The Quality of Mercy Part 46

VI.

Northwick stared round him in the light of the lamp which Adeline turned up. He held fast by one of her hands. "What's he going to do? Has he gone for the officer? Is he going to give me up?"

"Who? Elbridge Newton? Well, I guess his wife hasn't forgot what you did for them when their little boy died, if _he_ has, and I _guess_ he hasn't gone for any officer! Where did you see him?"

"In the house. I was there."

"But how did he know it?"

"I had to have a light to see by."

"Oh, my goodness! If anybody else had caught you I don't know what I _should_ have done. I don't see how you could be so venturesome!"

"I thought you were there. I had to come back. I couldn't stand it any longer, when that fellow came with your letter."

"Oh, he _found_ you," she cried, joyfully. "I _knew_ he would find you, and I said so--Sit down, father; do." She pushed him gently into a cus.h.i.+oned rocking-chair. "It's mother's chair; don't you remember, it always stood in the bay-window in your room, where she put it? Louise Hilary bought it at the sale--I know she bought it--and gave it to me.

It was because the place was mother's that I wouldn't let Suzette give it up to the company."

He did not seem to understand what she was saying. He stared at her piteously, and he said with an effort: "Adeline, I didn't know about that accident. I didn't know you thought I was dead, or I--"

"No! Of _course_ you didn't! I always told Suzette you didn't. Don't you suppose I always believed in you, father? We both believed in you, through it all; and when that letter of yours came out in the paper I knew you were just overwrought."

Northwick rose and looked fearfully round him again, and then came closer to her, with his hand in his breast. He drew it out with the roll of bank-notes in it. "Here's that money I took away with me. I always kept it in my belt: but it hurt me there. I want you should take care of it for me, and we can make terms with them to let me stay."

"Oh, they _won't_ let you stay. We've tried it over and over; and the court won't let you. They say you will have to be tried, and they will put you in prison."

Northwick mechanically put the money back.

"Well, let them," said the broken man. "I can't stand it any longer. I have got to stay." He sank into the chair, and Adeline broke into tears.

"Oh, I can't let you! You must go back! Think of your good name, that there's never been any disgrace on!"

"What--what's that?" Northwick quavered, at the sound of footsteps overhead.

"Why, it's Suzette, of course! And I hadn't called her," said Adeline, breaking off from her weeping. She ran to the foot of the stairs, and called, huskily, "Suzette, Suzette! Come down this instant! Come down, come down, come down!" She bustled back to her father. "You must be hungry, ain't you, father? I'll get you a cup of tea over my lamp here; the water heats as quick! And you'll feel stronger after that. Don't you be afraid of anything; there's n.o.body here but Suzette; Mrs. Newton comes to do the work in the morning; they used to stay with us, but we don't mind it a bit, being alone here. I _did_ want to go into the farmhouse, when we left our own, but Suzette couldn't bear to live right in sight of our home, all the time; she said it would be worse than being afraid; but we haven't _been_ afraid; and the Newtons come all the time to see if we want anything. And now that you've got back--" She stopped, and stared at him in a daze, and then turned to her lamp again, as if unable to cope with the situation. "I haven't been very well, lately, but I'm getting better; and if only we could get the court to let you come back I should be as well as ever. I don't believe but what Mr. Hilary will make it out yet. Father!" She dropped her voice, and glanced round; "Suzette's engaged to young Mr. Hilary--oh, he's the _best_ young man!--and I guess they're going to be married just as soon as we can arrange it about you. I thought I'd tell you before she came down."

Northwick did not seem to have taken the fact in, or else he could not appreciate it rightly. "Do you suppose," he whispered back, "that she'll speak to me?"

"_Speak_ to you!"

"I didn't know. She was always so proud. But now I've brought back the money, all but the little I've had to use--"

There was a rustle of skirts on the stairs. Suzette stood a moment in the doorway, looking at her father, as if not sure he was real; then she flung herself upon him, and buried her face in his white beard, and kissed him with a pa.s.sion of grief and love. She sank into his lap, with a long sigh, and let her head fall on his shoulder. All that was not simply father and daughter was for the moment annulled between them.

Adeline looked on admiring, while she kept about heating the water over her lamp; and they all took up fitfully the broken threads of their lives, and tried to piece them again into some sort of unity.

Adeline did most of the talking. She told her father how friends seemed to have been raised up for them in their need, when it was greatest. She praised herself for the inspiration she had in going to Putney for advice, because she remembered how her father had spoken of him that last night, and for refusing to give up the property to the company. She praised Putney for justifying and confirming her at every step, and for doing everything that could be done about the court. She praised the Hilarys, all of them, for their constancy to her father throughout, and she said she believed that if Mr. Hilary could have had his way, there never would have been any trouble at all about the accounts, and she wanted her father to understand just how the best people felt about him.

He listened vaguely to it all. A clock in the next room struck four, and Northwick started to his feet. "I must go!"

"Go?" Adeline echoed.

"Why must you go?" said Suzette, clinging about him.

They were all silent in view of the necessity that stared them in the face.

Then Adeline roused herself from the false dream of safety in which her words had lulled her. She wailed out, "He's _got_ to go! Oh, Suzette, let him go! He's got to go to prison if he stays!"

"It's prison _there_" said Northwick. "Let me stay!"

"No, no! I can't let you stay! Oh, how hard I am to make you go! What makes you leave it all to me, Suzette? It's for you, as much as anything, I do it."

"Then don't do it! If father wants to stay; if he thinks he had better, or if he will feel easier, he shall stay; and you needn't think of me. I won't _let_ you think of me!"

"But what would they say--Mr. Hilary say--if they sent father to prison?"

Suzette's eyes glowed. "Let them say what they will. I know I can trust _him_, but if he wants to give me up for that, he may. If father wishes to stay, he shall, and nothing that they can do to him will ever make him different to us. If he tells us that he didn't mean anything wrong, that will be enough; and people may say what they please, and think what they please."

Northwick listened with a confused air. He looked from one to the other, as if beaten back and forth between them; he started violently, when Adeline almost screamed out: "Oh, you don't know what you're talking about! Father, tell her you don't _wish_ to stay!"

"I must go, Suzette; I had better go--"

"Here, drink this tea, now, and it will give you a little strength."

Adeline pressed the cup on him that she had been getting ready through all, and made him drain it. "Now, then, hurry, hurry, hurry, father! Say good-by! You've got to go, now--yes, you've _got_ to!--but it won't be for long. You've seen us, and you've found out we're alive and well, and now we can write--be sure you write, father, when you get back there; or, you'd better telegraph--and we can arrange--I know we can--for you to come home, and stay home."

"Home! Home!" Northwick murmured.

"It seems as if he wanted to _kill_ me!" Adeline sobbed into her hands.

She took them away. "Well, _stay_, then!" she said.

"No, no! I'll go," said Northwick. "You're not to blame, Adeline. It's all right--all for the best. I'll go--"

"And let us know where you are, when you get there, this time, father!"

said Adeline.

"Yes, I will."

"And we will come to you, there," Suzette put in. "We can live together in Canada, as well as here."

Northwick shook his head. "It's not the same. I can't get used to it; their business methods are different. I couldn't put my capital into any of their enterprises. I've looked the whole ground over. And--and I want to get back into our place."

He said these things vaguely, almost dryly, but with an air of final conviction, as after much sober reflection. He sat down, but Adeline would not let him be. "Well, then, we'll help you to think out some way of getting back, after we're all there together. Go; it'll soon begin to be light, and I'm afraid somebody'll see you, and stop you! But oh, my goodness! How are you going? You can't walk! And if you try to start from our depot, they'll know you, some one, and they'll arrest you. What shall we do?"

"I came over from East Hatboro' to-night," said Northwick. "I am going back there to get the morning train." This was the way he had planned, and he felt the strength of a fixed purpose in returning to his plan in words.