im that he had
become destitute by such transactions, must have been more than a mere
security in a joint bill with Captain Haughton.

"Gunston could never have understood such an inconsistency in human
nature, that the same man who broke open his bureau should have become
responsible to the amount of his fortune for a debt of which he had not
shared the discredit, and still less that such a man should, in case
he had been so generously imprudent, have concealed his loss out of
delicate tenderness for the character of the man to whom he owed his
ruin. Therefore, in short, Gunston looked on his dishonest steward not
as a man tempted by a sudden impulse in some moment of distress, at
which a previous life was belied, but as a confirmed, dissimulating
sharper, to whom public justice allowed no mercy. And thus, Lionel,
William Losely was prosecuted, tried, and sentenced to seven years'
transportation. By pleading guilty, the term was probably made shorter
than it otherwise would have been."

Lionel continued too agitated for words. The Colonel, not seeming to
heed his emotions, again ran his eye over the MS.

"I observe here that there are some queries entered as to the evidence
against Losely. The solicitor whom, when I heard of his arrest, I
engaged and sent down to the place on his behalf--"

"You did! Heaven reward you!" sobbed out Lionel. "But my father?--where
was he?"

"Then?--in his grave."

Lionel breathed a deep sigh, as of thankfulness.

"The lawyer, I say--a sharp fellow--was of opinion that if Losely had
refused to plead guilty, he could have got him off in spite of his first
confession--turned the suspicion against some one else. In the passage
where the nail was picked up there was a door into the park. That
door was found unbolted in the inside the next morning: a thief might
therefore have thus entered and passed at once into the study. The nail
was discovered close by the door; the thief might have dropped it on
putting out his light, which, by the valet's account, he must have done
when he was near the door in question, and required the light no more.
Another circumstance in Losely's favour: just outside the door, near a
laurel-bush, was found the fag-end of one of those small rose-coloured
wax-lights which are often placed in Lucifer-match boxes. If this had
been used by the thief, it would seem as if, extinguishing the light
before he stepped into the air, he very naturally jerked away the morse