help you without interfering with that
redeeming struggle, which has lasted through so many years; since you
were discharged from it today by no act of your own. It is late; I need
say no more to-night. You will guard the treasure you have here, without
advice or reminder from me.'

With these words he rose to go.

'But go you first, John,' he said goodhumouredly, 'with a light, without
saying what you want to say, whatever that maybe;' John Carker's heart
was full, and he would have relieved it in speech,' if he could; 'and
let me have a word with your sister. We have talked alone before, and in
this room too; though it looks more natural with you here.'

Following him out with his eyes, he turned kindly to Harriet, and said
in a lower voice, and with an altered and graver manner:

'You wish to ask me something of the man whose sister it is your
misfortune to be.'

'I dread to ask,' said Harriet.

'You have looked so earnestly at me more than once,' rejoined the
visitor, 'that I think I can divine your question. Has he taken money?
Is it that?'

'Yes.'

'He has not.'

'I thank Heaven!' said Harriet. 'For the sake of John.'

'That he has abused his trust in many ways,' said Mr Morfin; 'that he
has oftener dealt and speculated to advantage for himself, than for
the House he represented; that he has led the House on, to prodigious
ventures, often resulting in enormous losses; that he has always
pampered the vanity and ambition of his employer, when it was his duty
to have held them in check, and shown, as it was in his power to do,
to what they tended here or there; will not, perhaps, surprise you now.
Undertakings have been entered on, to swell the reputation of the House
for vast resources, and to exhibit it in magnificent contrast to other
merchants' Houses, of which it requires a steady head to contemplate
the possibly--a few disastrous changes of affairs might render them the
probably--ruinous consequences. In the midst of the many transactions of
the House, in most parts of the world: a great labyrinth of which only
he has held the clue: he has had the opportunity, and he seems to have
used it, of keeping the various results afloat, when ascertained, and
substituting estimates and generalities for facts. But latterly--you
follow me, Miss Harriet?'

'Perfectly, perfectly,' she answered, with her frightened face fixed on
his. 'Pray tell me all the worst at once.

'Latterly, he appears to have devoted t