"In cash?"
"In cash."
"But the man who did it--he would be known?"
"Yes. I tell you both, as sure as I stand here, I believe that Paul
Armstrong looted his own bank. I believe he has a million at least, as
the result, and that he will never come back. I'm worse than a pauper
now. I can't ask Louise to share nothing a year with me and when I
think of this disgrace for her, I'm crazy."
The most ordinary events of life seemed pregnant with possibilities
that day, and when Halsey was called to the telephone, I ceased all
pretense at eating. When he came back from the telephone his face
showed that something had occurred. He waited, however, until Thomas
left the dining-room: then he told us.
"Paul Armstrong is dead," he announced gravely. "He died this morning
in California. Whatever he did, he is beyond the law now."
Gertrude turned pale.
"And the only man who could have cleared Jack can never do it!" she
said despairingly.
"Also," I replied coldly, "Mr. Armstrong is for ever beyond the power
of defending himself. When your Jack comes to me, with some two
hundred thousand dollars in his hands, which is about what you have
lost, I shall believe him innocent."
Halsey threw his cigarette away and turned on me.
"There you go!" he exclaimed. "If he was the thief, he could return
the money, of course. If he is innocent, he probably hasn't a tenth of
that amount in the world. In his hands! That's like a woman."
Gertrude, who had been pale and despairing during the early part of the
conversation, had flushed an indignant red. She got up and drew
herself to her slender height, looking down at me with the scorn of the
young and positive.
"You are the only mother I ever had," she said tensely. "I have given
you all I would have given my mother, had she lived--my love, my trust.
And now, when I need you most, you fail me. I tell you, John Bailey is
a good man, an honest man. If you say he is not, you--you--"
"Gertrude," Halsey broke in sharply. She dropped beside the table and,
burying her face in her arms broke into a storm of tears.
"I love him--love him," she sobbed, in a surrender that was totally
unlike her. "Oh, I never thought it would be like this. I can't bear
it. I can't."
Halsey and I stood helpless before the storm. I would have tried to
comfort her, but she had put me away, and there was something aloof in
her grief, something new and strange. At last, when her sorrow had
subsided to the dry shaking sobs of a tired child, without raising her
head she put out one groping hand.