The Scarlet Feather Part 28

"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, d.i.c.k was able to look upon his father's face un.o.bserved. 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, d.i.c.k 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 att.i.tude 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.

d.i.c.k pressed himself close to the gla.s.s, and took off his cap.

"Father!" he cried. "Open the window."

It was d.i.c.k's voice, but not d.i.c.k's face.

"Open the window."

Like a man in a dream, the rector loosened the catch, and opened the cas.e.m.e.nt.

"Father--father! It is I--d.i.c.k--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."

"d.i.c.k--d.i.c.k--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. d.i.c.k 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 embarra.s.sment followed.

"I've come to have a talk with you, father," said d.i.c.k, 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 d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k'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 d.i.c.k 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. d.i.c.k was the strong man, and he the weak one. d.i.c.k was ready to be wiped out of existence, rather than betray his mother. He believed that his father knew nothing.

"d.i.c.k--forgive!" The stricken father took a step forward, but his strength gave out, and he dropped upon his knees at his son's feet.

"d.i.c.k! d.i.c.k! 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 d.i.c.k 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."

"d.i.c.k, 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. d.i.c.k, 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. d.i.c.k, 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.

"d.i.c.k--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--d.i.c.k--alive! He's fainted!"

The table stood between her and the dark form in the shadow on the floor.

She advanced slowly.

"d.i.c.k--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.