Fortunately his wife slept very soundly, and did not hear him when, just as the day was dawning, he rose stealthily and made his way to the bank, meeting no one but a half-drunken man reeling home after a night’s debauch. He recognized Mr. Grey, and half staggering against him hiccoughed out, “Evenin’, Mr. Grey. Been on a lark same’s I have. Wall, all right. I ‘low, and everybody ‘lows you are a good feller” (the man prefixed an adjective to the good, which made it sound like an oath); “good, honest feller. Yes, sir. My wife Sally has some money in your bank and knows it’s safe. Yes, sir, she does. Wall, good-night. I must be goin’, or Sally will lam me for bein’ late; but if I tell her I met Mr. Grey it’ll be all right. Yes, sir, all right. Sally swears by you, she does. By-by.” The man moved on a few rods and then fell sprawling upon the walk, where he lay like a log. For an instant Mr. Grey looked at him, half resolving to go to his aid. But time was passing, and he had work to do before the sun was up. The man’s words of commendation and assurance of Sally’s trust in him stung him to the quick. Everybody trusted him, but that trust was soon to be destroyed, and Sally, who he knew was a hard-working woman, would lose her little hoard. “It is such people I am most sorry for,” he said, clenching his fists in an agony of remorse and trembling so that he could hardly unlock the door of the bank. It was dark inside, but he did not need a light. He knew where the blue words were. There were tacks and a hammer in one of the drawers, and the paper which was to fire the town was soon fastened upon one of the outside doors. “I’ll stay and see it begin,” he said, and, returning to the office and locking the door, he took out the revolver he had brought with him, and again asked himself if he should end it all, as he could do in a second. When before he had been thus tempted it was a dead face which stopped him. Now it was Louie’s, his fair, sweet daughter. What would she say to find him there, with his brains bespattering the floor, and where would he be when she found him? “No, I can’t do it,” he said. “Better State’s prison than hell, where suicides go. Maybe I can repent and be forgiven, and maybe it won’t be State prison. I’ll risk it, anyway.” He returned the pistol to his pocket and lay down upon the couch, wondering who would be the first to see the words which danced before his eyes like the blue flames of perdition. He had not slept well for weeks, and for two nights he had not slept at all except the few minutes when Louie was singing to him. Nature could endure no longer, and he fell at last into a sleep so heavy that he did not waken until there was the sound of many voices outside, and he knew the mob was there, clamoring to get in. Sick with fear, he thought again of his revolver, when he heard Louie calling to him: “Father, father! are you here? Let me in. It is Louie.”