"You wonder how I could do as I did if I felt like that toward you," he went on. "Well, sometimes I hated you too. I was jealous of you, you were so much cooler and stronger than I, so much more of a man. I don't suppose you understand. We're not supposed to be like that. I guess I was born with a queer streak."
On the other side of Garrod sat Mary, ready with the pencil and the book. Davy, large-eyed and solemn, filled the doorway.
"I, Francis Garrod, being about to die, do desire to make my peace with God if I may, and with my friend Malcolm Piers, whom I have deeply wronged. It was I who took the money from the Bank of Canada that he was accused of stealing. None but I knew before-hand that he was going away, nor his reasons for going. The morning after he went the sight of the money in the vaults tempted me. He had influential friends and relatives, and I knew there would be no scandal. I took the money in old bills that could not be traced. I have not known a minute's peace since then. It drove me mad by degrees, and it is the cause of my death.
"Should any doubt be cast on this confession, it is easy to verify it. Within a month of the theft I opened accounts in the following banks and branches of banks in Montreal." A list of the banks followed. "In each I deposited a small sum. The total will be about forty-five hundred dollars. The rest I kept by me. Furthermore, among the papers in my desk will be found a letter from Malcolm Piers dated from Winnipeg a few days after his disappearance. The post-mark is intact. In every sentence of this letter there is proof that the writer had no theft on his conscience when he wrote it, and no money. So help me God!"
Garrod signed the page with a sufficiently firm hand, and Davy and Mary wrote their names beneath for witnesses. Jack gave Mary the grim little volume to keep for him, and she and Davy went away.
"That's done," murmured Garrod with a sigh. His fictitious strength seemed to ebb with the sigh. He slipped down on Jack's arm a little. "Don't leave me, Macgreegor," he murmured. "It's all right with us now, isn't it?"
"Sure, I won't leave you," said Jack.
The voice came in a whisper now with many breaks and pauses. "The lights of Ste. Catherine's street, Macgreegor, on a Saturday night, and the crowds, and the stairs up to the gallery of the old Queen's, how they echoed under our feet! We saw the 'Three Musketeers!' ... 'Member the rink in the winter? And the old Park Slide? ... And Ste. Anne's, with the sun shining on the river? There's another pair of kids winning the tandem paddles now, eh? ... How good it is to have you here, old fel'! 'Member the first day I came to work at the bank! You blacked Husky Nickerson's eyes because he blotted my ledger. We nearly all got fired, but you saved us with your pull. Husky, too! How I admired you, with your crooked eyebrow, and your curly hair, and your straight back!
"Well, it's all over for me, old fel' ... and nothing to show! I'll be twenty-six next month.... Life's a sad thing ... and empty! ... I wish—I wish I had done differently. It's good to feel your arm, Macgreegor! ... What time is it, old fel'? Pretty near closing-time? ..."
Three days later Jack, Mary, and Davy rode into Fort Cheever in the evening. On the fourth horse was lashed a significant looking bundle neatly wrapped in canvas, the canvas of the other dead man's tent. A heartfelt welcome awaited them. David Cranston showed no anger at his children. He only looked from Mary to Jack and back again with a kind of wistful, inquiring scowl.