Beatrice wrinkled her brows and vainly searched for a fleeting recollection.
“I don’t remember anything clearly,” she said at last. “There has been so much between.”
“When my brother left college he went to work immediately and was so eager and interested in his first ‘job.’ It was the building of a dam and reservoir for the water supply of a town near us, a project that was being financed by the company of which your father is a director. It was through his means that Jack was put in charge of the work, although he was very young for such responsibility, too young, I insisted at the time. And it was proved that he was too young. He did his work well, he was a brilliant engineer, but he trusted too much to the honor of other people and he—he did not take things as an older man would.”
She paused, and Nancy, putting down her knitting, came to sit on the floor beside her chair.
“Poor Aunt Anna,” she said, “did something dreadful happen?”
Slowly her aunt nodded, looking steadily into the fire, as though tears might come should she allow her eyes to waver.
“Yes,” she answered, “something happened that has darkened my life, every day of it, for all these years.
“We did not see so much of my brother after he began working, for he was absorbed and busy. As is usual in such cases, a contractor was doing the work under his planning and his supervision. Things went very well—for some months. Then one day, like a thunderclap, came the news that the project was being carried on with gross dishonesty. A great deal more money had been advanced for the work than had actually been spent on construction, false records of costs had been turned in, machinery ordered and not paid for, debts incurred on every side, with many thousands of dollars completely vanished. Some one, it was evident, had been pocketing the difference, and an immediate investigation was set on foot.
“It was a terrible blow to your father. I do not know myself what he thought when the facts first became known, but he at once asked some of his fellow-directors to meet at his house and said that Jack would be there to explain matters to them before there should be a formal meeting of the whole board next day. They called me in to act as secretary, since they wanted a record kept but desired the whole affair to be kept private. I can remember how my knees shook as I went in and sat down at the end of the library table. There were five men there, most of them gray-headed, all of them unspeaking, even your father. I was in a wild hurry to have Jack come. I wanted the matter cleared quickly. I could hardly keep from crying out in the storm of impatience and suspense I felt during those minutes we waited.