"He is gone, and we can't help it; we'd have welcomed him home if
we could, and killed the fatted calf, but it was God's will that it
shouldn't be. There may be a blessing in it, after all. Who knows but he
might have broke out again, and brought upon us what he did before, or
worse? For my part, I should never have been without the fear; night and
morning it would always have stood before me; not to be driven away. As
it is, I am at rest."
She--the wife--took her apron from her eyes and looked at him with a sort
of amazed anger.
"Gum! do you forget that he had left off his evil ways, and was coming
home to be a comfort to us?"
"No, I don't forget it," returned Mr. Gum. "But who was to say that the
mood would last? He might have got through his gold, however much it was,
and then--. As it is, Nance Gum, we can sleep quiet in our beds, free
from _that_ fear."
Clerk Gum was not, on the whole, a model of suavity in the domestic fold.
The first blow that had fallen upon him seemed to have affected his
temper; and his helpmate knew from experience that whenever he called her
"Nance" his mood was at its worst.
Suppressing a sob, she spoke reproachfully.
"It's my firm belief, Gum, and has been all along, that you cared more
for your good name among men than you did for the boy."
"Perhaps I did," he answered, by way of retort. "At any rate, it might
have been better for him in the long-run if we--both you and me--hadn't
cared for him quite so foolishly in his childhood; we spared the rod and
we spoiled the child.
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