_ CHAPTER XXVIII. THE WILL
The police had arrived with a warrant to search the house. Mrs. Swinton seemed turned to stone. The rector drooped his head in resignation, and stood with hands clenched at his side, looking appealingly at his wife. He said nothing, but his eyes beseeched her to be brave, to say the words that would save her son, to surrender in the name of truth and justice.
She understood, but refused; and the police proceeded with their search.
Now that further concealment was useless, they were led upstairs. Dick, lying in his deck-chair, heard them coming, and guessed what had happened. He dropped his book upon his lap, and, when the police inspector and the detective entered the room, he was quite prepared.
"Well, so you've found me," he cried, with a laugh. "It's no good your thinking of taking me, unless you've brought a stretcher, for I can't walk."
"We sha'n't take you without doctor's orders, if you're ill, sir."
"Well, he won't give you the order, so you'd better leave your warrant, and run away and play."
"I have to warn you, sir," said the officer pompously, "that anything you say will be taken down in evidence against you."
"Well, take that down in evidence--what I've just said. You're a smart lot to look everywhere except in the most likely place. Take that down as well."
"We don't want any impudence. You're our prisoner; we shall put an officer in the house."
"Well, all I ask is that you won't make things more unpleasant for my mother and father than is absolutely necessary. Now, get out. I'm reading an interesting book. If you should see Mr. Ormsby, you can give him my kind regards, and tell him he's a bigger cad than I thought, and, when I'm free, I'll repeat the dose I gave him at our club dinner. Say I'm sorry I didn't rob his bank of seventy thousand instead of seven thousand."
"Do I understand, sir," said the officer, taking out his notebook, "that you confess to defrauding the bank of seven thousand dollars?"
"Oh, certainly! I'll confess to anything you like, only get out."
Netty had taken refuge in the drawing-room, where she locked herself in, inspired with an unreasoning terror, and a dread of seeing her brother handcuffed and carried out of the house. The rector and his wife stood face to face in the study, with the table between them.
"For the last time, Mary, I implore you to speak." He raised his hand, and his eyes blazed with a light new and strange to her.
"I tell you, there is no need for me to speak, John. This can all be settled in a few hours, when I have denounced father to his face, and compelled him to retract."
"When you have compelled him to add lie to lie. Mary--wife--I charge you to speak, and save me the necessity of denouncing you."
"John, you are mad. Trouble has turned your brain. What are you saying?"
"I am no longer your husband. I am your judge."
"Oh, John, John--give me time--give me a little time. I promise you, I will set everything right in a few hours."
The rector looked at the clock. "At half-past six, I go to conduct the evening service--my last service in the church. This is the end of my priesthood. I preach my last sermon to-night. Unless you have surrendered yourself to justice before I go into the pulpit for my sermon, I shall make public confession of our sin."
"John, you no longer love me. You mean to ruin me--you despise me--you want to get rid of me!" cried the wretched woman between her sobs, as she flung herself on her knees at his feet. "John! John! I can't do it--I can't!"
"Get away, woman--don't touch me! You're a bad woman. You have broken my faith in myself--almost my faith in God. I'll have nothing further to do with you--or your father--or the money that you say is yours. Money has nothing to do with it. It is a matter of conscience, of courage, of truth! I've been a miserable coward, and my son has shamed me into a semblance of a brave man. I am going to do the right thing by the boy."
"John! John!--you can't--you won't! You'll keep me with you always. I'll love you--oh--you shall not regret it. You cannot do without me."
"Out of my sight!"
He rushed from the room, leaving his wife still upon her knees, with her arms outstretched appealingly. When the door slammed behind him, she uttered one despairing moan, and fell forward on her face, sobbing hysterically.
Her hands clawed at the carpet in her agony, yet she could not bring herself to make any effort towards the rehabilitation of her son's honor. Her thoughts flew again to her father--the greatest sinner, as she regarded him--and the flash of hope that had so elated her in the afternoon again blinded her. She struggled to her feet, still sobbing, and looked at the clock. If John persisted in his determination to denounce her at evening service, there was at least a three hours' respite--time enough to go to her father.
The rector, in the hall, had met an officer coming down the stairs, who explained the situation to him--that a doctor's certificate would be necessary, and that officers must remain in and about the house to keep watch on their prisoner. The rector listened to them with his mind elsewhere, as though their communication had little interest for him, and his lips moved with his thoughts. But, before they left, he pulled himself together, and addressed them.
"Officers, I beg one favor of you: that you will not make this matter public until after the service in the church this evening. You have arrested the wrong culprit. The real forger may possibly come to you at the police station with me to-night, and surrender."
"Was that the meaning of the young man's cheek?" wondered the officer, eying the pale-faced, distraught clergyman suspiciously. He had arrested defaulting priests before to-day, and was half-inclined to believe that the rector himself was the culprit indicated. However, he didn't care to hazard a guess openly.
"There is no objection to keeping our mouths shut for an hour or two, sir," he answered.
"I am obliged to you for the concession. Until after the evening service then; after that you can do as you please."
The rector picked up his hat, and walked out of the house without another word, leaving the policemen in some doubt as to the wisdom of allowing him out of sight.
Mary heard the talking in the hall, and her husband's step past the window, and was paralyzed with terror, fearing lest he might already have betrayed her to the police. The easiest way to settle the doubt was to go into the hall, and see what had happened. To her infinite relief, the officer allowed her to pass out of the front door without molestation.
The automobile for which she had telephoned was already waiting. She entered hurriedly, and bade the chauffeur drive at top speed to Asherton Hall. The cold air outside in the darkening twilight revived her, and brought fresh energy. Her anger against her father grew with every turn of the wheels, and her rage was such that she almost contemplated killing him. Indeed, the vague idea was rioting in her mind that, rather than go to prison, she would die, first wreaking some terrible vengeance on the miser, who had ruined the happiness of her married life and brought disaster on all belonging to her.
On her arrival, there were only three windows lighted in the whole front of the great house; but outside the entrance there were the blinking lamps of two carriages, one a shabby hired vehicle, the other a smart brougham, which she recognized at once as belonging to her father's family physician.
Her heart sank with an awful dread. If her father were ill, and unable to give attention to her affairs, it spelled ruin.
The door was opened by Mrs. Ripon, who admitted Mrs. Swinton in silence. The hall was lighted by a single oil lamp, which only served to intensify the desolation and gloom of the dingy, faded house.
"I want to see my father at once, Mrs. Ripon," the distracted woman declared.
"The doctor is with him, madam. He won't be long. Will you step into the library? Mr. Barnby is there."
The mention of that name caused her another fright. She was inclined to avoid the bank-manager. Curiosity, however, conquered, and she resolved to face him, in the hope of hearing why he had come to her father.
On her entrance, Mr. Barnby bowed with frigid politeness.
"You have seen my father, Mr. Barnby. Is he well?" she asked, eagerly.
"He looked far from well. I was shocked at the change in him."
"Did he send for you?"
"Yes, and it will be some satisfaction to you to know that he has withdrawn his charge against his grandson. When I came before, he asserted most emphatically that the checks had been altered without his knowledge. He now declares angrily that I utterly mistook him, that he said nothing of the kind. He is prepared to swear that the checks are not forgeries at all."
"Ah! he has come to his senses, at last. I knew he would," she cried. "So, you see, Mr. Barnby, that you were utterly in the wrong."
"You forget, madam. You yourself admitted that the checks were altered without your knowledge."
"Did I? No--no; certainly not! You misunderstood me."
"Mr. Herresford and his family are fond of misunderstandings," said the manager stiffly, with a flash of scorn. He shrewdly guessed who the real forger was; but, in the face of the miser's declaration, he was powerless.
"This means, Mr. Barnby, that now my son will not be arrested, that the impudent affront put upon us by Mr. Ormsby will need an ample apology--a public apology. The scandal caused by your blunders has been spread far and wide."
"That is a matter for Mr. Ormsby. Mr. Herresford has withdrawn his previous assertion, and has given me a written statement, which absolves your son. I insisted upon it being written. It may have to be an affidavit."
The sound of the arrival of another carriage broke upon Mrs. Swinton's ear, and she listened in some surprise.
"Why are so many people arriving here at this hour?" she demanded, curiously.
Mr. Barnby shrugged his shoulders, to signify that it was no affair of his.
The front door was opened by Mr. Trimmer, who had hurriedly descended the stairs. Mrs. Swinton emerged from the library at the same moment, impatient to see her father. To her amazement, she beheld Dora Dundas enter. The girl carried in her hand a piece of paper. Her face was pale, her eyes were red with weeping, and her bearing generally was subdued. The message in her hand was a crumpled half-sheet of note-paper, in the miser's own handwriting, short and dramatic in its appeal:
"Come to me. I am dying."
"Trimmer, I must see my father at once," cried Mrs. Swinton, without waiting to greet Dora.
The girl gave her one look, a frozen glance of contempt, and turned her appealing eyes to Mr. Trimmer.
"Mr. Herresford," the valet announced, "wishes to see Miss Dundas. The doctor is with him. No one else must come up."
"But I insist," Mrs. Swinton cried.
"And I, too, insist," cried Trimmer, with glittering eyes and a voice thrilling from excitement. His period of servitude was nearly ended, and he cared not a snap of his fingers for Mrs. Swinton or for anyone else. His legacy of fifty thousand dollars was almost within his grasp.
The rector's wife fell back, too astonished to speak.
Dora followed Trimmer's lead up the stairs, and entered the death chamber with noiseless tread. The dying man was lying propped up with pillows as usual. One side of him was already at rest forever; but his right hand, with which he had written his last letter and signed the lying statement which was to absolve his grandson, was lovingly fingering a large bundle of bank-notes that Mr. Barnby, by request, had brought up from the bank. On a chair by the bedside, account-books were spread in confusion, and one--a black book with a silver lock--was lying on the bed. The physician stood on one side, half-screened by the curtains of the bed. Herresford beckoned Dora, who approached tremblingly.
The old man crumpled up the bank-notes, and placed them in her hand, murmuring something which she could not hear. She bent down nearer to his lips.
"For Dick--for present use--to put himself straight."
"I understand, grandfather."
The miser made impatient signs to her, which the doctor interpreted to mean that he desired her to kneel by his bedside. She dropped down, and her face was close to his; she could feel his breath upon her cheek.
"I'm saying--good-bye--"
"Yes."
"To my money.... All for you.... You'll marry him?"
"Yes."
"No mourning--no delays--no silly nonsense of that sort."
"It shall be as you wish."
"Marry at once. And my daughter--beware of her. A bad woman. I saved it from her clutches. It's there." He pointed to the account-books. "If I hadn't taken care of it for her, she would have squandered every penny--can't keep it from her any longer. Plenty for you and Dick. You'll take care of it--you'll take care of it? You won't spend it?" he whined, with sudden excitement.
Dora passed her hand over his hair, and soothed him. He moaned like a fretful child, then recovered his energies with surprising suddenness. He seized the little black account-book with the silver lock.
"It's all here," he cried, holding up the volume with palsied hand. "It runs into millions--millions!"
The doctor shook his head at Dora, as much as to say, "Take no notice; he is wandering."
Trimmer now interrupted, entering the room abruptly.
"Mrs. Swinton, sir, wishes to see you at once, on urgent business," he announced.
"Send her away!" cried the old man, throwing out his arm, and hurling the book from him so that it slid along the polished floor. He made one last supreme effort, and dragged himself up.
"Send her away," he screamed. "Liar!--Cheat!--Forger!--Thief! She sha'n't have my money--she sha'n't--"
The words rattled in his throat, and he fell forward into Dora's arms. She laid him back gently, and, after a few labored moments, he breathed his last.
The daughter, unable to brook delay, and furious at Trimmer's insolent opposition to her will, entered the room at this moment.
"Why am I kept away from my father?" she cried.
"Your father is no more," whispered the physician, gently.
"Dead?--dead?--And he never knew that I had found him out. The thief, dead--and I--Oh, father--!"
She collapsed, sobbing hysterically and screaming. The pent-up agony of the last few weeks burst forth, and she babbled and raved like a mad woman. The physician carried her shrieking from the room, and the miser was left in peace. By his bedside, his only friend, Dora, knelt and prayed silently.
Trimmer stole from the room, with bowed head and tears falling--tears for the first time since childhood. The strange, hypnotic spell of his servitude was finished. He walked about aimlessly, like one wandering in a mist. As yet, he could not lay hold on the freedom that was his at last. _