“Then you’re going to be. I never saw you look so pale before. What was it you said to me?” added Mr. Walker, addressing himself to the clerk.
“Mrs. Harris has sent down that piece of silk again,” answered Mr. Fellows. “Can we match it?”
“No; and there’s not a piece like it in the city,” said Mr. Walker. “But we’ll have some on Monday sure, for I ordered——”
The gentleman suddenly paused, and looking sharply toward the back part of the store, bent forward in a listening attitude.
Guy listened also, and was almost ready to drop with terror when he distinctly heard a faint, grating noise like that which would be made by turning a key carefully in a lock. It seemed to come from behind the high desk which fenced off the office from the main part of the store.
Mr. Walker stood for an instant as if profoundly astonished, and, with an inquiring glance at the clerk, started on tiptoe toward the office. Mr. Fellows was close at his heels, and Guy, impelled by a curiosity that he could not have resisted if he had tried, brought up the rear. He saw Mr. Walker disappear behind the high desk, and jumping upon a chair and looking over it, he had a full view of the scene that transpired on the other side.
Bob was kneeling in front of an open safe, and was in the very act of crowding a large package of money into his pocket. So intent was he upon what he was doing, that he did not hear his father’s stealthy approach.
Mr. Walker was utterly confounded. Hardly able to believe the evidence of his eyes, he stood for a moment as if deprived of all power of action; then springing forward with a quick bound, he wrenched the package from his son’s grasp, and sunk helpless and almost breathless into the nearest chair.
“Oh. Robert! Robert!” he exclaimed, while the tears he could not repress coursed down his cheeks. “Is this the way you repay my kindness and indulgence? How could you do it! How could you do it!”
A death-like silence followed. Mr. Walker leaned his head upon his hands and shook like a man with the ague. Bob, having recovered his perpendicular—for his father, in his excitement, had thrown him headlong into the nearest corner—stood sullen and motionless. The clerk rubbed his eyes, and looked from one to the other in silent amazement; and Guy, stunned and bewildered, staggered off the chair, and walking like one in a dream, moved slowly out of the store and down the street. He did not know where he was going, and what was more he did not care. When he came to himself he was standing in the upper story of an elevator, gazing in a stupid, benumbed sort of way at the monster wheel as it slowly revolved, bringing up an endless chain of loaded buckets from some dark abyss beneath him. He was able now to think over the incident that had just happened at the store, and as he was not yet fully hardened, he felt his situation most keenly.