Part 3 (2/2)
The automobile sped on, smoothly as though running on steel rails. A brisk wind beat against the gla.s.s s.h.i.+eld and was deflected, leaving only light currents of air to brush the faces of the occupants of the car.
Between Ward and his sister a long silence ensued.
It was broken by the brother.
”Don't you understand the position we're in?” he inquired.
”I understand,” she replied absently.
”And don't you care?”
”Nothing matters now, except Herbert.”
For weeks the brother had dreaded the moment when he should be compelled to confess the loss of their fortune. Now, finding that she took it coolly, even indifferently, he decided to go through with it.
”But I haven't finished--you don't know all,” he pursued desperately.
”The situation is aggravated by your resolve to leave your husband. All his money, save the small income from the trust fund established by his mother, is likewise sunk in the enterprise. I induced him to invest, I'm really responsible for the predicament in which he'll find himself.
Don't you see,” he added pleadingly, ”if you leave him now it will take on the aspect of desertion. People will say that your brother ruined him and then you threw him over. While if you wait until after my marriage, I shall be in a position to settle with him in full and still have enough to look after you.”
For several minutes she remained mute, evidently digesting his words.
”And would you marry without letting her know that you are ruined?” she inquired in quivering tones. ”Would you try to rehabilitate yourself with her fortune? Do you think it fair?”
The words cut like saber thrusts. But when a man finds the walls of his house about to fall on him he is apt to clutch blindly at anything which promises to prop the tottering structure.
”It is cowardly, I confess,” he said. ”But what am I to do? Besides, I love her. You know I would not marry without love, even to avert financial ruin.”
”I shall not interfere between you and your intended,” she answered icily. ”Neither shall I permit the circ.u.mstances which you have described to alter my determination.”
The car now threaded its way through the maze of traffic in the city.
Presently it drew up before a huge, ugly factory that covered a square block on the upper west side, near the river. Ward and his sister jumped out of the tonneau and entered the building. They found themselves in a busy office, consisting of a single room down the length of which a wooden rail interposed between visitors and employes.
”I wish to see Mr. Whitmore,” Mrs. Collins informed one of the office boys.
”Hasn't come down yet,” the boy replied.
”Is he often away as late as this?”
”No ma'am,” said the boy. ”He's usually here at nine o'clock.”
”Has Mr. Beard been here this morning?”
”Not yet. But he telephoned he'll be here at twelve o'clock.”
Ward consulted his watch. It was a quarter past ten. He questioned the boy but was unable to obtain any information as to the possible whereabouts of his employer or his secretary. So he and his sister decided to await them at the office.
The visitors looked sufficiently important to warrant the office boy ushering them into Whitmore's private office. As they pa.s.sed down the railed corridor they elicited the further information that no one answering Collins's description had called that morning.
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