AFTER MANY DAYS.

The basement of the Knoxport court-house, a small, smart affair, was used as the county bridewell. The room in which Jennison sat, with an official writing in a farther corner, was a good-sized, half-furnished place.

Jennison did not rise as Touchtone came in, followed by his guide. The latter stepped away to his companion’s side and seemed to pay no attention to them.

“Good-evening; I’m obliged to you for coming down,” Jennison began. He looked a trifle disheveled and haggard, and had that peculiar air of a criminal expecting the now inevitable course of justice. “Take a seat.”

“The officer told me you wished to see me, and, particularly, alone,” answered Philip, in mingled curiosity and disgust, as he found himself once more in the presence of so bold and adroit a foe. There came vividly back to[306] him the scene of the attack on board the steamer; the recognition of the handsome face, with its lurking treachery, in the portrait Mrs. Probasco had handed him on the island, and that last leap into the Knoxport arbor to re-enforce Gerald, at this man’s mercy. “What do you want of me?”

Jennison smiled. “I don’t suppose you can guess,” he replied, shifting his position. “Not to talk over the occurrences of the past fortnight or so with you, nor this end of them. You can be sure of that. You’ve won the game, Touchtone, as I told you; won it pluckily and fairly. You are a remarkable young fellow! A good rogue was spoiled in you, perhaps.”

“I think not; and I do not wish to talk of that or of affairs that are over with, any more than you do. If you have any thing particular to say I should like to hear it, and go back to the hotel.”

“All happy and serene up there, I suppose?” inquired the other, coolly. “Nice youngster that Master Gerald is! Not extraordinary that strangers should take a fancy to him, eh? Pretty boy!” he laughed, ironically.

[307]

Philip made no reply except another word about the expediency of soon hearing what he was brought down for. He did not propose to go away without asking some very particular questions, if necessary. Jennison saved him the trouble. He lowered his voice and began hurriedly:

“Enough of that. What I want to say to you—you alone—is about—your father. You have heard me say I knew him.”

“Yes.”

“I did; though he didn’t know me, since he supposed me to be an honest man and in business down-town. I was pretty well acquainted with all the circumstances of that robbery of the bank which cost him his character. I was making my living even then, you see, in what seemed the easiest way. He died of a broken heart, I heard.”

“He did,” Touchtone responded, inwardly more and more agitated. “What is that to you?”

“Nothing; but I might be something to it, or to his name, to-day. Stop! Don’t interrupt. I knew Dan Laverack and his crowd well; and as I hadn’t lost my own position in the upper[308] world yet, and was a gentleman by education (as the other men knew), I was useful to them and I made a good thing out of them myself.”

“Yes,” Philip said, staring hard at the man in the flickering light and curbing his impatience.

“I sounded your father as agent for them, Touchtone—for Laverack and the others. We thought we could bribe your father. I lived in the place months—for it. But I found before I’d gone far enough to make him suspect my game that he couldn’t be bought in. So I gave it up. Do you know I’ve seen you plenty of times, when you were a little fellow? I’d never have recognized you, of course. I remember your mother pretty well, too.”

“Don’t talk of her,” said Philip, sharply; “my time is short, and yours, too, if you leave here to-night.”

“Quite true,” replied Jennison, coolly. “I must get along in what I have to say. Touchtone, your father was innocent as a child of any share in that bank business—”

“Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think any body who really knew him could believe any thing else?”

[309]

“O, plenty of people—all the world, pretty much! You know that. Even your mother’s old friend, Mr. Marcy, never liked to talk much about the question, eh?” The blood rose in Philip’s face. “But no matter. All the world who do think he had a hand in it have been wrong; and now you and I will just set them right forever—if you say so.”

“What do you mean? How can you or I? Tell me what you are keeping back.”

The lad forgot his aversion in a passionate curiosity. He leaned forward eagerly.

“Touchtone, your father had an enemy in the bank. I dare say he knew it afterward; possibly he told you so. His name was Sixmith.”

“Sixmith, the janitor. Yes; go on.”

“Sixmith kept his feelings to himself. He was a sly creature, Touchtone, and he had what some people will tell you I have—a black heart. Only I haven’t, according to some black hearts I’ve met. Well, he was bent on revenge and on doing your father a bad turn. I forget what ’twas all for; I believe your father had interfered in his family to protect his wife. He drank. Well, Sixmith came in with Laverack. I managed it, and, in fact, I[310] was so much in with that whole job, Touchtone, that if it hadn’t been that the man who turned State’s evidence was really a sworn friend to me I’d have had to stand out with the rest and suffer. Sixmith gave them the times and hours, and so on; it was all arranged. I did some work at imitating your father’s handwriting as to a letter or two we needed. Sixmith insisted on the plan. He was to be paid besides, as you know—”

“You forged my father’s hand, to help to ruin him,” interrupted Philip, in loathing and anguish.

“I did, certainly,” replied Jennison, calmly. “I am sorry. I didn’t expect to be, I confess; but I am. Well, the bank was broken into, in such a way, as you know, that your father was considered to have a hand in it, even if the bank officers could not bring on him what they thought full justice; and tha............