r 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.

XII.

Old Mr. Bowdoin went back to his bank meeting, which he peremptorily
postponed, bidding James his son to vote that way, and he would give
him reasons afterward. Going home he linked his arm in his, and told
him why he would not have that meeting, and the new bank formed, and
all its assets and trusts counted, until James McMurtagh was well
again, or not in this world to know. And that same night, Commander
Harleston, still on sick leave, started by rail for New Orleans, with
orders that would take him through the lines. They had doctors and a
nurse now for poor old Jamie; but Mr. Bowdoin was convinced no drug
could save his life and reason,--only Mercedes. He lay still in a
fever, out of his mind; and the doctors dreaded that his heart might
stop when his mind came to. That, at least, was the English of it; the
doctors spoke in words of Greek and Latin.

James Bowdoin suggested to his father that they should open the chest,
thereby exciting a most unwonted burst of ire. "I pry into poor
Jamie's accounts while he's lost his mind of grief about that girl!"
(For also to him Mercedes, now