"Rex, spare me, for Heaven's sake!" she faltered. "I did it for the best. I have suffered more than you know."

"I am glad to hear it. You have a good nature in its depths, but the canker of society has almost destroyed it. That is why you and I are about to talk business."

"I am feeling faint. Let matters rest a few hours."

He strode to the bell and summoned a servant. "Bring some brandy and two gla.s.ses," he said when the man came.

It was an unusual order at that hour. Silently the servant obeyed.

Carshaw looked out of the window, while his mother, true to her caste, affected nonchalance before the domestic.

"Now," said he when they were alone, "drink this. It will steady your nerves."

She was frightened at last. Her hand shook as it took the proffered gla.s.s.

"What has happened?" she asked, with quavering voice. She had never seen her son like this before. There was a hint of inflexible purpose in him that terrified her. When he spoke the new crispness in his voice shocked her ears.

"Mere business, I a.s.sure you. Not another word about Winifred. I shall find her, sooner or later, and we shall be married then, at once. But, by queer chance, I have been looking into affairs of late. The manager of our Ma.s.sachusetts mills tells me that trade is slack. We have been running at a loss for some years. Our machinery is antiquated, and we have not the acc.u.mulated reserves to replace it. We are in debt, and our credit begins to be shaky. Think of that, mother--the name of Carshaw pondered over by bank managers and discounters of trade bills!"

"Senator Meiklejohn mentioned this vaguely," she admitted.

"Dear me! What an interest he takes in us! I wonder why? But, as a financial magnate, he understands things."

"Your father always said, Rex, that trade had its cycles--fat years and lean years, you know."

"Yes. He built up our prosperity by hard work, by spending less than half what he earned, not by living in a town house and gadding about in society. Do you remember, mother, how he used to laugh at your pretty little affectations? I think I own my share of the family brains, though, so I shall act now as he would have acted."

"Do you wish to goad me into hysteria? What are you driving at?" she shrieked.

"That is the way to reach the heart of the mystery--get at the facts, eh? They're simple. The business needs three hundred thousand dollars to give it solidity and staying power; then four or five years' good and economical management will set it right. We have been living at the rate of fifty thousand dollars a year. For some time we have been executing small mortgages to obtain this annual income, expecting the business to clear them. Now the estates must come to the help of the business."

"In what way?" she gasped.

"They must be mortgaged up to the hilt to pay off the small sums and find the large one. It will take ten years of nursing to relieve them of the burden. Not a penny must come from the mills."

"How shall we live?" she demanded.

"I have arranged that. Your marriage settlement of two thousand five hundred dollars a year is secured; that is all. How big it seemed in your eyes when you were a bride! How little now, though your real needs are less! I shall take a sufficient salary as a.s.sistant manager while I learn the business. It means two thousand dollars a year for housekeeping, and I have calculated that the sale of all our goods will pay our personal debts and leave you and me five thousand each to set up small establishments."

Mrs. Carshaw flounced into a chair. "You must be quite mad!" she cried.

"No, mother, sane--quite sane--for the first time. Don't you believe me?

Go to your lawyers; the scheme is really theirs. They are good business men, and congratulated me on taking a wise step. So you see, mother, I really cannot afford a fashionable wife."

"I am--choking!" she gasped. For the moment anger filled her soul.

"Now, be reasonable, there's a good soul. Five thousand in the bank, twenty-five hundred a year to live on. Why, when you get used to it you will say you were never so happy. What about dinner? Shall we start economizing at once? Let's pay off half a dozen servants before we sit down to a chop! Eh, tears! Well, they'll help. Sometimes they're good for women. Send for me when you are calmer!"

With a look of real pity in his eyes he bent and kissed her forehead.

She would have kept him with her, but he went away.

"No," he said, "no discussion, you remember; and I must fix a whole heap of things before we dine!"

CHAPTER XIX

CLANCY EXPLAINS

Carshaw phoned the Bureau, asking for Clancy or the chief. Both were out.

"Mr. Steingall will be here to-morrow," said the official in charge.

"Mr. Clancy asked me to tell you, if you rang up, that he would be away till Monday next."

This was Wednesday evening. Carshaw felt that fate was using him ill, for Clancy was the one man with whom he wanted to commune in that hour of agony. He dined with his mother. She, deeming him crazy after a severe attack of calf-love, humored his mood. She was calm now, believing that a visit to the lawyers next day, and her own influence with the mill-manager and the estate superintendent, would soon put a different aspect on affairs.

A telegram came late: "No news."

He sought Senator Meiklejohn at his apartment, but the fox, scenting hounds, had broken covert.

"The Senator will be in Washington next week," said the discreet Phillips. "At present, sir, he is not in town."

Carshaw made no further inquiry; he knew it was useless. In the morning another telegram: "No news!"

He set his teeth, and smilingly agreed to accompany his mother to the lawyers'. She came away in tears. Those serious men strongly approved of her son's project.

"Rex has all his father's grit," said the senior partner. "In a little time you will be convinced that he is acting rightly."

"I shall be dead!" she snapped.

The lawyer lifted his hands with a deprecating smile. "You have no secrets from me, Mrs. Carshaw," he said. "You are ten years my junior, and insurance actuaries give women longer lives than men when they have attained a certain age."

Carshaw visited Helen Tower. She was fluttered. By note he had asked for a _tete-a-tete_ interview. But his first words undeceived her.

"Where is Meiklejohn?" he asked.

"Do you mean Senator Meiklejohn?" she corrected him.

"Yes; the man who acted in collusion with you in kidnapping my intended wife."

"How dare you--"

"Sit down, Helen; no heroics, please. Or perhaps you would prefer that Ronald should be present?"

"This tone, Rex--to me!" She was crimson with surprise.

"You are right: it is better that Tower should not be here. He might get a worse _douche_ than his plunge into the river. Now, about Meiklejohn?

Why did he conspire with you and my mother to carry off Winifred Bartlett?"