oney's sake. Old Mr. Bowdoin had been
shrewd enough to guess what only thing could make the clerk want so
much liberty; and the news had leaked down to the others,--"that Jamie
was going for his foreign mail."

"I hear you are going away," said one. "To Europe?" said another.
"Blockade-running!" suggested a third. "For cotton."

"I--I am going to the tropics," stammered Jamie. He had but a clouded
notion how far south New Orleans might be.

"I told you so," laughed the teller.

"Bring us all a bale or two."

Jamie laughed; to the amazement of the bank, Jamie laughed.

When the cashier went to lunch, Jamie stole a chance to get into the
vault alone. And there, out of every pocket, with trembling fingers,
he pulled a little roll of Spanish gold. Then the delight of sorting
and arranging them in the old chest! He had one side for pistoles, and
this now was full; and even the doubloon side showed less than the
empty space of one roll, across the little chest, needed to fill the
count, after he had put the new coins in. The old clerk sat in a sort
of ecstasy; reminding himself still that what he gazed at was not the
greatest joy he had that day; when all these sordid things were over,
he was to start, on the morrow, for Mercedes.

He heard the voice of the cashier returning, and went out.

"Well, McMurtagh," said he, "you're lucky to escape this miserable
reorganization. July 1st we start as a national bank, you know."

"Yes," said Jamie absently.

"Every stick and stone in this old place has got to be counted over
again, the first of the month, by the examiners of Uncle Sam, and
every book verified. By the way," the cashier ended carelessly, as
witless messengers of fate alone can say such things, "you'd better
leave me the key of that old chest we carry in special account for the
Bowdoins. They'll want to look at everything, you know. The
examination may come next year, or it may come any time."

IX.

A few minutes more of Jamie's life were added to the forty years he
had spent over his desk. He even went through a few columns of
figures. Then he closed the desk, leaving his papers in it as usual,
and went out into the street.

So it was all gone for naught,--all his labors, all his self-denial,
all his denial of help to Mercedes. If he left to seek her, his theft
would be discovered in his absence. He would be thought to have run
away, to have absconded, knowing his detection was at hand. If he
st