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A TURN OF THE CARDS
75
president, you know, dear, has sent
for me on business "
1 ' But, Jack, Nan ! Think of Nan ! ' ' He bent over her, holding the white,
upturned face hungrily between his
palms. For a moment he left the room,
and she heard his step on the stairs.
Then he was back, unearthly calm. "I've seen Nan; I'm trusting her
to you, dear — you and God," he said.
"Dont keep me now; it's important
business. Trust me a little, dearest
dear."
His kiss was a strangely final one, and he was gone. She looked vaguely about the empty, familiar shabbiness of the room, trying to draw her slipping senses back ; but the furnishings, her wedding furnishings, looked strange and unacquainted. Then a broken, beloved toy, sprawling beneath the sofa, caught her eye, and she burst into merciful, saving tears, clasping the ugly, clumsy thing to her soft breast.
"My baby — my dollbaby," she sobbed. "Oh, God ! will they ever be thru their work up there?"
The stout banker, lounging, in a luxury of expensive cigar-smoke, in his padded library, looked up as they entered, a smile grim on his lips.
"Got him, did you?" he grunted. "That's good. Other one's here too, in the next room. Jackson, bring him in. Well, Mr. — er — Richards, is it ? — 'fraid we've blocked your move."
Jack did not speak. He stood woodenly between his captors, twisting his soft hat over and over in his hands, voiceless with his shame. He saw, unmoved, his assistant teller led in and stand in braggadocio attitude before the improvised tribunal; saw Mike, the bank janitor, appear ; heard himself accused of theft ; and still the unbelievable horror of the thing chained his tongue. It seemed a futile, senseless waste of time, some
how, to go over and over the matter, when at home his little girl might Indying — the thought galvanized him into sudden speech.
"Mr. Grey, sir," he stumbled thickly, "let me go home, please — for God's sake, sir — just for an hour — five minutes "
The banker sneered incredulously, wagging a thick, grey-thatched skull. "I s'pose you'll say you didn't take the money, eh?" he said.
Jack Richards shook his head. ' 1 Why no, ' ' he said quietly ; ' ' why no, I took it right enough, sir ; but it was
FOR ONE LAST LOOK AT LITTLE NAN
because
" Suddenly he knew that he could not speak of Nan to this sneering unbelief. He could foresee the laugh, the cynical jest, the incredulity. His lips closed hopelessly.
Grey looked from culprit to culprit, the glow of an attractive idea gleaming in his tiny, pig eyes. He had a fondly cherished reputation for eccentricity, and the occasion suited his inflated sense of power.
"Bum sports, you are," he jeered; "I could respect a thief in a big way, but a petty pilferer — bah !" He jerked open a drawer in his desk and drew out a deck of cards, the gleam growing. "A man who appropriates