CHAPTER III.

Your money will be perfectly safe here, Miss Mowbray,” said the banker quietly. “But I'm afraid my clerks are too busily occupied to have a moment to spare to receive it to-day, unless you wait until my customers get their cheques cashed. You're getting well through your business, Mr. Calmour?” he added, turning to the cashier.

“Slowly, sir. I haven't touched the second bag of twenty thousand,” replied the cashier.

“I'm sure Cyril will be able to reach the desk,” said the lady, “and it will only occupy a clerk half a minute entering the lodgment. Good heavens! Mr. Westwood, it takes a clerk no longer to receive and enter up a cheque for fifteen thousand pounds than it does for a single note.”

Mr. Westwood gave a laugh and a shrug of his shoulders.

“Give me the cheque,” said Cyril. “I'll lodge it or perish in the attempt.”

The good humour with which he set about the task of forcing his way through the crowd, spread around. The people who a few minutes before had been struggling with eager faces and clenched hands to get near the desks, actually laughed as the young man, holding the cheque for fifteen thousand pounds high above their heads, made an amusingly exaggerated attempt to shoulder his way forward. He had no need to use his shoulders; the people divided before him quite good-naturedly. He reached the cubicle next to that of the cashier's in a few seconds, and handed the cheque and the pass-book across the counter to a clerk who had stepped up to a desk to receive the lodgment.

The silence was so extraordinary that the scratching of the clerk's pen making the entry was heard all over the place.

And then—then there came a curious reaction from the excitement of the previous two hours: the tremendous tension upon the nerves of the people who fancied they were on the verge of ruin, was suddenly relaxed. There came a clapping of hands, then a cheer arose; every one was cheering and laughing. The cashier found himself idle. He availed himself of the opportunity to wipe his forehead with his handkerchief; until now he had been compelled to shake the drops away to prevent them from falling on the cheques or the leaves of his ledger.

He stood idle, looking across the maghogany counter in amazement at the people who were laughing and cheering the tradesmen, poking their thumbs at each other's ribs, others pressing forward to shake hands with Mr. Westwood. The cashier, being happily unaccustomed to panics, looked round in amazement. How was it possible that the people could be so ignorant as to imagine that the stability of a bank which has only a small gold reserve to meet the demands of a run upon it, is increased by the fact of a cheque being lodged?

This was what he felt inclined to ask, Mr. Westwood could see without difficulty, when he glanced in the direction of Mr. Calmour, but he knew something of men, and had studied the phenomena of panics. He would not have minded if his cashier had protested against so erroneous a view of the situation being taken by the people who a short time before had been clamouring for gold—gold—gold in exchange for their cheques. Mr. Westwood knew that his cashier's demonstration, however well founded it might be—however consistent with the science of finance, would count for nothing in the estimation of these people. He knew that as they had originally been moved to adopt the very foolish course which had so very nearly brought ruin to him, by an impulse as senseless as that which compels a flock of sheep to leap over a precipice simply because one very silly animal has led the way, they had, on equally illogical grounds, but in keeping with the habits of the sheep, allowed themselves to be moved in exactly the opposite direction to that in which they had rushed previously. A cheque! If the crowd had been sufficiently self-possessed to perceive that the mere lodging of a cheque in the bank did not increase the ability of the bank to pay them the balance of their accounts in gold, they would certainly have been able to perceive that, to join in a run upon the bank, simply because some other bank a hundred miles away had closed its doors, was senseless.

Richard Westwood knew that the action of Agnes Mowbray had arrested the run and the ruin. He saw that already some of the men who had cashed their cheques, but who had not had time to reach the doors, were relodging the cash which they had received. The panic that now threatened to take hold upon the crowd was in regard to the security of the money which they had in their pockets. They seemed to be apprehensive of their pockets being picked, of their houses being robbed. Had not several ladies been clamouring to the effect that their pockets had been picked? Had not Miss Mowbray declared that she could not consider her money secure so long as it remained unlodged in the bank?

While he chatted to Miss Mowbray and her brother Cyril, Richard Westwood could see that his cashier was closing and locking the drawers of his desk; the busy clerk was the one who was receiving the lodgments.

He laughed, but in no more audible tone of exultation than had been his an hour before, when he had emptied the bag of sovereigns into the till and had lifted, with a great show of fatigue, the dummy bag from the counter to the drawer. He felt that he could not afford to give himself away in the presence of the mob. He knew that the clutch for gold makes a mob of the most cultivated people.

“How good of you! how wise of you!” he said to Agnes in a low tone when the crowd had drifted away from them and the office was rapidly emptying. “But the cheque—how did you get the cheque?”

“You did not see whose signature was attached to it?” said Agnes.

“I only saw that it was a London & County cheque.”

“It was signed by Sir Percival Hope.”

“I do not quite understand how you could have a cheque signed by Sir Percival Hope.”

“He gave it to me; he trusted me as I have trusted you. He would have done so without security if I had accepted it on such terms. I declined to do so, however. I placed in his hands security that would satisfy any bank—even so scrupulous a bank as Westwoods'. I handed over to him all my shares in the Water Company.”

“They are worth twenty-five thousand pounds at least. Great heavens! Agnes, you never sold them for fifteen thousand pounds?”

“Oh no; I did not sell them. I only deposited them as security with Sir Percival. You see I had not long to make up my mind what to do. Only an hour and a half ago I heard of this idiotic run upon the bank. Oh no; neither Sir Percival nor I had much margin for deliberation. He told me that unless I lodged gold with you it would be no use. He laughed at the idea of my fancying that a cheque would be as useful to you as gold. But you see”—

“Yes, I see; I see. And I believed that it required a man to understand men, and that only a clever man understood what was meant by a panic among men and women. I was a fool. For the past two hours I have been trying to stem the flood of that panic—the avalanche of that panic; I have been smiling in the faces of those fools; they were fools, but not great enough fools to fail to see through my acting. I have been pretending that dummy money bags were almost too heavy for me to lift. That trick only got rid of half-a-dozen men, and not one woman. I came out from my room munching a biscuit, to make them believe that I regarded the situation as an everyday one, not worth a second thought. I bluffed—abusing the cashier for the time he took to count out the money, promising to pay the full amount of all the cheques without taking time to calculate if they were correct to the penny. It was all a game of bluff to make the people believe that the bank had enough gold to pay them all in full. But I failed to deceive more than a few, though I played my part well. I know that I played it well; I like boasting of it. But I failed. And then you enter. Ah, my dear, I am proud of you; you are the truest woman that lives. You deserve a better fate than that which has been yours.”

“I am content to wait, my dear Dick. I have come to think of waiting as part of my life. Will it be all my life, I wonder?”

“No, no; that would be impossible. That would be too cruel even for Fate.”

Agnes Mowbray looked at him for a few moments. He saw that the tears came into her eyes. Then she gave an exclamation of impatience, saying:

“Psha! my friend. What does it matter in the general scheme of things if one woman dies waiting to marry the one man on whom she has set her heart? My dear Dick, what is life more than waiting—a constant waiting that is never repaid? Is any man, any woman, ever satisfied? No matter what it is that we get, do we not resume our waiting for something else—something that we think worth waiting for? Psha! I am beginning to preach; and whatever women do they should not preach. Good-bye, Dick. Why, we are almost left alone.”

“My poor Agnes—my poor Agnes!” said he, looking at her with tenderness in his eyes. “Never think for a moment that he will not return. Eight years is a long time for him to be lost, but he will return. Oh, never doubt that he will return.”

“I have never yet doubted the goodness of God,” said she. “I will wait. I will accept without a murmur my life of waiting. He will not mind my grey hairs.”

She gave a laugh—after a little pause. In her laugh there was a curious note that sounded like a defiance of Fate. The man laughed also, but she saw that he knew very well that as a matter of fact there were several grey threads among the beautiful brown of her hair.

That was all the conversation they had at that time. She went away with her brother Cyril, who had been trying to get Mr. Calmour to listen to his views regarding the bowling policy to be pursued at Saturday's match. Cyril had his own views regarding the slow bowling of young Sharp, the rector's son. It was supposed to be very baffling, and so it was on a bad wicket. But if the wicket was good—and there was every likelihood that the fine weather would last over Saturday—the batsmen would simply send every ball across the boundary, Cyril declared with great emphasis.

He was in some measure put out when Mr. Calmour turned to him suddenly, saying:

“I beg your pardon. What is it you've been talking about?”

“What should I be talking about if not the bowling for Saturday?” cried Cyril.

“Oh, the bowling. What bowling? Saturday—what is to happen on Saturday?” said the cashier.

“You idiot! Haven't we been discussing”—

“Oh, go away—go away,” said Mr. Calmour wearily. “Heaven only knows what may happen between to-day and Saturday. If you could have any idea of what I've gone through to-day already—bless my soul! it all seems like a queer dream. Where are all the people gone? Why have they gone, can you tell me? I haven't paid away all my gold yet. I've still over two thousand pounds left. Have they closed the doors of the bank? They were fools—oh, such fools! But I could have held out. I had three or four tricks left. And now what's to become of me? I support my mother—she's an old woman; and I have a sister in another town—she is an epileptic. We are all ruined with the bank.”

The cashier put his hands up to his face and burst into tears. The strain of the previous hour had been too much for him. It was in vain that Cyril Mowbray slapped him on the back and assured him that the bank was safe and that his mother and sister might reasonably look forward to a brilliant future. It was in vain that Mr. Westwood shook him by the hand, promising never to forget the way in which he had worked through the crisis. Mr. Calmour refused to be comforted. He continued weeping, and had to be conveyed to his home in a fly.

Richard Westwood had begged Cyril to drive to Westwood Court and dine with him; and now the banker was sitting in his bedroom, staring into the empty grate as he recalled the incidents of the terrible day through which he had passed.

The boom of the gong which came half an hour later aroused him from his reverie. He started up with a great sigh, and was surprised to find himself as weary as if he had had a twenty-mile ride. He went to a looking-glass and examined his face narrowly. It looked haggard. He remembered having heard of men's hair becoming grey in a single night. He quite believed such stories. He thought it strange that his hair should remain black. He was thirty-six years of age—four years older than Agnes, and he had noticed that she had many grey hairs—she had talked of them when they had stood face to face in the bank.

He wondered if waiting for an absent lover was more trying than being the senior partner in a bank during a severe financial crisis.

He went downstairs to dinner without coming to any satisfactory conclusion on this rather difficult question.