"Yes. Judge Gilkins gave me the chance. I could not suppose that the club would ever become your property." The younger man's face hardened. "But when it did become my property, why had you the indecency to stay?" "Where else could I go?" "You had the whole world to—operate in." Herold's thin face flushed. "It was [Pg 132]fitter that I should work for you," he said. "I have served you faithfully for five years." [Pg 132] "And unfaithfully for ten! Wasn't it enough that Vyse and I let you go without prosecuting you? Wasn't it enough that we pocketed our loss for your wife's sake?" He checked himself in a flash of memory, turned, and looked at the picture on the wall. Now he knew, now he understood why his former associate's handwriting had seemed familiar after all these years. And suddenly he remembered that this man was Jim's father—and the father of the young girl he was in love with; and the shock drove every drop of blood out of his heart and cheeks. [Pg 133]Ghastly, staring, he stood confronting Herold; and the latter, leaning heavily, shoulder against the wall, stared back at him. [Pg 133] "I could have gone on working for you," he said, "trying to save enough to make restitution—some day. I have already saved part of it. Look at me—look at my children—at the way we live, and you'll understand how I have saved. But I have saved part of what I took. I'll give you that much before you go—before I go, too." His breath came heavily, unevenly; he cleared his eyes with a work-stained hand, fashioned for pens and ledgers. "You were abroad when I—did what I did. Vyse was merciless. I told him I could put it back if he'd give me the [Pg 134]chance. But a thief was a thief to him—particularly when his own pocket was involved. He meant to send me to prison. The judge held him—he was his father-in-law—and he was an old man with a wife and children of his own." [Pg 134] Herold was silent for a moment, and his gaze became vague and remote, then he lifted his head sharply: "A man makes one slip like that and the
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