Anxious to save Dorothy from useless distress, he did not inform her of the cause that had kept him away so long. She only remarked, as he kissed her cheek, "My dear Gerard looks tired and paler than usual."
"Oh, Dolly," he replied. "It is a sad world; one is never allowed to feel happy in it long. If it were always the paradise that you have made it for the last few weeks, I should never like to leave it. All things, darling, are for the best. The purest pleasures are born in the lap of sorrow, as the brightest sunshine succeeds the darkest storm."
Directly after breakfast he ordered his horse and gig, and telling Mrs. Martin that he could not be home before night, drove over to the town of ----, in which the gaol was situated.
Before going to visit the old man, he went to the lawyer, at the suit of whose client he had been incarcerated, to discover the amount of the debt, which he found to be under three hundred pounds, including the law costs.
It was a large sum for Mr. Fitzmorris, having expended all he could well spare from his own income in settling his brother's affairs, paying funeral and law expenses, and other items. Any thought of his own comfort or convenience seldom stayed the too generous hand, that was never held back by selfish motives, if it could possibly relieve the necessity of a fellow creature. "It was only retrenching a few needless luxuries," he would say, "for a few months or years, and the interest would be amply repaid. There was no bank in which a man could invest his means, which made such ample returns, as the bank of Heaven, in which there was no fear of losing your capital, as it was chartered for eternity."
He wrote a check upon his banker for the sum, and received the release from Mr. Hodson, the man of business.
"I am afraid, Mr. Fitzmorris, that you have sacrificed this large sum of money to little purpose. This, though certainly the largest claim against the Rushmere estate, is not the only one. It would require more than a thousand pounds to keep the place from the hammer."
"I thought that Lawrence Rushmere had been a person who had saved money?"
"He had to the amount of a few hundred pounds, but the farm is a very poor one, which, for half a century past, has barely supplied the necessary outlay to continue its cultivation. When the lieutenant returned, the father sacrificed his little earnings, to enter into a speculation with his son, for furnishing horses to the Government, for the use of the army. Such a traffic requires large means, and constant attention. The young man who was the sole manager, got among dissipated companions, from buying horses, to betting upon them, and has not only lost all the money advanced by the father, but has involved himself irretrievably. The creditors thought it better to bring things to a crisis, as the sale of the property might possibly leave a small overplus, to keep the old man from the workhouse."
"He is such an impatient, obstinate creature," observed Mr. Fitzmorris, "that he may choose to remain in prison rather than pay these creditors, that he will be sure to regard not as the injured party, but as personal enemies to himself."