eak one. Dick was ready to be wiped out of existence, rather
than betray his mother. He believed that his father knew nothing.

"Dick--forgive!" The stricken father took a step forward, but his
strength gave out, and he dropped upon his knees at his son's feet.
"Dick! Dick! We are sinners, your mother and I. I ask your pardon.
Forgive me, boy, forgive--It was my wish from the first that you should
be set straight. I knew you were incapable of a fraud, and your mother
confessed everything to me. I only consented to the blackening of your
name at--at your mother's entreaty--to save Netty's life from ruin and
your mother from prison."

"That's all right, father--that's all right," cried Dick huskily, with an
affected cheeriness, as he raised the stricken man. "I'm not able to
grapple with it all just now. You see, I've had enteric, and am still
shaky. I've thought it all out. Mother was--was foolish. She wanted to
set us all straight, to pay my debts and save me from arrest. Well, I can
but return the compliment. A fellow can't see his own mother sent to
prison. She did it for love of her husband and children. She only
defrauded her own father; and, if he had an ounce of sentiment in him, or
was in his right mind, he'd acknowledge the checks, and make us disgorge
in some other way. I felt like going up to Asherton Hall first, and
strangling the old villain in his bed."

"Dick, my boy, it is not his fault. It is he who has been right, and we
who have been wrong. No man should spend money he does not possess. Debts
that a man can never pay are robberies. I have condoned, I am worse than
she--worse than all of you--I, the clergyman, who have been given the
care of souls. Dick, there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that
repenteth, and your mother and I have sincerely repented; but we have not
atoned. You must see her to-night, and tell her that you mean to come
home. You must tell the truth, and set yourself right in the eyes of all
men. Your father and mother don't matter. You have a life before you, and
a name that should go down in history, honored--"

"Oh, nonsense, father! What I've been through is nothing to what some of
the chaps suffered. Some thriving colony is the place for me under a new
name, a new life. So long as mother and you know, and send me a cheery
word sometimes, and wish me well, I shall be all right. You see, it's
easier to go when the girl that a fellow loves is--is going to marry
another man,