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.