“I wonder if he's come here to pick a row,” old Simon asked, as his startled eyes bore down on the face of his son. “If he has, I reckon we can accommodate him. I ain't no fighter, but you are my own flesh and blood, and considering the time you've been away, and what you have accomplished, he hain't treated you right. Toby”—raising his voice and going to the door and looking out—“show that fellow back here. Nobody ain't hiding in this shebang, I am here to say, and if folks ain't satisfied all round—clean all round—why—”
But Wynn Dearing was brushing past the old man through the narrow doorway, his face pale, his hand extended to Fred.
“I have done you a great wrong, old man,” he said, in a shaking voice, “and I have come to beg your pardon.”
“Oh, that's all right, Wynn,” Fred gasped, in surprise. “I am sure you have treated me no worse than I deserve.”
“Oh yes, I have, Fred. I have worked against you ever since you left, and I now find that you are wholly innocent of what I accused you of. Let me talk it over with your father. Margaret is waiting at my office to see you. I promised I'd send you to her.”
As if in a dream, Fred hastened out of the bank and went down to Dearing's office. No one was in the front, but he found Margaret in the back room standing at a window, looking out. She turned as he entered and gave him both her hands.
“Oh, I'm so glad—so glad!” she cried, and he saw tears on her lashes, and the handkerchief she held in one of her hands was damp. “Oh, Fred, we have all treated you so badly, so cruelly, so unjustly, when you were striving so hard! A great mistake was made. If I had known what I now know when we met in New York, I would never have treated you as I did. You were thinking of one thing and I of another.”
“I don't understand,” he said, groping for her meaning, his big, honest eyes dilating.
“And I can't explain,” she said. “It really doesn't matter, anyway. I don't want even to think about it—at least to-day, when I am so happy. But I want you to know one thing: you see, Dora Barry showed me the letter you wrote her, and I want you to know that I love you. I have loved you every day, every minute, since you left.”
“You love me—you really care for me?” he said, deep in his throat.