He closed the bank as usual at five. Lincoln had not come couldn't come now till the nine-o'clock accommodation. For an hour after the shades were drawn he sat there in the semidarkness, silently pondering on his situation. This attitude and deep quiet were unusual to him. He heard the feet of friends and neighbors passing the door as he sat there by the smoldering coal fire, in the growing darkness. There was something impressive in his attitude.
He started up at last and tried to see what the hour was by turning the face of his watch to the dull glow from the cannon stoye's open door.
"Suppertime," he said and threw the whole matter off, as if he had decided it or had put off the decision till another time.
As he went by the post office Vance said to Mcllvaine in a smiling way, as if it were a good joke on Sanford:
"Little short o' cash down at the bank."
"He's a good fellow," Mcllvaine said.
"So's his wife," added Vance with a chuckle.
III
That night, after supper, Sanford sat in his snug little skting room with a baby on each knee, looking as cheerful and happy as any man in the village. The children crowed and shouted as he "trotted them to Boston," or rode them on the toe of his boot. They made a noisy, merry group.
Mrs. Sanford "did her own work," and her swift feet could be heard moving to and fro out in the kitchen. It was pleasant there; the woodwork, the furniture, the stove, the curtains-all had that look of newness just growing into coziness. The coal stove was lighted and the curtains were drawn.
After the work in the kitchen was done, Mrs. Sanford came in and sat awhile by the fire with the children, looking very wifely in her dark dress and white apron, her round, smiling face glowing with love and pride-the gloating look of a mother seeing her children in the arms of her husband.
"How is Mrs. Peterson's baby, Jim?" she said suddenly, her face sobering.
"Pretty bad, I guess. La, la, la-deedle-dee! The doctor seemed to think it was a tight squeak if it lived. Guess it's done for-oop 'e goes!"
She made a little leap at the youngest child and clasped it convulsively to her bosom. Her swift maternal imagination had made another's loss very near and terrible.
"Oh, say, Nell," he broke out, on seeing her sober, "I had the confoundedest time today with old lady Bingham-"
"'Sh! Baby's gone to sleep."
After the children had been put to bed in the little alcove off the sitting room, Mrs. Sanford came back, to find Jim absorbed over a little book of accounts.
"What are you studying, Jim?"
Someone knocked on the door before he had time to reply.
"Come in!" he said.
'Sh! Don't yell so," his wife whispered.
"Telegram, Jim," said a voice in the obscurity.
"Oh! That you, Sam? Come in.
Sam, a lathy fellow with a quid in his cheek, stepped in. "How d' 'e do, Mis' Sanford?"
"Set down-se' down."
"Can't stop; 'most train time."
Sanford tore the envelope open, read the telegram rapidly, the smile fading out of his face. He read it again, word for word, then sat looking at it.
"Any answer?" asked Sam.
"All right. Good night."
"Good night."
After the door slammed, Sanford took the sheet from the envelope and reread it. At length he dropped into his chair. "That settles it," he said aloud.
"Settles what? What's the news?" His wife came up and looked over his shoulder.
"Settles I've got to go on that nine-thirty train."
"Be back on the morning train?"
"Yes; I guess so-I mean, of course-I'll have to be-to open the bank."
Mrs. Sanford looked at him for a few seconds in silence. There was something in his look, and especially in his tone, that troubled her.
"What do you mean? Jim, you don't intend to come back!" She took his arm. "What's the matter? Now tell me! What are you going away for?"
He knew he could not deceive his wife's ears and eyes just then, so he remained silent. "We've got to leave, Nell," he admitted at last.
"Why? What for?"
"Because I'm busted-broke-gone up the spout-and all the rest!" he said desperately, with an attempt at fun. "Mrs. Bingham and Mrs.
McIlvaine have busted me-dead."
"Why-why-what has become of the money-all the money the people have put in there?"
"Gone up with the rest."
"What 've you done with it? I don't-"
"Well, I've invested it-and lost it."
"James Gordon Sanford!" she exclaimed, trying to realize it. "Was that right? Ain't that a case of-of-"
"Shouldn't wonder. A case of embezzlement such as you read of in the newspapers." His tone was easy, but he avoided the look in his wife's beautiful gray eyes.
"But it's-stealing-ain't it?" She stared at him, bewildered by his reckless lightness of mood.- "It is now, because I've lost. If I'd'a won it, it 'ud 'a' been financial shrewdness!"
She asked her next question after a pause, in a low voice, and through teeth almost set. "Did you go into this bank to-steal this money? Tell me that!"
"No; I didn't, Nell. I ain't quite up to that."
His answer softened her a little, and she sat looking at him steadlly as he went on. The tears began to roll slowly down her cheeks. Her hands were clenched.
"The fact is, the idea came into my head last fall when I went up to Superior. My partner wanted me to go in with him on some land, and I did. We speculated on the growth of the town toward the south. We made a strike; then he wanted me to go in on a copper mine. Of course I expected-"
As he went on with the usual excuses her mind made all the allowances possible for him. He had always been boyish, impulsive, and lacking in judgment and strength of character. She was humiliated and frightened, but she loved and sympathized with him.
Her silence alarmed him, and he made excuses for himself. He was speculating for her sake more than for his own, and so on.
"Cho-coo!" whistled the far-off train through the still air.
He sprang up and reached for his coat.
She seized his arm again. "Where are you going?" she sternly asked.
"To take that train."
'When are you coming back?"
"I don't know." But his tone said, "Never."
She felt it. Her face grew bitter. "Going to leave me and-the babies?"
