Within the Tides | Page 7

he sat
down and the Editor swung his revolving chair right round. He was full
of unction.
"Imprudent, I should say. In many ways money is as dangerous to
handle as gunpowder. You can't be too careful either as to who you are
working with. Anyhow there was a mighty flashy burst up, a sensation,

and--his familiar haunts knew him no more. But before he vanished he
went to see Miss Moorsom. That very fact argues for his
innocence--don't it? What was said between them no man knows--
unless the professor had the confidence from his daughter. There
couldn't have been much to say. There was nothing for it but to let him
go--was there?--for the affair had got into the papers. And perhaps the
kindest thing would have been to forget him. Anyway the easiest.
Forgiveness would have been more difficult, I fancy, for a young lady
of spirit and position drawn into an ugly affair like that. Any ordinary
young lady, I mean. Well, the fellow asked nothing better than to be
forgotten, only he didn't find it easy to do so himself, because he would
write home now and then. Not to any of his friends though. He had no
near relations. The professor had been his guardian. No, the poor devil
wrote now and then to an old retired butler of his late father,
somewhere in the country, forbidding him at the same time to let any
one know of his whereabouts. So that worthy old ass would go up and
dodge about the Moorsom's town house, perhaps waylay Miss
Moorsom's maid, and then would write to 'Master Arthur' that the
young lady looked well and happy, or some such cheerful intelligence.
I dare say he wanted to be forgotten, but I shouldn't think he was much
cheered by the news. What would you say?"
Renouard, his legs stretched out and his chin on his breast, said nothing.
A sensation which was not curiosity, but rather a vague nervous anxiety,
distinctly unpleasant, like a mysterious symptom of some malady,
prevented him from getting up and going away.
"Mixed feelings," the Editor opined. "Many fellows out here receive
news from home with mixed feelings. But what will his feelings be
when he hears what I am going to tell you now? For we know he has
not heard yet. Six months ago a city clerk, just a common drudge of
finance, gets himself convicted of a common embezzlement or
something of that kind. Then seeing he's in for a long sentence he
thinks of making his conscience comfortable, and makes a clean breast
of an old story of tampered with, or else suppressed, documents, a story
which clears altogether the honesty of our ruined gentleman. That
embezzling fellow was in a position to know, having been employed by

the firm before the smash. There was no doubt about the character
being cleared--but where the cleared man was nobody could tell.
Another sensation in society. And then Miss Moorsom says: 'He will
come back to claim me, and I'll marry him.' But he didn't come back.
Between you and me I don't think he was much wanted--except by
Miss Moorsom. I imagine she's used to have her own way. She grew
impatient, and declared that if she knew where the man was she would
go to him. But all that could be got out of the old butler was that the
last envelope bore the postmark of our beautiful city; and that this was
the only address of 'Master Arthur' that he ever had. That and no more.
In fact the fellow was at his last gasp--with a bad heart. Miss Moorsom
wasn't allowed to see him. She had gone herself into the country to
learn what she could, but she had to stay downstairs while the old
chap's wife went up to the invalid. She brought down the scrap of
intelligence I've told you of. He was already too far gone to be
cross-examined on it, and that very night he died. He didn't leave
behind him much to go by, did he? Our Willie hinted to me that there
had been pretty stormy days in the professor's house, but--here they are.
I have a notion she isn't the kind of everyday young lady who may be
permitted to gallop about the world all by herself--eh? Well, I think it
rather fine of her, but I quite understand that the professor needed all
his philosophy under the circumstances. She is his only child now--and
brilliant--what? Willie positively spluttered trying to describe her to me;
and I could see directly you came in that you had an uncommon
experience."
Renouard, with an irritated gesture, tilted his hat more forward on his
eyes, as though he were bored. The Editor went