"You confess that you robbed your uncle's safe."

"I admit that I helped myself to certain things in it which I wanted. I am ready to admit it anywhere you choose to place me," I replied, easily and good-naturedly.

"Are you aware that you have committed a crime?" said he, more pointedly than he had before spoken.

"I don't think I have committed any crime, or even any wrong. If you think so, Mr. Tom Thornton, you are welcome to your opinion."

"I do think so," he answered, beginning to be a little excited. "Do you know that I can arrest you, and send you to prison?"

"I do know it; and I respectfully ask, Why don't you do it?"

"Why don't I do it?" repeated he, apparently amazed at my impudence, and disappointed because an arrest and a prison appeared to have no terrors to me.

"Yes, why don't you do it?"

"I'll tell you why I don't do it. Because your uncle is weak, and don't wish to injure you. That's the reason."

"That isn't the reason. I want to tell you, Mr. Tom Thornton, that nothing would suit me better than to have you arrest me, and send me to prison."

This answer vexed him so much that he jumped up, and walked off.

CHAPTER XVI.

IN WHICH ERNEST MAKES A LANDING ON THE HUDSON.

TOM THORNTON was no fool, and it was easy enough for him to see that I understood the situation. It was useless for him to tell me that any tenderness on the part of my uncle saved me from arrest, for the son would have crushed me like a worm beneath his feet in spite of the father. I think he got up and left me because he could not control his temper, and feared a scene. He cooled off in a few moments, and came back, as I knew he would.

"You defy me to arrest you--do you, Ernest?" said he, dropping into the seat at my side.

"Yes; if you wish to put it in that form, I defy you to arrest me. I repeat that I should be very glad to have you do it."

"Why so?" asked he, nervously.

"It would give me a chance to defend myself, and that is just what I want, now I have the means to do so."

"You have some queer conceits, young man," sneered he. "What have you done with that girl?"

"She is safe."

"I asked you what you had done with her."

"And I didn't answer you."

"What have you done with her?"

"She is safe."

"Running away with her is another criminal offence."

"If it is, I shall fight that battle on the same ground with the other.

If you choose to take me back to Parkville on any charge, of course you can do so. If you do, a certain doc.u.ment will be brought to light, which will convince Mrs. Loraine and everybody else, that Mr. Tom Thornton, with his gold watch and chain, his span of bays, and his fine clothes, isn't worth a dollar in the world."

Tom's lip actually quivered.

"I don't want to injure you, Ernest," said he. "Your uncle is not willing that you should be brought to justice."

"I have no desire to bring him to justice, either."

"You talk like a fool, like a small boy," said he, impatiently.

"Then don't talk with me."

"You will make out that you haven't done anything wrong yourself, but your friends have made a martyr of you. When I offer to get you out of the sc.r.a.pe into which you have plunged, you speak just as though you were the injured party."

"Exactly so, and I speak just what I mean. You talk to me just as though you and your father had not suppressed my father's will, intending to rob me of my inheritance, and kept my mother in a madhouse for ten or a dozen years."

"What sort of bosh are you talking now?" demanded Tom, with an effort, while his face was pale, and his frame trembled.

"I can prove it all. If you and your father wish to tell me where my mother is, and to make terms you can tell me what you will do," I added, following up my advantage.

"You have taken some ridiculous notion into your head, and I really don't know what you are talking about."

"Did you ever read my father's will?"

"Your father's will!" exclaimed he. "I never heard that he made a will.

If he did, it was the most ridiculous thing he ever did in the whole course of his life, for he hadn't a penny to leave."

"Perhaps you can tell me why my uncle so persistently refused to tell me anything about my father or my mother?"

"I certainly can if you insist upon it; though, having more regard for you than you have for yourself, I should prefer to follow your uncle's example, and not say anything about them."

"I will not ask you to spare my feelings, Mr. Tom Thornton. Your father went so far, when I insisted upon it, as to tell me that my mother was insane."

"She is, poor woman, and I don't wonder that her reason was dethroned,"

replied Tom, whose face brightened up wonderfully as he spoke.

"He refused to tell me anything about my father."

"Which was very kind of him. Your uncle is a strange man; but his greatest weakness is his regard for you. It is best you should know nothing of your father; but if you wish to know, I'll tell you."

"I do wish to know."

"He committed a forgery in London, and died in Newgate before his trial took place. Your poor mother was so grieved that it made her insane. Now you know the whole truth, and you can understand why your uncle did not wish to talk to you about your father."

I confess that I was rather startled by this explanation, and I could not help asking myself if there was any truth in it. It certainly accounted for my uncle's unwillingness to tell me anything about my parents. But I would not believe it. It was treachery to my father's memory to do so.