ck."

Allen, for the first time, lowered the box upon the table and drew
from it a bundle of notes bound together with elastic bandages.
Holcombe's eyes lighted as brightly at the sight as though the notes
were for his own private pleasures in the future.

"Be quick!" he said. "I cannot be responsible for the men outside."

Allen bent over the money, his face drawing into closer and sharper
lines as the amount grew, under his fingers, to the sum Holcombe had
demanded.

"Sixty thousand!" he said, in a voice of desperate calm.

"Good!" whispered Holcombe. "Pass it over to me. I hope I have taken
the most of what you have," he said, as he shoved the notes into his
pocket; "but this is something. Now I warn you," he added, as he
lowered the trigger of the revolver and put it out of sight, "that any
attempt to regain this will be futile. I am surrounded by friends; no
one knows you or cares about you. I shall sleep in my room to-night
without precaution, for I know that the money is now mine. Nothing you
can do will recall it. Your cue is silence and secrecy as to what you
have lost and as to what you still have with you."

He stopped in some confusion, interrupted by a sharp knock at the door
and two voices calling his name. Allen shrank back in terror.

"You coward!" he hissed. "You promised me you'd be content with what
you have." Holcombe looked at him in amazement. "And now your
accomplices are to have their share, too, are they?" the embezzler
whispered, fiercely. "You lied to me; you mean to take it all."

Holcombe, for an answer, drew back the bolt, but so softly that the
sound of his voice drowned the noise it made.

"No, not to-night," he said, briskly, so that the his voice penetrated
into the hall beyond. "I mustn't stop any longer, I'm keeping you up.
It has been very pleasant to have heard all that news from home. It
was such a chance, my seeing you before I sailed. Good-night." He
paused and pretended to listen. "No, Allen, I don't think it's a
servant," he said. "It's some of my friends looking for me. This is my
last night on shore, you see." He threw open the door and confronted
Meakim and Carroll as they stood in some confusion in the dark hall.
"Yes, it is some of my friends," Holcombe continued. "I'll be with you
in a minute," he said to them. Then he turned, and, crossing the room
in their sight, shook Allen by the hand, and bade him good-night and
good-by.

The embezzler's revulsion of feel