VICTORY.
"The pity of it--oh, the pity of it!" were John Brancker's first words
as soon as he was able in some measure to control his feelings. "What
you have told me has both shocked and grieved me as I was never
shocked or grieved before. But do not say a word more about it, Mr.
Clement, either now or at any future time. I would infinitely rather
that you should not, and you may rest assured that I shall never ask
you a single question."
"You can judge for yourself, Mr. Brancker, what my reasons were for
telling you this," said Clem, whose brief burst of emotion had left
him pale and calm. "Your career in life has been to a great extent
compromised. A certain amount of suspicion in connection with what the
world, in its ignorance of the facts of the case, naturally regards as
a great crime, still clings to you, and to all seeming will continue
to do so for years to come, if not as long as you live. It is now in
your power to dispel that suspicion once and forever, and to clear
away the dark cloud which has lowered over you for so many months. To
do this needs only that you should make known to the world the facts
which I have laid before you to-day."
"And do you for one moment believe, my dear Mr. Clement, that I should
even dream of doing anything of the kind?" demanded John, with a sort
of sad surprise. "I loved and honored your father. He was my friend at
a time when I had no other friend in the world. He took me by the
hand; he found a situation for me; I owe everything to him. You know
that I am innocent; your brother knows it; that is enough. Perhaps you
won't mind my telling my sister--I have no secrets from her--but not
another creature shall hear it from me. Let the world continue to
suspect me if it thinks well to do so. I can afford to appraise its
doubts and suspicions at their proper value, which is no value at all.
Henceforth I shall despise them, and I think, Mr. Clement, a man can
always afford to live down a thing that he holds in contempt."
Clem drew a deep breath. The relief which John's words had given him
no one but himself could estimate. Still, in common fairness to this
generous-souled man, he felt bound to protest against a decision so
adverse to his interests.
"It seems to me, Mr. Brancker," he said, "that you owe it as a sacred
duty to those who are nearest and dearest to you to set yourself right
in the eyes of the world, now that the means of doing so are offered
you, and to resume that place in society which you have forfeited
through no fault of your own."
"I owe a still more sacred duty to my dear lost friend, as those who
are nearest and dearest to me would be the first to remind me if there
were any danger of my forgetting it. No, Mr. Clement, I have made up
my mind, and in this matter, if in no other, I am determined to have
my way and do that which seems right in my own eyes."
Clement saw that it would be useless to press the point further.
Indeed, had he wished to do so, he knew of no terms in which he could
have urged his plea. How, in fact, could he have further urged the
doing of a thing, the outcome of which would have been nothing less
than disgrace and misery to him and his?
"I have something still to tell you," said Clem, presently. "You are,
of course, aware that Ephraim Judd is dead?"
"Why, of course. It was yourself that brought the news to the Cottage,
when I told you how much I regretted not having called upon him, but
that I had no notion he was so dangerously ill."
"True! I have had much to think of lately, and had forgotten. Well,
Ephraim made a very strange statement, which he charged me to repeat
to you after he was gone. He had done you a great wrong, and the only
reparation he could make was by confessing it."
With that Clem went on to detail to John that part of the dead man's
confession which concerned him; but said no word about the latter
portion--that which dealt with what Ephraim had witnessed through the
fanlight.
"Poor fellow!--poor fellow!" exclaimed John, when the other had come
to an end. "The temptation was a great one, and he was unable to
resist it. He was tried beyond his strength, as it may be the lot of
any of us to be. It was very wrong of him, not merely to keep back
what he knew, but to swear to an untruth; but he is gone where his
faults and his virtues will be weighed in the balances which cannot
err, and Heaven forbid that I should attempt to blacken his memory by
a single word. So, if you please, Mr. Clement, you and I will keep the
poor fellow's confession to ourselves. It could do no possible good at
this late date to make it public."
Later in the day Clement sought his brother.
"I have told John Brancker everything, or next to everything," he
began abruptly. "I could no longer reconcile it to my conscience to
keep him in ignorance of what was of such vital concern to him."
"I felt nearly sure that you would be guilty of some such fool's
trick," was Edward's stern rejoinder. Then he added, with a sneer, "I
hope you will be able to reconcile the article you call your
conscience to the disgrace and ruin which will inevitably result from
your mad action. The thought of your mother and sister might have
restrained you, if nothing else had power to do so."
"Neither disgrace nor ruin will result from what I have done,"
answered Clem, quietly. "John Brancker will make no use of what I have
told him. Except to his sister, he will breathe no word of it to a
living creature."
Edward looked at him with eyes that expressed nothing but blank
amazement.
"If it be as you say," he presently remarked, "then is John Brancker
one of the noblest-hearted of men."
"It is as I say. I have his word for it."
"Ah!" said Edward, with an indrawing of his breath. "You can hardly
realize what a weight you have lifted off my mind. It meant more to me
than even you are aware of, that both the manner and the cause of our
father's death should never be divulged. You said just now that you
had told John Brancker 'next to everything.' May I ask what you meant
by that particular phrase?"
"I told him nothing which would lead him to infer that the facts of
the case had become known either to you or me until quite lately.
Then, again, I said nothing to him of what Ephraim Judd saw through
the fanlight."
Edward nodded approvingly.
"They were wise omissions on your part." Then, as if he were thinking
aloud, he exclaimed, "A noble-hearted fellow!"
"What a pity it is that he can get nothing to do," observed Clem. "I
suppose that he and his sister and his niece are living on his
savings; but that is a sort of thing which can hardly go on for ever."
"An idea has just come to me," replied Edward, "which may or may not
lead to something that will benefit him; but it would be premature to
enter into any particulars till after I have had the chance of a talk
with Lord Elstree."
"One thing more remains to be done," said Clem, presently.
"Eh? And what may that be, pray?"
"The refunding of the twelve thousand pounds insurance money."
"Good gracious, Clem! Have you taken leave of your senses?"
"I trust not. I am simply proposing to right a great wrong. I can
quite understand that at the time you accepted the money you saw no
other course open to you without exciting suspicions which you would
have had no means of allaying except by making public a secret which
it seemed to you must be concealed at every risk. It seems to me,
however, that there is a way of getting out of the difficulty, and
that without endangering your--or, as I may now call it, our--secret
in any way."
"I have no objection to being enlightened," remarked Edward, dryly.
"But pray don't forget that this is a matter in which your mother's
and sister's interests are more deeply concerned than those of anyone
else."
"That is a point I have by no means overlooked. In the first place,
there need be no difficulty about refunding the money. Let it be
divided into two or three sums, to be forwarded at intervals from
different places. Of course, the sender would remain strictly
anonymous. Then, as regards my mother and Fanny. They need never be
made aware of the return of the money. The income which now accrues to
them from its investment must continue to be paid with the same
regularity as heretofore, the only difference being that you and I
between us must make up the amount."
Never had Edward Hazeldine felt so taken aback as at that moment. Not
the least odd feature of the affair was the quiet, matter-of-fact tone
in which Clement put forward his proposition; had he been arguing some
disputed point of anatomy with a fellow-student he could not have been
cooler or more self-collected: Mentally and morally the elder brother
felt as if a cold-water "douche" had been suddenly sprung upon him. It
was not till the silence had lasted fully a couple of minutes that he
seemed able to find anything to say.
"You are, of course, in a position to allow your mother and sister two
hundred and forty pounds a year out of your income, which is about
what your share would come to," he said at length, with a hardly
veiled sneer.
Clem flushed a little.
"As circumstances are with me now, it would leave me with a very
narrow margin to live upon," he replied; "but even were it still
smaller, I would gladly make the sacrifice."
"What about your marriage? I hope you don't forget that the burthen
you propose saddling yourself with is not merely a question of a year
or two, but of the lifetime of your mother, who, we have every reason
to hope and believe, may live for many years to come."
"As for my marriage, it would have to be put off till more prosperous
times," replied Clem, not without a stifled sigh.
"Very well; but there is another feature which you may not, perhaps,
have considered. Supposing the twelve thousand pounds to have been
refunded in accordance with your wish, in the case of my mother's
death, how would you propose to make up Fanny's one-third share of it
to which she is entitled by my father's will? She may be married
before that time, in which case the four thousand pounds she supposes
herself to be ultimately entitled to will naturally be considered,
both by her and her husband, as a certainty which nothing can deprive
them of."
"That is a point which certainly failed to strike me," answered Clem.
"But let me answer your question by asking another. Supposing the
money not to have been refunded, in case of my mother's death would
you be willing to touch your share of an amount to which morally you
have no more right than has any of your clerks who are at work in the
next room?"
Edward bit his lips.
"No," he said emphatically, after a pause; "in such a case as you
speak of, not one shilling of the money would be touched by me."
"I could have vouched for your answer beforehand," said Clem, with a
smile of triumph. "Now that you have confessed thus much, it is
impossible for you to stop there. You are as convinced as I am, my
dear Ned, that the twelve thousand pounds must be refunded. As
honorable men no other course is open to us." He looked at his watch,
and then rose and pushed back his chair. "I find I have not another
minute to spare," he said, as he gripped his brother's hand. "But now
that we are agreed as to the main point at issue, the settlement of
the details can be left till I see you next."
It was on Edward's lips to say, "I have agreed to nothing," but some
feeling restrained him.
Clem's words, "As honorable men no other course is open to us," rang
in Edward's ears long after he was left alone. Had he not always
prided himself on being an honorable man, one whose simple word had
been as binding on him as if it had been safe-guarded by all sorts of
legal pains and penalties, till the terrible complication which
originated with his father's death had first planted his feet on that
slippery path which tends downward, ever downward, by such fatally
easy gradations, from which it is nigh impossible to retrace one's
steps? Was it too late for him to retrace his steps? He decided that
it was not. A helping hand--nay, two helping hands, those of John
Brancker and his brother--had been stretched out to him in a way the
least expected, and he had but to grasp them to be dragged back out of
the quicksands in which he had been floundering of late, and set again
on the firm ground where that fatal October night had found him. How
deeply thankful he should be to find himself there again, no one but
himself could more than faintly imagine.
In the course of next day he wrote and dispatched the following brief
note to his brother:
"Dear Clem,
"It shall be as you wish.
"Yours,
"E. H."