The newspaper fell from Auntie Sue's hand. Mechanically, she fingered
the garment lying in her lap.
She, too, had sent a sum of money in a letter for deposit to her small
account in this bank from which Brian Kent had stolen. She would not
have sent the familiar paper currency of the United States that way;
but, this money was in Argentine notes. Her brother from far-away Buenos
Aires had sent it to her, saying that it would help to keep her during
the closing years of her life; and she had added it to her small savings
with a feeling of deepest gratitude that her last days were now fully
provided for. And she had received from the bank no acknowledgment of
her letter with its enclosures.
Taking up the paper with hands that trembled so she scarce could
distinguish the words, she read the paragraph again.
Suddenly, she recalled the man's puzzled expression when she had
told him her name, and she seemed to hear him say, again, "Wakefield?
Wakefield? Where have I seen that name?"
She looked at the date of the paper. Beyond all doubt, the man sleeping
there in the other room;--the man whom she had saved from a suicide's
end in the river;--whom she had nursed through the hell of delirium
tremens;--whom she had yearned over as over her own son, and for whom,
to save from the just penalty of his crime, she had lied--beyond all
doubt that man had robbed her of the money that was to have insured to
her peace and comfort in the closing years of her life.
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