The teller gazed on her in pity. After she had stared at him a while her eyes saw sympathy and understanding, and she cried. He assured her the work at the office would not be neglected, and promised to forge Penton's name to the daily cash-statement so as to keep the matter a secret from head office. She clutched his shoulders and sobbed against them. His heart ached for her, and he promised to help Penton all he could.
"Oh, Mr. Nelson," she stammered, wiping her cheeks, "if only Pen were like—like you!"
Then she wept again. The spell over, she inquired about the trains and found she could get to Toronto in the evening.
"I know where to find him," she said. "We lived in Toronto a year. Mr. Nelson, you can't imagine how I have suffered through it all. When I married Pen I knew he took an occasional glass, but I didn't dream that he was a drunkard."
"Is it as bad as that, Mrs. Penton?"
"It is as bad as it can be." She spoke excitedly. "I have known him to spend fifty dollars in one night, when he was only making nine hundred dollars a year. (We got married by special influence.) It just seems as though something draws him toward a debauch every little while. I'm afraid this small town will be our ruination."
Evan tried to make her load lighter and, in a degree, succeeded. There is no burden so heavy that true sympathy will not budge it a little. Mrs. Penton coaxed him to have tea with her; preparing it, she said, would occupy her mind. She couldn't bear to stay alone. The teller pretended to have pleasure in accepting her invitation. There was a certain amount of novelty in eating alone at a table with a strange young woman. Still, the circumstances were not very romantic.
Neither were the circumstances surrounding Penton's return. He contrived to get away from his wife in Toronto and board a train for Banfield. He arrived several hours ahead of her, and advertised himself all over town as something to be pitied. This was two days after his drunken flight. When Mrs. Penton came on the scene the manager was standing helplessly before the staff, crying like a bruised youngster. Evan sat up all night with him, studying the pathos and humor of delirium tremens. The drink demon is a tragic devil, but he has fits of fun.
For days the manager could not sign his name. The teller did it for him, feeling as he did so that he was supporting a rotten structure that must soon fall. He did not picture himself among the debris, however.