"No honor can be lost, John, where no dishonor has been done. What have
you done? What has Harold done? There is no question of honor."
The old man shook his head, but Harold had already called together his
clear practical sense, which for an instant in the presence of this
frightful blow had deserted him.
"The mater is right, dad," said he. "It is bad enough, Heaven knows, but
we must not take too dark a view of it. After all, this insolent letter
is in itself evidence that I had nothing to do with the schemes of the
base villain who wrote it."
"They may think it prearranged."
"They could not. My whole life cries out against the thought. They could
not look me in the face and entertain it."
"No, boy, not if they have eyes in their heads," cried the Admiral,
plucking up courage at the sight of the flashing eyes and brave, defiant
face. "We have the letter, and we have your character. We'll weather it
yet between them. It's my fault from the beginning for choosing such a
land-shark for your consort. God help me, I thought I was finding such
an opening for you."
"Dear dad! How could you possibly know? As he says in his letter, it
has given me a lesson. But he was so much older and so much more
experienced, that it was hard for me to ask to examine his books. But we
must waste no time. I must go to the City."
"What will you do?"
"What an honest man should do. I will write to all our clients and
creditors, assemble them, lay the whole matter before them, read them
the letter and put myself absolutely in their hands."
"That's it, boy--yard-arm to yard-arm, and have it over."
"I must go at once." He put on his top-coat and his hat. "But I have ten
minutes yet before I can catch a train. There is one little thing which
I must do before I start."
He had caught sight through the long glass folding door of the gleam of
a white blouse and a straw hat in the tennis ground. Clara used often
to meet him there of a morning to say a few words before he hurried away
into the City. He walked out now with the quick, firm step of a man who
has taken a momentous resolution, but his face was haggard and his lips
pale.
"Clara," said he, as she came towards him with words of greeting, "I am
sorry to bring ill news to you, but things have gone wrong in the City,
and--and I think that I ought to release you from your engagement."
Clara stared at him with her great questioning dark eyes, and her face
became as pale as his.