took the liberty of locking it with a key of my own
when I went to put away the books and shut the vault for the night." And
he quietly buried his face in his baby's floating curls, who feeling his
cheek against her own put up her hand and stroked it lovingly, crying in
her caressing infantile tones,

"Poor papa! poor tired papa."

Mr. Sylvester's stern brow contracted painfully. The look with which his
eye sought the sky without, would have made Paula's young heart ache.
Taking the child from her father's clasp, he laid her on the bed. When
he again confronted the janitor his face was like a mask.

"Hopgood," said he, "you are an honest man and a faithful one; I
appreciate your worth and have had confidence in your judgment. Whom
have you told of this occurrence beside myself?"

"No one, sir."

"Another question; if Mr. Stuyvesant had required his box that day and
had found it in the condition you describe, what would you have replied
to his inquiries?"

The janitor colored to the roots of his hair in an agony of shame Mr.
Sylvester may or may not have appreciated, but replied with the
straightforward earnestness of a man driven to bay, "I should have been
obliged to tell him the truth sir; that whereas I had no personal
knowledge of any one but myself, having been to the vaults since the
evening before, I was called upon early that morning to open the outside
door to you, sir, and that you came into the bank," (he did not say
looking very pale, agitated and unnatural, but he could not help
remembering it) "and finding no one on duty but myself,--the watchman
having gone up stairs to take his usual cup of coffee before going home
for the day--you sent me out of the room on an errand, which delayed me
some little time, and that when I came back I found you gone, and every
thing as I had left it except that small pick lying on the floor."

The last words were nearly inaudible but they must have been heard by
Mr. Sylvester, for immediately upon their utterance, the hand which
unconsciously had kept its hold upon the tooth-pick, opened and with an
uncontrollable gesture flung the miserable tell-tale into the stove near
by.

"Hopgood," said the stately gentleman, coming nearer and holding him
with his eyes till the poor man turned pale and cold as a stone, "has
Mr. Stuyvesant had occasion to open his box since you locked it?"

"Yes sir, he called for it yesterday afternoon."

"And who gave it to him?"

"I sir.