I do not intend to describe our voyage. It was an unusually pleasant one, and Lilian suffered but very little from sea-sickness. In a few days, as the distance from my native land increased, I felt tolerably secure from the consequences of my crime; but I found it impossible to get rid of the thought of my mother and other friends at home. Even whiskey and wine soon failed to stupefy me unless I partook of them in inordinate quantities. Lilian told me I drank too much, and begged me not to do so any more. She was so gentle and so tender that I could not refuse, for I had not acquired a decided appetite for the intoxicating cup. I only drank it for the solace it afforded me, and I was fully convinced that the severe headaches and the disordered stomach which troubled me were the effects of this excess. I would gladly refrain, but there was “no peace for the wicked.”
I will not attempt to describe my sufferings, though I appeared cheerful and happy to my wife. I could not wholly conceal them from her, and she worried me with her questions, anxious to know what ailed me. We arrived at Liverpool and hastened on to London, for I wished to cash my bill before it was possible for anything to go wrong. I had no trouble in doing so. My signature had already reached the bankers, having come out in the same steamer with me. With the gold which I had brought, I had four thousand five hundred pounds. To prevent any trace being had of me, I went to another banker and purchased a circular letter of credit for a thousand pounds, investing the rest in securities which paid me about five per cent.
We spent a month in London, seeing the sights, and Lilian was as happy as a woman could be. I had satisfied her that the change of name was purely a matter of convenience, and she soon became accustomed to it. She wrote letters to her mother and other friends, and gave them to me to be mailed. I lighted my cigar with them. We had rooms at Morley’s, but we saw no one, knew no one in the house, except the servants. One day, after dinner, I went out to obtain some tickets to visit Windsor castle, leaving Lilian in the room. When I came back I found her in terrible excitement. She had a Boston newspaper in her hand, which the landlord, as a special favor, had sent up to our apartments.
“O Charles—Paley!” said she; and I saw that she had been weeping. “What does this mean?”
“What, my dear?” I asked, appalled at the tempest which was rising.
“This paper says there is a rumor of a defalcation in the Forty-Ninth National Bank, and that the paying teller has disappeared. Were not you the paying teller, Paley?”
She suddenly ceased to call me Charles, as I had instructed her to do. Evidently she knew more than I wished her to know. I took the newspaper. It was dated about a week after our departure from Boston. The paragraph said it was rumored that there was a heavy defalcation in the Forty-Ninth. The paying teller had been missing for a week. That was all. It was merely an item which some industrious reporter had picked up; and the particulars had not yet been published. Doubtless the detectives were looking for me.
With tears in her eyes Lilian again demanded an explanation of the paragraph. What could I say?