is it impossible?" Harry burst out. "It is a good deal likelier than that my father would have done what it's said he did! There's an impossibility, if you like; and you would say so, too, if you had known him better."
Mr. Lowndes shook his head, and smiled sadly as he watched the boy's flaming face through his spectacles.
"You may have known your father, Ringrose, but you don't know human nature, or you wouldn't talk like that. Nothing is impossible – no crime – not even to the best of us – when the strain becomes more than we can bear. It is a pure question of strain and strength: which is the greater of the two. Every man has his breaking-point; your father was at his for years; it's a mystery to me how he held out so long. You must look at it sensibly, Ringrose. No thinking man will blame him, for the simple reason that every man who thinks knows very well that he might have done the same thing himself under the same pressure. Besides – give him a chance! With ten thousand pounds in his pocket – "
"You're sure he had it in his pocket?" interrupted Harry. These arguments only galled his wounds.
"Or else in a bag; it comes to the same thing."
"In what shape would he have the money?"
"Big notes and some gold."
"Yet foul play's an impossibility!"
"The numbers of the notes are known. Not one of them has turned up."
"I care nothing about that," cried the boy wildly, "though it shows he hasn't spent them himself. Listen to me, Mr. Lowndes. I believe my father is dead, I believe he has been murdered: and I would rather that than what you say! But you claim to have been his friend? You raised this money for him? Very well; take my hand – here in his room – where I can see him now, all the time I'm talking to you – and swear that you will help me to clear this mystery up! We'll inspan the best detective in town, and take him with us to Dieppe, and never leave him till we get at the truth. I mean to live for nothing else. Swear that you will help me … swear it here … in his own room."
The wild voice had come down to a broken whisper. Next moment it had risen again: the man hesitated.
"Swear it! Swear it! Or you may have been my father's friend, but you are none from this hour to my mother and me."
Lowndes spread his hands in an indulgent gesture.
"Very well! I swear to help you to clear up this – mystery – as long as you think it is one."
"That is all I want. Now tell me when the next train starts for town. It used to be nine-twenty?"
"It is still."
"You are returning to London yourself?"
"Yes, by that train."
"Then let us meet at the station. It is now eight. I – I want to be alone here for an hour or two. No, it will do me good, it will calm me. I feel I have been very rude to you, sir, but I have hardly known what I said. I am beside myself – beside myself!" And Harry Ringrose rushed from the room, and up the bare and sounding stairs of his empty home: it was from his own old bedroom that he heard Lowndes leave the house, and saw a dejected figure climbing the sloping drive with heavy steps.
That hour of leave-taking is not to be described. How the boy harrowed himself wilfully by going into every room and thinking of something that had happened there, and seeing it all again through scalding tears, is a thing to be understood by some, but pitied rather than commended. There was, however, another and a sounder side to Harry Ringrose, and the prayers he prayed, and the vows he vowed, these were brave, and he meant them all that bitter birthday morning, that was to have been the happiest of all his life. Then his heart was broken but still heroic: there came many a brighter day he would gladly have exchanged for that black one, for the sake of its high resolves, its pure impulses, its noble and undaunted aspirations.
He had one more rencontre before he got away: in the garden he espied their old gardener. It was impossible not to go up and speak to him; and Harry left the old man crying like a child; but he himself had no tears.
"I am glad they left you your job: you will care for things," he had said, as he was going.
"Ay, ay, for the master's sake: he was the best master a man ever had, say what they will."
"But you don't believe what they say?"
The gardener looked blank.
"Do you dare to tell me," cried Harry, "that you believe what they believe?"
It was at this the man broke down; but Harry strode away with bitter resentment in his heart, and so back to the town, with a defiant face for every passer; but this time there were none he knew. At the spot where his old companion had cut him, that affront was recalled for the first time; its meaning was plain enough now; and plain the strange conduct of the railway-porter, who kept out of his way when Harry reappeared at the station.
Lowndes was there waiting for him, and had not only taken the tickets, but also telegraphed to Mrs. Ringrose; and this moved poor Harry to a shame-faced confession of his improvidence on the way down, and its awful results, in the midst of which the other burst out laughing in his face. Harry was a boy after his own heart; it was a treat to meet anybody who declined to count the odds in the day of battle; but, in any case, Mr. Lowndes claimed the rest of the day as "his funeral." As Harry listened, and thanked his new friend, he had a keen and hostile eye for any old ones; but the train left without his seeing another.
"The works look the same as ever," groaned Harry, as he gazed out on them once more. "I thought they seemed to be doing so splendidly, with all four furnaces in blast."
"They are doing better than for some years past: iron's looking up: the creditors may get their money back yet."
"Thank God for that!"
Lowndes opened his eyes, and the sharp nose twitched amusement.
"If I were in your place that would be the worst part of all. I have no sympathy with creditors as a class."
"I want to be even with them," said Harry through his teeth. "I will be, too, before I die: with every man of them. Hallo! why, this is a first-class carriage! How does that happen? I never looked where we got in; I followed you."
"And I chose that we should travel first."
"But I can't, I won't!" cried Harry, excitedly. "It was monstrous of me last night, but it would be criminal this morning. You sit where you are. I can change into a third at the next station."
"I have a first-class ticket for you," rejoined Lowndes. "You may as well make use of it."
"But when shall I pay you back?"
"Never, my boy! I tell you this is my funeral till I deliver you over to your mother, so don't you begin counting the odds; you've nothing to do with them. Besides, you came up like a rocket, and I won't have you go down altogether like the stick!"
Nor did he; and Harry soon saw that his companion was not to be judged by his shabby top-hat and his shiny frock-coat; he was evidently a very rich man. Where the boy had flung half-crowns overnight – where half-a-crown was more than ample – his elder now scattered half-sovereigns, and they had an engaged carriage the whole way. At Preston an extravagant luncheon-basket was taken in, with a bottle of champagne and some of the best obtainable cigars, for the quality of both of which Gordon Lowndes made profuse apologies. But Harry felt a new being after his meal,
