His professional income was fairly large, and showed every prospect of increasing year by year, but of capital he had little. Dorothy's future had to be provided for. Miss Lanyon must receive the amount specified in the will. Could he afford to pay the interest on the mortgage and keep up a large country house and grounds as well? He could not. Woodlands would have to go. The three thousand pounds which Roderick had fraudulently drawn from the estate would have made a considerable difference in Sylvester's calculations.
From his father's books he discovered that this sum roughly represented the sale of certain stock a day or two before the cheque was forged, and lay at the bankers awaiting reinvestment. How did the knowledge of this reach Roderick? Sylvester was puzzled, for a man does not usually keep a balance of three or four thousand pounds to his credit account, and Roderick was too shrewd to run the risk of so large a cheque unless he knew there would be an adequate sum to meet it. Rightly he concluded that Mr. Usher had given his son the information. But whether Roderick was acquainted with the blackmailing secret he could not tell. An instinct of generosity, newly awakened, prompted the conjecture of Roderick's ignorance. On this assumption he arrived at what happened to be the correct solution: Roderick in desperate need of money had applied to Usher; the latter had refused; had suggested the forgery, knowing of the sale of stock, and had given him the cheque which he himself had once abstracted from Mr. Lanyon's cheque-book so as to meet any sudden emergency, at the same time assuring his son against any unpleasant risks on the discovery of the forgery. Roderick's silence on the point Sylvester could only put down to his credit.
Both Ella and Miss Lanyon were acquainted with the terms of the will, though neither as yet was informed of the financial condition of the estate. The large sums bequeathed to Usher and Roderick had astonished them. Sylvester explained vaguely that they were in payment of a great debt of gratitude which his father had incurred when Mr. Usher and himself were young men together in Australia. Miss Lanyon, who never questioned such statements, took refuge in her grief from further thoughts on the matter, like the gentle, simple lady she was. But Ella, with Sylvester's words in the churchyard fresh in her mind, scented a mystery. After the reading of the will, the subject was not openly mentioned by her or by Sylvester. Roderick's name stood between them. The silence was a restraint which each felt to be irksome. At last Ella, with a woman's greater moral courage, or perhaps with a woman's love of self-castigation, resolutely plunged into matters.
“Would you think it impertinent of me if I asked you to let me discuss Uncle Matthew's will with you?”
She had stopped him by the library door, as he was entering after breakfast.
“By no means,” he replied courteously, holding the door open for her. “Come in.”
“What has happened to me during the last six months,” she said, when they were seated, “will remain with me as a memory all my life. I should like to know what to think about—Roderick.” She got the name out bravely, after a second's hesitation. “He really did what you accused him of?”
“He acknowledged it to me,” replied Sylvester.
“Has he always been—what men call a scamp, or was this a sudden temptation?”
“He was in a desperate plight. That I know. I can't say what he was before. I have had a bitter lesson in judging men. All my standards have fallen away, and Heaven knows whom I dare judge. One doesn't know what's resisted. Burns said that a hundred years ago. And one doesn't know what remorse follows. The human soul is an awful thing. Men are better than their deeds. There is good in Roderick. I believe it.”