"You have been seen a great deal with Miss Brooks lately--on the street and elsewhere--acting as her escort, and evidently on terms of intimacy. To do you both justice, neither of you seemed to have made it a secret or avoided observation; but I must ask you directly if it is with her mother's permission?"Considerably relieved, but wondering what was coming, Herbert answered, with boyish frankness, that it was.
"Are you--engaged to the young lady?"
"No, sir."
"Are you--well, Mr. Bly--briefly, are you what is called 'in love' with her?" asked the banker, with a certain brusque hurrying over of a sentiment evidently incompatible with their present business surroundings.
Herbert blushed. It was the first time he had heard the question voiced, even by himself.
"I am," he said resolutely.
"And you wish to marry her?"
"If I dared ask her to accept a young man with no position as yet,"stammered Herbert.
"People don't usually consider a young man in Carstone's Bank of no position," said the banker dryly; "and I wish for your sake THATwere the only impediment. For I am compelled to reveal to you a secret." He paused, and folding his arms, looked fixedly down upon his clerk. "Mr. Bly, Tappington Brooks, the brother of your sweetheart, was a defaulter and embezzler from this bank!"Herbert sat dumfounded and motionless.
"Understand two things," continued Mr. Carstone quickly. "First, that no purer or better women exist than Miss Brooks and her mother. Secondly, that they know nothing of this, and that only myself and one other man are in possession of the secret."He slightly changed his position, and went on more deliberately.
"Six weeks ago Tappington sat in that chair where you are sitting now, a convicted hypocrite and thief. Luckily for him, although his guilt was plain, and the whole secret of his double life revealed to me, a sum of money advanced in pity by one of his gambling confederates had made his accounts good and saved him from suspicion in the eyes of his fellow-clerks and my partners. At first he tried to fight me on that point; then he blustered and said his mother could have refunded the money; and asked me what was a paltry five thousand dollars! I told him, Mr. Bly, that it might be five years of his youth in state prison; that it might be five years of sorrow and shame for his mother and sister; that it might be an everlasting stain on the name of his dead father--my friend. He talked of killing himself: I told him he was a cowardly fool. He asked me to give him up to the authorities: I told him Iintended to take the law in my own hands and give him another chance; and then he broke down. I transferred him that very day, without giving him time to communicate with anybody, to our branch office at Portland, with a letter explaining his position to our agent, and the injunction that for six months he should be under strict surveillance. I myself undertook to explain his sudden departure to Mrs. Brooks, and obliged him to write to her from time to time." He paused, and then continued: "So far I believe my plan has been successful: the secret has been kept; he has broken with the evil associates that ruined him here--to the best of my knowledge he has had no communication with them since; even a certain woman here who shared his vicious hidden life has abandoned him.""Are you sure?" asked Herbert involuntarily, as he recalled his mysterious visitor.
"I believe the Vigilance Committee has considered it a public duty to deport her and her confederates beyond the State," returned Carstone dryly.
Another idea flashed upon Herbert. "And the gambler who advanced the money to save Tappington?" he said breathlessly.