father,” she answered, lifting her eyes from her work, and looking at him mournfully; “plenty — for you.”
The man shrugged his shoulders, and sighed heavily.
“It’s too late for that, my girl,” he said; “the day is past — the day is past and gone — and the chance gone with it. You know how I’ve striven, and worked, and struggled; and how I’ve seen my poor schemes crushed when I had built them up with more patience than perhaps man ever built before. You’ve been a good girl, Margaret — a noble girl; and you’ve been true to me alike in joy and sorrow — the joy’s been little enough beside the sorrow, poor child — but you’ve borne it all; you’ve endured it all. You’ve been the truest woman that was ever born upon this earth, to my thinking; but there’s one thing in which you’ve been unlike the rest of your sex.”
“And what’s that, father?”
“You’ve shown no curiosity. You’ve seen me knocked down and disgraced wherever I tried to get a footing; you’ve seen me try first one trade and then another, and fail in every one of them. You’ve seen me a clerk in a merchant’s office; an actor; an author; a common labourer, working for a daily wage; and you’ve seen ruin overtake me whichever way I’ve turned. You’ve seen all this, and suffered from it; but you’ve never asked me why it has been so. You’ve never sought to discover the secret of my life.”
The tears welled up to the girl’s eyes as her father spoke.
“If I have not done so, dear father,” she answered, gently, “it has been because I knew your secret must be a painful one. I have lain awake night after night, wondering what was the cause of the blight that has been upon you and all you have done. But why should I ask you questions that you could not answer without pain? I have heard people say cruel things of you; but they have never said them twice in my hearing.” Her eyes flashed through a veil of tears as she spoke. “Oh, father — dearest father!” she cried, suddenly throwing aside her work, and dropping on her knees beside the man’s chair, “I do not ask for your confidence if it is painful to you to give it; I only want your love. But believe this, father — always believe this — that, whether you trust me or not, there is nothing upon this earth strong enough to turn my heart from you.”
She placed her hand in her father’s as she spoke, and he grasped it so tightly that her pale face grew crimson with the pain.
“Are you sure of that, Madge?” he asked, bending his head to look more closely in her earnest face.
“I am quite sure, father.”
“Nothing can tear your heart from me?”
“Nothing in this world.”
“What if I am not worthy of your love?”
“I cannot stop to think of that, father. Love is not mete out in strict proportion to the merits of those we love. If it were, there would be no difference between love and justice.”
James Wentworth laughed sneeringly.
“There is little enough difference as it is, perhaps,” he said; “they’re both blind. Well, Madge,” he added, in a more serious tone, “you’re a generous-minded, noble-spirited girl, and I believe you do love me. I fancy that if you never asked the secret of my life, you can guess it pretty closely, eh?”
He looked searchingly at the girl’s face. She hung her head, but did not answer him.
“You can guess the secret, can’t you, Madge? Don’t be afraid to speak, girl.”
“I fear I can guess it, father dear,” she murmured in a low voice.
“Speak out, then.”
“I am afraid the reason you have never prospered — the reason that so many are against you — is that you once did something wrong, very long ago, when you were young and reckless, and scarcely knew the nature of your own act; and that now, though you are truly penitent and sorry, and have long wished to lead an altered life, the world won’t forget or forgive that old wrong. Is it so, father?”
“It is, Margaret. You’ve guessed right enough, child, except that you’ve omitted one fact. The wrong I did was done for the sake of another. I was tempted to do it by another. I made no profit by it myself, and I never hoped to make any. But when detection came, it was upon me that the disgrace and ruin fell; while the man for whom I had done wrong — the man who had made me his tool — turned his back upon me, and refused to utter one word in my justification, though he was in no danger himself, and the lightest word from his lips might have saved me. That was a hard case, wasn’t it, Madge?”
“Hard!” cried the girl, with her nostrils quivering and her hands clenched; “it was cruel, dastardly, infamous!”
“From that day, Margaret, I was a ruined man. The brand of society was upon me. The world would not let me live honestly, and the love of life was too strong in me to let me face death. I tried to live dishonestly, and I led a wild, rackety, dare-devil kind of a life, amongst men who found they had a skilful tool, and knew how to use me. They did use me to their heart’s content, and left me in the lurch when danger came. I was arrested for forgery, tried, found guilty, and transported for life. Don’t flinch, girl! don’t turn so white! You must have heard something of this whispered and hinted at often enough before to-day. You may as well know the whole truth. I was transported, for life, Madge; and for thirteen years I toiled amongst the wretched, guilty slaves in Norfolk Island — that was the favourite place in those days for such as me — and at the end of that time, my conduct having been approved of by my gaolers, the governor sent for me, gave me a good-service certificate, and I went into a counting-house and served as a clerk. But I got a kind of fever in my blood, and night and day I only thought of one thing, and that was my chance of escape. I did escape — never you mind how, that’s a long story — and I got back to England, a free man; a free man, Madge, I thought; but the world soon told me another story. I was a felon, a gaol-bird; and I was never more to lift my head amongst honest people. I couldn’t bear it, Madge, my girl. Perhaps a better man might have persevered in spite of all till he conquered the world’s prejudice. But I couldn’t. I sank under my trials, and fell lower and lower. And for every disgrace that has ever fallen upon me — for every sorrow I have ever suffered — for every sin I have ever committed — I look to one man as the cause.”
Margaret Wentworth had risen to her feet. She stood before her father now, pale and breathless, with her lips parted, and her bosom heaving.
“Tell me his name, father,” she whispered; “tell me that man’s name.”
“Why do you want to know his name, Madge?”
“Never mind why, father. Tell it to me — tell it!”
She stamped her foot in the vehemence of her passion.
“Tell me his name, father,” she repeated, impatiently.
“His name is Henry Dunbar,” James Wentworth answered, “and he is the son of a rich banker. I saw his father’s death in the paper last March. His uncle died ten years ago, and he will inherit the fortunes of both father and uncle. The world has smiled upon him. He has never suffered for that one false step in life, which brought such ruin upon me. He will come home from India now, I dare say, and the world will be under his feet. He will be worth a million of money, I should fancy; curse him! If my wishes could be accomplished, every guinea he possesses would be a separate scorpion
