So Mr. Bowdoin hurried up the street to the bank, half chuckling, half
angry, still. Then (having found that there was a special and very
important directors' meeting called at once) he scurried out again
upon the street, his papers in his hat, and did the business of the
day on 'change. And then he went back to the bank, and asked if Mr.
Harleston Bowdoin had got there yet.
Mr. Stanchion told him no. By that time it was after eleven. But Mr.
Bowdoin made a rapid calculation of the distance (it never would have
occurred to him to take a hack; carriages, in his view, were meant for
women, funerals, and disreputable merrymakers), and hastened down to
Salem Street.
Old Mrs. Hughson met him at the door, grateful and tearful. Yes, young
Mr. Harley (she remembered him well in the old days, and had been
jealous of him as a rival of her son) was upstairs. She feared poor
McMurtagh was very ill. He had been out of his head for days and days.
To Mr. Bowdoin's peppery query why the devil she had not sent for him,
Mrs. Hughson had nothing to say. It had never occurred to her,
perhaps, that the well-being of such a quaint, dried-up old chap as
Jamie could be a matter of moment to his wealthy employers whom she
had never known.
"Can I see him?" asked Mr. Bowdoin. But as he spoke, Harley came down
the stairs.
"It's heart-breaking," he said. "He thinks he's in the South with her.
He was going to meet her, it seems; and the poor old fellow does not
know he has not gone."
"Let me see him," said the elder. "Have they no nurse?"
"I nurse him off and on, nigh about all he needs," answered Mrs.
Hughson. "And then there's John."
But Mr. Bowdoin had hurried up the stairs. Jamie was lying with his
eyes wide open, moving restlessly. It seemed a low fever; for his face
was pale; only the old ruddiness showed unnaturally, like the mark of
his old-country lineage, left from bygone years of youth and sunlight
on his paling life. And Jamie's eyes met Mr. Bowdoin's; he had been
murmuring rapidly, and there was a smile in them; but this now he
lost, though the eyes had in them no look of recognition. He became
silent as his look touched Mr. Bowdoin's face and glanced from it
quickly, as do the looks of delirious persons and young children. And
then, as the old gentleman bent over him and touched his hand, "A
thousand dollars yet! a thousand dollars yet!" many times repeating
this in a low cry; and all his raving now was of money and rows of
money, rows and rows of gold.
Mr. Bowdoin stood by him. Harley came to the door, and motioned to him
to step outside. Jamie went on: "A year more! another year more!"
Then, as Mr. Bowdoin again touched his hand, he stared, and Mr.
Bowdoin started at the mention of his own name.
"See, Mr. Bowdoin! but one row more to fill! But one year more, but
one year more!"
Mr. Bowdoin dropped his hand, and went hastily to the door, which he
closed behind him.
"Harley, my boy, we mustn't listen to the old man's ravings--and I
must go back to the bank."
"He has never talked that way to me, sir: it's all about Mercedes, and
his going to her," and Harley opened the door, and both went in.
And sure enough, the old man's raving changed. "I must go to her. I
must go to her. I must go to her. I cannot help it, I must go to
her."
"Sometimes he thinks he has gone," whispered Harley. "Then he is
quieter."
"What are these?" said Mr. Bowdoin, kicking over a pile of newspapers
on the floor. "Why does he have New Orleans newspapers?"
The two men looked, and found one paper folded more carefully, on the
table; in this they read the item telling of St. Clair's death. They
looked at one another.
"That is it, then," said Harley. "I wonder if he left her poor?"
"So she is not in Havana, after all," said Mr. Bowdoin.
And old Jamie, who had been speaking meaningless sentences, suddenly
broke into his old refrain: "_A thousand dollars more!_"
"I must get to the bank," said the old gentleman, "and stop that
meeting."
"And _I_ must go to _her_!" cried Harleston Bowdoin.
The other grasped his hand. But Jamie's spirit was far away, and
thought that all these things were done.