It may be asked how with such a crime upon his soul he could experience any degree of comfort or satisfaction. But this is a problem we cannot explain. Probably his soul was so blunted to all the best feelings of our common nature that he was effected only by that which selfishly affected his own interest.
"At last I am in a secure position," he said to himself. "Then the opportune death of my ward, of which I am advised by Cromwell, gives me his large estate. With this to fall back upon, and my business righted, I do not see why I should not look forward in a few years to half-a-million."
He was indulging in these satisfactory reflections when the door opened, and a servant entered.
"I think it is the same one that called several times about the time of Mr. Raymond's funeral."
"Cromwell!" repeated Mr. Morton. "Show him up," he said.
A moment afterward James Cromwell entered the room.
The two looked at each other with a kind of guilty intelligence. Each saw in the other a murderer. One had put to death his intimate friend, for the sake of his money. The other had sent to death (so both supposed) an innocent boy, confided to his charge, and his crime, too, was instigated by the same sordid motive.
"Did you receive a letter from me a day or two since?" asked James Cromwell.
"Yes, but I did not quite understand it. You wrote that he had disappeared. Has he returned to you?"
"How do you account for his disappearance?" asked Paul Morton.
"I think he must have gone out in a boat on the pond and got drowned," said Cromwell.
"Has the body been found?" questioned the merchant.
"Then how do you know that he was drowned there?"
James Cromwell moved uneasily in his chair. It was not a pleasant question for him to answer.
"I cannot, of course, say positively," he stammered, "but I have every reason to feel satisfied that the boy is dead."
"And yet, come away from Madison without ascertaining definitely."
"I thought there was no need," said Cromwell.
"No need! Do you think I am willing to remain in uncertainty as to whether or not my ward is dead? What faith am I to put in your statement since it appears that you have no satisfactory evidence to offer?"
James Cromwell began to perceive his mistake. He saw that he ought to have had the pond dragged, and personally superintended the funeral ceremonies of his victim, in order that he might have brought to the merchant the most indubitable proof of the reality of his death.