America. I shall clear from the boat, one of the first. There I shall get another outfit, and come back in the next boat in another name. I shall go out, of course, as George Depew."

"I cannot get rid of the fear——"

"No, Charley, I know you cannot. But there is nothing to fear. Think what the money means to you, to us both. To you more than to me. You have a wife and little Edith to think of. Think what the money means, the happiness it will bring to mother and child—to them both."

"I know—I know."

"After all, I am doing whatever is being done, Charley. You conscientious old beggar you, just[Pg 26] wipe the thing out of your mind. Let it be a leaf in the book of the past. Paste it down. Don't look at it, don't think of it. Only think of the future—the brightness of a future from which the clouds have rolled away, and which a few hours ago did not seem to have a piece of blue sky in it."

[Pg 26]

"Yes—yes."

"The boat starts from Liverpool, calls only at Queenstown, and then steams away across to the States. Why, given ordinary traveling—I shall not be away more than a fortnight, Charley, and when I come back I shall expect you to have cashed all those notes—and turned them into something less traceable."

"How had I better do that? Go to the bank?"

"M'no. I don't think I can trust you to do that, Charley. You would present those notes with such a white face and trembling hand that the most unsophisticated bank clerk breathing would think there was something fishy."

"What shall I do, then?"

"M'well.... I have it! There are two rooms empty above these?"

"Yes."

"Take them to-morrow. Take them in the name of Jones, Brown, Robinson—any name. Get a list of the brokers on the stock exchange, and buy[Pg 27] from separate men nine hundred pounds' worth of stock. Good stock—no risk. Railway shares and that sort of thing. Pay each of the brokers with a thousand pound note; you will want the change out of it for working with. Worse come to the worst, if the shares have to be sold, there will only be the loss of a few pounds."

[Pg 27]

"I will do that."

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