"What is it, then?"

"How much have we in our private account?"

"Pretty fair. Some eight hundred, I think."

"Oh, half that will be ample. It was rather thoughtless of Pearson."

"What then?"

"Well, you see, dad, when he went away upon this little holiday to Havre he left me to pay accounts and so on. He told me that there was enough at the bank for all claims. I had occasion on Tuesday to pay away two cheques, one for L80, and the other for L120, and here they are returned with a bank notice that we have already overdrawn to the extent of some hundreds."

The Admiral looked very grave. "What's the meaning of that, then?" he asked.

"Oh, it can easily be set right. You see Pearson invests all the spare capital and keeps as small a margin as possible at the bank. Still it was too bad for him to allow me even to run a risk of having a cheque returned. I have written to him and demanded his authority to sell out some stock, and I have written an explanation to these people. In the meantime, however, I have had to issue several cheques; so I had better transfer part of our private account to meet them."

"Quite so, my boy. All that's mine is yours. But who do you think this Pearson is? He is Mrs. Westmacott's brother."

"Really. What a singular thing! Well, I can see a likeness now that you mention it. They have both the same hard type of face."

"She has been warning me against him--says he is the rankest pirate in London. I hope that it is all right, boy, and that we may not find ourselves in broken water."

Harold had turned a little pale as he heard Mrs. Westmacott's opinion of his senior partner. It gave shape and substance to certain vague fears and suspicions of his own which had been pushed back as often as they obtruded themselves as being too monstrous and fantastic for belief.

"He is a well-known man in the City, dad," said he.

"Of course he is--of course he is. That is what I told her. They would have found him out there if anything had been amiss with him. Bless you, there's nothing so bitter as a family quarrel. Still it is just as well that you have written about this affair, for we may as well have all fair and aboveboard."

But Harold's letter to his partner was crossed by a letter from his partner to Harold. It lay awaiting him upon the breakfast table next morning, and it sent the heart into his mouth as he read it, and caused him to spring up from his chair with a white face and staring eyes.

"My boy! My boy!"

"I am ruined, mother--ruined!" He stood gazing wildly in front of him, while the sheet of paper fluttered down on the carpet. Then he dropped back into the chair, and sank his face into his hands. His mother had her arms round him in an instant, while the Admiral, with shaking fingers, picked up the letter from the floor and adjusted his gla.s.ses to read it.

"My DEAR DENVER," it ran. "By the time that this reaches you I shall be out of the reach of yourself or of any one else who may desire an interview. You need not search for me, for I a.s.sure you that this letter is posted by a friend, and that you will have your trouble in vain if you try to find me. I am sorry to leave you in such a tight place, but one or other of us must be squeezed, and on the whole I prefer that it should be you. You'll find nothing in the bank, and about L13,000 unaccounted for. I'm not sure that the best thing you can do is not to realize what you can, and imitate your senior's example. If you act at once you may get clean away. If not, it's not only that you must put up your shutters, but I am afraid that this missing money could hardly be included as an ordinary debt, and of course you are legally responsible for it just as much as I am. Take a friend's advice and get to America.

A young man with brains can always do something out there, and you can live down this little mischance. It will be a cheap lesson if it teaches you to take nothing upon trust in business, and to insist upon knowing exactly what your partner is doing, however senior he may be to you.

"Yours faithfully,

"JEREMIAH PEARSON."

"Great Heavens!" groaned the Admiral, "he has absconded."

"And left me both a bankrupt and a thief."

"No, no, Harold," sobbed his mother. "All will be right. What matter about money!"

"Money, mother! It is my honor."

"The boy is right. It is his honor, and my honor, for his is mine. This is a sore trouble, mother, when we thought our life's troubles were all behind us, but we will bear it as we have borne others." He held out his stringy hand, and the two old folk sat with bowed grey heads, their fingers intertwined, strong in each other's love and sympathy.

"We were too happy," she sighed.

"But it is G.o.d's will, mother."

"Yes, John, it is G.o.d's will."

"And yet it is bitter to bear. I could have lost all, the house, money, rank--I could have borne it. But at my age--my honor--the honor of an admiral of the fleet."

"No honor can be lost, John, where no dishonor has been done. What have you done? What has Harold done? There is no question of honor."

The old man shook his head, but Harold had already called together his clear practical sense, which for an instant in the presence of this frightful blow had deserted him.

"The mater is right, dad," said he. "It is bad enough, Heaven knows, but we must not take too dark a view of it. After all, this insolent letter is in itself evidence that I had nothing to do with the schemes of the base villain who wrote it."

"They may think it prearranged."

"They could not. My whole life cries out against the thought. They could not look me in the face and entertain it."

"No, boy, not if they have eyes in their heads," cried the Admiral, plucking up courage at the sight of the flashing eyes and brave, defiant face. "We have the letter, and we have your character. We'll weather it yet between them. It's my fault from the beginning for choosing such a land-shark for your consort. G.o.d help me, I thought I was finding such an opening for you."

"Dear dad! How could you possibly know? As he says in his letter, it has given me a lesson. But he was so much older and so much more experienced, that it was hard for me to ask to examine his books. But we must waste no time. I must go to the City."

"What will you do?"

"What an honest man should do. I will write to all our clients and creditors, a.s.semble them, lay the whole matter before them, read them the letter and put myself absolutely in their hands."

"That's it, boy--yard-arm to yard-arm, and have it over."

"I must go at once." He put on his top-coat and his hat. "But I have ten minutes yet before I can catch a train. There is one little thing which I must do before I start."

He had caught sight through the long gla.s.s folding door of the gleam of a white blouse and a straw hat in the tennis ground. Clara used often to meet him there of a morning to say a few words before he hurried away into the City. He walked out now with the quick, firm step of a man who has taken a momentous resolution, but his face was haggard and his lips pale.

"Clara," said he, as she came towards him with words of greeting, "I am sorry to bring ill news to you, but things have gone wrong in the City, and--and I think that I ought to release you from your engagement."

Clara stared at him with her great questioning dark eyes, and her face became as pale as his.

"How can the City affect you and me, Harold?"

"It is dishonor. I cannot ask you to share it."

"Dishonor! The loss of some miserable gold and silver coins!"

"Oh, Clara, if it were only that! We could be far happier together in a little cottage in the country than with all the riches of the City.

Poverty could not cut me to the heart, as I have been cut this morning.

Why, it is but twenty minutes since I had the letter, Clara, and it seems to me to be some old, old thing which happened far away in my past life, some horrid black cloud which shut out all the freshness and the peace from it."

"But what is it, then? What do you fear worse than poverty?"