Alfred then deprecated further discussion of what was past, and said abruptly, "I have an offer to make you: in a very short time I shall have ten thousand pounds; I will not resign my whole fortune; that would be unjust to myself, and my wife; and I loathe and despise Injustice in all its forms, however romantic or plausible. But, if you will give the Dodds their L. 14,000, I will share my little fortune equally with you: and thank you, and bless you. Consider, sir, with your abilities and experience five thousand pounds may yet be the nucleus of a fortune; a fortune built on an honourable foundation. I know you will thrive with my five thousand pounds ten times more than with their fourteen thousand;and enjoy the blessing of blessings, a clear conscience."Now this offer was no sooner made than Mr. Hardie shut his face, and went to mental arithmetic, like one doing a sum behind a thick door. He would have taken ten thousand: but five thousand did not much tempt him:
besides, would it be five thousand clear? He already owed Alfred two thousand five hundred. It flashed through him that a young man who loathed and despised Injustice--even to himself--would not consent to be diddled by him out of one sum while making him a present of another: and then there was Skinner's thousand to be reimbursed. He therefore declined in these terms:
"This offer shows me you are sincere in these strange notions you have taken up. I am sorry for it: it looks like insanity. These nocturnal illusions, these imaginary sights and sounds, come of brooding on a single idea, and often usher in a calamity one trembles to think of. You have made me a proposal: I make you one: take a couple of hundred pounds (I'll get it from your trustees) and travel the Continent for four months; enlarge and amuse your mind with the contemplation of nature and manners and customs; and if that does not clear this phantom L. 14,000out of your head, I am much mistaken."Alfred replied that foreign travel was his dream: but he could not leave Barkington while there was an act of justice to be done.
"Then do me justice, boy," said Mr. Hardie, with wonderful dignity, all things considered. "Instead of brooding on your one fantastical idea, and shutting out all rational evidence to the contrary, take the trouble to look through my books: and they will reveal to you a fortune, not of fourteen thousand, but of eighty thousand pounds, honourably sacrificed in the vain struggle to fulfil my engagements: who, do you think, will believe, against such evidence, the preposterous tale you have concocted against your poor father? Already the tide is turning, and all who have seen the accounts of the Bank pity me; they will pity me still more if ever they hear my own flesh and blood insults me in the moment of my fall; sees me ruined by my honesty and living in a hovel, yet comes into that poor but honest abode, and stabs me to the heart by accusing me of stealing fourteen thousand pounds: a sum that would have saved me, if Icould only have laid my hands on it."He hid his face, to conceal its incongruous expression: and heaved a deep sigh.
Alfred turned his head away and groaned.
After a while he rose from his seat and went to the door; but seemed reluctant to go: he cast a longing, lingering look on his father, and said beseechingly: "Oh think! you are not my flesh and blood more than Iam yours; is all the love to be on my side? Have I no influence even when right is on my side?" Then he suddenly turned and threw himself impetuously on his knees: "Your father was the soul of honour; your son loathed fraud and injustice from his cradle; you stand between two generations of Hardies, and belong to neither; do but reflect one moment how bright a thing honour is, how short and uncertain a thing life is, how sure a thing retribution is, in this world or the next: it is your guardian angel that kneels before you now, and not your son: oh, for Christ's sake, for my mother's sake, listen to my last appeal. You don't know me: I cannot compound with injustice. Pity me, pity her I love, pity yourself!""You young viper!" cried the father, stung with remorse, but not touched with penitence. "Get away, you amorous young hypocrite; get out of my house, get out of my sight, or I shall spurn you and curse you at my feet.""Enough!" said Alfred, rising and turning suddenly calm as a statue: "let us be gentlemen, if you please, even though we must be enemies. Good-bye, my father that _was._"And he walked gently out of the room, and, as he passed the window Mr.
Hardie heard his great heart sob.
He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. "A hard tussle," thought he, "and with my own unnatural, ungrateful flesh and blood, but I have won it: he hasn't told the Dodds; he never will; and, if he did, who would believe him, or them?"At dinner there was no Alfred; but after dinner a note to Jane informing her he had taken lodgings in the town, and requesting her to send his books and clothes in the evening. Jane handed the note to her father: and sighed deeply. Watching his face as he read it, she saw him turn rather pale, and look more furrowed than ever.
"Papa!" said she, "what _does_ it all mean!""I am thinking."
Then, after a long pause, he ground his teeth and said, "It means--War:
War between my own son and me."
