The next morning David was summoned to the office of the superintendent of his department. He was still aglow from the commendation of yesterday. But the superintendent's face struck him cold.
"Are you the David Aldrich who stole five thousand dollars from St. Christopher's Mission?" the superintendent asked quietly.
For a minute David could not speak. His foothold—lost! Again the abyss!
"I am," he said. But here was a man different from the other employer that had discharged him. Here a plea might be effective. "I am," he repeated. And then he went on desperately: "But whatever I may have done, I'm honest now. As honest as any man. And I'll work hard—nothing will be too hard! I ask only a chance—any sort of a chance. A chance to earn my living!—a chance to remain honest!"
"I have not acted hastily," the superintendent returned. "I have called up the Mission and confirmed a report I had from another source. I know your whole story. Your pay is in this envelope. That is all."
David went out, dizzily falling ... falling ... falling into depths he felt were hopeless. And as he fell, in the sickened swirl of his mind one sudden thought stood forth, sharp, ironic: It was St. Christopher's that had pushed him from his foothold, that had sent him plunging back into the abyss!
Once more began the search for work. But now fewer men were needed; there was time to question. But he tramped on, and on, looking always for a man who would not question, and always rebuffed—his clothes growing shabbier and shabbier, his shoes growing thinner, his little money wasting away—foot-sore, heart-sore, gripped by despair.
He had chanced upon at intervals in the Bowery and on Broadway several of his Croton prison-mates. All of them that had tried to be honest had been conquered by the difficulties, and had gone back to their old trades. He now, on his despairing walks, met two of them again, and both urged him to quit his foolish struggle and join with them. Nothing during the three terrible months had revealed to him how his moral instincts had suffered as did the fact that he was now tempted.
During these black days he saw little of Tom. David did not want to talk, did not want to box, there were no meals; so the boy came home only to sleep. David was certain Tom was stealing again, but he had not the heart for reproof. One can hardly seek to convert a thief to honesty when one can only offer starvation for reform.
Since Helen Chambers's call David had now and then had a faint hope that he might in some way hear from her. But no word came. He understood. She scorned him for the deed of four years ago, she believed he was now regularly practising theft and was directing the thefts and lies of a boy. Her sympathy, her instinct to aid, might impel her to establish friendly relations with a repentant thief, but never with such a thief as she considered him.