doing such a thing. She knew, again, what temptations assail a young man in London: she saw what her Trustee thought of it: and she jumped to the conclusion that her son – and none other – was the guilty person. She even saw how he must have done it: she saw the quick look while Mr. Dering's back was turned: the snatching of the cheque book: the quick replacing it. Her very keenness of judgment helped her to the conviction. Women less clever would have been slower to believe. Shameful, miserable termination of all her hopes for her boy's career! But that she could think of afterwards. For the moment the only thing was to get the boy away – to induce him to confess – and to get him away.
He was calmer when she got home, but he was still talking about the thing: he would wait till the right man was discovered: then he would have old Dering on his knees. The thing would be set right in a few days. He had no fear of any delay. He was quite certain that it was Checkley – that old villain. Oh! He couldn't do it by himself, of course – nobody could believe that of him. He had accomplices – confederates – behind him. Checkley's part of the job was to steal the cheque book and give it to his confederates and share the swag.
'Well, mother?' he asked.
His mother sat down. She looked pale and wretched.
'Mother,' cried Hilda, the elder sister. 'Quick! What has happened? What does Mr. Dering say?'
'He accuses nobody,' she replied in a hard dry voice. 'But – '
'But what?' asked Hilda.
'He told me everything – everything – and – and – Oh!' She burst into sobs and crying, though she despised women who cry. 'It is terrible – It is terrible – It is incredible. Yet, what can I think? What can any one think? Leave us, Hilda. Leave us, Elsie.' The two girls went out unwillingly. 'Oh! my son – how can I believe it? And yet – on the one hand, a boy of two-and-twenty exposed to all the temptations of town: on the other, an old clerk of fifty years' service and integrity. And when the facts are laid before you both – calmly and coldly – you fly into a rage and run away, while Checkley calmly remains to await the inquiry.'
Mrs. Arundel had been accustomed all her life to consider Mr. Dering as the wisest of men. She felt instinctively that he regarded her son with suspicion: she heard all the facts: she jumped to the conclusion that he was a prodigal and a profligate: that he had fallen into evil ways, and spent money in riotous living: she concluded that he had committed these crimes in order to get more money for more skittles and oranges.
'Athelstan ' – she laid her hand upon his arm, but did not dare to lift her eyes and behold that guilty face – 'Athelstan' – confess – make reparation so far as you can – confess – oh! my son – my son! You will be caught and tried and found guilty, and – oh! I cannot say it – through the notes which you have changed. They are all known and stopped.'
The boy's wrath was now changed to madness.
'You!' he cried. 'You! My own mother! You believe it, no! Oh! we are all going mad together. What? Then I am turned out of this house, as I am turned out of my place. I go, then – I go; and' – here he swore a mighty oath, as strong as anybody out of Spain can make them – 'I will never – never – never come home again till you come yourself to beg forgiveness – you – my own mother!'
Outside, in the hall, his sisters stood, waiting and trembling.
'Athelstan,' cried the elder, 'what, in the name of Heaven, have you done?'
'Go, ask my mother. She will tell you. She knows, it seems, better than I know myself. I am driven away by my own mother. She says that I am guilty of – of – of forgery.'
'If she says so, Athelstan,' his sister replied coldly, 'she must have her reasons. She would not drive you out of the house for nothing. Don't glare like that. Prove your innocence.'
'What? You, too? Oh! I am driven away by my sisters as well – '
'No, Athelstan – no,' cried Elsie, catching his hand. 'Not both your sisters.'
'My poor child;' he stooped and kissed her. 'They will make you believe what they believe. Good Heavens! They make haste to believe it; they are glad to believe it.'
'No – no. Don't go, Athelstan.' Elsie threw her arms about him. 'Stay, and show that they are wrong. Oh! you are innocent. I will never – never – never believe it.'
He kissed her again, and tore himself away. The street door slammed behind him: they heard his footsteps as he strode away. He had gone.
Then Elsie fell into loud weeping and wailing. But Hilda went to comfort her mother.
'Mother,' she said, 'did he really, really and truly do it?'
'What else can I believe? Either he did it or that old clerk. Where is he?'
'He is gone. He says he will come back when his innocence is proved. Mother, if he is innocent, why does he run away? It's foolish to say that it is because we believe it. I've said nothing except that you couldn't believe it without reasons. Innocent young men don't run away when they are charged with robbery. They stay and fight it out. Athelstan should have stayed.'
Later on, when they were both a little recovered, Hilda tried to consider the subject more calmly. She had not her mother's cleverness, but she was not without parts. The following remarks – made by a girl of eighteen – prove so much.
'Mother,' she said, 'perhaps it is better, so long as this suspicion rests upon him, that he should be away. We shall certainly know where he is: he will want money, and will write for it. If it should prove that somebody else did the thing, we can easily bring him back as a martyr – for my own part I should be so glad that I would willingly beg his pardon on my knees – and of course we could easily get him replaced in the office. If it is proved that he did do it – and that, you think, they will be certain to find out – Mr. Dering, for your sake, will be ready to hush it up – perhaps we may get the notes back – he can't have used them all; in any case it will be a great comfort to feel that he is out of the way: a brother convicted – tried in open court – sentenced – oh!' She shuddered. 'We should never get over it: never, never! It would be a most dreadful thing for Elsie and me. As for his going away, if people ask why he is gone and where, we must invent something – we can easily make up a story – hint that he has been wild – there is no disgrace, happily, about a young man being wild – that is the only thing that reconciles one to the horrid selfishness of wild young men – and if, by going away in a pretended rage, Athelstan has really enabled us to escape a horrid scandal – why, mother, in that case – we may confess that the blow has been by Providence most mercifully softened for us – most mercifully. We ought to consider that, mother.'
'Yes, dear, yes. But he is gone. Athelstan is gone. And his future seems ruined. There is no hope for him. I can see no hope whatever. My dear, he was so promising. I thought that all the family influence would be his – we haven't got a single City solicitor in the whole family. I thought that he was so clever and so ambitious and so eager to get on and make money and be a credit to the family. Solicitors do sometimes – especially City solicitors – become so very, very rich; and now it is all gone and done – and nothing left to hope but the miserable wish that there should be no scandal.'
'It is indeed dreadful. But still – consider – no scandal. Mother, I think we should find out, if we can, something about his private life – how he has been living. He has been out a good deal of evenings lately. If there is any – any person – on whom he has been tempted to spend money – if he has been gambling – or betting, or any of the things that I read of' – this young lady, thanks to the beneficent assistance of certain works of fiction, was tolerably acquainted with the ways
