The Re-Creation of Brian Kent

by Harold Bell Wright

“Yes, I have observed that, to a man, 'circumstances' nearly always mean a woman. To a woman, of course, it is a man.”

“I cannot tell you about her, now,” he said. “Some day, perhaps, when I am further away from it. But she is not at all like you.”

And this answer, for some strange reason, brought a flush of pleasure to the face of the old schoolteacher.

“I did not mean for you to tell me now,” she returned. “I only wanted you to know that, even though I am an old maid, I can understand.”

She left him then, and went to attend to her simple household duties.

It was not until quite late in the evening that Auntie Sue took up the newspaper which Sheriff Knox had given her. Judy had retired to her room, and Brian Burns—as they had agreed he should be called—was fast asleep.

To-morrow, Brian was going to sit up. His clothing had been washed and ironed and pressed, and Auntie Sue was making some little repairs in the way of darning and buttons. She had finished, and was putting her needle and scissors in the sewing-basket on the table beside her, when she noticed the paper, which she had forgotten.

The article headed “BANK CLERK DISAPPEARS” was not long. It told, in a matter-of-fact, newspaper way, how Brian Kent had, at different times, covering a period of several months, taken various sums from the Empire Consolidated Savings Bank, and gave, so far as was then known, the accumulated amount which he had taken. The dishonest clerk had employed several methods in his operations; but the particular incident—read Auntie Sue—which had led to the exposure of Kent's stealings was the theft of a small sum of money in bank-notes, which had been sent to the bank in a letter by one of the bank's smaller depositors.

The newspaper fell from Auntie Sue's hand. Mechanically, she fingered the garment lying in her lap.

She, too, had sent a sum of money in a letter for deposit to her small account in this bank from which Brian Kent had stolen. She would not have sent the familiar paper currency of the United States that way; but, this money was in Argentine notes. Her brother from far-away Buenos Aires had sent it to her, saying that it would help to keep her during the closing years of her life; and she had added it to her small savings with a feeling of deepest gratitude that her last days were now fully provided for. And she had received from the bank no acknowledgment of her letter with its enclosures.