e door, casting a strange backward
glance at the papers as he left the room, and was curiously voluble in
his dismissal of his visitor. Anything he could do--Mr. Bommaney might
rest perfectly assured--the clerks would be back to-morrow in any
case--he would advise Mr. Bommaney of his father's condition by that
night's post--he himself was naturally most profoundly anxious. In this
wise he talked Bommaney from the chambers, and when once he had closed
the door behind him, went back along the dark little corridor with
an unnecessarily catlike tread. He could hardly have been other than
certain that he was alone, yet when he reached the inner room he looked
about him with a keen quick darting suspicion, and for half a minute
ignored the fallen papers on the floor.

'Dear me!' he said, when at length he suffered his eyes to rest upon
them. 'What can that be? How did that come here?'

He stooped, picked up the papers, laid them upon his desk, and smoothed
them out, making a fold lengthways to counteract the creases into which
they had already fallen. He saw a crisp clean Bank of England note for a
hundred pounds, and, lifting it, found another. Then he lifted half the
bundle, and, finding a note of the same value, gave an inward gasp, and
expelled his breath slowly after it. Then he looked at the last note
of all, and sat down with the whole bundle in his hands. His pale and
fleshy features had taken an unusual colour, and his breathing was a
good deal disturbed. A watcher might have guessed that he was profoundly
agitated from the swift unintermittent rustle the paper made in his
hands. He seemed to sit as steady as a rock, and yet the crisp paper
rustled noisily.

Mr. Brown's bank-notes had been a fruitful source of emotion that day
already, and, in Bommaney's mind at least, had raised very dreadful
doubts and perplexities. There were doubts and perplexities in the mind
of young Mr. Barter, but they were altogether of another order. Young
Mr. Barter was perfectly aware that he was being tempted, and felt that,
in its way, the temptation wets a kind of godsend. He even said as much
in a low murmur to himself. His perplexities related to other things
than the fear of any fall from honour. Bommaney had evidently been very
queer. Bommaney had been horribly cut up about something, even before
he heard the news the young solicitor had to give him. But was he
so disturbed as to be likely to forget where he had last secured so