The only effect he produced on Mrs. Thorpe was to make her walk up and down the room in violent agitation, sobbing bitterly. Now and then a few words burst lamentably and incoherently from her lips. They were just articulate enough for him to gather from them that his father had discovered everything, had suffered in consequence from an attack of palpitation of the heart, and had felt himself, on rising that morning, so unequal, both in mind and body, to deal unaided with the enormity of his son's offense, that he had just gone out to request the co-operation of the Reverend Aaron Yollop. On discovering this, Zack's penitence changed instantly into a curious mixture of indignation and alarm. He turned round quickly towards his mother. But, before he could open his lips, she informed him, speaking with an unexampled severity of tone, that he was on no account to think of going to the office as usual, but was to wait at home until his father's return--and then hurried from the room. The fact was, that Mrs. Thorpe distrusted her own inflexibility, if she stayed too long in the presence of her penitent son; but Zack could not, unhappily, know this. He could only see that she left him abruptly, after delivering an ominous message; and could only place the gloomiest interpretation on her conduct.
"When mother turns against me, I've lost my last chance." He stopped before he ended the sentence, and sat up in bed, deliberating with himself for a minute or two. "I could make up my mind to bear anything from my father, because he has a right to be angry with me, after what I've done. But if I stand old Yollop again, I'll be--" Here, whatever Zack said was smothered in the sound of a blow, expressive of fury and despair, which he administered to the mattress on which he was sitting. Having relieved himself thus, he jumped out of bed, pronouncing at last in real earnest those few words of fatal slang which had often burst from his lips in other days as an empty threat:--
"It's all over with me; I must bolt from home."
He refreshed both mind and body by a good wash; but still his resolution did not falter. He hurried on his clothes, looked out of window, listened at his door; and all this time his purpose never changed. Remembering but too well the persecution he had already suffered at the hands of Mr. Yollop, the conviction that it would now be repeated with fourfold severity was enough of itself to keep him firm to his desperate intention. When he had done dressing, his thoughts were suddenly recalled by the sight of his pocket-book to his companion of the past night. As he reflected on the appointment for Thursday morning, his eyes brightened, and he said to himself aloud, while he turned resolutely to the door, "That queer fellow talked of going back to America. If I can't do anything else, I'll go back with him!"
Just as his hand was on the lock, he was startled by a knock at the door. He opened it, and found the housemaid on the landing with a letter for him. Returning to the window, he hastily undid the envelope. Several gaily-printed invitation cards with gilt edges dropped out. There was a letter among them, which proved to be in Mr. Blyth's handwriting, and ran thus:--
"Wednesday.
"MY DEAR ZACK--The enclosed are the tickets for my picture show, which I told you about yesterday evening. I send them now, instead of waiting to give them to you to-night, at Lavvie's suggestion. She thinks only three days' notice, from now to Saturday, rather short, and considers it advisable to save even a few hours, so as to enable you to give your friends the most time possible to make their arrangements for coming to my studio. Post all the invitation tickets, therefore, that you send about among your connection, at once, as I am posting mine; and you will save a day by that means, which is a good deal. Patty is obliged to pass your house this morning on an errand, so I send my letter by her. How conveniently things sometimes turn out, don't they?
"Introduce anybody you like; but I should prefer intellectual people; my figure-subject of 'Columbus in sight of the New World' being treated mystically, and, therefore, adapted to tax the popular mind to the utmost. Please warn your friends beforehand that it is a work of high art, and that nobody can hope to understand it in a hurry.
"Affectionately yours,
"V. BLYTH."
The perusal of this letter reminded Zack of certain recent aspirations in the direction of the fine arts, which had escaped his slippery memory altogether, while he was thinking of his future prospects. "I'll stick to my first idea," he thought, "and be an artist, if Blyth will let me, after what's happened. If he won't, I've got Mat to fall back upon; and I'll run as wild in America as ever he did."
Reflecting thus, Zack descended cautiously to the back parlor, which was called a "library." The open door showed him that no one was in the room. He went in, and in great haste scrawled the following answer to Mr. Blyth's letter:--
"MY DEAR BLYTH--Thank you for the tickets. I have got into a dreadful scrape, having been found out coming home tipsy at four in the morning, which I did by stealing the family door-key. My prospects after this are so extremely unpleasant that I am going to make a bolt of it. I write these lines in a tearing hurry, for fear my father should come home before I have done--he having gone to Yollop's to set the parson at me again worse than ever.
"I can't come to you to-night, because your house would be the first place they would send to after me. But I mean to be an artist, if you won't desert me. Don't, my dear fellow! I know I'm a scamp; but I'll try and be a reformed character, if you will only stick by me. When you take your walk tomorrow, I shall be at the turnpike in the Laburnum Road, waiting for you, at three o'clock. If you won't come there, or won't speak to me when you do come, I shall leave England and take to something desperate.
"I have got a new friend--the best and most interesting fellow in the world. He has been half his life in the wilds of America; so, if you don't give me the go-by, I shall bring him to see your picture of Columbus.
"I feel so miserable, and have got such a headache, that I can't write any more. Ever yours,
"Z. THORPE, JUN."
After directing this letter, and placing it in his pocket to be put into the post by his own hand, Zack looked towards the door and hesitated--advanced a step or two to go out--and ended by returning to the writing-table, and taking a fresh sheet of paper out of the portfolio before him.
"I can't leave the old lady (though she won't forgive me) without writing a line to keep up her spirits and say goodbye," he thought, as he dipped the pen in the ink, and began in his usual dashing, scrawling way. But he could not get beyond "My dear Mother." The writing of those three words seemed to have suddenly paralyzed him. The strong hand that had struck out so sturdily all through the fight, trembled now at merely touching a sheet of paper.