Left alone, Jennie had these concluding words to strengthen her. He would straighten the thing out. That meant probably that Teddy wouldn’t have to go to jail, and beyond this relief she didn’t look. It would be everything. Nothing else would matter. He might be dismissed from the bank; they might starve; but the great thing would be accomplished. It was a half hour or more before he returned, and when he did he looked worried. "Troubled" would perhaps be a better word, since even Jennie could see that his thoughts were farther away and deeper down than the incidents on the surface. He spoke almost absent-mindedly. "I find there’s been a leakage for some little time past, and they’ve had difficulty in fixing where the trouble was. Now I’m sorry to say it looks as if it was your brother. There’s hardly any doubt about that—" "You see, sir," she pleaded, "it was so hard for him not to be able to do anything when my father was so ill and my mother worried and the bills piling up—they stopped our credit nearly everywhere—and the tax people—they were the worst of all." "Yes, yes; I quite understand. And I’ve told them not to press the matter further. Flynn and Jackman, the two men you saw yesterday, are out for the minute; but when they come in they are to report to me. I don’t suppose we can take your brother back; but I’ll see what I can do for him elsewhere." He rose to end the interview, so that Jennie rose, too. "You can keep that money," he added, nodding toward her roll of bills. "You were not responsible, and there’s no reason at all why you should pay." When Jennie protested, he merely escorted her to the door, which he held open. "No, don’t thank me," he insisted. "Please! Just make your mind easy as to your brother. The matter shall not go any farther. I don’t know what I can do for him as yet—the circumstances make it difficult; but I shall find something." So, blinded with tears, Jennie made her way toward the lift, calling down on Bob’s father as well as on his mother all the blessings she was able to invoke. ———— Late that afternoon, Teddy, on the floor of his hut, woke with a start from a doze. He hadn’t meant to doze, but he had slept little on the preceding night, and was lulled, moreover, by a sense of his security. The day had not been as exciting as the day before. Nothing having happened during all those hours, he was growing convinced that nothing would. In its way, safety was becoming irksome. He began to ask himself whether the spirit of adventure didn’t summon him to go forth as a tramp that night. So he dozed—and so he waked, with a start. The start was possibly due to a consciousness even in his sleep that there were people in the road. He was frightened before he could put his eye again to the peephole. Luckily the pistol was at hand, and _the other thing_ might now have to be done.