Mr. Lane, beckoning, said, "Will you step into
my office for a minute?"

The cashier's one minute drew its weary length into thirty; and when
Alan Porter came out again, Mortimer saw the boy sought to avoid him.
Had he denied taking the money? My God! the full horror of Mortimer's
hopeless position flashed upon him like the lurid light of a destroying
forest fire. He could read in every line of the boy's face an accusation
of himself. He had trembled when it was a question of Alan's dishonor;
now that the ignominy was being thrust upon him, the bravery that he
possessed in great part made him a hero. If through his endeavor to
save the boy he was to shoulder the guilt, not of his own volition, but
without hope of escape, he would stand to it like a man. What would it
profit him to denounce the boy.

Harking back with rapidity over his actions, and Alan's, he saw that
everything implicated him. Once he thought of his mother and wavered;
but she would believe him if he said he had not committed this dreadful
crime. But all the world of Brookfield would despise the name of her
son if it were thought that he had sought to testify falsely against his
friend. And was not Alan the brother of Allis?

Mentally his argument, his analysis of the proper course to pursue was
tortuous, not definable, or to be explained in concise phraseology; but
the one thought that rose paramount over all others was, that he must
take his iniquitous punishment like a man. He had fought so strongly
to shield the brother of the girl he loved that the cause in all its
degradation had accrued to him.

At one o'clock the president, Crane, arrived from New York, and in him
was bitterness because of his yesterday's defeat. He had sat nearly the
whole night through mentally submerged in the double happening that had
swept many men from the chess board. Lauzanne, the despised, had kept
from his hand a small fortune, even when his fingers seemed tightening
on the coin, too. That was one happening. John Porter had gained over
twenty thousand dollars. This made him quite independent of Crane's
financial bolstering. The Banker's diplomacy of love had been weakened.
That was the other happening.

Crane was closeted with the cashier not more than ten minutes when
Mortimer was asked to join the two men who had so suddenly become deeply
interested in his affairs.

The cashier's hand had been strengthened by Crane's contribution of
evidence. Mortimer had tol