eak to him about it. He had no
long absences at lunch-time, but took a sandwich on the street. In
fact, Jamie had grown to be a miser.

Great things were happening in those days, but Jamie took no heed of
them. Human liberty was in the air; love of man and love of law were
at odds, and clashed with each other in the streets; Jamie took no
heed of them. They jostled on the pavement, but Jamie walked to his
task in the morning, and back at night, between them; seeing mankind
but as trees, walking; bowed down with the love of one. And he who had
never before thought of self could think now only of his own
dishonor. As a punishment, he tried not to think of her, except only
at night, when his prayers permitted it; but he thought of her always.
His crime made him ashamed to write to her; his single-heartedness
made him avoid all other men.

Only one man, in all those years, did Jamie seem willing to talk to,
at the office, and that man was Harleston Bowdoin. Had he not loved
her? Jamie never spoke of her; but Harleston had a happy impulse, and
would talk to the old man about Mercedes. Away from business, Jamie
would walk in all the places where her feet had trod. He would go to
King's Chapel Sundays; and he looked up John Hughson again, and would
sit with him, wondering. John had married a stout wife, and had sturdy
children. Hughson petted the old man, and gave him pipes of tobacco;
for McMurtagh was too poor to buy tobacco, those days. The children on
Salem Street feared him, as a miser; which was hard, for Jamie was
very fond of little children.

How does a man live whose heart rules his soul, and is broken; whose
conscience rules his head, and is dishonored? For men so heavy laden,
heaven was, and has been lost. But Jamie never thought his soul
immortal until his love for Mercedes came into it; perhaps not
consciously now. Such thoughts would have seemed to him childish. How,
then, did Jamie live? For no man can live quite without hope, as we
believe,--hope of some event, some end of suffering, at least of some
worthier act.

With Jamie it was the hope of restitution. He wished to leave behind
him, as the score of his life, that he had been true to his employer
and had loved his little ward. And if the time could ever come when he
could do more for her, it would not be until his theft was made good,
and his hands were free, as his heart, to serve her again. For the one
thing that Jamie stood for was integrity; that