Chapter XLV.

Grey River Argus, Volume XIII, Issue 1642, 8 November 1873, Page 4

Chapter XLV.

No intelligence of Frank's whereabouts. :*?, We only-know that he receives our letters," wrote Kate, " because he answers them. ■ They go to theppst-officej Great Bedford-street. His own have for the last two or three weeks been more despondent — that is, less cheerful than before. They have not the true ring about them that they had. I thinkj though I dare not say so to mamma, that his good spirits are forced. I have written and told him about Dick's splendid offer. It is generous in the highest degree. It is more than generous. ! Tell him I think it is noble. I shall not write to him myself till I have Frank's answer. Yes, Grace, my pic ture was accepted, hung, and sold. I was at once glad to get the money, and sorry to let the picture go. I am doing another now, just a woodland scene —painted here in the mountains — with a single figure in it : a quiet picture, which I hope to succeed with. Only, when I have finished a picture I like, it goes to my heart to let it be sold. Frauk keeps sending us money. It is such a pity, because we really do not want any. We have plenty. And we are happy again. Only nine months ago, Grace, and what a difference ! — what a difference !"

Thus far Kate Melliship. Grace showed the letter to Dick.

" There are two or three ways," he said, "of getting hold of Frank. A man oan'fc hide himself altogether, unless he cuts off communication by letter. Evidently, he doesn't want at present to be hunted up. All the same, I will go up to London and find him for you, Grace." "But how, Dick? How can you find him?" " "Well, I shall go to the post-office where his letters are sent. I shall ask them who takes his letters,' and how often they are sent for. If they won't tell me, I shall bribe them till they do. They are sure to do it for half a sovereign. After that, we have only to go on the day when he appears, and lie in wait, to catch him beautifully. Once my hand is on his shoulder, Grace, you may be quite sure that! don't let him go again tfll I bring him back to you." ■ ""WTien will you go, Dick?" she asked eagerly. "To-morrow? Go tomorrow, and make haste. I've got some foolish sort of nervous feeling, as if something was going to happen— l don't know what, or how. I've had it for a week* I suppose I'm not very well." "Thunder in theair," said Dick. "If anything happens, it will be something good for you. So be ready to jump for joy." That evening he told his little boy of his intention to go to London ; and still suspicious that Polly, of whom he knew nothing beyond the fact that she drew her pound a-week, might return in his absence and carry off the boy, he told him to be ready to go to town with him. The fast train from Market Basing leaves at nine o'clock, and is at Euston at. half past ten. They started to walk to the station, because Dick hated luggage, and always kept changes of raiment and fine linen at his chambers in Jer- | myn-street. Crossing the river, Dick bethought him that he had not seen his father for some days. So he passed through the garden into the house. Mr Mortiboy was in his bed. Hester was feeding him with a spoon, his breakfast consisting of bread and milk. He frowned at his son as usual, and then quietly took his milk a spoonful at a time until the basin was emptied. Dick sat by the side of his bed, and watched him eat. His appetite was very good : altogether, there was a great change in him. The fixed smile had almost left his mouth, and the distortion of his face was much less noticeable. Then his eye was brighter, his memory better! The cloud seemed to be gradually lifting from his mind. As his son sat by his bedside, watching Hester feed the old man, and thinking of all that had happened, suddenly there, flashed upon bis memory an old, old day — so long ago that it had never once come back to him : a day more than a quarter of a century old : an autumn day like the present, when the golden tints were on the leaves : a morning when, a. child, he walked hand in hand with his father, and asked questions. He remembered how his father, lifting, him in his arms, stroked his cheeks and kissed him ; how, he flung his, own arms /round his neck, and kissed hk father again ;—& simple, childish caress :- it might have occurred once,^because Mr^MofctUjoy wwars r an iindemon r strative 1 mahijmd with him such events were rare. As he remembered this, another^^9jug^t;came'upon him : it was that never once since that day, save when his own crime caused relapse, had his ■father's; love ceased to burn in a steady flame. He knew it now : he recognized it even in the starved and pinched life he hadbeen made to lead; even in the tyranny of his youth j even j in the hard .work: and long hours to f which his father had subjected him —

all this was to make him grow up like himself— -and in the ready confidence and trust with which he received the prodigal returning home. He knew it all in a single moment, and a sharp pain shot through him as he looked upon the wreck he had himself caused. - Dick was not one, however, to sit down and weep, throwing ashes upon his. head, and clothing himself with sackcloth. The thought came to him as one which might often come again —a grave and saddening thought. His thought turned upon the boy whom he had adopted. Suppose little Bill should do something — should turn out somehow like himself 1 Then he cleared his throat, which; was getting husky, and bent . slightly over his father. Old Hester had left them alone together. "Father," he said, " let us be friends again— l am sorry." The old man moved his slow eyes upwards with a puzzled expression. Dick looked at him, waiting, but no 'response came. He joined the boy, and they set off together to walk to the station. . When Hester came back, she found Mr Mortiboy looking troubled, and a tear or two had rolled down his withered cheeks. "Bill," said Dick, in the train — he was quite accustomed to converse on all topics with the boy, who understood or not, as the case might bo — " Bill, I wonder if we are going to have a collision and bust up." "Why, Uncle Dick?" "Because the Mexicans say that when a man is going to die, he begins to think about the days when he was a child. That's what I've been doing this morning. The only way you can be killed in this peaceful old country is by a railway accident." " J saw a boy once run over by a 'bus," said Bill, thoughtfully. " Yes — there are other ways, I suppose. But a smash on a railway is the most likely thing. Perhaps, after all, the Mexicans are not always right." There was no railway accident, at any rate. At his chamber he fouud a letter dated, a fortnight and more bacV, from Lafleur. " My dear Dick," it ran, " I am in want of money. Please send me a couple of hundred at once." "In any case," said Dick, "it is too late now. Want of money? What has been done with the five thousand ? The System has come to grief, I suppose, after all!" It was not pleasant to think about. The man has been started actually with all the money he had asked. The partnership was dissolved. The pair had separated — each agreed to go his own way ; and yet, only two months after, came this letter. Dick crushed it in his fingers, looking stern and determined. "It shall not be," he said, thinking aloud. "Polly is gone, and Lafleur shall go. I will have no witnesses left; to remind me of old days. I will live my own life now, with the boy to bring up. Lafleur shall not be with us to bring back what I would torget. No, M. Alcide Lafleur, it will not do. Your own secrets are as bad as mine, and worse. You dare not speak, at any rate. I will give you one more start, on conditions that you go away to California, or somewhere over the water, and never come back again. You shall not stand in my way. I defy any man to stand in my way. My path is clear and certain. I will start Frank and Ghrimes. Then I will go away, and stay away for ten years with the boy. And then I will-c ome back, and put him out in life, and settle down. I shall be turned fifty then. I shall never marry. I have said so. There will be more children then— Grace's children — to amuse me. I shall spend the rest of my life, thirty years and more, among the children."