“But he helped us,” Herbert continued.
“I know he did,” his father replied, “but played right into his own pocket. We were honest, and not to blame for the run, while I’ll be hanged if I think he is honest. I wonder how Sheldon feels now. Serves him right, and the rest of ’em. I don’t believe he’ll pay ten cents on a dollar. He can’t, spending as he has—dressing up his wife and that girl. I am sorry for her; but s’posin’ your tomfooling with her had amounted to something, where’d you be now.”
“Just where I’m going,” Herbert said, leaving the room and going for his wheel, on which he rode rapidly to Mr. Grey’s house, expecting to find Louie there.
The maid told him she was at the bank, and that Mrs. Grey was in hysterics, with two physicians attending her.
Herbert started at once for the bank, where he heard a wonderful story.
Louie had stayed there all night with her father, who had tried to kill himself, and would have done so if Louie had not snatched the revolver from him and fired it off, wounding him, it was said. She was with him now, and the lawyer and cashier were with her and no one else was allowed to go in.
Herbert did not believe the first of the story, but was glad of the last, for if no one was allowed in the bank, he would not be expected to go in. He was sorry for Louie, but too cowardly to identify himself very prominently with her in the face of this trouble and before the curious world. Fear of his father restrained him, and although he expressed himself strongly as sorry for Mr. Grey, and even asserted his belief that he would pay every indebtedness in time, he made no effort to enter the bank, but hovered near the door, hoping to get a sight of Louie, and hearing her voice once as she said:
“I wish the carriage would come. Will they molest father, do you think, when they see him?”
Then all his manhood rose to the surface. Molest Louie’s father! He guessed not, when he was there, and he waited for the carriage and talked to the crowd, which, in some respects, was different from that on the day of the run. Then there had at first been fierce anger, which had resolved itself into excitement and haste when it was known that the money was forthcoming. Here the anger was more intense because more quiet. The case was probably a hopeless one—they would never get their money—and some of the men had a dangerous look as they spoke together in low tones and watched the entrance to the rear yard to the bank.
When the Grey carriage came up, there was a murmur like the low muttering of distant thunder, and Herbert drew near to the gate, around which some of the most angry men were standing.