A Perilous Secret | Page 7

continued to expel
short sentences.
"On her death-bed she made me promise to give you my hand. There it
is."
His hand was propelled out, caught flying by Bartley, released, and
drawn back again, all by machinery it seemed.
"She leaves you £20,000 in trust for the benefit of her child and
yours--Mary Bartley."
"Poor, dear Eliza."
The Colonel looked as less high-bred people do when they say
"Gammon," but proceeded civilly though brusquely.
"In dealing with the funds you have a large discretion. Should the girl
die before you, or unmarried, the money lapses to your nephew, my son,
Walter Clifford. He is a scapegrace, and has run away from me; but I
must protect his just interests. So as a mere matter of form I will ask
you whether Mary Bartley is alive."
Bartley bowed his head.

Colonel Clifford had not heard she was ill, so he continued: "In that
case"--and then, interrupting himself for a moment, turned away to
Bartley's private table, and there emptied his pockets of certain
documents, one of which he wanted to select.
His back was not turned more than half a minute, yet a most expressive
pantomime took place in that short interval.
The nurse opened a door of communication, and stood with a rush at
the threshold: indeed, she would have rushed in but for the stranger.
She was very pale, and threw up her hands to Bartley. Her face and her
gesture were more expressive than words.
Then Bartley, clinging by mere desperate instinct to money he could
not hope to keep, flew to her, drove her out by a frenzied movement of
both hands, though he did not touch her, and spread-eagled himself
before the door, with his face and dilating eyes turned toward Colonel
Clifford.
The Colonel turned and stepped toward him with the document he had
selected at the table. Bartley went to meet him.
The Colonel gave it to him, and said it was a copy of the will.
Bartley took it, and Colonel Clifford expelled his last sentences.
"We have shaken hands. Let us forget our past quarrels, and respect the
wishes of the dead."
With that he turned sharply on both heels, and faced the door of the
little office before he moved; then marched out in about seven steps, as
he had marched in, and never looked behind him for two hundred
miles.
The moment he was out of sight, Bartley, with his wife's will in his
hand and ice at his heart, went to his child's room. The nurse met him,
crying, and said, "A change"--mild but fatal words that from a nurse's
lips end hope.
He came to the bedside just in time to see the breath hovering on his
child's lips, and then move them as the summer air stirs a leaf.
Soon all was still, and the rich man's child was clay.
The unhappy father burst into a passion of grief, short but violent. Then
he ordered the nurse to watch there, and let no one enter the room; then
he staggered back to his office, and flung himself down at his table and
buried his head. To do him justice, he was all parental grief at first, for
his child was his idol.

The arms were stretched out across the table; the head rested on it; the
man was utterly crushed.
Whilst he was so, the little office door opened softly, and a pale, worn,
haggard face looked in. It was the father of the poor man's child in
mortal danger from privation and hereditary consumption. That
haggard face was come to ask the favor of employment, and bread for
his girl, from the rich man whose child was clay.




CHAPTER III
.
THE TWO FATHERS.
Hope looked wistfully at that crushed figure, and hesitated; it seemed
neither kind nor politic to intrude business upon grief.
But if the child was Bartley's idol, money was his god, and soon in his
strange mind defeated avarice began to vie with nobler sorrow. His
child dead! his poor little flower withered, and her death robbed him of
£20,000, and indeed of ten times that sum, for he had now bought
experience in trade and speculation, and had learned to make money
out of money, a heap out of a handful. Stung by this vulgar torment in
its turn, he started suddenly up, and dashed his wife's will down upon
the floor in a fury, and paced the room excitedly. Hope still stood
aghast, and hesitated to risk his application.
But presently Bartley caught sight of him, and stared at him, but said
nothing.
Then the poor fellow saw it was no use waiting for a better opportunity,
so he came forward and carried out Bolton's instructions; he put