"the pity of it--oh, the pity of it!" were john brancker's first words as soon as he was able in some measure to control his feelings. "what you have told me has both shocked and grieved me as i was never shocked or grieved before. but do not say a word more about it, mr. clement, either now or at any future time. i would infinitely rather that you should not, and you may rest assured that i shall never ask you a single question."
"you can judge for yourself, mr. brancker, what my reasons were for telling you this," said clem, whose brief burst of emotion had left him pale and calm. "your career in life has been to a great extent compromised. a certain amount of suspicion in connection with what the world, in its ignorance of the facts of the case, naturally regards as a great crime, still clings to you, and to all seeming will continue to do so for years to come, if not as long as you live. it is now in your power to dispel that suspicion once and forever, and to clear away the dark cloud which has lowered over you for so many months. to do this needs only that you should make known to the world the facts which i have laid before you to-day."
"and do you for one moment believe, my dear mr. clement, that i should even dream of doing anything of the kind?" demanded john, with a sort of sad surprise. "i loved and honored your father. he was my friend at a time when i had no other friend in the world. he took me by the hand; he found a situation for me; i owe everything to him. you know that i am innocent; your brother knows it; that is enough. perhaps you won't mind my telling my sister--i have no secrets from her--but not another creature shall hear it from me. let the world continue to suspect me if it thinks well to do so. i can afford to appraise its doubts and suspicions at their proper value, which is no value at all. henceforth i shall despise them, and i think, mr. clement, a man can always afford to live down a thing that he holds in contempt."
clem drew a deep breath. the relief which john's words had given him no one but himself could estimate. still, in common fairness to this generous-souled man, he felt bound to protest against a decision so adverse to his interests.
"it seems to me, mr. brancker," he said, "that you owe it as a sacred duty to those who are nearest and dearest to you to set yourself right in the eyes of the world, now that the means of doing so are offered you, and to resume that place in society which you have forfeited through no fault of your own."
"i owe a still more sacred duty to my dear lost friend, as those who are nearest and dearest to me would be the first to remind me if there were any danger of my forgetting it. no, mr. clement, i have made up my mind, and in this matter, if in no other, i am determined to have my way and do that which seems right in my own eyes."
clement saw that it would be useless to press the point further. indeed, had he wished to do so, he knew of no terms in which he could have urged his plea. how, in fact, could he have further urged the doing of a thing, the outcome of which would have been nothing less than disgrace and misery to him and his?
"i have something still to tell you," said clem, presently. "you are, of course, aware that ephraim judd is dead?"
"why, of course. it was yourself that brought the news to the cottage, when i told you how much i regretted not having called upon him, but that i had no notion he was so dangerously ill."
"true! i have had much to think of lately, and had forgotten. well, ephraim made a very strange statement, which he charged me to repeat to you after he was gone. he had done you a great wrong, and the only reparation he could make was by confessing it."
with that clem went on to detail to john that part of the dead man's confession which concerned him; but said no word about the latter portion--that which dealt with what ephraim had witnessed through the fanlight.
"poor fellow!--poor fellow!" exclaimed john, when the other had come to an end. "the temptation was a great one, and he was unable to resist it. he was tried beyond his strength, as it may be the lot of any of us to be. it was very wrong of him, not merely to keep back what he knew, but to swear to an untruth; but he is gone where his faults and his virtues will be weighed in the balances which cannot err, and heaven forbid that i should attempt to blacken his memory by a single word. so, if you please, mr. clement, you and i will keep the poor fellow's confession to ourselves. it could do no possible good at this late date to make it public."
later in the day clement sought his brother.
"i have told john brancker everything, or next to everything," he began abruptly. "i could no longer reconcile it to my conscience to keep him in ignorance of what was of such vital concern to him."
"i felt nearly sure that you would be guilty of some such fool's trick," was edward's stern rejoinder. then he added, with a sneer, "i hope you will be able to reconcile the article you call your conscience to the disgrace and ruin which will inevitably result from your mad action. the thought of your mother and sister might have restrained you, if nothing else had power to do so."
"neither disgrace nor ruin will result from what i have done," answered clem, quietly. "john brancker will make no use of what i have told him. except to his sister, he will breathe no word of it to a living creature."
edward looked at him with eyes that expressed nothing but blank amazement.
"if it be as you say," he presently remarked, "then is john brancker one of the noblest-hearted of men."
"it is as i say. i have his word for it."
"ah!" said edward, with an indrawing of his breath. "you can hardly realize what a weight you have lifted off my mind. it meant more to me than even you are aware of, that both the manner and the cause of our father's death should never be divulged. you said just now that you had told john brancker 'next to everything.' may i ask what you meant by that particular phrase?"
"i told him nothing which would lead him to infer that the facts of the case had become known either to you or me until quite lately. then, again, i said nothing to him of what ephraim judd saw through the fanlight."
edward nodded approvingly.
"they were wise omissions on your part." then, as if he were thinking aloud, he exclaimed, "a noble-hearted fellow!"
"what a pity it is that he can get nothing to do," observed clem. "i suppose that he and his sister and his niece are living on his savings; but that is a sort of thing which can hardly go on for ever."
"an idea has just come to me," replied edward, "which may or may not lead to something that will benefit him; but it would be premature to enter into any particulars till after i have had the chance of a talk with lord elstree."
"one thing more remains to be done," said clem, presently.
"eh? and what may that be, pray?"
"the refunding of the twelve thousand pounds insurance money."
"good gracious, clem! have you taken leave of your senses?"
"i trust not. i am simply proposing to right a great wrong. i can quite understand that at the time you accepted the money you saw no other course open to you without exciting suspicions which you would have had no means of allaying except by making public a secret which it seemed to you must be concealed at every risk. it seems to me, however, that there is a way of getting out of the difficulty, and that without endangering your--or, as i may now call it, our--secret in any way."
"i have no objection to being enlightened," remarked edward, dryly. "but pray don't forget that this is a matter in which your mother's and sister's interests are more deeply concerned than those of anyone else."
"that is a point i have by no means overlooked. in the first place, there need be no difficulty about refunding the money. let it be divided into two or three sums, to be forwarded at intervals from different places. of course, the sender would remain strictly anonymous. then, as regards my mother and fanny. they need never be made aware of the return of the money. the income which now accrues to them from its investment must continue to be paid with the same regularity as heretofore, the only difference being that you and i between us must make up the amount."
never had edward hazeldine felt so taken aback as at that moment. not the least odd feature of the affair was the quiet, matter-of-fact tone in which clement put forward his proposition; had he been arguing some disputed point of anatomy with a fellow-student he could not have been cooler or more self-collected: mentally and morally the elder brother felt as if a cold-water "douche" had been suddenly sprung upon him. it was not till the silence had lasted fully a couple of minutes that he seemed able to find anything to say.
"you are, of course, in a position to allow your mother and sister two hundred and forty pounds a year out of your income, which is about what your share would come to," he said at length, with a hardly veiled sneer.
clem flushed a little.
"as circumstances are with me now, it would leave me with a very narrow margin to live upon," he replied; "but even were it still smaller, i would gladly make the sacrifice."
"what about your marriage? i hope you don't forget that the burthen you propose saddling yourself with is not merely a question of a year or two, but of the lifetime of your mother, who, we have every reason to hope and believe, may live for many years to come."
"as for my marriage, it would have to be put off till more prosperous times," replied clem, not without a stifled sigh.
"very well; but there is another feature which you may not, perhaps, have considered. supposing the twelve thousand pounds to have been refunded in accordance with your wish, in the case of my mother's death, how would you propose to make up fanny's one-third share of it to which she is entitled by my father's will? she may be married before that time, in which case the four thousand pounds she supposes herself to be ultimately entitled to will naturally be considered, both by her and her husband, as a certainty which nothing can deprive them of."
"that is a point which certainly failed to strike me," answered clem. "but let me answer your question by asking another. supposing the money not to have been refunded, in case of my mother's death would you be willing to touch your share of an amount to which morally you have no more right than has any of your clerks who are at work in the next room?"
edward bit his lips.
"no," he said emphatically, after a pause; "in such a case as you speak of, not one shilling of the money would be touched by me."
"i could have vouched for your answer beforehand," said clem, with a smile of triumph. "now that you have confessed thus much, it is impossible for you to stop there. you are as convinced as i am, my dear ned, that the twelve thousand pounds must be refunded. as honorable men no other course is open to us." he looked at his watch, and then rose and pushed back his chair. "i find i have not another minute to spare," he said, as he gripped his brother's hand. "but now that we are agreed as to the main point at issue, the settlement of the details can be left till i see you next."
it was on edward's lips to say, "i have agreed to nothing," but some feeling restrained him.
clem's words, "as honorable men no other course is open to us," rang in edward's ears long after he was left alone. had he not always prided himself on being an honorable man, one whose simple word had been as binding on him as if it had been safe-guarded by all sorts of legal pains and penalties, till the terrible complication which originated with his father's death had first planted his feet on that slippery path which tends downward, ever downward, by such fatally easy gradations, from which it is nigh impossible to retrace one's steps? was it too late for him to retrace his steps? he decided that it was not. a helping hand--nay, two helping hands, those of john brancker and his brother--had been stretched out to him in a way the least expected, and he had but to grasp them to be dragged back out of the quicksands in which he had been floundering of late, and set again on the firm ground where that fatal october night had found him. how deeply thankful he should be to find himself there again, no one but himself could more than faintly imagine.
in the course of next day he wrote and dispatched the following brief note to his brother:
"dear clem,
"it shall be as you wish.
"e. h."
