第90章

The manager was no fool to be led blindly away by such an errant proposition as this, but his situation was peculiar.Wine was in his veins.It had crept up into his head and given him a warm view of the situation.It also coloured the possibilities of ten thousand for him.He could see great opportunities with that.

He could get Carrie.Oh, yes, he could! He could get rid of his wife.That letter, too, was waiting discussion to-morrow morning.He would not need to answer that.He went back to the safe and put his hand on the knob.Then he pulled the door open and took the drawer with the money quite out.

With it once out and before him, it seemed a foolish thing to think about leaving it.Certainly it would.Why, he could live quietly with Carrie for years.

Lord! what was that? For the first time he was tense, as if a stern hand had been laid upon his shoulder.He looked fearfully around.Not a soul was present.Not a sound.Some one was shuffling by on the sidewalk.He took the box and the money and put it back in the safe.Then he partly closed the door again.

To those who have never wavered in conscience, the predicament of the individual whose mind is less strongly constituted and who trembles in the balance between duty and desire is scarcely appreciable, unless graphically portrayed.Those who have never heard that solemn voice of the ghostly clock which ticks with awful distinctness, "thou shalt," "thou shalt not," "thou shalt,"

"thou shalt not," are in no position to judge.Not alone in sensitive, highly organised natures is such a mental conflict possible.The dullest specimen of humanity, when drawn by desire toward evil, is recalled by a sense of right, which is proportionate in power and strength to his evil tendency.We must remember that it may not be a knowledge of right, for no knowledge of right is predicated of the animal's instinctive recoil at evil.Men are still led by instinct before they are regulated by knowledge.It is instinct which recalls the criminal--it is instinct (where highly organised reasoning is absent) which gives the criminal his feeling of danger, his fear of wrong.

At every first adventure, then, into some untried evil, the mind wavers.The clock of thought ticks out its wish and its denial.

To those who have never experienced such a mental dilemma, the following will appeal on the simple ground of revelation.

When Hurstwood put the money back, his nature again resumed its ease and daring.No one had observed him.He was quite alone.

No one could tell what he wished to do.He could work this thing out for himself.

The imbibation of the evening had not yet worn off.Moist as was his brow, tremble as did his hand once after the nameless fright, he was still flushed with the fumes of liquor.He scarcely noticed that the time was passing.He went over his situation once again, his eye always seeing the money in a lump, his mind always seeing what it would do.He strolled into his little room, then to the door, then to the safe again.He put his hand on the knob and opened it.There was the money! Surely no harm could come from looking at it!

He took out the drawer again and lifted the bills.They were so smooth, so compact, so portable.How little they made, after all.He decided he would take them.Yes, he would.He would put them in his pocket.Then he looked at that and saw they would not go there.His hand satchel! To be sure, his hand satchel.They would go in that--all of it would.No one would think anything of it either.He went into the little office and took it from the shelf in the corner.Now he set it upon his desk and went out toward the safe.For some reason he did not want to fill it out in the big room.

First he brought the bills and then the loose receipts of the day.He would take it all.He put the empty drawers back and pushed the iron door almost to, then stood beside it meditating.