"Well, then, what if I am going, Mike? The world is big and full of opportunities, and I am tired of this—I really am."
"But why leave like this, sir?" Mike demanded, gently. "Surely you won't go without telling your folks of it and saying good-by! Why, this note to your brother looks as if—as if—"
"Well, I do want to slip away, Mike, and I'm going like a thief in the night. You will understand to-morrow. Everybody in Boston will. As for that, Mike, a drinking-man will do many things that he ought not to do, and—and I handle money at the bank. Don't push me further now. Let's drop it. I have to go, and that settles it."
Michael failed to understand, for he was thinking of something else. "You will need the money I owe you, sir, and I've been trying to get it up. I see a chance now, sir. My sister out West feels that she owes at least half of that debt to you, and her husband has been doing well. She wrote me—"
"Drop that, Mike," Charles cried. "I don't need that money. You shall never pay it—never. I've given that to your mother, do you understand, not to you, but to her?"
"It shall not be that way, sir," the other pleaded. "I will send it to you. But as for your doing anything wrong at the bank"—Charles's statement was dawning on him slowly—"nobody on earth could make me think so."
"Well, never mind about that, Mike. The fact is that I must go—now and at once. Let me out at the front door."
"Do you want a cab, sir?"
"A cab?" Charles smiled. "Not to-night. In fact, I am going through the darkest streets I can get into. I know every alley in this old town. Good-by, Mike. Deliver the note to my brother in the morning."