I don’t know how they bore it or how I told ’em. I know I found them together, him and her, and she was as if she had not shed a tear, and her eyes were glowing like stars, bright, and tender, and sad, and glad all at once. I had hardly time to tell the news, when the sound I had dreaded for ’em broke upon us like the rush and the roar of an awful storm. On they came, trampling over the garden-beds, waving their torchlights, calling one name hoarse and constant—“Brent! Brent! James Brent!”
“My love,” he said, bending down to her, “stay while I go to them.”
And then she looked at him with a look that was more heavenly than any smile, and said only: “James, my place is by your side, and I will keep it.”
He put his hand quick over his eyes like one in great awe, smiled with a smile more sad than tears, then opened the hall door and stood out before the crowd—there where many a man and woman of them had seen him bring his young bride home. And the sudden silence which fell upon them his own voice broke. “My friends,” he said, “what would you have of me?”
Straight and keen as a barbed arrow, not from one voice, but from many, the question rose, “Is our money safe?” And after that some one called: “We’ll trust your word, master, ’gainst all odds.”
I had thought that scene in the bank was like the Judgment Day; but what was this? He tried to speak, but his lips clave together. Then I saw her draw a little nearer—not to touch him or to speak to him; she did not even look at him, neither at the people, but out into the darkness, and up and far away; and her very body, it seemed to me, was praying.
“Is our money safe?” It was like a yell now, and James Brent made answer: “My friends, I am a ruined man.”
“Is our money safe?” Little children’s voices joined in the cry. My God, let Brentwood never hear the like again!
My master held out his hands like any beggar; then he fell down upon his knees. “I confess to you and to God,” he said, “there is not one penny left.”
Mr. Clarkson, I am Brentwood born and bred. I love my master, but I love my place and people too. We are a simple folk and a loving folk. It is an awful thing to shake the trust of such. They had deemed their honor and their property for ever safe with this one man, and in an hour and at a word their trust was broken, their scanty all was gone, their earthly hopes were shattered. Mr. Clarkson, sir, it drove them wild.