style="font-size:15px;"> The assistant smiled viciously. He was not prepared for this, but his nerves were strung to-day. "A trick?" he said, looking from one to another. "Very well. I know what to do. I can guess what my answer is to be, doctor, and need scarcely stay to hear it. Shall I go?"
"No! no!" the doctor replied, hurriedly. He was distressed and perturbed, perhaps by the menace which underlay the other's words. As for the tall gentleman, he gazed gravely over his beard, while Pleasance looked through the window, her face hot. "No, no, I have something to say which affects you. And this gentleman here-"
"Has he anything to say?" the assistant retorted, eyeing his antagonist. "I am ready to hear it-before I take out a warrant against him for attempting to commit suicide. It is punishable with a considerable imprisonment, my friend!"
"I am no friend of yours," was the stranger's reply, given very gravely. "You do not know me, Edgar Woolley."
The assistant started. It was the first time he had heard the tall gentleman's voice, and for a breathing space, while the looked two on one another, he seemed to be racking his memory. But he got no result, and he retorted with a bitter laugh, "No, I do not know you. Nor you me-yet!"
"Yes, I do," was the unexpected answer. "Too well!"
"Bah!" Woolley exclaimed, though it was evident that he was ill at ease. "Let us have an end of these heroics! If you have anything to say, say it."
"I will," the tall gentleman answered. He was still quiet, but there was a glitter in his eyes. "I have already outlined my story, now I must ask Dr. Partridge to hear it more at length. Many years ago there was a young man, almost a boy, employed in the offices of a great firm in Liverpool-a poor boy, very poor, but of a good and an old family."
Woolley's smile of derision became fixed, so to speak. But he did not interrupt, and the other after a pause went on. "This lad made the acquaintance of a medical student a little older than himself, and was led by him-I think he was weak and sensitive and easily led-into gambling. He lost more than he could pay. His mother was a widow, almost without means. To meet the debt, small as it was, would have ruined her."
The stranger paused again, overcome, it seemed, by painful memories. There was a flush on Woolley's brow. The girl sitting in the window, her hands clasped on her knees, turned so as to see more of the room. "Now listen," the speaker continued, "to what happened. One day this clerk's friend, to whom the greater part of the money was due, came to the office at the luncheon hour and pressed him to pay. The other clerks were out. The two were alone together, and while they were alone there came in a client of the firm to pay some money. The lad took the money and gave a receipt. He had power to do so. The man left again, after telling them that he was starting to South America that evening. When he was gone" – here his voice sank a little-"the friend made a suggestion. I think you know what it was."
No one spoke.
"He suggested to the clerk to take this money and pay his debts with it-to steal it. The boy resisted for a time, but in the end, still telling himself he did not intend to steal it, he put it away in his desk and locked it up, and gave in no account of it. After that the issue was certain. A day came when, the other still pressing him and tempting him, he took the money and used it, and became a thief."
The silence in the little room was deep indeed. On Woolley a spell had fallen. He would have interrupted the man, but he could not.
"Immediately after this," the speaker continued, "those two parted. Within a week-for the man had not gone to South America-the theft was discovered. The boy's employers were merciful-God reward them! They declined to prosecute; nay, they kept the matter secret, or as secret as it could be kept, and even found him work in their foreign office. He did not forget. He served them faithfully, and in the course of years he repaid the money with interest. Then-God's ways are not our ways-strange news reached this clerk. Three distant kinsmen whom he had never seen had died within three months, and the last of them had left him a large property. The name and the honour" – for the first time the tall gentleman's voice faltered-"of a great family had fallen upon his shoulders to wear and to uphold! And he was a thief!"
"You," he went on-and from this point he directly addressed the man who gazed at him from beyond the table-"you cannot enter into his feelings, nor understand them! It were folly to tell you that the remembrance that he had stained the honour and disgraced the name of his family poisoned his whole life. He tried-God knows he did-to make amends by a life of integrity, and while his mother lived he led that life. But he found no comfort in it. She died, and he lived on alone in the house of his family, and it may be" – again his voice shook-"that he brooded overmuch on this matter, and came to take too morbid a view of it, to let it stand always between him and the sun." He stopped, and looked uncertainly about him.
"Yes, yes!" the doctor said. Pleasance had turned to the window, and was weeping softly. "He did, indeed!"
"Be that as it may, he met one day the manager of the firm he had robbed, and he read in the man's eyes that he remembered. And if he, why not others? He went out then, and he formed a resolution. You can guess what that was. It was a wild, mad, perhaps a wicked resolution. But such as it was-an ancestor in sterner times, writing in a book which this man possessed, had said, 'Blood washes out shame!'-such as it was he made it, and Heaven used it, and frustrated it in its own time. The lad, now a man, following blind chance, as he thought, was brought within a mile of this house-this one lonely house, of all others in England, in which you live. But it was not chance which led him, but Heaven's own guiding, to the end that his, Valentine Walton's life, might be spared, and that you might be punished."
Woolley struggled to reply. But the thought which the other's words expressed was in his mind also, and held him dumb. How had Walton been led to this house of all houses? Why had this forgotten sin risen up now? He stood awhile speechless, glaring at Walton; aware, bitterly aware, of what the listeners were thinking, and yet unable to say a word in his defence. Then with an effort he became himself again.
"That is your version, is it?" he said, with a jeering laugh which failed to hide the effect the story had produced upon him. "You say you are a thief? It is not worth my while to contradict you. And now, if you please, we will descend from play-acting to business. You have been very kind in arranging this little scene, Dr. Partridge, and I am greatly obliged to you. I need only say that I shall take care to repay you to the last penny."
"First," the doctor said mildly, yet with dignity, "I should repay you what I owe you-if you really want your money now, that is."
"Want it? Of course I do!" was the fierce rejoinder. The man's nature was recovering from the shock, and in the rebound passion was getting the upper hand.
"Very well," said the doctor firmly. "Then here it is." He pushed aside a paper, and disclosed a small packet of notes and a pile of gold and silver. "You will find the amount on that piece of paper, and it includes your salary for the next quarter in lieu of notice. When you have seen that it is correct I shall be glad to have your receipt, and we will close our connection."
The trapped man had one wish-to see them dead before him. But wishes go for little, and in his rage and chagrin he clung to a shred of pride. He would not own that he had been outgeneralled. He sat down and wrote the quittance. The first pen-it was a quill-would not write. He jabbed it violently on the table, and flung it with an oath into the fireplace. But the next served him.
"You have lent this money, I suppose," he said, looking at Walton as he rose. "More fool you! You will never be repaid."
He did not turn to Pleasance or look at her. He had come into the room hoping to win her in spite of all. He went out-a stranger. Not even their eyes had met. He had lost her, and revenge, and everything, save his money.
