o invent a plausible explanation of the piling up of a cash
reserve.

If he had not been optimistic and an incurable procrastinator and a
believer in luck at the last moment, he would have seen that nothing
but a miracle could save him if Horrocleave were indeed suspicious.
Happily for his peace of mind, he was incapable of looking a fact
in the face. Against all reason he insisted to himself that with the
notes he might reach salvation. He did not trouble even to estimate
the chances of the notes being traced by their numbers. Such is the
magic force of a weak character.

But he powerfully desired not to steal the notes, or any of them.
The image of Rachel rose between him and his temptation. Her honesty,
candour, loyalty, had revealed to him the beauty of the ways of
righteousness. He had been born again in her glance. He swore he would
do nothing unworthy of the ideal she had unconsciously set up in him.
He admitted that it was supremely essential for him to restore the
notes to the spot whence he had removed them.... And yet--if he did
so, and was lost? What then? For one second he saw himself in the
dock at the police-court in the town hall. Awful hallucination! If it
became reality, what use, then, his obedience to the new ideal? Better
to accomplish this one act of treason to the ideal in order to be able
for ever afterwards to obey it and to look Rachel in the eyes! Was
it not so? He wanted advice, he wanted to be confirmed in his own
opportunism, as a starving beggar may want food.

And in the midst of all this torture of his vacillations, he was
staggered and overwhelmed by the sudden noise of Mrs. Maldon's door
brusquely opening, and of an instant loud, firm knock on his own door.
The silence of the night was shattered as by an earthquake.

Almost mechanically he crushed the notes in his left hand--crushed
them into a ball; and the knuckles of that hand turned white with the
muscular tension.

"Are you up?" a voice demanded. It was Rachel's voice.

"Ye-es," he answered, and held his left hand over the screen in front
of the fireplace.

"May I come in?"

And with the word she came in. She was summarily dressed, and very
pale, and her hair, more notable than ever, was down. As she entered
he opened his hand and let the ball of notes drop into the littered
grate.

V

"Anything the matter?" he asked, moving away from the region of the
hearth-rug.

She glanced at him with a kind of mild indulge