VI.
The packet was two hundred dollars short. And David had brought it in.
Two hundred dollars! Only two hundred dollars! In God's name, why did he not borrow it, ask me for it? thought poor Jamie. He must have known it would be at once discovered. And mixed curiously with Jamie's dismay was a business man's contempt for the childishness of the theft. And yet they called such men sharpers!
For never from that moment, from that time on, did poor Jamie doubt the sort of man Mercedes had married. Never for one moment did the idea occur to him that the robbery might be overlooked, the man reformed. Jamie's heart was as a little child's, but his head was hard enough. He had seen too much of human nature, of business methods and ways, to doubt what this thing meant or what it led to. He had been trying to look through Mercedes' eyes. He had known him for a gambler all along; and now it appeared that he was a man not to be trusted even with money. And he had given him Mercedes!
There had been Harley Bowdoin. She had liked him first; and but for them, his employers—But no; old Jamie could not blame his benefactor, even through his wife. It was not that. No one was at fault but he himself. If he had even loved her less, it had been better for her: 'twas his fault, again his fault.
Sobbing, he went through the easy form of making good the theft; this with no thought of condoning the offense, but for his little girl's name. It was simple enough: it was but the drawing a check of his own to cover the loss. Oh, the fool the scoundrel had been!
Jamie drew the check, and canceled it, and added it to the teller's slip. Then he closed the heavy books, put the cash drawer back in the safe, closed the heavy iron doors, gave a turn of his wrist and a pull to the handle, said a word to the night-watchman, and went out into the street. It was the soft, broad sunlight of a May afternoon; by the clock at the head of the street he saw that it was not yet six o'clock. But for once Jamie went straight home.
Mr. St. Clair had not come in, said the servant. (They now kept one servant.) Mrs. St. Clair was lying down. Jamie went into the parlor, contrary to his wont, and sat down awkwardly. It was furnished quite with elegance: Mercedes had been so proud of it! His little girl! And now he had married her to a thief! People might come to scorn her, his Mercedes.
They had tea alone together; and Jamie was very tender to her, so that she became frightened at his manner, and asked if anything was wrong with David.
"No," said Jamie. "Has he not been home? Do you not know where he is?"
"No," sighed the wife. "He has always told me before this."
Jamie touched her hand shyly. "Do you still love him, dear?"
But she flung away from him angrily, and went upstairs. And old Jamie waited. He dared not smoke his pipe in the parlor, nor even on the doorstep (which was a pleasant place; there was a little park, with trees, in front), for Mercedes thought it ungenteel. The present incongruity of this regard for appearances never struck Jamie, and he waited there. After eleven o'clock he fancied he might venture; the neighbors were not likely to be up to notice it. So he lit his pipe and listened. There was still a light in her window; but David St. Clair did not come. Her window stood open, and Jamie listened hard to hear if she were crying. Shortly after midnight the birds in the square began to twitter, as if it were nearly dawn. Then they went to sleep again, but Jamie went on smoking.
It was daylight when St. Clair appeared, in a carriage. He had the look of one who has been up all night, and started nervously as he saw Jamie on the doorstep. Then he pulled himself together, buttoning his coat, and, giving the driver a bill, he turned to face the old clerk.
"Taking an early pipe, Mr. McMurtagh?"
"I know what ye ha' done," said Jamie simply. "I ha' made it guid; but ye must go."
St. Clair's bravado collapsed before Jamie's directness.
"Made what good?" he blustered.
"The two hundred dollars ye took," said Jamie.
"Two hundred dollars? I took? Old man, you're crazy."
"I tell ye I ha' made it guid," said Jamie.
"Made it good? I could do that myself, if—if"—
"Perhaps ye'll be having the money about ye now?" said Jamie. "Can ye give it me?"
St. Clair abandoned pretense. Perhaps curiosity overcame him, or his morning nerves were not so good as Jamie's. "Of course I'll get the money. I lent it to a friend. But how did you ever know the d—d business was short?"
Jamie looked at him sadly. This was the man he had hoped to make a man of business. "Mon, why didn't ye ask me for it? Do ye suppose they didna count their money the nicht?"
"You're so d—d mean!" swore St. Clair. "Have you told my wife?"
"Ye'll not be telling Mercy?" gasped Jamie, unmindful of the result. "I have told no one."
"I'll make it all right with the teller, then," said the other.
"Ye'll na be going back to the bank!" cried Jamie.
"Not go back? Do you suppose I can't be trusted with a matter of two hundred dollars?"
"Ye'll not be going back to the bank!" said Jamie firmly. "Ye'll be taking Mr. Bowdoin's money next."
"If it weren't for the teller— He's not a gentleman, and last week I was fool enough to tell him so. Did the teller find it out?"
"I found it out my own sel'."
"Then no one else knows it?"
"Ye canna go back."
"Then I'll tell Sadie it's all your fault," said David.
Poor Jamie knocked his pipe against the doorstep and sighed. The other went upstairs.