“Yes, father, and I am going to surprise you. I have brought company with me.”
“Company! Whom can you have met in this wilderness?”
“A man whom you used to know in early days.”
“Not Bradley Wentworth?” said Mr. Lane eagerly.
“Yes, Bradley Wentworth.”
“Thank Heaven! I wanted to see him before I died. Where is he?”
“Just outside. He is waiting to know if you will see him.”
“Yes, yes; bring him in at once.”
Gerald went to the door, and beckoned to Wentworth, who rose immediately and passed into the cabin.
“Bradley Wentworth,” said the invalid, looking[23] up excitedly, “I am glad to see you. I thank you for obeying my summons.”
Even Wentworth, callous to suffering and selfish as he was, was shocked by the fragile appearance of his old companion.
“You look very weak,” he said.
“Yes, Bradley. I am very weak. I stand at the portal of the unseen land. My days are numbered. Any day may bring the end.”
“I am shocked to see you in this condition,” and there was momentary feeling in the tone of the world-hardened man.
“Don’t pity me! I am not reluctant to die. Gerald, you may leave me alone with Mr. Wentworth for a while. I wish to have some conversation with him.”
“Very well, father.”
“Have you acquainted him with the incidents of our early life?” asked Bradley Wentworth, referring to Gerald with a frown.
“Not until this morning. Then, not knowing but I might be cut off suddenly, and uncertain whether you would answer my call, I told him the story.”
“Better have left it untold!” said Wentworth with an uneasy look.
“Nay, he was entitled to know, otherwise he[24] might not have understood why it was that I had buried him and myself here in this wilderness.”
“He would have supposed that you came here for your health. I understand that Colorado is very favorable to those having pulmonary diseases.”
“Yes, but he was entitled to know my past history. He was entitled to know what a sacrifice I had made—for another.”
Bradley Wentworth winced at this allusion, and his forehead involuntarily contracted.
“That is your way of looking at it,” he said abruptly.
“It is the true way of looking at it,” rejoined the sick man firmly.
“Hush!” said Wentworth, looking apprehensively towards the door of the cabin.
“Gerald knows all, and he is the only one to hear. But to resume: I saved you from disgrace and disinheritance. I did so against my wishes, because your need was so great, and you solemnly promised to provide handsomely for me and mine when you came into your fortune.”
“I was ready to promise anything in my extremity. You took advantage of my position.”
“The bargain I made was a fair one. It touches but one-sixteenth of the fortune which[25] you inherited. Bradley Wentworth, it was and is a debt of honor!”
“To talk of my giving you such a sum is perfect nonsense!” said Wentworth roughly.
“You did not regard it in that light fifteen years since,” returned the sick man reproachfully.
“Of course I admit that you did me a service, and I am ready to pay for it. Give me the papers and I will give you a thousand dollars.”
“A thousand dollars in repayment of my great sacrifice! Have riches made you narrow and mean?”
“Riches have not made me a fool!” retorted Wentworth. “Let me tell you that a thousand dollars is no small sum. It will give that boy of yours a great start in life. It is more than you and I had at his age.”
“You have a son, have you not?”
“Yes.”
“How would you regard a thousand dollars as a provision for him?”
“There is some difference between the position of my son and yours,” said Wentworth arrogantly.
“You are fortunate if your son equals mine in nobility of character.”
“Oh, I have no doubt your son is a paragon,[26]” said Wentworth with a sneer. “But to the point! I will give you a thousand dollars and not a cent more.”
He had hardly finished this sentence when he started in affright. Warren Lane fell back in his chair in a state of insensibility.
Wentworth stepped hastily to the bureau, and opened the drawers one after another in the hope of finding the documents.—Page 27.