With this thought in mind, Thady Shea set about making his departure, for he intended to be gone when Mrs. Crump arrived home. If Dorales were safely out of the way for a day or two, there would be no danger in leaving the mine deserted; and Shea was already possessed of a scheme for putting Dorales in cold storage.
Prompt to act upon the swift impulse in his mind, Shea turned over the cleverly drawn paper which Dorales had been studying, and upon its back wrote a note to Mrs. Crump. The check caught his eye, and he pulled it toward him; smiling sardonically, he read and reread that magic slip of paper which stood for ten thousand dollars.
He picked up the check and held it for a moment over the oil lamp—then he quickly jerked it back.
“No, I’ll leave it,” he muttered. “She’ll know I’m honest, perchance! It will be a tongue most eloquent.”
That sardonic smile still curving his wide lips, he turned over the check and carefully indorsed it; across the back of the paper he wrote the same name which he had signed to the note. The whimsical thought came to him that, if he presented this paper at a bank, he would get ten thousand dollars for Mrs. Crump; he had no intention of so presenting it, however—had he not refused the proffered negotiations? He indorsed that check merely as a mute message to Mrs. Crump. It quite escaped him that, by so indorsing it, he had made it good.
He picked up the epistle which he had written, and read it over, frowning:
MADAM: If you do not already know of my unhappy share in your misfortunes, you may be easily apprised of it from other lips. Farewell! I take my leave to seek an errant soul upon the roads, and I shall not return until some testing has surfeited my most uneasy spirit.
—— Thaddeus R. Shea.
He folded up the note, and nodded to himself.
“’Tis not so clear as crystal, yet ’twill serve,” he murmured.
Whether Mrs. Crump would fully understand the reasons for his departure was immaterial, since Shea himself did not fully understand them; at least, he had not figured them into concrete bases. His idea of doing penance, of seeking either ultimate strength or ultimate failure again in the world, was vague. His secondary motive, that of not drawing his benefactress into his own danger from the Mackintavers forces, was equally vague, since Mrs. Crump was far more imperilled and far better equipped to face such peril than he.