold. I don't go back on anything I do. These things were, and I—stand for them. There's just one other thing I'd like you to know. I didn't know you were my son till I set about getting you released from the penitentiary. I learned that from Monica, when she told me about you. I didn't tell her of my discovery—again this is the truth—because I was scared to lose her love. You see, boy, there are some things make cowards of us in spite of ourselves. I told you that before.