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."