Had Clara taken it into her
head to scold as Sarah Shepard had done he would have been relieved.
Instead Clara walked in silence, thinking of her own affairs and planning
to use Hugh for her own ends. It had been a perplexing day for her. Late
that afternoon there had been a scene between her and her father and she
had left home and come to town because she could no longer bear being in
his presence. When she had seen Hugh coming toward her she had stopped
under a street lamp to wait for him. "I could set everything straight by
getting him to ask me to marry him," she thought.
The new difficulty that had arisen between Clara and her father was
something with which she had nothing to do. Tom, who thought himself so
shrewd and crafty, had been taken in by the city man, Alfred Buckley. A
federal officer had come to town during the afternoon to arrest Buckley.
The man had turned out to be a notorious swindler wanted in several cities.
In New York he had been one of a gang who distributed counterfeit money,
and in other states he was wanted for swindling women, two of whom he
married unlawfully.
The arrest had been like a shot fired at Tom by a member of his own
household. He had almost come to think of Alfred Buckley as one of his
family, and as he drove rapidly along the road toward home, he had been
profoundly sorry for his daughter and had intended to ask her to forgive
him for his part in betraying her into a false position.
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