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“Good God!” groaned Herold, closing his sunken eyes. Then, almost feeling his way out and along the dark passageway, he descended the stairs, heavily.

Marche, cleaning his gun in the sitting-room, looked up in surprise, then rose, laying aside stock, fore-end, and barrel, as Herold came into the room. The next instant, stepping nearer, he stared into Herold’s face in silence. And so they met and confronted each other after many years.

“Are you Herold?” said the young man, in a low voice.

“That is my name–now.”

“You have been in my employment–for five years?”

“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 fitter that I should work for you,” he said. “I have served you faithfully for five years.”

“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. Ghastly, staring, he stood confronting Herold; and the latter, leaning heavily, shoulder against the wall, stared back at him.

“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 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.”

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 world damns him forever. And I tell you, Marche, that I am not dishonest by nature or in my character. God alone knows why I took those securities, meaning, of course, to return them, as all the poor, damned fools do mean when they do what I did. But Vyse made it a condition that I was to leave the country, and there was no chance of restitution unless I could remain in New York and do what I knew how to do–no chance, Marche–and so fortune ebbed, and my wife died, and the old judge saw me working on the water-front in Norfolk one day, and gave me this place. That is all.”

“Why did you feign illness?” asked Marche, in an altered voice.

“You know why.”

“You thought I’d discharge you?”

“Of course.”

Marche stepped nearer. “Why did you come to me here to-night?”

Herold flushed deeply. “It was your right to know–and my daughter’s right–before she broke her heart.”

“I see. You naturally suppose that I would scarcely care to marry the daughter of a—-” He stopped short, and Herold set his teeth.

“Say it,” he said, “and let this end matters for all of us. Except that I have saved seven thousand dollars toward–what I took. I will draw you a check for it now.”