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 parlor.

“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 light-headed 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 in some way reunite himself with it, the jagged line of separation and reunion would always show.  He was always forgetting something-his wife, Carrie, his need of money, present situation, or something—­and so did not reason clearly.  Nevertheless, he sent the letter, waiting a reply before sending the money.