“’Tis little ye air eatin’, Janice,” said the widow. “Is’t nae tae yer taste?”
“It is all right, Mrs. MacKay,” Janice hastened to assure her. But all the time that she tried to eat the food on her plate she was wondering what her duty was under the circumstances.
Janice certainly would not have gone into the town and spread abroad the rumor that the trust company might close its doors at the end of this day’s business. But the information had been given her with no promise, asked or implied, that she should not speak of the bank trouble.
Elder Concannon was likely to lose a thousand dollars, perhaps; besides, his plans for profit out of the sawmill contract would come to naught. It might be months before the troubles of the Middletown Trust Company would be settled and the old gentleman be able to get hold of his money again.
Janice went back to school with her thoughts now fixed upon this subject. Was it her business to do anything to help Elder Concannon? Would it be wrong if she told him what she had learned from Mrs. MacKay about the Middletown Trust Company?
Janice did not trouble her mind about her own relations with the stern old elder. Not for a moment did she remember that he had sworn out a warrant against her for speeding and hailed her into court. She wasn’t the kind that hugged the thought of revenge.
But she hesitated because she did not know which was the right thing to do. The matter of the trouble at the bank had been imparted to her with no idea of its being repeated; yet she was not under the bonds of secrecy.
How would Elder Concannon feel if his money was tied up? And suppose it caused him to lose the thousand dollars he had already paid down upon the option?
Janice had gone into recitation ere this; but her mind was not on her work. She asked to be excused by the teacher in charge and went directly to the principal of the seminary.
“Mrs. Protherick, I wish you would excuse me at once. I have to go back to Polktown. I learned something at lunch time that leads me to believe it is my duty to help somebody at home. I cannot explain just now what it is.”