beyond a certain point, was a blank?" She was eyeing him with a malicious twinkle in her laughing eyes; he was grimly silent, meeting her look with what seemed to be a strange defiance.
"I'd rather not remember--now."
"I see; it's like that, is it? I don't blame you. I've no wish to touch your sore places, though never so lightly; I've plenty of my own which I'd just as soon people kept their fingers off; I'm not pachydermatous quite. But there's one thing which I should like to ask, if you will let me, and it's this: Have you any expectation of getting back to where you were?"
"None."
"I don't wish to push the knife in, but -- do you think there's any probability of your regaining the position you once held? I repeat the question in another form because, as you said, I want to be plain; this time I want you and me to be colleagues, not what we were before, to run no risk of a misunderstanding."
"Not only is there no probability, there is no possibility."
"Not even a thousand to one chance?"
"Nor a million to one. That side of me is dead; there can be no resurrection. There is no person of the name you mentioned any longer; some of my new friends call me 'Balmy'; I call myself James Langham."
"Then, Mr. Langham, let me put it to you as a sound business proposition, that you've everything to gain, and nothing to lose, by becoming my partner in certain delicate matters which I have in my mind's eye."
"You're proposing that I should become a thief?"
"Well, 'a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.'"
"What might have been meant for a smile distorted his attenuated visage."
"The sort of thing that I've gone through turns the whole world topsy-turvy; the ladies and gentlemen with whom I have associated think nothing of stealing; they've robbed me times without number of the worthless trifles of which I could be plundered, and -- I had to bear it. I've said to myself over and over again when I've been mad with misery, that I would rob a bank if I dared."
"Yes, and if you had the chance. You would not see your way, for instance, to enter, say, the London County and Westminster Bank attired as you are, with the intention of coming out of it a wealthier man."
"You're quite right, I shouldn't."
"What I'm offering you is the opportunity to do that sort of thing with perfect impunity; I'm not doing it out of philanthropic motives; at least I'm not a humbug. I'll give you the means to replenish your wardrobe, which needs it, and to live in comfort for a reasonable time, on the understanding that you'll consider seriously certain propositions that I shall make you, and, if you see your way, that you'll give me your assistance in carrying them out, on sharing terms. Is it a deal?"
For the first time he moved, withdrawing himself from the table and standing 

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