was, she had gone with her husband to Havana."
"Havana!" shouted Mr. Bowdoin; and before Jamie could explain he had crushed his beaver on his head and rushed from the bank.
Jamie's head sank over the desk, and the tears came. If only this cup could pass from him! If Heaven would pardon this one deceit in all his darkened, upright life, and let him restore the one trust he had broken, before he died! And then he dried his eyes, and took to figuring,—figuring over again, as he had so often done before, the time needed, at the present rate, to make good his theft. Ten years more—a little less—would do it.
But old Mr. Bowdoin ran to the counting-room, where he found his son and Harley in that gloomy silence that ends an unsatisfactory communication.
"Say what you will, you'll never make me believe old Jamie is a thief," said Harley.
"Thief! you low-toned rascal!" cried Mr. Bowdoin. "Thief yourself! He's just told me Mercedes is in Havana. Of course he wants Spanish gold!"
"Of course he does!" cried Harley.
"Of course he does!" cried James.
