it was impossible for clement hazeldine to say that the picture painted by his brother, dark though its colors were, was in any respect overdrawn. in truth, he knew not what reply to make. he sat silently revolving in his mind the various features of the case as they had been presented by edward, who was now beginning to turn over the letters and papers on his table in a way which seemed to imply, or clement thought so, that the point at issue had been thoroughly threshed out, and that any further discussion of it would be both distasteful and a waste of time. in point of fact, edward was congratulating himself on having brought a very awkward bit of business to so satisfactory a conclusion. in all probability clem would never allude to it again; it would be a secret between them--one that must never be breathed to a living soul, but equally one which they would never care to discuss with each other, nor to reopen in any way.
a movement on clem's part drew edward's attention to him. a sudden light had leapt to his eyes, a flush to his cheeks. what awkward question was he about to put now?
"edward, it has just struck me for the first time, that if father really did put an end to his existence--and i am afraid we must accept it as the saddest of all sad facts that he did so--we had no right to claim the amount of his life policy from the insurance company."
it was now the turn of edward hazeldine to change color. two vivid spots of red flamed out in his cheeks. "yes," he exclaimed, in a harsh, strained voice, "i have been wondering whether that would be one of the points of objection which you would see fit to raise."
"it is one which failed to strike me till the present moment."
"what would you have done, i wonder, had you been in my place? that is a question which you will do well to think over at your leisure. had a claim for the twelve thousand pounds not been sent in in due course, comment would have been aroused, which would inevitably have bred suspicion, and that, in its turn, would probably have led to inquiry; and what the latter, when once set afoot, would have led to, you can judge as well as i. besides, what excuse could i have made to my mother and fannie for not claiming the amount? i could have made no excuse; everything must have been told them. in addition, as i have already explained to you, without the twelve thousand pounds they would only have been a step or two removed from pauperism--in which case the fact of my not having claimed on the policy must have become known to everybody. bah! i might just as well have gone and read out my father's letter at the market cross."
"all that in no way alters the character of the transaction," said clem, in a low voice.
"oh, it was a fraud--a gross and palpable fraud--i fully admit that," exclaimed the elder brother, with a harsh laugh. "even to myself i have never attempted to call it by any other name; only, when you are weighing it in your thoughts, i should like you to put into the opposite scale the trifling facts i have just laid before you. to you they may seem to weigh less than they did with me; but no man can gauge accurately the force of another's temptations. enough, however, of this for the present." he rose with an air of weariness and looked at his watch.
it was a palpable hint, and clem accepted it as such. he, too, rose. "john brancker tells me," he said, "that he happened to meet you at the station on the day of his return from london, and that he explained to you the reason why he had been compelled to resign the situation you found for him."
edward's face darkened a little.
"yes, he gave me his version of the affair; but i can't help saying that he seems to me to be excessively thin-skinned. i certainly should not have allowed myself to be put down in the way he seems to have done."
"a rather extreme sensitiveness to the opinion of others is as much a part of john as the color of his hair or the shape of his nose. think what it must have been to a man of his temperament to go through all that he has gone through during the last six months! you and i, who are of tougher fibre, can but partially realize it. and what is to become of him in the future? the shadow of a crime with which he had nothing whatever to do still clings to him, and may do so for years to come. he is eating his heart out in dumb despair."
edward hazeldine took two or three turns from end to end of his office, his eyes bent on the ground and his hands buried deep in his pockets. the whole interview had been inexpressibly galling to him. he was one of those men to whom it is as wormwood and rue to be called upon to explain their reasons for any particular course of action, much more to apologize for it; yet he had felt under the necessity of doing both to-day, and now a query had been put to him which he would fain have answered, but could not. what, indeed, was to become of john brancker? but before trying in any way to answer that awkward question, he felt that it behoved him to put himself right with clem on one important point, much as it would cost him to do so.
"that i tacitly allowed john brancker to be brought in guilty by a coroner's jury," he said, "that i allowed him to languish in prison for eight or nine weeks, and be brought to trial, when a dozen words from me would have made a free man of him--are facts which i have neither the power nor the wish to gainsay; but if you therefore imagine that in case the trial had gone against him, i would not then have spoken out and proclaimed our shame and disgrace to the world, you were never more utterly mistaken in your life. i was fully determined to keep my secret--our secret--till the last possible moment--i have already told you my motives for so doing--but not a moment longer. had the second verdict proved a confirmation of the first, my father's letter would at once have been handed to the judge. i trust you believe that i am telling you the truth."
"i do believe it," said clem, emphatically.
"you spoke just now of what john brancker must have suffered during the weary weeks he lay in prison. i greatly doubt whether his sufferings were as poignant as mine. he was buoyed up and strengthened by the consciousness of innocence, while i---- but why pursue the topic? this only i will say in conclusion, that the last six months have been the most wretched of my life, and not for ten thousand pounds would i, of my own free will, go through such an experience again.
"i can fully credit that," replied clem, earnestly, "and although the result of the trial must unquestionably have lifted a great weight off your mind, still--if i know anything of you, if you are the man i have always believed you to be--your burthen is but half removed. you are far from being clear of it yet."
edward threw a quick, suspicious glance at his brother.
"excuse me, clem, if i fail to apprehend your meaning," he said, coldly.
"is it not plain enough? how can you be the same man that you were before our father's death while you continue to keep to yourself the knowledge which would clear john brancker from every iota of suspicion, and give him back the stainless character, and with it the happiness, of which you have deprived him? how can you look to regain that peace of mind which was your dearest possession, although you may not have known it at the time; how can you look your fellows in the face with untroubled eyes, knowing, as you do, that as the consequence of a deliberate act on your part, your mother and sister are living on the proceeds of a fraud? the fruits of wrong-doing never prove other than dust and ashes to those who pluck them."
they had both sat down again without thinking what they were about, and they now confronted each other across the office table. clem's face was paler than ordinary, but never had he looked more like his brother than at that moment. the determination and quiet energy with which he had spoken had, for the time being, lent to his face some of the resolute lines and the firm, set expression which were characteristic of edward.
"so that is your meaning, is it?" demanded the latter, with a sudden hoarseness in his voice.
"it is a meaning which has truth at the back of it, as you know full as well as i can tell you."
"whether it has or has not, i certainly have no intention of acting on it, and that i tell you plainly. you have, so to speak, surprised a secret which it was my hope to keep from you as much as from the rest of the world; but your having done so constitutes no reason or excuse for any interference on your part between me and matters which concern myself alone."
"matters which concern yourself alone, edward! how can that be? the terrible wrong of which john brancker has been the victim concerns me, as my father's son, at least as much as it does you, and----"
but at this moment the door was opened, and one of the clerks thrust his head into the room.
"lord elstree to see you, sir," said the man.
as his lordship entered by one door, clement made his way out by another.
the mental conflict which he went through in the course of the next few days was something altogether foreign to his experience. he recognized to the full the gravity of the reasons by which his brother had been influenced in acting as he had. in a small town like ashdown social ostracism, and that of a most bitter and degrading kind, would be the inevitable portion of every member of the hazeldine family after once the truth should have been avowed. as far as he was concerned, the practice he had got together by such laborious patience would be almost wholly ruined, and he would have to begin life afresh in some far away spot. and, then his mother and sister! to them the blow would be infinitely worse than either to himself or edward.
on the other hand, the thought of john brancker slowly wearing out his life under the shadow of a crime which a dozen words from him or his brother would clear away for ever, was altogether intolerable to him. "right is right, and wrong, wrong all the world over," he said to himself more than once. "there can be no wrong without suffering; but to knowingly let the innocent suffer for the guilty is worse than the commission of the wrong itself."
he arose one morning after a sleepless night. "this shall be put an end to, come what may," he said, grimly, to himself.
as soon as he had finished his morning rounds he went straight to nairn cottage. he found john busy in his garden, where much of his time was spent nowadays.
"can you spare me five minutes here in the summerhouse?" said clem. "i have something particular to say to you."
"i can spare you the whole day, mr. clement, if it comes to that," answered john, with rather a dismal smile. there was an unusual gravity on the young doctor's face which he could not help noticing. he wondered what further bad news he was about to be told.
clem had found himself unable to fix beforehand on any particular form of words in which to convey to john the startling news he had made up his mind to tell him. it was a terrible confession for a son to have to make, and his heart grew faint within him as he followed john into the summerhouse; but he would not give himself time for further thought, or for any possible turning back from that which he sternly determined on going through with to the bitter end.
without waiting to sit down, he took one of john's hands in both his, and grasping it very hard he said,
"a communication written by my father on the last day of his life, and addressed to my brother, has come into edward's hands. in it my father announces his fixed determination to put an end to his existence. it seems that, unknown even to my mother, he had long been suffering from a serious affection of the heart, and had been told by two eminent physicians that, at the most, his life was only worth a few months' purchase. that the knowledge of this fact preyed on his mind cannot be doubted, nor that, in conjunction with certain other circumstances, it led him to take the desperate resolve which resulted in its fatal consummation a few hours after the letter in question was written. do not ask me to enter into any details--at least, not now. it will be enough if i assure you that both edward and i are fully agreed that my father's tragic end was due to his own rash act, and that no shadow of blame or suspicion attaches to any other person."
john stood with blanched face and incredulous eyes like one whom some sudden shock has bereft of half his senses. clem stood with down-dropped eyes, breathing hard and biting his under lip. it was all he could do to crush down the emotion that was battling within him.
"but about the robbery? about the missing money?" queried john at length, in a voice that was hardly more than a whisper.
"do not ask me--do not ask me!" cried clem, in tones full of anguish. dropping john's hand, he turned abruptly away, and seating himself on the bench which ran round three sides of the summerhouse, he rested his elbows on the little table and covered his face with his hands. convulsive sobs shook his frame from head to foot. john, his eyes streaming with tears, stepped quietly up to him, and laid a hand gently on his shoulder.
