is very nearly one-and-twenty. She will be twenty-one to-morrow.'
'Elsie going to be married. It seems absurd. One-and-twenty to-morrow. Ah!' He sat up eagerly. 'Tell me, is she any richer? Has she had any legacies or things?'
'No. How should she? Her dot is her sweet self, which is enough for any man.'
'And you, Austin. I remember you were an articled clerk of eighteen or nineteen when I went away – are you rich?'
Austin blushed. 'No,' he said; 'I am not. I am a managing clerk at your old office. I get two hundred a year, and we are going to marry on that.'
Athelstan nodded. 'A bold thing to do. However – Twenty-one to-morrow – we shall see.'
'And I am sorry to say there is the greatest opposition – on the part of your mother and your other sister. I am not allowed in the house, and Elsie is treated as a rebel.'
'Oh! well. If you see your way, my boy, get married, and have a happy life, and leave them to come round at their leisure. Elsie has a heart of gold. She can believe in a man. She is the only one of my people who stood up for me when they accused me without a shadow of proof of – The only one – the only one. It is impossible for me to forget that – and difficult,' he added, 'to forgive the other thing. – Is my sister Hilda still at home?'
'No. She is married to Sir Samuel, brother of your Mr. Dering. He is a great deal older than his wife; but he is very rich.'
'Oh! – and my mother?'
'I believe she continues in good health. I am not allowed the privilege of calling upon her.'
'And my old chief?'
'He also continues well.'
'And now, since we have cleared the ground so far, let us come to business. How about that robbery?'
'What robbery?' The old business had taken place when George was a lad just entering upon his articles. He had ceased to think of it.
'What robbery? Man alive!' – Athelstan sprang to his feet – 'there is only one robbery to me in the whole history of the world since men and robberies began. What robbery? Look here, Master George Austin, when a man is murdered, there is for that man only one murder in the whole history of the world. All the other murders, even that of Abel himself, are of no concern at all – not one bit. He isn't interested in them. They don't matter to him a red cent. That's my case. The robbery of eight years ago, which took a few hundred pounds from a rich man, changed my whole life; it drove me out into the world; it forced me for a time to live among the prodigals and the swine and the husks. It handed me over to a thousand devils; and you ask me what robbery?'
'I am very sorry. It is now a forgotten thing. Nobody remembers it any more. I doubt whether Mr. Dering himself ever thinks of it.'
'Well, what was discovered after all? Who did it?'
'Nothing at all has been discovered. No one knows to this day who did it.'
'Nothing at all? – I am disappointed. Hasn't old Checkley done time for it? Nothing found out?'
'Nothing. The notes were stopped in time, and were never presented. After five or six years the Bank of England gave Mr. Dering notes in the place of those stolen. And that is all there is to tell.'
'Nothing discovered! And the notes never presented? What good did the fellow get by it, then?'
'I don't know. But nothing was discovered.'
'Nothing discovered!' Athelstan repeated. 'Why, I took it for granted that the truth had come out long since. I was making up my mind to call upon old Dering. I don't think I shall go now. – And my sister Hilda will not be coming here to express her contrition. I am disappointed.'
'You can see Elsie if you like.'
'Yes – I can see her,' he repeated. – 'George' – he returned to the old subject – 'do you know the exact particulars of that robbery?'
'There was a forged cheque, and the Bank paid it across the counter.'
'The cheque,' Athelstan explained, 'was made payable to the order of a certain unknown person named Edmund Gray. It was endorsed by that name. To prove that forgery, they should have got the cheque and examined the endorsement. That was the first thing, certainly. I wonder how they began.'
'I do not know. It was while I was in my articles, and all we heard was a vague report. You ought not to have gone away. You should have stayed to fight it out.'
'I was right to give up my berth after what the chief said. How could I remain drawing his pay and doing his work, when he had calmly given me to understand that the forgery lay between two hands, and that he strongly suspected mine?'
'Did Mr. Dering really say so? Did he go so far as that?'
'So I walked out of the place. I should have stayed at home and waited for the clearing up of the thing, but for my own people – who – well – you know – So I went away in a rage.'
'And have you come back – as you went – in a rage?'
'Well – you see, that is the kind of fire that keeps alight of its own accord.'
'I believe that some sort of a search was made for this Edmund Gray; but I do not know how long it lasted or who was employed.'
'Detectives are no good. Perhaps the chief didn't care to press the business. Perhaps he learned enough to be satisfied that Checkley was the man. Perhaps he was unwilling to lose an old servant. Perhaps the villain confessed the thing. It all comes back to me fresh and clear, though for eight long years I have not talked with a soul about it.'
'Tell me,' said George, a little out of sympathy with this dead and buried forgery – 'tell me where you have been – what you have done – and what you are doing now.'
'Presently – presently,' he replied with impatience. 'I am sure now that I was wrong. I should not have left the country. I should have taken a lodging openly, and waited and looked on. Yes; that would have been better. Then I should have seen that old villain, Checkley, in the dock. Perhaps it is not yet too late. Still – eight years. Who can expect a commissionaire to remember a single message after eight years?'
'Well – and now tell me,' George asked again, 'what you have been doing.'
'The black-sheep always turns up, doesn't he? You learn at home that he has got a berth in the Rocky Mountains; but he jacks it up and goes to Melbourne, where he falls on his feet; but gets tired, and moves on to New Zealand, and so home again. It's a regular round.'
'You are apparently the black-sheep whose wool is dyed white. There are threads of gold in it. You look prosperous.'
'A few years ago I was actually in the possession of money. Then I became poor again. After a good many adventures I became a journalist. The profession is in America the refuge of the educated unsuccessful, and the hope of the uneducated unsuccessful. I am doing as well as journalists in America generally do: I am over here as the representative of a Francisco paper. And I expect to stay for some time – so long as I can be of service to my people. That's all.'
'Well – it might be a great deal worse. And won't you come to Pembridge Crescent with me?'
'When the cloud is lifted: not before.
