DICK'S RETURN
The deepest stillness of night had settled down on Riverside Drive, when
Dick Swinton came cautiously along the cross-town street, and paused near
the corner, looking suspiciously to left and to right. Convinced, at
last, that no one was about, he advanced toward his home in the shadow of
the houses, going warily. At the beginning of the rectory grounds, he
stopped and leaned against the wall, peering into the shadows for signs
of a watching figure. All was silent as the grave. He slipped to the side
gate without meeting anyone. Still going cautiously, he entered without a
sound. The place was in shadow, but from a window on the ground floor a
narrow beam of light shot out on the drive and across the lawn. It came
from between the half-closed curtains of his father's study.
The rector was at work. It was Friday. Dick had chosen the day and the
hour because he knew that it was his father's custom to sit up far into
the night, preparing his Sunday sermon. Sunday morning's discourse was
prepared on Friday evening; the evening homily on Saturday.
He crept to the window, and looked in. The light from the lamp was
shining on his father's hair. How white it was! The iron-gray streaks
were quite gone. And yet how little time had elapsed! The rector's Bible
was at his elbow, lying open, and the desk was covered with sheets of
manuscripts, spread about in unmethodical fashion. At the moment when
Dick looked in, the rector picked up his Bible, and laid it open before
him on the desk.
"He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth them
shall have mercy."
John Swinton arose from the table, and closed the book abruptly. His
study fire had burned low, yet the sermon was only half-finished.
For weeks past, his life had been a hideous burden. It was unendurable.
Every time he opened his Bible, he read his own condemnation; and, as he
slowly paced his study, he muttered text after text, always dealing with
the one thing--confession.
He was between the devil and the deep sea. His wife's arguments for
silence were unanswerable. The call of his conscience was unanswerable,
too, except in one way--by confession. He was a living lie; his
priesthood, a mockery. There was not a father or a mother in his
congregation who would not turn from him in horror, if it were known that
he shielded the guilty beneath the pall of the honorable dead.
As the rector walked up and down the room, Dick was able to look upon
his father's face unobserved. The change shocked him. Was it grief for a
dead son, or grief for an erring one, that had whitened his hair and
hollowed his cheeks?
In the few days that had elapsed since his interview with Colonel Dundas,
Dick had pulled up wonderfully. He had not come on to New York until he
felt himself strong enough to face the ordeal before him. He had forgiven
his mother from the first. What she did must have been done with the best
intentions. The poverty of her son and the dire distress of his father
had tempted her to obtain possession of money by forgery. The bank had at
once suspected the ne'er-do-well son. The son had been proclaimed dead,
and the mother had chosen silence.
These things, so unforgivable, were at once condoned by the
tender-hearted lad, who only remembered his mother's caresses and her
constant anxiety for his welfare from the day of his birth. It was the
loss of Dora that stung him most--the thought that she had believed him
dead and disgraced. His father's attitude puzzled him more, and he
naturally jumped to the conclusion that John Swinton knew nothing; that
he was deceived by his wife, like the rest; otherwise, he would have
scouted the lie on the instant, no matter what the consequences. Such was
the son's belief in his father's integrity.
What would his father's reception be?
He raised his finger to tap at the window, but paused as this thought
occurred to him. The rector could not fail to receive him back from the
dead joyfully; but there would be the inevitable reckoning to pay. Even
now, the lad hesitated, wondering whether, after all, Colonel Dundas were
not right in declaring him better dead. But he was not without hope; and
his determination to be set right in Dora's eyes was inflexible.
He tapped at the window, gently. The rector started and listened, but
hearing nothing further, supposed that he had been mistaken as to the
sound.
The prodigal tapped again, this time with a coin. There was no mistaking
the summons. The rector went to the window, flung back the curtains, and
peered out, standing between the window and the light.
Dick pressed himself close to the glass, and took off his cap.
"Father!" he cried. "Open the window."
It was Dick's voice, but not Dick's face.
"Open the window."
Like a man in a dream, the rector loosened the catch, and opened the
casement.
"Father--father! It is I--Dick--alive! and glad to be home."
The clergyman retreated as from a ghost--afraid.
"Don't be afraid of me. The report of my death was all a mistake,
father."
"Dick--Dick--my boy--back--alive!"
The father folded his son to his heart, with a cry of joy and a sudden
rush of tears. He babbled incoherently, and gasped for breath. Dick
supported the faltering steps to the chair by the desk. Then, he closed
the window silently, and flinging his cap upon the table, slowly divested
himself of the long ulster.
The inevitable pause of embarrassment followed.
"I've come to have a talk with you, father," said Dick, cheerily. He
seized the poker, and raked together the embers of the dying fire, as
naturally as though no interval of time had elapsed since he was there
last.
The rector wiped his eyes and pulled himself together, realizing, after
the first rush of emotion, the terrible situation created by his son's
return. His natural impulse was to rush upstairs to Mary, and tell her
the glad news--glad, yet terrible. But Dick forestalled him by remarking
quite casually:
"I want to see you first, father, before telling mother. My coming back
will be a shock; and she ought to be prepared."
"Yes--you've taken me by surprise, my boy. Why didn't you write? Why
didn't you let us know? Why didn't you telegraph?"
"I did write, and I thought you knew all about it, and would be expecting
me, and, as soon as I landed, I telegraphed to Dora Dundas, thinking she
would call on mother. But the colonel intercepted my telegram, and came
himself, and told me of the--of the--"
The rector looked down at his desk; he could not face his son. His hand
involuntarily clenched as it rested on the table.
"He told me of the mess I've got myself into over the bank business--told
me they would arrest me if I came home. But I couldn't keep away,
father." There were tears in Dick's voice now. "I just wanted to see you
before--before emigrating."
"Emigrating, my boy! Why should you emigrate?"
This was hardly the tone that Dick expected: no reproach, no
questioning.
"It's no good running the risk of a prosecution, is it, father? And, as
I've disgraced the family, I'd--"
"You mean to say that you don't deny the bank's charge of forgery?"
"No--no, father, I don't deny it. Why should I?"
The rector looked at his son helplessly, in agonized appeal. His hands
went up, and he bowed his head before him. Dick was the strong man, and
he the weak one. Dick was ready to be wiped out of existence, rather
than betray his mother. He believed that his father knew nothing.
"Dick--forgive!" The stricken father took a step forward, but his
strength gave out, and he dropped upon his knees at his son's feet.
"Dick! Dick! We are sinners, your mother and I. I ask your pardon.
Forgive me, boy, forgive--It was my wish from the first that you should
be set straight. I knew you were incapable of a fraud, and your mother
confessed everything to me. I only consented to the blackening of your
name at--at your mother's entreaty--to save Netty's life from ruin and
your mother from prison."
"That's all right, father--that's all right," cried Dick huskily, with an
affected cheeriness, as he raised the stricken man. "I'm not able to
grapple with it all just now. You see, I've had enteric, and am still
shaky. I've thought it all out. Mother was--was foolish. She wanted to
set us all straight, to pay my debts and save me from arrest. Well, I can
but return the compliment. A fellow can't see his own mother sent to
prison. She did it for love of her husband and children. She only
defrauded her own father; and, if he had an ounce of sentiment in him, or
was in his right mind, he'd acknowledge the checks, and make us disgorge
in some other way. I felt like going up to Asherton Hall first, and
strangling the old villain in his bed."
"Dick, my boy, it is not his fault. It is he who has been right, and we
who have been wrong. No man should spend money he does not possess. Debts
that a man can never pay are robberies. I have condoned, I am worse than
she--worse than all of you--I, the clergyman, who have been given the
care of souls. Dick, there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that
repenteth, and your mother and I have sincerely repented; but we have not
atoned. You must see her to-night, and tell her that you mean to come
home. You must tell the truth, and set yourself right in the eyes of all
men. Your father and mother don't matter. You have a life before you, and
a name that should go down in history, honored--"
"Oh, nonsense, father! What I've been through is nothing to what some of
the chaps suffered. Some thriving colony is the place for me under a new
name, a new life. So long as mother and you know, and send me a cheery
word sometimes, and wish me well, I shall be all right. You see, it's
easier to go when the girl that a fellow loves is--is going to marry
another man, a rich man--a cad. But that's her affair. She thinks I'm a
bad lot, and put away under the turf, and she's going to live her life
comfortably like other people, I suppose. Old Dundas was always keen on
Ormsby. When she's married--and settled down--then you must tell her the
truth--that I didn't alter those checks, that I wasn't such a cheat, nor
a coward either. Don't let her think I died a skunk who wanted to be shot
to avoid the consequences of a forgery. Yes, you'll have to tell her
that, father--you'll have to tell her--"
The words came out with difficulty. Dick, who was standing on the
hearthrug, put out his hand blindly for support. It rested on a table for
a moment, but only for a moment. His lips parted, and his eyes closed.
Ere the rector could rush to his aid, he slipped to the floor in a faint.
Emotion, in his present weak state, was too much for him. He had
overestimated his strength.
"Dick--my boy!--my boy!" cried the father, raising him tenderly in his
arms. "He'll die--he'll die after all!"
The study door opened suddenly. Mary in her nightdress, with her hair
about her shoulders, and her eyes staring, entered the room, barefooted.
"I heard his voice, John--I heard his voice!" she cried, in shrill fear.
"Mary! Help, help! He's here--Dick--alive! He's fainted!"
The table stood between her and the dark form in the shadow on the floor.
She advanced slowly.
"Dick--not dead!" she screamed.
Her cry rang through the house and awakened everybody. Netty heard the
words upstairs, and sat up in bed, trembling. The servants heard them,
and began to dress hurriedly.
Dick was lifted by his father from the floor to the couch, and the
conscience-stricken mother looked on with drawn, white face. Love
conquered her fear, and she put her arms about him and kissed him; but,
when he opened his eyes, she drew away out of sight, fearing reproach.
His first words might be bitter denunciation.
"He knows all; he understands," whispered the rector.
The study door stood open, and in another moment they became conscious of
the half-clad figure of Jane, the housekeeper, looking in.
"Mr. Dick!" she screamed. "Mr. Dick! Not dead!" She turned and rushed
upstairs to Netty's room.
She found Netty in a panic, pale and trembling.
"What has happened?"
"Mr. Dick--he's alive! alive! He's come home."
"He'll be arrested," was Netty's only thought, and she thrust Jane out of
the room, telling her to hold her tongue. It was bitterly cold, and she
went back to bed. She guessed that there must be a painful interview in
progress down in the study, and her own joy--if any--at the return of her
disgraced brother could wait.
She had no two points of view. She was sorry that Dick had returned. She
regretted that the forger was not dead. It was so hideously inconvenient
when one wanted to get married to have a disreputable brother in the
family. She then and there resolved that Dick need not think he would
ever get money out of Harry Bent.
It was a strange home-coming for the prodigal. His intention to emigrate
as soon as he had seen his father and mother was frustrated by an attack
of weakness, which made it impossible for him to be moved. He was helped
to bed, miserably conscious that self-sacrifice would entail more than
emigration. If he took upon his shoulders the family burden, it would be
as a prisoner and a convict. The secret of his home-coming could not be
kept, and Ormsby's warrant must take effect.