The
bank people are rich. It won't hurt them much--whereas confession would
annihilate us."

"The money must be paid back," he cried resolutely, striking the air with
his clenched fist, while he held her to him with the other arm.

"It's impossible, John, impossible. We cannot pay back without explaining
why."

"We must atone--for Dick's sake. No man shall say that our son robbed him
of money without compensation from us, his parents. Let us go home, Mary,
and begin from to-day. The rectory must be given up. It must be let
furnished, and the servants dismissed. We must go into some cheap
place."

"Yes, let us go home, John. You'll talk more reasonably there, and see
things in another light."

The man listened, and allowed himself to be led. This was as it had been
always; but it could not go on forever. Deep down in John Swinton's
vacillating nature, there was the spirit of a martyr.

CHAPTER XVIII

A SECOND PROPOSAL

Dora was undetermined in her attitude toward Dick's enemy, who, for her
sake, was ready to become his friend and save his name from public
disgrace. She had a poor opinion of a man who was willing to further his
own suit by making concessions to a rival, even though that rival were
dead; but her attitude of mind toward Dick was changing slowly under
outside influence--as it was bound to do with a clear-headed girl,
trained to the strict code of honor that exists among military men
concerning other people's money. A soldier who had committed forgery
could never hold up his head again in the eyes of his regiment, or of the
woman he loved. He voluntarily made himself an outcast.

The colonel did not fail to drive home the inevitable moral, and
congratulated himself upon his daughter's escape. Dora was obliged to
acknowledge that Dick, if not a villain, was at least a fool. The sorrow
he had brought upon his father and mother was alone sufficient to warrant
the heartiest condemnation. The colonel was never tired of commenting on
the awful change in the mother's appearance and the blight upon John
Swinton, who went about like a condemned man, evading his friends, and
scarcely daring to look his parishioners in the face.

There had been talk of a memorial service in the parish church, but
nothing came of it. Its abandonment was looked upon as a tacit
recognition of a painful situation, which would only be augmented by a
public parade of sorrow.

Ormsby treated Dora with the greatest consi