The Argosy — page 219: what you’re looking at

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How it Happened. 205 back with him to the junction. So you must not expect me home to- night until you see me, Mary.” “ And it is the bank money !” I exclaimed, breathlessly. ‘ But then, of course, they have the numbers of the notes down, wherever he got them.” “That is just what they have not,” John answered, impatiently. “No one wrote them down, through some inexplicable carelessness. Come out and get this poor-fellow some tea, or something of the sort, Mary. He is in my study.” He closed the door between us and our young visitor when I had followed him from the dining-room. “T did not like to tell you before Frances,” he said, ‘but I never, in all my life, saw a fellow in such a terrible state as Carter is in now. He came to me at first like a lunatic, and now he is behaving more as if he were a woman than a reasonable man. I have had him in floods of tears, like any girl. He thinks, and so do I, that after I got him the glass of water to-day, at the station, he must have either slept or fainted when the train again went on, and that his pocket-book then either dropped out of his pocket or was stolen from it. He reproaches himself bitterly for what he calls his carelessness ; although the truth is that the poor fellow was more dead than alive just then, and was quite incapable of paying attention to anything.” “He is overwrought,” I said. ‘“ He told me that he did not sleep at all last night.” I made some fresh strong tea, and administered it to my patient in silence before he left. As I could give him no comfort I thought it better to say nothing. ; When Frances and I were alone together again, we went into the drawing-room, and sat there until near midnight. I sent her off to bed then, and waited up alone for John. He did not return home until the early day was dawning, and then he had no good news to tell. There were no tidings of the lost pocket-book. Time went on, and this was still the case. It seemed as though the matter were hopeless, for all searches and inquiries continued to prove fruitless. Louis went daily, as of old, to the bank, where no one, I am sure; ever threw a glance of suspicion upon him, but elsewhere he was seldom seen in public. He no longer played the organ during the church services, nor did he instruct the choir any more. All these duties were delegated to his assistant. He shrank from notice with painful and morbid sensitiveness, believing himself an object of universal con. tempt. My husband could not persuade him out of the idea that he was now a dishonoured man, in consequence of what had occurred. He declined all entreaties to visit us, and it was a long time before I saw him again after that unhappy night when he had come to us in the first eagerness of his distress. I was much troubled at this, as. J felt - comicbooks.com