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196 of grief about that girl!" (For also to him Mercedes, now nigh to forty, was still a girl.) "I would not stoop to doubt him, sir." Yet, on the other hand, Mr. Bowdoin would probably have never condoned a theft, once discovered; and James Bowdoin wasted his time in hinting they might make it good.

"Confound it, sir," said the father, "it's the making it good to Jamie, not the making it good to us, that counts,—don't you see?"

"You do suspect him, then?"

"Not a bit,—not one whit, sir!" cried the father. "I know him better. And I hate a low, suspicious habit of mind, sir, with all my heart!"

"You once said, sir, years ago (do you remember?), that but one thing—love—could make a man like Jamie go wrong."

"I said a lot of d—d fool things, sir, when I was bringing you up, and the consequences are evident." And Mr. Bowdoin slammed out of the breakfast-room where this conversation took place.

But no word came from Harleston, and the old gentleman's temper grew more execrable every day. Again the bank directors met,