Blue-Bird Weather

The younger man's face hardened. "But when it did become my property,

why had you the indecency to stay?"

"Where else could I go?"

"You had the whole world to--operate in."

Herold's thin face flushed. "It was fitter that I should work for you,"

he said. "I have served you faithfully for five years."

"And unfaithfully for ten! Wasn't it enough that Vyse and I let you go

without prosecuting you? Wasn't it enough that we pocketed our loss for

your wife's sake?"

He checked himself in a flash of memory, turned, and looked at the

picture on the wall. Now he knew, now he understood why his former

associate's handwriting had seemed familiar after all these years.

And suddenly he remembered that this man was Jim's father--and the

father of the young girl he was in love with; and the shock drove every

drop of blood out of his heart and cheeks. Ghastly, staring, he stood

confronting Herold; and the latter, leaning heavily, shoulder against

the wall, stared back at him.

"I could have gone on working for you," he said, "trying to save enough

to make restitution--some day. I have already saved part of it. Look

at me--look at my children--at the way we live, and you'll understand

how I have saved. But I have saved part of what I took. I'll give you

that much before you go--before I go, too."

His breath came heavily, unevenly; he cleared his eyes with a

work-stained hand, fashioned for pens and ledgers.

"You were abroad when I--did what I did. Vyse was merciless. I told him

I could put it back if he'd give me the chance. But a thief was a thief

to him--particularly when his own pocket was involved. He meant to send

me to prison. The judge held him--he was his father-in-law--and he was

an old man with a wife and children of his own."

Herold was silent for a moment, and his gaze became vague and remote,

then he lifted his head sharply: "A man makes one slip like that and the world damns him forever. And I

tell you, Marche, that I am not dishonest by nature or in my character.

God alone knows why I took those securities, meaning, of course, to

return them, as all the poor, damned fools do mean when they do what I

did. But Vyse made it a condition that I was to leave the country, and

there was no chance of restitution unless I could remain in New York and

do what I knew how to do--no chance, Marche--and so fortune ebbed, and

my wife died, and the old judge saw me working on the water-front in

Norfolk one day, and gave me this place. That is all."