perplexed and harassed did his face become. In his eyes there was the look of a hunted animal, the look of a drowning man catching at a straw, the look that must have been in the eyes of poor Louis Dixhuit when they discovered him in his disguise and turned his horses' heads backwards. At last, throwing down his pen, he fell back in his chair, and hid his face in his hands.

"No escape," he murmured, "no escape! Unless a miracle should supervene, I am undone."

He remained in this attitude, that told so unmistakably of despair, for some minutes, revolving many things: problems working themselves in and out of his brain confusedly, as a man works in and out of a labyrinth, to which he has lost the clue. A small clock on the mantelpiece struck the hour, five, and then chimed an air once popular in France. It was a costly trifle that the banker had bought years ago. Paintings, articles of virtu, objets de luxe, had always possessed attractions for him.

The chimes aroused him. "I must talk to Hill," he muttered: "no use putting it off till another day." And he touched the spring of his small hand-bell.

In answer, the door opened, and there entered a little elderly man with snow-white hair worn long behind, and a good-looking, fair, and intellectual face, its eyes beaming with benevolence. He wore a black tail coat, according to the custom of clerks of that day, and a white cambric frilled shirt like that of his master. It was Thomas Hill; for many years Mr. Peter Castlemaine's confidential clerk and right hand.

"Come in, Hill; come in," said the banker. "Close the door--and lock it."

"The clerks are gone, sir; the last has just left," was the reply. But the old man nevertheless turned the key of the door.

Mr. Peter Castlemaine pointed to a seat close to him; and his clerk, quiet in all his movements, as in the tones of his voice, took it in silence. For a full minute they looked at each other; Thomas Hill's face reflecting the uneasiness of his master's. He was the first to speak.

"I know it, sir," he said, his manner betraying the deepest respect and sympathy. "I have seen it coming for a long while. So have you, sir. Why have you not confided in me before?"

"I could not," breathed Mr. Peter Castlemaine. "I wanted to put it from me, Hill, as a thing that could never really be. It has never come so near as it has come now, Hill; it 

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