ay.

It would never occur to him to betray her, and it was only when he was
confronted with her and her mother, and heard that she had confessed,
that he admitted it.

Silla continued to maintain, in a voice choked with tears, that he had
not taken the money, but this proved nothing either for or against him.
On the other hand what had more weight were the facts that had been
elucidated on ransacking and examining the room in which he lodged--he
lived in a garret at glazier Olsen's with three other apprentices--for
they all agreed in saying that on the Saturday in question he had come
home late, after they were asleep, and had gone out again very early on
the Sunday morning.

The assertion of the accused that this was to renew the search for the
lost money down by the yard did not seem very credible. But it was
impossible to get any nearer to him.

A hardened young rascal. This was his foster-mother's testimony too.

Nikolai stood with his cap in his hand, looking down at the floor. He
had a habit of drawing the skin of his forehead up and down when he was
meditating. In the broad, young face with the large features, the grey
eyes into which there sometimes came a peculiar look, and the cock's
comb, of a tinge between zinc and copper, the police inspector's
penetrating and--after many year's practice--not easily deceived eye saw
the marks of one who would probably in the future often give occupation
to the police.

"In order to exclude the possibility of conferences with the other
apprentices in his room," he dictated for the record, "considering that
the accused has manifested _mala fides_ by an attempt to escape, as well
as by his untruthful conduct and denials under examination, he will, for
the present, be placed under arrest."

As the words of the order were read out, there were a few involuntary
contractions of the muscles in Nikolai's face, which was damp with
perspiration; there quivered in it the poor man's curse, at never having
a way of escape; a false step, and he is caught, a lost dollar, and he
comes before the court.

After another examination Nikolai was acquitted for want of evidence.

The morning when the prison door closed behind him, he slunk down the
street with a feeling that all the windows on both sides were looking at
him; it was anything but the gait of one who can let his honesty's sun
shine once more.

Down at his lodging at Mrs. Olsen's he found his few things put ready in
the c