"And I have something to talk to you about, dearest. There is a horrible report spread in the town, apparently, by the bank people. Just now, a man came up and condoled with me, calling my son a thief and a forger." "John! John!" cried his wife, placing her hands upon his shoulders, and presenting a face strained with agony. "I am going to tell you something that will make you hate me for the rest of your life." The rector trembled with a growing dread. "First, tell me what Barnby said to you, and what you said to him, about those checks that you got from your father. You must have given Barnby an entirely erroneous impression." "It is about those checks I am going to speak. When you have heard me, condemn me if you like, but don't ruin us utterly. That is all I ask. Don't ruin us." "Be more explicit. You are talking in riddles. Everybody seems to be conspiring to hide something from me. What is it? What has happened? What did Dick do before he went away? Did he do anything at all? Have you hidden something from me?" "John, the checks I got from father, with which we paid our debts to stave off disgrace, were--forgeries." "Lord help us, Mary! Do you mean that we have been handling stolen money?" "Don't put it like that, John, don't! I can't bear it." "And is it true what they're saying about Dick? Oh! it's horrible. I'll not believe it of our boy." "There is no need to believe it, John. He is innocent, though they condemn him. Yet, the checks were forgeries." "Then, who? You got the checks, didn't you? I thought--Ah!" "I am the culprit, John. I altered them." "You?" "Yes, John. Don't look at me like that. Father was outrageous. There was no money to be got from him, and I had no other course. Your bankruptcy would have meant your downfall. That dressmaker woman was inexorable. You would have been sued by your stock-broker, and--who knows what wretchedness was awaiting us?--perhaps absolute beggary in obscure lodgings, and our daily bread purchased with money begged from our friends. You know what father is: you know how he hates both you and me, how he would rub salt into our wounds, and gloat over our humiliation. If--if Dick hadn't gone to the front--" "Mary, Mary, what are you saying! You have robbed your father of money instead of facing the result of our follies bravely? You have sent our boy to the war--with money filched by a felony! Don't touch me! Stand away! No; I thought you were a good woman!" "I didn't know. I didn't realize." "You are not a child, without knowledge of the ways of the world. You must have known what you were doing."