Dora hardly knew how she reached home after her visit to Herresford. She had no recollection of anything seen by the way. Her senses swam in an ecstasy too great for words, too intense to allow of impressions from outside. Tears of joy obscured her vision. It was only when she arrived home, and saw her father, and recollected that he had deceived her wilfully, that she had room in her heart for anything but happiness.

The colonel was in the library, turning over the leaves of a house-agent’s catalogue—his favorite occupation at the present time: Ormsby had enlisted his help in search of a suitable home for his bride.

“Here’s a nice little place,” cried the colonel. “They give a picture of it. Why, girl, what a color you’ve got!”

“Yes, father, it’s happiness.”

“That’s right, my girl—that’s right. I’m glad you’re taking a sensible view of things. What did I tell you?” 263

“You told me an untruth, father. You told me that Dick was dead.”

Dora’s eyes flashed, and the colonel looked sheepish. He covered his embarrassment with anger.

“So, the young fool hasn’t taken my advice then? He wants to turn convict. Is that why you’re happy?—because a man who presumed to make love to you behind your father’s back has come home to get sent to the penitentiary, instead of remaining respectably dead when he had the chance?”

“Father, I shall never marry Mr. Ormsby. I have told him so.”

“What! you’ve been down to the bank?”

“No, I have just come from Asherton Hall. What passed there I cannot explain to you at present, but I have written to Vivian, giving him his congÉ.”

“Do you mean to tell me,” thundered the colonel, rising and thumping the table with his clenched fist, “that you’re going to throw over the richest bachelor in the country for a blackguard, a forger, a man who couldn’t play the straight game?”

“Did you play the straight game, father, when you concealed the fact that Dick lived? You meant to trick me into a speedy marriage with your friend.”

“I—I won’t be talked to like this. There comes a time when a father must assert his authority, and I say—” 264

“Father, you’ll be ill, if you excite yourself like this.”

“Don’t talk about playing the straight game to me. I suppose you’ve been to Asherton Hall to see the rascal. He’s hiding there, no doubt.”

“No, he’s not. It is you who know where he is. You’ve seen him, and you must tell me where to find him. I won’t rest till I’ve heard the true story of the forgery from his own lips.”

“If I knew where he was at the present moment,” exclaimed the colonel, thumping the table again, “I’d give information to the police. As for Ormsby, when he gets your letter—if you’ve written it—he’ll search the wide world for him. He will be saving me the trouble. Swinton must pay the penalty—and the sooner the better.”

“I’ve seen Mr. Herresford, who said it was only a question of money.”

“Aha, that’s where you’re wrong. If Ormsby chooses to prosecute, no man can help the young fool. He’s branded forever as a criminal and a felon. Why, if he could inherit his grandfather’s millions, decent people would shut their doors in his face, now.”

“Then, his service to his country counts for nothing,” faltered Dora.

“No; many a man has distinguished himself in the 265 field, but that hasn’t saved him from prison. Dick Swinton is done for. Ormsby will see to that.”

“Vivian is a coward, then, and his action will only show how wise I was to abandon all thought of marrying him.”

“You haven’t abandoned all thought of it. You’re just a silly fool of a girl who won’t take her father’s advice. It is an insult to Ormsby to throw him over for a thieving rascal—”

“Father, you have always prided yourself on being a just man. Yet, you condemn Dick without a hearing.”

“Without a hearing! Haven’t I given him a hearing? I saw him. He had the chance then to deny the charge. His crime is set out in black and white, and he can’t get away from it. No doubt, he thinks he can talk over a silly woman, and scrape his way back to respectable society by marrying my daughter; but no—not if I know it! Marry Dick Swinton, and you go out of my house, never to return. I’ll not be laughed at by my friends and pointed at as a man of loose principles, who allowed his daughter to mate with a blackguard.”

“Father, curb your tongue,” cried Dora, flashing out angrily. Her color was rising, and that determined little mouth, which had excited the admiration of Herresford, was set in a hard, straight line. 266 The colonel was red in the face, and emphasizing his words with his clenched fists, as if he were threatening to strike.

Dora was the first to recover her composure. She turned away with a shrug, and walked out of the room to put an end to the discussion.

Her joy at Dick’s return from the grave was short-lived. The appalling difficulty of the situation was making itself felt. She left the colonel to ramp about the house, muttering, and shut herself in her boudoir, where she proceeded to make short work of everything associated with Vivian Ormsby. His photograph was torn into little pieces; the gifts with which he had loaded her were collected together in a heap; his letters were burned without a sigh. She would have been sorry for him, if he had not conspired with her father to conceal the truth about Dick’s supposed death. She shuddered to think what her position would have been, if she had married Ormsby, and then discovered, when the die was cast, that Dick, her idol, the only one who had touched a responsive chord in her heart, was living, and set aside by fraud.

The scrape into which Dick had got himself could not really be as serious as her father imagined, since the grandfather of the culprit had spoken of it so lightly—and, in any case, the crime of forgery 267 never horrifies a woman as do the supposedly meaner crimes of other theft and of violence. It was surely something that could be put right, and, if it could not, then it would become a battle of heart against conscience. But, at present, love held the field.

It was absolutely necessary to see Dick, and get information on all points; and, as it was quite impossible to extract information from her father as to her lover’s whereabouts, the rectory seemed to be the most likely place to gather news. To the rectory, therefore, she went.

Dick was upstairs, ill. When her name was taken in to the clergyman—she chose the father in preference to the mother from an instinctive distrust of Mrs. Swinton which she could not explain—John Swinton trembled. Cowardice suggested that he should avoid her questioning. He knew why she came; and was not prepared with the answer to the inevitable inquiry, “Where is Dick?” Yet, anything that contributed to Dick’s happiness at this miserable juncture was not to be neglected. Therefore, he received her.

Dora was shocked to see the change in the clergyman. His hand trembled when it met hers, and his eyes looked anywhere but into her face.

“Mr. Swinton, you can guess why I have come.” 268

“I think I know. You have heard the glad news—indeed, everyone seems to have heard it—that my son has been given back to me.”

“And to me, Mr. Swinton.”

“What! Then, you do not turn your back upon him, Miss Dundas!” he cried, with tears in his voice.

“I have come to you, Mr. Swinton, to find out where he is, that I may go to him, and hear from his own lips a denial of the atrocious charge brought against him by the bank.”

“Yes, yes, of course! I don’t wonder that you find it hard to believe.” The guilty rector fidgeted nervously, and covered his confusion by bringing forward a chair.

“I cannot stay, Mr. Swinton, thank you. I have just run down to beg you to put me in communication with your son. Oh, you can’t think what it has meant to me. It has saved me from an unhappy marriage.”

“Your engagement to Mr. Ormsby is broken off?”

“Yes.”

“Because you think you’ll be able to marry Dick?”

“Yes. Why do you speak of Dick like that?” she asked, with a sudden sinking at the heart. “Surely, you do not join in the general condemnation—you, 269 his own father! Oh, it isn’t true what they told me—that he’s a forger, who will have to answer to the law, and go to prison. It isn’t true.”

“Dick himself is the only person who can answer your questions.”

“But where is he? I suppose I can write to him?”

“He’s in hiding,” said the rector, brokenly. The words seemed to be choking him.

“In hiding! Dick, who faced a dozen rifles and flung defiance in the teeth of his country’s enemies—in hiding!”

“Just for the present—just for the present. You see, they would arrest him. It’s so much better to prepare a defense when one has liberty than—than—from the Tombs.”

“Then, you will not tell me where he is?”

The information Dora vainly sought came to her by an accident. Netty, unaware of the presence of a visitor in the house, walked into the study, and commenced to speak before she was well into the room.

“Father, Dick wants the papers. He’s finished the book and—Oh, Miss Dundas!”

“He is here—in this house?” cried Dora, flushing angrily at the rector’s want of trust. “Oh, why didn’t you tell me? Do you think that I would betray him? Why didn’t you let me know? How 270 long has he been home? Oh, please let me go to him!”

Father and daughter looked at one another in confusion.

“I intended to tell you, Miss Dundas, after I had asked my son’s permission. You see, we are all in league with him here. If the police got an inkling of his presence in the house, it would be very awkward.”

“I don’t think Dick would like to see you just now,” interjected Netty. “You see, he’s ill—he’s very ill, and much broken.”

“Now that you know he is here,” interposed the rector, “there can be no objection to your seeing him. I must first inform him of your coming—that he may be prepared. I’m sure he will be glad to see you.”

The rector escaped to fulfil a difficult and painful mission. He had almost forgotten the existence of his son’s sweetheart, and was only conscious that she added to the troubles of an already trying situation. The noble fellow, who was prepared to take the burden of his mother’s sin, would certainly find it hard to justify himself in the eyes of the woman he loved. And, if he set himself right in Dora’s eyes, that would mean—? He trembled to think what it would mean. 271

Dora and Netty, in the study, maintained an unnatural reserve, in which there was silent antagonism. Dora relieved the situation by a commonplace.

“You must be overjoyed, Netty, to have your brother back again.”

“Overjoyed!” exclaimed Netty, with a shrug. “I’m likely to lose a husband. A disgraced brother is a poor exchange.”

“You don’t mean to say that Harry Bent would be so mean as to withdraw because your brother—”

“Oh, yes, say it—because my brother is a criminal. I don’t pity him, and you’ll find your father less lenient than mine. All thought of an engagement between you and Dick is now, of course, absurd.”

“That is for Dick to decide,” said Dora, quietly. But there was a horrible sinking at her heart, and tears came to her eyes. She walked to the window to hide her emotion from unsympathetic eyes. She almost hated Netty. Everyone seemed to be conspiring to overthrow her idol. They would not give her half a chance of believing him innocent. She positively quaked at the prospect of hearing from Dick’s own lips his version of the story.

When the clergyman came down, he entered with bowed head and haggard face, like a beaten man. He signed to Netty that he wished to be alone with 272 Dora, and, when the girl was gone, went over to his visitor, and laid a trembling hand upon her shoulder.

“My dear Miss Dundas, my son desires to see you, and speak with you alone. He will say—he will tell you things that may make you take a harsh view of—of his parents. I exhort you, in all Christian charity, to suspend your judgment, and be merciful—to us, at least. I am a weak man—weaker than I thought. This is a time of humiliation for us, a time of difficulty, bordering on ruin. Have mercy. That is all I ask.”

Without waiting for a reply, he led the way upstairs. Dora followed with beating heart, conscious of a sense of mystery. At the door of Dick’s room, the rector left her.

“Go in,” he murmured, hoarsely.

“Dora!”

It was Dick’s voice. He was reclining in a deck-chair, wrapped around with rugs, and with a book lying in his lap. He was less drawn and pinched than when he first returned, but the change in him was still great enough to give her a sudden wrench at the heart.

“Oh, Dick! Dick!” she cried, flinging away her muff and rushing to him. “Oh, my poor Dick! What have they done to you?” 273

He smiled weakly, and allowed her to wind her arms about his neck as she knelt by his side.

“They’ve nearly killed me, Dora. But I’m not dead yet. I’m in hiding here, as I understand father told you. You don’t mean to give me the go-by just because people are saying things about me?”

“Indeed, no. But the things they’re saying, Dick, are dreadful, and I wanted to hear from your own lips that they’re not true.”

“You remember what I said to you before I went away?”

“I remember, and I have been loyal to my promise.”

“Well, you can continue loyal, little one. I am no forger—but I fear they’re going to put me into jail, and I must go through with it, as I’ve had to go through lots of ugly things out there.” He shuddered.

“But, Dick, if the charge is false, why cannot you refute it?”

“Ah, there you have me, Dora. If you force me to explain, I will. It concerns one who is near and dear to me, and I would rather be silent. If, however, there is the slightest doubt in your mind of my innocence, you must know everything.”

“I—I would rather know,” pleaded Dora, whose curiosity was overmastering. 274

“But is your faith in me conditional? Is not my word enough?”

“It is enough for me, Dick—but it is the others—father, and—”

“Ah! I understand. But what do other people matter—now? You’re going to marry Ormsby, I understand.”

Dora looked down, and her hand trembled in his as she sought for words to explain a situation which was hardly explainable.

“Well—you see—Dick—they told me you were dead. We all gave you up as a lost hero.”

“Yet, before the grass had grown over my supposed grave, you were ready to transfer your love to—that cad.”

“Not my love, Dick—not my love! Believe me, I was broken-hearted. They said dreadful things about you, and I couldn’t prove them untrue, and I didn’t want everybody to think—Well, father pressed it. I was utterly wretched. I knew I should never love anybody else, dearest—nobody else in the world, and I didn’t care whom I married.”

It was the sweetest reasoning, and of that peculiarly feminine order which the inherent vanity of man cannot resist. Dick’s only rebuke was a kiss.

“Well, Dora, I’m not a marrying man, now. I’m not even respectable. As soon as I’m well, I’ve got 275 to disappear again. But the idea of your marrying Ormsby—”

“It’s off, Dick—off! I gave him his dismissal the moment I heard—”

“Did your father tell you I was alive?”

“No, your grandfather told me.”

“Ye gods! You don’t mean to say you’ve seen him!”

“Yes, Dick, and I think he’s the dearest old man alive. He was most charming. He isn’t really a bit horrid. My letter dismissing Mr. Ormsby was posted at his own request. So, if you want me, Dick, I am yours still. More wonderful still, he told me things I could hardly believe.”

“He’s a frightful old liar, is grandfather.”

“I don’t think he was lying, Dick. You’ll laugh at his latest eccentricity. He told me he would alter his will and leave everything to me—not to you—to me.”

“But why?”

“Well, I suppose—I suppose that he thought—”

Dora played with the fringe of the rug on Dick’s knee as she still knelt by his side, and seemed embarrassed.

“I think I understand,” laughed Dick. “He’s taken a fancy to you.”

“Yes, Dick, I think he has. It is because he 276 thinks—that you have taken a fancy to me—that—oh, well, can’t you understand?”

She rested her cheek against his, and, as he folded her to his heart, he understood.

“So, grandfather has turned matchmaker. I’ll warrant he thinks you are a skinflint, and will take care of his money.”

“That’s it, Dick. He thinks I’m the most economical person. I saw him looking at my dress, a cheap, tweed walking affair. Oh, good gracious, if he had seen my wardrobe at home, or the housekeeping and the stable accounts!”

“Then, you’ll have to keep it up, darling. Next time you go to see him, borrow a dress from your maid.”

“Dick, your grandfather talked of getting you out of your scrape. What does that mean? If he pays the seven thousand dollars, will it get you off?”

“It is not a question of money, now. It is a question of the penitentiary, darling. And I don’t see that it is fair to hold you to any pledges. I’ve got to go through with this business. You couldn’t marry an ex-convict.”

“Dick, if you are not guilty, if you have done no wrong, you are shielding someone else who has.” Dora arose to her feet impatiently, and stood looking down almost angrily.

“Dora, Dora, don’t force it out of me!” he 277 pleaded. “If you think a little, you’ll understand.”

“I have thought. I can understand nothing. They told me that your mother’s checks—”

Even as she spoke, she understood. The knowledge flashed from brain to brain.

“Oh, Dick—your mother!—Mrs. Swinton! Oh!”

“Grandfather drove her to it, Dora. You mustn’t be hard on her.”

“And she let them accuse you—her son—when you were supposed to have died gloriously—oh, horrible!”

“Ah, that’s the worst of being a newspaper hero. The news that I’m home has got abroad somehow, and those journalist fellows are beginning to write me up again. I wish they’d leave me alone. They make things so hard.”

“Dick, you’re not going to ruin your whole career, and blacken your reputation, because your mother hasn’t the courage to stand by her wickedness.”

“It wasn’t the sort of thing you’d do, Dora, I know. But mother’s different. Never had any head for money, and didn’t know what she was doing. She looked upon grandfather’s money as hers and mine.”

“But when they thought you were dead—oh, horrible. It was infamous!”

“Dora, Dora, you promised to be patient.” 278

“Does your father know? He does, of course! A clergyman!”

“Leave him out of it. Poor old dad—it’s quite broken him up. Think of it, Dora, the wife of the rector of St. Botolph’s parish to go to jail. That’s what it would mean. The rector himself disgraced, and his children stigmatized forever. An erring son is a common thing; and an erring brother doesn’t necessarily besmirch a sister’s honor. Can’t you see, Dora, that it’s hard enough for them to bear without your casting your stone as well?”

“Oh, Dick, I can’t understand it. Has she no mother feeling? How could a woman do such a thing? Her own son! To take advantage of his death to defile his memory. Oh, if I had known, I—I would have—”

“Hush, hush, Dora! If you knew what my mother has suffered, and if you could look into my father’s stricken heart, you’d be willing to overlook a great deal. When I get out of the country, I’m going to make a fresh start. Ormsby has set spies around the house like flies, and, as you’ve thrown him over now, he’ll be doubly venomous. I only wanted to set myself right in your eyes, and absolve you from all pledges.”

“But I don’t want to be absolved,” sobbed Dora, dropping on her knees again, and seeking his breast. “Oh, Dick, Dick, you are braver than they know. 279 Was it not easier to face the firing party than to endure the ignominy of this unmerited disgrace?”

“There’s no help for it. I must go through with it. Don’t shake my courage. A man must stick up for his mother.”

“Oh, Dick, there must be some other way.”

“There is no other—unless—unless my grandfather consents to acknowledge those checks, and declares that the alterations were made with his knowledge. But that he will not do—because he knows who did it—and he is merciless. I don’t care a snap of my finger for the world. You are my world, Dora. If you approve, then I am game. I shall be all right in a few days, and then—then I’ll go and do my bit of time, and see the inside of Sing-Sing. It’ll be amusing. There’s a cab. That’s mother come home.”

“Oh, I can’t face her!” cried Dora, with hardening mouth.

“Go away without seeing her, darling. Promise you won’t reveal what I’ve told you.”

“I can’t promise. It’s horrible!”

“You must—you must, little girl.”

And in the end, much against her will, she was persuaded to keep silence.