"
"I am inclined to believe that he is innocent," I replied. "He showed
no embarrassment when I addressed him, and no uneasiness when the guard
came round. His conversation was open to a fault. I might almost say
that he talked too freely of the business which he had in hand."
"That again is strange; for I know no one more reticent on such subjects.
He actually told you that he had the seventy-five thousand pounds in
his pocket?"
"He did."
"Humph! My wife has an idea about it, and she may be right--"
"What idea?"
"Well, she fancies,--women are so clever, you know, at putting
themselves inside people's motives,--she fancies that he was tempted;
that he did actually take the money; and that he has been concealing
himself these three months in some wild part of the country,--struggling
possibly with his conscience all the time, and daring neither to abscond
with his booty nor to come back and restore it."
"But now that he has come back?"
"That is the point. She conceives that he has probably thrown himself
upon the company's mercy; made restitution of the money; and, being
forgiven, is permitted to carry the business through as if nothing
whatever had happened.
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