"I beg your pardon, Captain. I won't put you to that trouble."
"No trouble at all, Senner, if 'twill ease you up any." Uncle Sid's face relaxed.
"I think you have all of the essential facts, Mr. Seymour," Winston began. "Mr. Berl took fifty thousand dollars of the company's money. It has been returned. According to the strict interpretation of the law, this restitution does not free Mr. Berl from its penalties. If you fail to prosecute, it will have the appearance of compounding a felony; that is, if Mr. Berl took the money with no intention of restoring it. Whether he had such intentions, no one, not even Elijah himself, can prove before the law. The question is, whether we will prosecute Mr. Berl, or whether we will forgive the past, and try to restore him to himself."
Winston looked fixedly at Seymour. There was an anxious hush as he ceased speaking. Seymour rested motionless with his eyes on the floor. At last he looked up.
"When I started out here, it was with the full expectation of finding you all more or less involved in this business. From what I have seen and heard since I have been in this office, I am prepared to say, without reservation, that my suspicions were groundless. So far as I am concerned, Mr. Berl is a free man with no shadow of fear. This affair can be kept strictly to ourselves with no injustice to any one. We will consider this episode in our history closed once and for all."
Uncle Sid's face was wreathed in smiles.
"I want to beg your pardon, Senner. You make me think of these prickly pears out here. They're mighty fine eatin' when you get the spines off 'em."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The fact that the way of the transgressor is hard, was being ground into the shrinking soul of Elijah. As yet, the grinding was of no avail because he refused to recognize that he was a transgressor. For years he had dreamed, and worked, and planned, and in it all he had been alone. Men would have called it alone, but not so Elijah. The Lord was with him. At least this was his fanatical belief. Alone, or with the still, small voice, not always interpreted aright, he had with infinite patience dreamed his dreams, wrought out his tasks as they came to him, and still alone, he had seen them shaping to a definite end. He had, like a solitary player, shuffled his cards, had dealt them and played in strict accordance with the game or modified them at will, and there was no one to say him nay. Even Amy had strengthened this growing habit of looking upon himself, his will and his desires as infallible.