“George Chard a thief! Good God! Who could be so wicked to dream of such a thing! The best, the bravest—and truest—why, Dan,” she blurted out, “Don’t you know I LOVE HIM! I love him more than anything or anybody on earth!”
And Nora, her face as red as fire, threw her arms round Dan’s neck and burst into a perfect maelstrom of thoroughly feminine sobs.
George Chard felt it bitterly hard that after his years of service he should earn not only the reproof of the head office, but that suspicion should in some way indefinitely be attached to him.
There had been an inquiry into the robbery, and although there was nothing in the evidence to directly implicate either himself or his manager, the tone of head-office letters was by no means comforting.
George had done his best to clear his superior officer. Truth is good, but it is not always a matter of telling the whole truth in every-day life.
If people were to say all they knew about each other, society would fall to pieces rapidly—as rapidly as an iceberg might melt in a volcano.
George Chard knew this, and certain matters of carelessness on his manager’s part had not come out. It is one thing for a directorate or a department to frame an elaborate code of rules, and another thing for their servants to follow them to the letter.
No rules, natural or man-made, can ever be exactly adhered to.
In repayment for his subordinate’s fealty, the Pig had whispered certain private insinuations against George to the inspector.
In every branch of Government employment, in every big commercial organisation there are “marked men.” They remain in the employ, pending a valid excuse for their dismissal, perhaps for years, but they do not get on. They are never promoted; they never receive an increase in salary, and they are never placed in any position of responsibility.
George Chard knew this, and he saw, as soon as the inquiry had closed, that his career in the Bulk and Bullion was practically at an end.
The thought stung him like nettles. He was a proud man, and his pride had been humbled; he was a conscientious man also, and the thought of his responsibility—of the mother and the five girls dependent on him—alone prevented him writing at once to the head office and demanding either an honourable acquittal or an honourable discharge. But then, again, what charge was he to be acquitted of? None had been brought against him. No one had accused him. No one had dared insinuate to him openly that he had anything to do with the removal of the money from the bank safe, yet he felt that an unseen sword of Damocles hung over his head.