"Trickery, more trickery; those were stolen from Helen!" blurted Henry,
his eyes on the envelope; but we were waiting for the canoe-maker to
speak, and Henry's words rang emptily in the shop.
Arthur looked at his brother; then he faced his sister.
"Henry is not guilty," he said calmly.
He turned with a quick gesture and thrust the envelope into the flame
of one of the candles; but Helen sprang forward and caught away the
blazing packet and smothered the flame between her hands.
"We will keep the proof," she said in a tone of triumph; and I knew
then how completely she had believed in her father.
"I don't know what is in that packet," said Gillespie slowly, speaking
for the first time. "It has never been opened. My lawyer told me that
father had sworn to a statement about the trouble with Holbrook
Brothers and placed it with the notes. My father was a peculiar man in
some ways," continued Gillespie, embarrassed by the attention that was
now riveted upon him. "His lawyer told me that I was to open that
package--before--before marrying into"--and he grew red and stammered
helplessly, with his eyes on the floor--"before marrying into the
Holbrook family. I gave up that packet"--and he hesitated, coloring,
and turning from Helen to Rosalind--"by mistake. But it's mine, and I
demand it now."
"I wish Aunt Pat to open the envelope," said Rosalind, very white.
Henry turned a look of appeal upon his brother; but Miss Pat took the
envelope from Helen and tore it open; and we stood by as though we
waited for death or watched earth fall upon a grave. She bent down to
one of the candles nearest her and took out the notes, which were
wrapped in a sheet of legal cap. A red seal brightened in the light,
and we heard the slight rattle of the paper in her tremulous fingers as
she read. Suddenly a tear flashed upon the white sheet. When she had
quite finished she gathered Gillespie's statement and the notes in her
hand and turned and gave them to Henry; but she did not speak to him or
meet his eyes. She crossed to where Arthur stood beside me, his head
bowed, and as she advanced he turned away; but her arms stole over his
shoulders and she said "Arthur" once, and again very softly.
"I think," she said, turning toward us all, with her sweet dignity, her
brave air, that touched me as at first and always, beyond any words of
mine to describe, but strong and beautiful and sweet and thrilling
through me now, like bugles blown at dawn; "I think that we do well,
Arthur, to give Henry his money."
And now it was Arthur's voice that rose in the shop; and it seemed that
he spoke of his brother as of one who was afar off. We listened with
painful intentness to this man who had suffered much and given much,
and who still, in his simple heart, asked no praise for what he had
done.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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