“Ah! my dear boy, I see we do not meet on the old cordial footing. Well, it has been my fate through life to be misjudged; to be met with scorn when I craved only sympathy; to have every action of mine misunderstood, every word misinterpreted. Don’t turn away from me, I beg; let me explain, let me appeal to you.”
Comethup had stopped, and stood looking at him coldly. “There certainly seems to be the need for some explanation,” he said. “I suppose you will not deny that you deceived me; that the money I placed in your hands, at your request, to help Brian and—and his wife, never reached them?”
“My dear nephew, a moment; I crave only a moment. I left you that night in Rome, with the full intention of returning to them and flinging the whole before them and crying: ‘See! the wolf is no longer at the door; your father has saved you!’ That was my full intention. But alas! I was tempted; tempted not for my own sake, but for theirs. The money was but a small amount—you will admit it was small, my dear nephew—and I saw the opportunity to increase it. I turned aside on my journey at one of those gambling hells which should, if I had my way, be swept off the face of Europe to-morrow; I turned aside and staked that small sum for them. I felt that I might be able to take them perhaps ten times the amount. But, alas! I lost all.”
“As you might have expected,” said Comethup. “Fortunately for them, I returned within a day or two after you, and——”
“So I have heard, so I have heard,” exclaimed Mr. Robert Carlaw. “Bless you, my young friend, bless you! For myself, how I contrived to reach London I scarcely know; but I did reach it, and after some weeks of fear and trembling I at last approached my son and threw myself upon his mercy. I—in fact, we are quite reconciled, and I have taken up my abode with him.”
“So I observe,” said Comethup.
“But to-night, sir, to-night even that must cease. The crowning piece of ingratitude has at last been reached; the son for whom I have done so much, sacrificed so much—the son of whom I have been, as I felt, justly proud—has deserted me.”
“Deserted you?” cried Comethup, catching his arm. “What do you mean?”
“Gone, sir—fled! He has lulled me into a feeling of false security; led me to believe that I could end my days in the bosom of his family, surrounded by men of culture and refinement, who would naturally appeal to those finer instincts in me which have had so long to remain dormant, and then in a moment he has gone and ruined my prospects.”
“Why the devil don’t you speak plainly?” cried Comethup, roused at last, and shaking him fiercely by the arm. “What do you mean? Do you mean that he has deserted his wife?”