Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser (best book clubs .TXT) 📕

familiar or suspicious faces were about, and yet he did not like reading in the lobby, so he sought the main parlour on the floor above and, seated by a window there, looked them over. Very little was given to his crime, but it was there, several “sticks” in all, among all the riffraff of telegraphed murders, accidents, marriages, and other news. He wished, half sadly, that he could undo it all. Every moment of his time in this far-off abode of safety but added to his feeling that he had made a great mistake. There could have been an easier way out if he had only known.

He left the papers before going to the room, thinking thus to keep them out of the hands of Carrie.

“Well, how are you feeling?” he asked of her. She was engaged in looking out of the window.

“Oh, all right,” she answered.

He came over, and was about to begin a conversation with her, when a knock came at their door.

“Maybe it’s one of my parcels,” said Carrie.

Hurstwood opened the door, outside of which stood the individual whom he had so thoroughly suspected.

“You’re Mr. Hurstwood, are you?” said the latter, with a volume of affected shrewdness and assurance.

“Yes,” said Hurstwood calmly. He knew the type so thoroughly that some of his old familiar indifference to it returned. Such men as these were of the lowest stratum welcomed at the resort. He stepped out and closed the door.

“Well, you know what I am here for, don’t you?” said the man confidentially.

“I can guess,” said Hurstwood softly.

“Well, do you intend to try and keep the money?”

“That’s my affair,” said Hurstwood grimly.

“You can’t do it, you know,” said the detective, eyeing him coolly.

“Look here, my man,” said Hurstwood authoritatively, “you don’t understand anything about this case, and I can’t explain to you. Whatever I intend to do I’ll do without advice from the outside. You’ll have to excuse me.”

“Well, now, there’s no use of your talking that way,” said the man, “when you’re in the hands of the police. We can make a lot of trouble for you if we want to. You’re not registered right in this house, you haven’t got your wife with you, and the newspapers don’t know you’re here yet. You might as well be reasonable.”

“What do you want to know?” asked Hurstwood.

“Whether you’re going to send back that money or not.”

Hurstwood paused and studied the floor.

“There’s no use explaining to you about this,” he said at last. “There’s no use of your asking me. I’m no fool, you know. I know just what you can do and what you can’t. You can create a lot of trouble if you want to. I know that all right, but it won’t help you to get the money. Now, I’ve made up my mind what to do. I’ve already written Fitzgerald and Moy, so there’s nothing I can say. You wait until you hear more from them.”

All the time he had been talking he had been moving away from the door, down the corridor, out of the hearing of Carrie. They were now near the end where the corridor opened into the large general parlour.

“You won’t give it up?” said the man.

The words irritated Hurstwood greatly. Hot blood poured into his brain. Many thoughts formulated themselves. He was no thief. He didn’t want the money. If he could only explain to Fitzgerald and Moy, maybe it would be all right again.

“See here,” he said, “there’s no use my talking about this at all. I respect your power all right, but I’ll have to deal with the people who know.”

“Well, you can’t get out of Canada with it,” said the man.

“I don’t want to get out,” said Hurstwood. “When I get ready there’ll be nothing to stop me for.”

He turned back, and the detective watched him closely. It seemed an intolerable thing. Still he went on and into the room.

“Who was it?” asked Carrie.

“A friend of mine from Chicago.”

The whole of this conversation was such a shock that, coming as it did after all the other worry of the past week, it sufficed to induce a deep gloom and moral revulsion in Hurstwood. What hurt him most was the fact that he was being pursued as a thief. He began to see the nature of that social injustice which sees but one side⁠—often but a single point in a long tragedy. All the newspapers noted but one thing, his taking the money. How and wherefore were but indifferently dealt with. All the complications which led up to it were unknown. He was accused without being understood.

Sitting in his room with Carrie the same day, he decided to send the money back. He would write Fitzgerald and Moy, explain all, and then send it by express. Maybe they would forgive him. Perhaps they would ask him back. He would make good the false statement he had made about writing them. Then he would leave this peculiar town.

For an hour he thought over this plausible statement of the tangle. He wanted to tell them about his wife, but couldn’t. He finally narrowed it down to an assertion that he was lightheaded from entertaining friends, had found the safe open, and having gone so far as to take the money out, had accidentally closed it. This act he regretted very much. He was sorry he had put them to so much trouble. He would undo what he could by sending the money back⁠—the major portion of it. The remainder he would pay up as soon as he could. Was there any possibility of his being restored? This he only hinted at.

The troubled state of the man’s mind may be judged by the very construction of this letter. For the nonce he forgot what a painful thing it would be to resume his old place, even if it were given him. He forgot that he had severed himself from the past as by a sword, and that if he did manage to