As the days wore on, Dora went through many scenes with her father concerning Vivian Ormsby. The banker pressed his suit remorselessly, yet with a consideration for the girl, which did him the greatest credit. The colonel made no secret of his keen desire for the match; and he informed his friends, as well as Dora, that he looked upon the thing as settled. Naturally, the girl’s name was coupled with Ormsby’s, and, wherever one was invited, the other always appeared.

Ormsby showed himself at his best during this period. He would have made no progress at all but for his tactful recognition of the fact that Dora had loved Dick Swinton, and must be treated tenderly on that account. She was grateful to him, for he seemed to be the only one who respected poor Dick’s memory. Other people were free in their comments, and remorseless in their condemnation of the criminal act which, as the culmination of a long series of follies, must inevitably have brought him to ruin if he had not chosen to end his life at the war. 205

Nobody was surprised when the society columns of the newspapers hinted of a coming engagement between the daughter of a well-known soldier and the son of a banker, who came together under romantic circumstances, not unconnected with a regrettable accident.

Later, there was a definite announcement: “An engagement has been arranged between Miss Dundas, daughter of Colonel Herbert Dundas, and Vivian Ormsby, eldest son of William Ormsby, the well-known banker.”

Letters poured in on every side. Polly Ocklebourne drove over to congratulate Dora in person, and found the affianced bride looking very pale, and by no means happy. Dora hastened to explain that the engagement would be a long one, possibly two years at least—and they laughed at her. The girl had given her consent grudgingly, in half-hearted fashion, with the stipulation that she might possibly withdraw from it. Her father coaxed it out of her. But, when people came around and talked of the wedding, and abused her for treating poor Ormsby shabbily by insisting on an engagement of quite unfashionable and absurd length, the thought of what she had done began to terrify her. She knew perfectly well that she did not care for her lover; that, under certain circumstances, she almost hated him. But there was no one she liked better, 206 nor was there any prospect of her dead heart coming to life again at all. And, in the meantime, Ormsby was constantly by her side.

One morning, Ormsby drove up in his automobile, to propose an engagement for the evening to Dora. His fiancÉe, however, had gone out for a walk, and he was forced to content himself by leaving a message with her father. The two men were chatting together in the library, when a servant entered with a telegram. “For Miss Dundas, sir,” was the explanation.

“I suppose I’d better open it,” murmured the colonel, as he slit the envelope.

He read the message, frowned, swore an oath, turned it over, then read it again, with a look of blank amazement, whilst Ormsby watched.

“Bad news?”

“Read.”

Ormsby took the slip between his fingers. His pale face hardened, and his teeth ground together. His surprise was expressed in a smothered cry of rage.

“It can’t be!” he gasped. “Alive? Then, the story of his death was a lie. His heroic death was a sham.”

“Dora will have to be told,” groaned the colonel.

“No, certainly not,” cried Ormsby. “If he attempts 207 to show his face in New York, I’ll have him arrested.”

“No, no, Ormsby, you wouldn’t do that. I must confess, it isn’t any pleasure to hear that he’s alive. It’s a confounded nuisance! His death—damn it all! He sha’n’t see her. They mustn’t meet, Ormsby!”

“No, of course not—of course not. We’ll have to send him to jail.”

“Ormsby, you couldn’t do it—you couldn’t.”

“Well, he mustn’t see Dora.”

“No—I’ll attend to that.”

The colonel read the telegram again.

“Arrived at Boston Parker House this morning. Start home this afternoon. Send message. Dying to see you.

“Dick Swinton.”

“What does the fool want to come home for?” growled the colonel. “Hasn’t he any consideration for his mother and father and sister? Everybody thinks he’s dead—why doesn’t he remain dead? He sha’n’t upset my girl. I’ll see to that. I’ll—I’ll meet him myself.”

“A good idea,” observed Ormsby, who had grown thoughtful. “For my part, my duty is plain. A warrant is out for his arrest. I shall give information 208 to the police that he is in the country again.”

“No, Ormsby—no!” pleaded the colonel. “You’ll utterly upset yourself with Dora. You won’t stand a ghost of a chance.

“A hero with handcuffs doesn’t cut an agreeable figure, or stand much of a chance. Dora has glorified him, you must remember. There will be a reaction of feeling. She’ll alter her opinion, when she knows he’s a criminal, flying from justice. They gave him his life, I suppose, because he hadn’t the courage to die, and keep his country’s secrets. The traitor!”

They resolved to say nothing of the arrival of the telegram. The colonel gave out that business affairs necessitated a journey to Boston, and Dora was to be told that he would be back in the evening.

Ormsby drove the colonel to the station in his motor. Afterward, he called at police-headquarters, and then at the bank. There, he wrote a letter to Herresford, reopening the matter of the seven thousand dollars, which had lain dormant all this time, true to the promise made to Dora. He had let the quarrel stand in abeyance in case of accidents. This was characteristic of the cautious Ormsbys, and quite in keeping with the remorseless character of the man who never forgave, and never desisted in any pursuit where personal gain was the paramount consideration. 209

Colonel Dundas had been genuinely fond of Dick Swinton—up to a point. The kind of regard he had for him was that which is accorded to many self-indulgent, reckless young men who are their own greatest enemies. He was always pleased to see him; but he would never have experienced pleasure in contemplating him as a possible son-in-law. His supposititiously heroic death had surrounded him with a halo of romance dear to the colonel’s heart; but his sudden reappearance in the land of the living, with a warrant out for his arrest, and Dora’s happiness in the balance, excited a growing anger.

All the way to Boston, the colonel fumed and swore. He muttered to himself and thumped the arms of his chair, rehearsing the things he meant to say when the rascal confronted him. How dare Dick send telegrams to his innocent child without her father’s knowledge, in order that he might work upon her feelings! Perhaps, he thought of persuading her to elope with him—elope with a criminal! By the time he reached Boston, the colonel had built up a hundred imaginary wrongs that it was his duty to set right by plain speaking.

As he entered the vestibule of the hotel, he saw Dick Swinton—or someone like him—wrapped in a long, ill-fitting coat, walking up and down very slowly. The young man caught sight of the ruddy face of Colonel Dundas, and he tried to hurry, but 210 his step was slow and uncertain. As they came near each other, he seized the colonel’s arm.

“Colonel! Colonel!” he cried. “How glad I am to see you! Is Dora with you?”

“Dora—no, sir! What do you take me for? Good God! what a wreck you are! Where have you been? How is it you’ve come home?”

“I—I thought she would come!” gasped Dick, who looked very white. His eyes were unnaturally large, and his cheeks sunken, and his hands merely bones.

“Here, come out of the crowd,” said the colonel, forgetting his tremendous speeches. He seized the young man by the arm, but gripped nothing like muscle. “Why, you’re a skeleton, boy!” he exclaimed, adopting the old attitude in spite of himself.

“Yes, I’m not up to the mark,” laughed Dick. “I thought you knew all about it.”

“Knew all about it, man? You’re dead—dead! Everyone, your father and mother and all of us, read the full story of your death in the papers.”

“Yes; but I corrected all that,” cried Dick, “My letters—they got my letters?”

“What letters?”

“The two I sent through by the men that were exchanged. Young Maxwell took one.”

“Maxwell died of dysentery.” 211

“Ah, that accounts for it. The other I gave to a sailor. He promised to deliver it.”

“To whom did you write?”

“To Dora. I asked her to go to mother and explain things, so as not to give too great a shock. You don’t mean to say that my mother doesn’t know!”

“No, of course not—not through Dora, at any rate.”

“Good heavens! Let’s get to a telegraph-office, and I’ll send her word at once. And father, too—dear old dad—he’s had two months of sorrow that might have been avoided. What a fool I was! I ought to have telegraphed from Copenhagen.”

“Copenhagen!”

“Yes; I escaped—nearly died of hunger—got on board a Danish ship as stowaway, and arrived at Copenhagen half-starved. But I wasn’t up to traveling for a bit. I’m pulling around, gradually. I’m—well, to be sure! And mother doesn’t know. What a surprise it will be! What a jollification! What a—!”

“Here, hold up, Dick—hold up, man—you’re tottering.”

The colonel’s strong hand kept Dick on his feet. He led the young man gently through the vestibule.

“Here, come to a quiet place. You mustn’t be seen in public,” growled the colonel. 212

“Why not?” asked Dick. “I’m a little faint. You see, I haven’t much money. I had to borrow. A square meal, at your expense, would do me a world of good, colonel. Let’s go to the dining-room.”

“Very well. We can get a quiet table there. But I want you to understand at once that, though I’m here, I’m not your friend.”

“Eh? What?”

“Well, you can’t expect it.”

“Oh, you’re angry with me because I’m fond of Dora. I suppose you saw my telegram and—intercepted it.”

“Yes.”

“Then Dora doesn’t know!”

“No, Dora doesn’t know—nor will she know. Better be dead, my boy—better be dead!”

“I beg your pardon?” queried Dick, gazing at the colonel with dull, tired eyes.

The colonel vouchsafed no explanation, but led the way into the dining-room. He selected a table in a corner, and thrust the menu over to Dick. The sick man’s eyes ran listlessly down the card, and he gave it back.

“I’m too done. You order. Perhaps, a drink’ll pull me up.”

The colonel ordered brandy. He was now able to get a better look at the returned hero. The change 213 in the young man shocked him, and he could see that the hand of death had clutched Dick harshly before letting him go.

“What was it—fever?” he asked, with soldier-like abruptness, as he scanned the lean, weary face.

“Enteric and starvation, and a bit of a wound, too. I was taken prisoner, but, when the ambulance cart was left in a general stampede, I was just able to cry out to a nigger to cut my bonds. He set me free; but, afterward, I think I went mad. I was in our lines, I know. It was a good old Yankee who set me free; but, when reason came, I was again in the wrong camp. The ambulance cart had got into its own lines again. At any rate, I was in different hands, with a different regiment, packed off to a proper prison camp. I sent word home, or thought I’d sent word. I thought you all knew. By Jove, what a lark it will be to turn up and see their faces!”

Dick took a long draught at the brandy, and a little color came into his face.

“I suppose they’ll be glad and all that, as I’m something of a hero,” he continued. “A chap on the train told me that the story of my capture got into the papers, and was written up for all it was worth. Another smack in the eye for Ormsby, that! Nutt got away, and told you I was dead, I suppose.” 214

“Yes,” answered the colonel, gloomily; then, leaning across the table: “Dick, my boy, I don’t want to be hard on you. We are all liable to err. Don’t you think it would have been better if you had remained dead?”

Dick looked blankly into his friend’s face for some moments. A look of fear came into his eyes.

“What’s the matter? What’s happened? Dora’s—alive?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And my father and mother?”

“Oh, yes, yes, they’re well—as well as can be expected under the circumstances.”

“Well, what’s the matter, then? What’s happened?”

“Dick, you must know perfectly well what has happened. Your grandfather found out—the—er—what you did before you went away.”

“What I did before I went away?”

“Well, it’s no good skirmishing. Let’s call it by its proper name—your forgery. Those two checks you cashed at the bank, originally for two and five dollars. I daresay you thought that your grandfather never looked at his pass-book. You were mistaken. And what a confounded fool you must have been to think that two amounts of such magnitude as two thousand and five thousand dollars could be overlooked.” 215

Dick’s lower jaw had dropped a little, and he looked at the colonel in blank surprise, yet with more listlessness than would a man in rude health when amazed. The colonel misread the signs, and saw only the astonishment of guilt unmasked.

“Your mother got the checks for you: but you added to the figures in another ink. The forgery was discovered, and by Ormsby, too, unfortunately, who is no friend of yours. The matter was hushed up, of course. You have to thank Dora for that. A warrant was out for your arrest, but Dora begged Ormsby to stay his hand for the sake of your mother and father. And—er—well, the long and short of it is that Ormsby was prepared to lose seven thousand dollars, rather than ruin your family. The news of your death—your heroic death, as we imagined—came at the opportune moment to help people to forget your folly.”

Dick sat like a stone, calm, pale, holding his glass and listening intently. For an instant he seemed about to faint.

“Of course, we all thought,” continued the colonel, “that you had put yourself into a tight corner on purpose, that you might respectably creep out of your difficulties by dying and troubling nobody. And we respected you for that. Everybody knew that you were up to your eyes in debt, and at loggerheads with your grandfather, that the old man 216 had disinherited you, and all that. But surely you didn’t owe seven thousand dollars!”

“Are you talking about the checks my mother gave me before I went away?” Dick asked, quietly.

“Of course I am. You know the circumstances better than I do. It’s no good playing the fool with me, and I don’t intend to have my daughter upset by telegrams and surreptitious communications. So, now, you know. You’ve done for yourself, my lad, and you’d better face it and remain dead.”

“But my mother—she has explained?”

“Of course, she has, and it’s nearly broken her heart. Think of her awful position, to have to confess that her son altered her checks—checks actually drawn in her name—and the money filched from the bank by a dirty trick! The bank’s got to lose it. Your grandfather won’t pay a cent.”

“But my mother—?” faltered Dick again, leaning forward heavily on the table, and gazing at the colonel with eyes so full of horror that the elder man wondered whether suffering had not turned Dick’s brain.

“Ah, you may well ask about your mother. She tried to do her best, I believe, to get your grandfather to pay up; but the shame of the thing is what I look at. That’s why I came to you here, to-day. If your mother knows no more than Dora and all the rest—if they still think you’re dead—well, 217 why not remain dead? It’s only charity—it’s only kind. Your father and mother think that you died a hero’s death, and, naturally, aren’t disposed to look upon your crime quite in the same light as other people. Why, in heaven’s name, when you got a chance of slipping out of life, and out of the old set, and making a fresh start, didn’t you seize it?”

“You mean, why didn’t I get shot?” asked Dick, slowly.

“Well, not exactly that. You know as well as I do that lots of chaps go to the front to get officially shot, and have their names on the list of the killed—men who really mean to turn over a new leaf, and get a fresh lease of life in another country, under another name, when the war is over. Others get put right out of the way, because they haven’t the courage to do it themselves.”

“But my mother could have explained!” cried Dick, huskily. He was so weak that he was unable to cope with agitation.

“Tut, tut, man, your mother could explain nothing. She could only tell the truth—that she gave you two checks for small amounts, and you put bigger amounts to them, and cashed them at the bank; in short, that her son was a forger.”

“My mother said that!”

“Yes.”

“God help her!” gasped Dick, with a gulp. He 218 put his hand to his throat, and fell forward on the table, senseless.

The colonel jumped up in alarm. Waiters rushed forward, and they revived the sick man by further applications of brandy. He recovered quickly, and food was again set before him.

He ate mechanically, and for a long time there was silence between the two men. The colonel wished himself well out of the business, and felt the brutality of using harsh words to a man in such a condition of health. Yet, he was resolute in his purpose.

Dick appeared somewhat stronger after the meal. Every now and again, he would look up at the colonel in a dazed fashion, as if unable to believe the evidence of his senses. At last, he spoke again.

“I suppose—my brain isn’t what it was. But I’m feeling better. Tell me again what my mother said—and my father.”

The colonel detailed all that he knew, displaying considerable irritation in the process. This attitude of ignorance and innocence nettled him. He wound up with a soldier-like abruptness.

“Well, are you going to live, or do you intend to remain dead?”

“I’m going home.”

“To be arrested?”

“No, to ask some questions.” 219

“Don’t be a fool. You’ll be arrested at the station.”

“No, I sha’n’t. I’ve done a little dodging lately. I shall travel to some other place, and walk home. I’ve faced worse things than—”

The sentence was never finished. He seemed to realize that there could be nothing worse than to be falsely denounced by his own mother—the mother whom he loved and idolized, the most wonderful mother son ever had, the most beautiful woman in New York, the wife of John Swinton, chosen man of God.

“You’d better not come home,” urged the colonel; “at any rate, as far as we are concerned.”

“Ah, that means you intend to cut me.”

“Yes; and as far as Dora is concerned—Well, the fact is, she’s engaged to Ormsby now.”

“Engaged to Ormsby?”

Dick put out his hand almost blindly to take his cap, and adjusted it on his head like a man drunk. He arose and staggered from the table. This was the last straw.

“Look here, boy—you want some money,” exclaimed the colonel, brusquely. “I’ve come prepared. You’ll find some bills in this envelope. Put it in your pocket.”

Dick’s hands hung limply at his sides. The colonel seized him by the loose front of his ulster, and 220 kept him from swaying, at the same time thrusting the envelope into one of his pockets. Then, he took the young man’s arm, and led him out into the vestibule.

“Bear up, my boy—bear up,” he whispered. “You’ve got to face it. You’re dead—remember that. Nobody but myself knows the truth. Be a man, for God’s sake—for your mother’s sake—for your father’s. You’ve got the whole world before you. If things go very wrong—well, you can rely upon me for another instalment—just one more, like the one in your pocket. Write to me under some other name. Call yourself John Smith—do you hear?”

“Yes—John Smith,” echoed Dick, huskily.

“Well, good-bye, my boy—good-bye,” the colonel exclaimed. “I must catch my train.” He tried to say something else. Words failed him. He turned and ignominiously escaped, leaving Dick standing alone, helpless and dazed.

“I’m going home—I’m going home,” muttered Dick, as he thrust his hands into his ulster pockets, and tottered along toward the elevator, for he felt that he must get to his room at once.

“My own mother!—I can’t believe it.”