“I presumed so. He had roughed the will out. He only had a few thousands. But Dorothy was to have the greater part. I showed the draft to John Leroux to-day, who is a man of great wealth. He is desirous that his cousin's wishes should be carried out.”
“I can accept no gifts from Mr. John Leroux,” said Sylvester.
The old man argued the point. Morally the money was Dorothy's. Sylvester listened stubbornly. He revolted at the thought of touching Leroux's money. It was a ghastly impossibility. He repeated,—
“I cannot accept it.”
“Money is money, Syl, after all; and I may not be able, perhaps, to do what I had hoped for Dorothy.”
“While my daughter bears my name I can support her decently. If Mr. Leroux will not benefit by what is legally his, he can devote it to charity. It is a matter of principle.”
They were both inflexible men, and they understood each other's nature. Matthew did not press the point.
“Very well,” he said in a business tone. “I will tell Mr. Leroux of your decision.”
But the impassiveness of his tone was belied by the almost yearning earnestness with which he regarded his son, who sat staring into the fire. He would have given years of his own happiness to know whether a gnawing suspicion were baseless; but the question could not be put. Sylvester was silent. What troubles were at work behind his sombre brow the old man could not fathom; and Sylvester, though his heart was bursting, could not speak.
How could he disclose, even to the being who now was dearest to him in the world, his wife's shame, his own dishonour? Better to keep the hideous fact locked up in his breast. But yet, if he could have found a rush of tumultuous words, what heart-ease were in it! So many, with that great gift of expansiveness, had come to his father and gone away comforted, and he, the son deeply loving and deeply loved, was powerless to utter a complaint. He bit his lip to repress a groan.