“Well, that’s about all I can remember clearly until about twenty minutes later, when I was at home trying to unlock my trunk with fingers that were trembling like a tuning fork. Before I could get it open, Mr. Deems and a policeman came in. I began talking all at once about not being a thief and trying to tell them what had happened, but I guess I was sort of hysterical, and the more I said the worse matters were. When I managed to get the story out it seemed sort of crazy, even to me--and it was true--it was true, true as I’ve told you--every word!--that one penny that I lost somewhere down by the station--” Hemmick broke off and began laughing grotesquely--as though the excitement that had come over him as he finished his tale was a weakness of which he was ashamed. When he resumed it was with an affectation of nonchalance. “I’m not going into the details of what happened, because nothing much did--at least, not on the scale you judge events by up North. It cost me my job, and I changed a good name for a bad one. Somebody tattled and somebody lied, and the impression got around that I’d lost a lot of the bank’s money and had been tryin’ to cover it up. “I had an awful time getting a job after that. Finally I got a statement out of the bank that contradicted the wildest of the stories that had started, but the people who were still interested said it was just because the bank didn’t want any fuss or scandal--and the rest had forgotten: that is, they’d forgotten what had happened, but they remembered that somehow I just wasn’t a young fellow to be trusted----” Hemmick paused and laughed again, still without enjoyment, but bitterly, uncomprehendingly, and with a profound helplessness. “So, you see, that’s why I didn’t go to Cincinnati,” he said slowly; “my mother was alive then, and this was a pretty bad blow to her. She had an idea--one of those old-fashioned Southern ideas that stick in people’s heads down here--that somehow I ought to stay here in town and prove myself honest. She had it on her mind, and she wouldn’t hear of my going. She said that the day I went ’d be the day she’d die. So I sort of had to stay till I’d got back my--my reputation.” “How long did that take?” asked Abercrombie quietly. “About--ten years.” “Oh----” “Ten years,” repeated Hemmick, staring out into the gathering darkness. “This is a little town you see: I say ten years because it was about ten years when the last reference to it came to my ears. But I was married long before that; had a kid. Cincinnati was out of my mind by that time.” “Of course,” agreed Abercrombie. They were both silent for a moment--then Hemmick added apologetically: “That was sort of a long story, and I don’t know if it could have interested you much. But you asked me----” “It _did_ interest me,” answered Abercrombie politely. “It interested me tremendously. It interested me much more than I thought it would.”