CHAPTER XXIV

d.i.c.k EXPLAINS TO DORA

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?"

"You told me an untruth, father. You told me that d.i.c.k was dead."

Dora's eyes flashed, and the colonel looked sheepish. He covered his embarra.s.sment 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 pa.s.sed there I cannot explain to you at present, but I have written to Vivian, giving him his _conge_."

"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 d.i.c.k 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 a.s.sert his authority, and I say--"

"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 field, but that hasn't saved him from prison. d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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 sc.r.a.pe his way back to respectable society by marrying my daughter; but no--not if I know it! Marry d.i.c.k 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. 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 d.i.c.k'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 a.s.sociated 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 d.i.c.k'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 d.i.c.k, her idol, the only one who had touched a responsive chord in her heart, was living, and set aside by fraud.

The sc.r.a.pe into which d.i.c.k 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 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 d.i.c.k, 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.

d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k?" Yet, anything that contributed to d.i.c.k'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."

"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 d.i.c.k?"

"Yes. Why do you speak of d.i.c.k like that?" she asked, with a sudden sinking at the heart. "Surely, you do not join in the general condemnation--you, 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."

"d.i.c.k himself is the only person who can answer your questions."