REX RISES TO THE OCCASION
“It’s wonderful. I never heard anything like it.” This was Mrs. Fox’s
exclamation when the four were left alone in the front room again.
“All the credit belongs to you, Mr. Pell,” she went on, turning to
Sydney. “It was you thought of this way of doing things.”
“Oh, he might have recognized him any other way just as quickly,”
returned Sydney. “And now some one must tell him about Mr. Tyler’s
legacy,” he added. “I want to get that off my mind.”
“I guess he can’t stand that to-night, Mr. Pell,” returned the old
lady. “You’d better leave it till tomorrow. I’ll keep Miles here with
him to-night—there’s room—and then they can both go to see you
to-morrow.”
“Yes, that will be the best way,” Sydney agreed. “But I had hoped to
get it off my mind by this time. Come, boys.”
“I trust I shall see you both again,” said Mrs. Fox, as she shook hands
with the twins.
Then the three Pells went out and homeward. It was only nine o’clock.
“Mother ought to know, don’t you think so, Syd?” said Roy.
“Yes, she must know to-night. But I don’t see how I can tell her. I
don’t see how I can. She trusts me so fully.”
“Then let me tell her,” suggested Roy.
“No, no. I must confess myself. I shall do it now as soon as we get
home. Then I can be ready to put myself in Mr. Darley’s hands
to-morrow.”
“Do you think he will—will—” Rex began and came to a sudden stop.
“Send me to jail?” Syd finished for him. “He may. He has a right to do
it. I deserve to go. Oh, boys, I wonder how you can bear to be with
me.”
“You did it for our sakes, Syd,” responded Roy.
But Rex said nothing.
When they reached the house they found Eva and Jess in the parlor,
entertaining company.
“Come in, boys,” Eva called as they passed the door.
Roy and Rex obeyed the summons, leaving Sydney to go up to Mrs. Pell in
the library.
They found Mr. Keeler to be the caller. Rex started when he saw who it
was.
“Why, where is Miles?” asked Jess.
“He stayed with his father,” replied Rex.
“His father!” echoed both girls. “Why, has he found him?”
“Yes,” answered Roy, “Syd found him. There’s a story for you, Mr.
Keeler, a regular romance.”
Rex began to look nervous. He feared that his escapade with Harrington
was about to be related. But Roy skillfully told the main points in
Miles’s career without encroaching on this.
Mr. Keeler stayed until ten o’clock, and while they were talking and
laughing in the parlor, the twins were thinking of what was going on in
the room above.
When they went to kiss their mother good night they saw that she knew.
The girls exclaimed at once at sight of her face.
“You are ill,” cried Eva.
“No, Eva,” rejoined Mrs. Pell, “it is worse than illness.”
The tears welled up in her eyes. She could say no more.
Sydney was not with her, neither was he in his room. The girls were
clamorous to know what was the matter.
“Tell them, Roy, I can’t,” Mrs. Pell at last found voice to say.
Rex could not stay to hear. And Roy never suffered as he did in the few
moments it took him to relate his foster brother’s crime. It seemed as
though it were as cruel as to drive nails into the fair flesh of the
young girls. And yet they must know.
“How could he do it, how could he?” Eva murmured again and again.
“Perhaps he didn’t,” Jess suddenly exclaimed. “He’s nothing to show for
it—the second will, I mean. Perhaps there’s something wrong with his
brain, and he only imagines there was one and he destroyed it.”
But Roy shook his head. There was Ann to prove, if necessary, that she
had signed the other document.
For a long while they sat there. It seemed as if black despair had
settled upon them and there was no way out.
For years Mrs. Pell had leaned upon Sydney. In an emergency like the
present, he would be just the one to whom she would go for counsel. And
now—he had failed her utterly.
“What did you say to him, mother?” asked Roy after a while. “Were—were
you kind to him?”
“I tried to be. I tried to remember that he had done all for our sakes,
but I feel like a ship without a rudder.”
Roy left his seat near Eva and slipped into a chair next his mother,
who had bowed her head on the desk in front of her.
She had been writing a note to a charitable society of which she was a
member. The check she was to send them lay all signed, ready to be
inclosed.
“Moms,” whispered Roy, using the pet name Rex had invented and pressing
one of his mother’s hands tightly in his, “you have us. We are growing
fast. I am sure we shall get along.”
“Bless you, my boy.” His mother kissed him on the forehead, then lifted
her eyes reverently, as she added: “Yes, and I must not forget that
there is One who is always a friend to the needy. And now, children, we
must go to bed. To-morrow we will decide what to do.”
Roy stopped at Rex’s door, went in and found his brother tossing in
bed.
“Have you told the girls?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“How did they take it?”
“Better than I expected they would.”
“But what are we going to do, Roy?” Rex went on. “We can’t stay here.”
“No, of course not.”
“But what will people say? Won’t there be a terrible scandal?”
“You mustn’t talk that way, Rex. Remember that you and I are the ones
mother must depend on now. If she sees us looking on the dark side
it’ll make it so much the harder for her.”
“That’s it,” returned Rex. “Life is something you must go ahead with.
You can’t lay it down when you get tired. All right; I’ll remember what
you say, Roy, but it’s an awful come down.”
Rex, however, “came up to the scratch,” as he himself would have
expressed it, nobly the next day.
Nobody went to church, and about half past eleven the door bell rang
and “Mr. Darley and son” were announced.
Miles, as we shall continue to call him, sent up word to know if he
could come up to Rex’s room.
“Do you know?” asked Reginald, as he met him in the doorway.
“Yes; Mr. Sydney came around to us this morning. I can’t understand it.
But I don’t want you to feel—”
Miles hesitated. It was very embarrassing for him to express just what
he wanted to say. Rex helped him out.
“I’m awfully glad for you, old fellow,” he said heartily. “And I don’t
want you to worry about us. We’ll get along some way.”
“But that won’t do,” Miles persisted. “If it hadn’t been for you I
might have been a common tramp now and never found my father.”
“And if it hadn’t been for you I would probably have been dead long
ago,” Rex retorted. “So you see we’re quits.”
“No, we’re not, and I don’t want that we should, till I give you what I
think you ought to have. Father says I may and—”
“Miles Harding—Darley, I mean, if you do that I’ll—I’ll never speak to
you again. There, take your choice—quits or my friendship.”
Rex’s pride conquered. Miles was still his slave.
“I’ll never say another word about it, Rex,” he replied meekly, and for
the first time Reginald felt that he could face poverty bravely.