Cast Adrift

“I don’t know anything just now, sir,” answered the woman, with a chill in her tones. She closed her lips tightly, and shrunk back in her chair.

“What, then, are your here for?” asked Mr. Dinneford, showing considerable sternness of manner.

“I thought you understood,” returned the woman. “I was explicit in my statement.”

“Oh, I begin to see. There is a price on your information,” said Mr. Dinneford.

“Yes, sir. You might have known that from the first. I will be frank with you.”

“But why have you kept this secret for three years? Why did you not come before?” asked Mr. Dinneford.

“Because I was paid to keep the secret. Do you understand?”

Too well did Mr. Dinneford understand, and it was with difficulty he could suppress a groan as his head drooped forward and his eyes fell to the floor.

“It does not pay to keep it any longer,” added the woman.

Mr. Dinneford made no response.

“Gain lies on the other side. The secret is yours, if you will have it.”

“At what price?” asked Mr. Dinneford, without lifting his eyes.

“One thousand dollars, cash in hand.”

“On production of the child and proof of its identity?”

Mrs. Bray took time to answer. “I do not mean to have any slip in this matter,” she said. “It was a bad business at the start, as I told Mrs. Dinneford, and has given me more trouble than I’ve been paid for, ten times over. I shall not be sorry to wash my hands clean of it; but whenever I do so, there must be compensation and security. I haven’t the child, and you may hunt me to cover with all the police hounds in the city, and yet not find him.”

“If I agree to pay your demand,” replied Mr. Dinneford, “it can only be on production and identification of the child.”

“After which your humble servant will be quickly handed over to the police,” a low, derisive laugh gurgling in the woman’s throat.

“The guilty are ever in dread, and the false always in fear of betrayal,” said Mr. Dinneford. “I can make no terms with you for any antecedent reward. The child must be in my possession and his parentage clearly proved before I give you a dollar. As to what may follow to yourself, your safety will lie in your own silence. You hold, and will still hold, a family secret that we shall not care to have betrayed. If you should ever betray it, or seek, because of its possession, to annoy or prey upon us, I shall consider all honorable contract we may have at an end, and act accordingly.”

“Will you put in writing, an obligation to pay me one thousand dollars in case I bring the child and prove its identity?”

“No; but I will give you my word of honor that this sum shall be placed in your hands whenever you produce the child.”

Mrs. Bray remained silent for a considerable time, then, as if satisfied, arose, saying,

“You will hear from me by to-morrow or the day after, at farthest. Good-morning.”

As she was moving toward the door Mr. Dinneford said,

“Let me have your name and residence, madam.”

The woman quickened her steps, partly turning her head as she did so, and said, with a sinister curl of the lip,

“No, I thank you, sir.”

In the next moment she was gone.

CHAPTER XXV

NOTHING of all this was communicated to Edith. After a few weeks of prostration strength came slowly back to mind and body, and with returning strength her interest in her old work revived. Her feet went down again into lowly ways, and her hands took hold of suffering.

Immediately on receipt of Freeling’s letter and affidavit, Mr. Dinneford had taken steps to procure a pardon for George Granger. It came within a few days after the application was made, and the young man was taken from the asylum where he had been for three years.

Mr. Dinneford went to him with Freeling’s affidavit and the pardon, and placing them in his hands, watched him closely to see the effect they would produce. He found him greatly changed in appearance, looking older by many years. His manner was quiet, as that of one who had learned submission after long suffering. But his eyes were clear and steady, and without sign of mental aberration. He read Freeling’s affidavit first, folded it in an absent kind of way, as if he were dreaming, reopened and read it through again. Then Mr. Dinneford saw a strong shiver pass over him; he became pale and slightly convulsed. His face sunk in his hands, and he sat for a while struggling with emotions that he found it almost impossible to hold back.

When he looked up, the wild struggle was over.

“It is too late,” he said.

“No, George, it is never too late,” replied Mr. Dinneford. “You have suffered a cruel wrong, but in the future there are for you, I doubt not, many compensations.”

He shook his head in a dreary way, murmuring,

“I have lost too much.”

“Nothing that may not be restored. And in all you have not lost a good conscience.”

“No, thank God!” answered the young man, with a sudden flush in his face. “But for that anchor to my soul, I should have long ago drifted out to sea a helpless wreck. No thank God! I have not lost a good conscience.”

“You have not yet read the other paper,” said Mr. Dinneford. “It is your pardon.”

“Pardon!” An indignant flash came into Granger’s eyes. “Oh, sir, that hurts too deeply. Pardon! I am not a criminal.”

“Falsely so regarded in the eyes of the law, but now proved to be innocent, and so expressed by the governor. It is not a pardon in any sense of remission, but a declaration of innocence and sorrow for the undeserved wrongs you have suffered.”

“It is well,” he answered, gloomily—“the best that can be done; and I should be thankful.”

“You cannot be more deeply thankful than I am, George.” Mr. Dinneford spoke with much feeling. “Let us bury this dreadful past out of our sight, and trust in God for a better future. You are free again, and your innocence shall, so far as I have power to do it, be made as clear as noonday. You are at liberty to depart from here at once. Will you go with me now?”

Granger lifted a half-surprised look to Mr. Dinneford’s face.

“Thank you,” he replied, after a few moments’ thought. “I shall never forget your kindness, but I prefer remaining here for a few days, until I can confer with my friends and make some decision as to the future.”

Granger’s manner grew reserved, almost embarrassed. Mr. Dinneford was not wrong in his impression of the cause. How could he help thinking of Edith, who, turning against him with the rest, had accepted the theory of guilt and pronounced her sentence upon him, hardest of all to bear? So it appeared to him, for he had nothing but the hard fact before him that she had applied for and obtained a divorce.

Yes, it was the thought of Edith that drew Granger back and covered him with reserve. What more could Mr. Dinneford say? He had not considered all the hearings of this unhappy case; but now that he remembered the divorce, he began to see, how full of embarrassment it was, and how delicate the relation he bore to this unhappy victim of his wife’s dreadful crime.

What could he say for Edith? Nothing! He knew that her heart had never turned itself away from this man, though she had, under a pressure she was not strong enough to resist, turned her back upon him and cast aside his dishonored name, thus testifying to the world that she believed him base and criminal. If he should speak of her, would not the young man answer with indignant scorn?

“Give me the address of your friends, and I will call upon them immediately,” said Mr. Dinneford, replying, after a long silence, to Granger’s last remark. “I am here to repair, to any extent that in me lies the frightful wrongs you have suffered. I shall make your cause my own, and never rest until every false tarnish shall be wiped from your name. In honor and conscience I am bound to this.”

Looking at the young man intently, he saw a grateful response in the warmer color that broke into his face and in the moisture that filled his eyes.