"No, I don"t say--"
"Then I think you"d better go to your father, and reconcile your duty with his, if you can. I wash my hands of the affair. It seems to me, though, that you"ve quite lost your head. The world will look very differently, I can a.s.sure you, at a woman whose father died in Canada, n.o.body could remember just why, from what it will on one whose father was sent to State"s prison for taking money that didn"t belong to him."
Matt flung up his arms; "Oh, the world, the world! I won"t let the world enter! I will never let Suzette face its mean and cruel prejudices. She will come here to the farm with me, and we will live down the memory of what she has innocently suffered, and we will let the world go its way."
"And don"t you think the world will follow you here? Don"t you suppose it _is_ here, ready to welcome you home with all those prejudices you hope you can shun? Every old gossip of the neighborhood will point Suzette out, as the daughter of a man who is serving his term in jail for fraud. The great world forgets, but this little world around you here would remember it as long as either of you lived. No; the day you marry Suzette Northwick, you must make up your mind to follow her father into exile, or else to share his shame with her at home."
"I"ve made up my mind to share that shame at home. I never could ask her to run from it."
"Then for pity"s sake, let that miserable man alone, wherever he is. Or, if you can get at him, beg him to stay away, and keep still till he dies. Good-night."
Mrs. Hilary rose from her own chair, and stooped over Matt, where he had sunk in his, and kissed his troubled forehead. He thought he had solved one part of his problem; but her words showed him that he had not rightly seen it in that light of love which had really hid it in dazzling illusions.
The difficulty had not yielded, at all, when he met his father with it; he thought it had only grown tougher and knottier; and he hardly knew how to present it. His mother had not only promised not to speak to his father of the affair, she had utterly refused to speak of it, and Matt instantly perceived that the fact he announced was somehow far more unexpected to his father than it had seemed to his mother.
But Hilary received it with a patience, a tenderness for his son, in all his amazement, that touched Matt more keenly than any other fashion of meeting it could have done. He asked if it were something that Matt had done, or had merely made up his mind some time to do; and when Matt said it was something he had done, his father was silent a moment. Then he said, "I shall have to take some action about it."
"How, action?"
"Why, you must see, my dear boy, that as soon as this thing becomes known--and you wish it to be known, of course--"
"Of course!"
"It will be impossible for me to continue holding my present relation to Northwick."
"Northwick?"
"As president of the Board, I"m _ex officio_ his enemy and persecutor.
It wouldn"t be right, it wouldn"t be decent, for me to continue that after it was known that you were going to marry his daughter. It wouldn"t be possible. I must resign, I must withdraw from the Board altogether. I haven"t the stuff in me to do my official duty at such a cost; so I"d better give up my office, and get rid of my duty."
"That will be a great sacrifice for you, father," said Matt.
"It won"t bring me to want, exactly, if you mean money-wise."
"I didn"t mean money-wise. But I know you"ve always enjoyed the position so much."
Hilary laughed uneasily. "Well, it hasn"t been a bed of roses since we discovered Northwick"s obliquities--excuse me!"
Matt blushed. "Oh, I know he"s oblique, as such things go."
"In fact," his father resumed, "I shall be glad to be out of it, and I don"t think there"ll be much opposition to my going out; I know that there"s a growing feeling against me in the Board. I _have_ tried to carry water on both shoulders. I"ve made the effort honestly; but the effect hasn"t been good. I couldn"t keep my heart out of it; from the very first I pitied that poor devil"s children so that I got him and gave him all the chance I could."
"That was perfectly right. It was the only business-like--"
"It wasn"t business-like to hope that even if justice were defeated he might somehow, anyhow, escape the consequences of his crime; and I"m afraid this is what I"ve hoped, in spite of myself," said Hilary.
This was so probably true that Matt could not help his father deny it.
He could only say, "I don"t believe you"ve ever allowed that hope to interfere with the strict performance of your duty, at any moment."
"No; but I"ve had the hope; and others have had the suspicion that I"ve had it. I"ve felt that; and I"m glad that it"s coming to an end. I"m not ashamed of your choice, Matt; I"m proud of it. The thing gave me a shock at first, because I had to face the part I must take. But she"s all kinds of a splendid girl. The Board knows what she wished to do, and why she hasn"t done it. No one can help honoring her. And I don"t believe people will think the less of any of us for your wanting to marry her.
But if they do, they may do it, and be d.a.m.ned."
Hilary shook himself together with greater comfort than he had yet felt, upon this conclusion: but he lapsed again after the long hand-pressure that he exchanged with his son.
"We must make it our business, now, to see that no man loses anything by that--We must get at him somehow. Of course, they have no more notion where he is than we have."
"No; not the least," said Matt. "I think it"s the uncertainty that"s preying upon Miss Northwick."
"The man"s behaving like a confounded lunatic," said Hilary.
The word reminded Matt of Putney, and he said, "That"s their lawyer"s theory of him--"
"Oh, you"ve _seen_ him, have you? Odd chap."
"Yes; I saw him when I was up there, after--after--at the request of Suzette. I wished to talk with him about the scheme that Maxwell"s heard of from a brother reporter," and Matt now unfolded Pinney"s plan to his father, and showed his letter.
Hilary looked from it at his son. "You don"t mean that this is the blackguard who wrote that account of the defalcation in the _Events_?"
"Yes; the same fellow. But as to blackguard--"
"Well, then, Matt, I don"t see how we can employ him. It seems to me it would be a kind of insult to those poor girls."
"I had thought of that. I felt that. But after all, I don"t think he knew how much of a blackguard he was making of himself. Maxwell says he wouldn"t know. And besides, we can"t help ourselves. If he doesn"t go for us, he will go for himself. We _must_ employ him. He"s a species of _condottiere_; we can buy his allegiance with his service: and we must forego the sentimental objection. I"ve gone all over it, and that"s the only conclusion."
Hilary fumed and rebelled; but he saw that they could not help themselves, that they could not do better. He asked, "And what did their lawyer think of it?"
"He seemed to think we had better let it alone for the present; better wait and see if Mr. Northwick would not try to communicate with his family."
"I"m not so sure of that," said Hilary. "If this fellow is such a fellow as you say, I don"t see why we shouldn"t make use of him at once."
"Make use of him to get Mr. Northwick back?" said Matt. "I think it would be well for him to come back, but voluntarily--"
"Come back?" said Hilary, whose civic morality flew much lower than this. "Nonsense! And stir the whole filthy mess up in the courts? I mean, make use of this fellow to find him, and enable us to find out just how much money he has left, and how much we have got to supply, in order to make up his shortage."
Matt now perceived the extent of his father"s purpose, and on its plane he honored it.
"Father, you"re splendid!"
"Stuff! I"m in a corner. What else is there to do? What less could we do? What"s the money for, if it isn"t to--" Hilary choked with the emotion that filled him at the sight of his son"s face.
Every father likes to have his grown-up son think him a good man; it is the sweetest thing that can come to him in life, far sweeter than a daughter"s faith in him; for a son _knows_ whether his father is good or not. At the bottom of his soul Hilary cared more for his son"s opinion than most fathers; Matt was a crank, but because he was a crank, Hilary valued his judgment as something ideal.
After a moment he asked, "Can this fellow be got at?"
"Oh, I imagine very readily."
"What did Maxwell say about him, generally?"
"Generally, that he"s not at all a bad kind of fellow. He"s a reporter by nature, and he"s a detective upon instinct. He"s done some amateur detective work, as many reporters do--according to Maxwell"s account.