The clerk laughed. New Orleans was within the rebel lines. Besides, they sold no tickets beyond New York or Washington. The clerk did not seem sure the way to New Orleans was through Washington. A ticket to the latter city was twenty dollars.
Jamie pulled out his wallet. He had only a few dollars in it; but loose in his pocket he found that thousand-dollar bill. "I—I think I will put off buying the ticket until to-morrow," he said.
For a new notion flashed upon him. He had not thought of this money before. With what he could earn,—the bookkeeper had said the investigation might be put off a year,—this bill might be enough to cover the remaining deficit.
He hugged it in his hands. How could he have forgotten it? He turned out into the night again to walk home; he felt very faint and cold, and remembered he had had no supper. Well, old Mrs. Hughson would get him something. She had taken the little house on Salem Street, which had been Jamie's home for so many years. John and his growing family still lived in their house, near by.
But Mrs. Hughson was out. He stumbled up the high stairs in the dark, and lit a lamp with numbed fingers. He had not been often so late away; probably she had gone to search for him. He must go out after her. She was doubtless at John's.
But first McMurtagh went to his writing-desk and unlocked the drawer that he had not visited for years; and from its dust, beneath a pile of letters, he drew out his only picture of Mercedes. He had vowed never to look at it again until he could go to help her; and now—
And now he was not going to help her. He had left her alone all those years; and now he was still to leave her, widowed, in a hostile city, perhaps to starve. Old Jamie strained his eyes to the picture with hard tearless sorrow. It was a daguerreotype of the beautiful young girl that Mercedes had been in 1845.
Was there no way? The thousand dollars he would need if he went after her. Should he borrow of Mr. Bowdoin? But how could he do so, now that he had this present from him? Jamie sat down and pressed his fingers to his temples. Then he forgot himself a moment.
He was out in the street again in the cold. He had the idea that he would go to John Hughson's; and sure enough, he found the old lady there. She and John cried out as he came in, and would know where he had been. He could not tell. "Why, you are cold," said the old lady, feeling his hand. And they would have him eat something.
In the street again, returning: it was pleasanter in the dark; one could think. One could think of her; he dared not when people were looking, lest they should know. He would go to her.