At the bank down in the village—well, at nine o'clock Mortimer, feeling the virtue of early effort, with the money of redemption in his pocket, entered into the resumption of his duties. At the earliest moment after the vault was opened he made his way to the box that contained the Porter payment. One thing troubled him slightly. It was a thousand-dollar bill that had been taken; the money he had to replace was in hundreds and fifties. As he slipped them quietly into the box he thought it wouldn't really matter; he would transfer the three thousand to the account himself, and nobody would know of the change. Leaving the box where it was for a little, in the way of subtle strategy, he came out and busied himself over other matters.

To Mortimer's slight astonishment, presently the cashier, Mr. Lane, came out from his office, and speaking somewhat carelessly, said: “Mr. Mortimer, you have that Porter note and money in charge. It is due today, isn't it?”

Looking up, Mortimer saw Lane's eye fixed upon his face with piercing intensity. He flushed out of sheer nervousness.

“Yes, sir,” he stammered, “it is. I'll attend to it at once.”

“Ah!” there was a peculiar drawl in the cashier's voice as he spoke; “ah, I had a communication from Mr. Porter yesterday, asking if the note had been paid.”

Mortimer felt his knees shake-something was choking hire. Had the devil of mischance taken the salvation of Alan's good name out of his hands—had his work been for nothing.

“I couldn't understand it,” went on the cashier. His voice sounded like the clang of a fire bell to the listening man, though it was evenly modulated, cold and steady in its methodical precision. “I thought Porter knew the money was here to meet the note,” said Lane, still speaking, “but my attention being called to the matter, I looked up the papers. I found one thousand dollars missing!” He was looking steadily at Mortimer; his eyes were searching the young man's very soul. There was accusation, denunciation, abhorrence in the cashier's gaze.

Mortimer did not speak. He was trying to think. His brain worked in erratic futility. The slangy babble of Old Bill thrust itself upon him; the roar of the race course was in his ears, deadening his senses; not a sane, relevant word rose to his lips. He was like a child stricken by fear. In an indistinct way he felt the dishonor that was Alan Porter's being given to him. The cashier waited for Mortimer to say something; then he spoke again, with reproach in his voice.

“I at once sent a messenger to ask you to return from your home at Emerson to clear up this matter; he discovered that you had not been there; that your mother was not ill. May I ask where you were yesterday?”

“I was at Gravesend, sir—at the races,” answered Mortimer, defiantly.

This speech broke the lethargy that was over him; his mind cleared—he commenced to think sanely.

“Can you tell me,” proceeded Lane, “where the balance of Mr. Porter's three thousand dollars is?”

“It's in the box.”

“That's a—it is not.”

“It's in the box,” repeated Mortimer, firmly.

“We can soon settle that point,” declared the cashier, going hurriedly into the vault and reappearing instantly with the box in his hand.

He opened it and stared at the package of bills that rose up when freed from the pressure of the lid. With nervous fingers he counted the contents.

“I beg your pardon,” he exclaimed in a quick, jerky way. “The three thousand dollars is here, but these bills have been put in the box this morning; they were not there last night. It is not the money that was taken away, either. That was one bill, a thousand-dollar note; and here are”—he counted them again—“six one hundreds and eight fifties, besides the original two of one thousand. You put those notes back, Mr. Mortimer,” he said, tapping the desk with two fingers of the right hand.

“I did.”

“And you took the money yesterday or the day before?”

“I did not.”

“Ah!” Lane repeated in a drier, more severe tone than he had used before. This “Ah” of the cashier's, with its many gradations of tone, had been a most useful weapon in his innumerable financial battles. It could be made to mean anything—everything; flung out at haphazard it always caught his opponent off guard; it was a subtle thrust, and while one pondered over its possible meaning, Lane could formulate in his mind more decisive expressions.

“Ah,” he repeated, adding, “if you did not steal the money, who did? And if you did not take it, why did you put it back?”

With an expressive sweep of the hand outward the cashier stood waiting, his tall, narrow head, topped by carefully brushed gray hair, thrust forward in the attitude of a parrot about to strike with its beak.

“I can't answer those questions,” answered the man he was grilling. “The money to pay Mr. Porter's note is here; and I fancy that is all the bank needs to concern itself about. It was entrusted to me, and now I am prepared to turn it over.”

“Quite true; ah, yes, quite true; but it might have been vastly different. That is the point that most concerns the bank. Whoever took the money”—and he bowed, deprecatingly, with ironical consideration to Mortimer—“must have needed a thousand dollars for—well, some speculative purpose, perhaps. Good fortune has enabled the some one to make good, and the money has been replaced.”

The cashier straightened up, threw his head back, and actually smiled. He had scored linguistically—by a clever manipulation of the sentence he had made the some one who had stolen the money the some one who who had replaced it. That was accusation by inference, if you like. As the other did not speak, Lane added: “I will wire for Mr. Crane to come at once; this is a matter for investigation.”

Mortimer bowed his head in acquiesence; what could he say—what other stand could the bank take?

“You might remain at your desk,” the cashier said, “if there is any mistake we'll discover it, no doubt.”

Mortimer felt like one dead, indeed as a dishonored man he were better dead. The bank was like a mausoleum, and he a lost spirit haunting its precincts in quest of the undefiled body that had been his but yesterday. Cass, the teller, certainly shunned him as he would a leper. Lane, vindictively pleased that he had unearthed the villain, drew his small soul into a shell of cold, studious politeness; much as a sea spider might house his unpleasant body in a discarded castle of pink and white.

Alan Porter was late—he had not come yet. Mortimer waited in suffering suspense for his appearance. What would come of it all. Now that the money was replaced, if the boy admitted his guilt to Crane, probably no further action would be taken, but he would be dishonored in the sight of his employer. Mortimer had sought to avert this; had not denounced Alan in the first instance; by good fortune had been able to replace the money; even now had refused to divulge the name of the thief. He was well aware of the mass of circumstantial evidence, the outcome of his own hurried actions, that pointed to himself as the guilty one. Better this than that he should denounce the boy. Dishonor to the lad might kill his father; for Mortimer was well aware of the doctor's edict. And Allis, the girl he loved as his life, would hang her head in shame for evermore. He was anxious to see Alan before the cashier did; he did not want the boy to deny taking the money at first, as he might do if he were unaware of the circumstances; it would place him in a wrong light.

Just before twelve Alan Porter came hurriedly in. He had missed his train the night before, he explained in a general way to all. Mortimer stepped up to him almost at once, speaking with low, earnest rapidity; the cashier was in his own office and Mr. Cass was not within earshot.

“I put the money back, but its loss had been discovered yesterday. I have been accused of taking it, but have denied it, accusing no one. I want you to say that you borrowed it, thinking it no great harm, as it was your father's money.”

Alan would have interrupted him, but Mortimer said, “Wait till I finish;” and then continued: “There will be nothing done to you, I feel sure, if you will take this stand, because of your father's connection with Crane. It will save me from dishonor—”

“Mr. Porter.”

It was the cashier's voice of Damascus steel cutting in on Mortimer's low, pleading tones.

Alan turned his head, and Mr. Lane, beckoning, said, “Will you step into my office for a minute?”

The cashier's one minute drew its weary length into thirty; and when Alan Porter came out again, Mortimer saw the boy sought to avoid him. Had he denied taking the money? My God! the full horror of Mortimer's hopeless position flashed upon him like the lurid light of a destroying forest fire. He could read in every line of the boy's face an accusation of himself. He had trembled when it was a question of Alan's dishonor; now that the ignominy was being thrust upon him, the bravery that he possessed in great part made him a hero. If through his endeavor to save the boy he was to shoulder the guilt, not of his own volition, but without hope of escape, he would stand to it like a man. What would it profit him to denounce the boy.

Harking back with rapidity over his actions, and Alan's, he saw that everything implicated him. Once he thought of his mother and wavered; but she would believe him if he said he had not committed this dreadful crime. But all the world of Brookfield would despise the name of her son if it were thought that he had sought to testify falsely against his friend. And was not Alan the brother of Allis?

Mentally his argument, his analysis of the proper course to pursue was tortuous, not definable, or to be explained in concise phraseology; but the one thought that rose paramount over all others was, that he must take his iniquitous punishment like a man. He had fought so strongly to shield the brother of the girl he loved that the cause in all its degradation had accrued to him.

At one o'clock the president, Crane, arrived from New York, and in him was bitterness because of his yesterday's defeat. He had sat nearly the whole night through mentally submerged in the double happening that had swept many men from the chess board. Lauzanne, the despised, had kept from his hand a small fortune, even when his fingers seemed tightening on the coin, too. That was one happening. John Porter had gained over twenty thousand dollars. This made him quite independent of Crane's financial bolstering. The Banker's diplomacy of love had been weakened. That was the other happening.

Crane was closeted with the cashier not more than ten minutes when Mortimer was asked to join the two men who had so suddenly become deeply interested in his affairs.

The cashier's hand had been strengthened by Crane's contribution of evidence. Mortimer had told the same falsehood about his mother being ill to him at the race course. From Alan the cashier had learned that Mortimer had been betting heavily; he had admitted to the boy that he had won enough to replace the thousand dollars he had stolen. Mortimer's words had been contorted into that reading in their journey through two personalities. He had even begged young Porter not to speak of his betting transactions. He had denied taking the money—that was but natural; he had been forced to admit replacing it—that was conclusive. Indeed it seemed a waste of time to investigate further; it was utterly impossible to doubt his guilt. Mesh by mesh, like an enthralling net, all the different threads of convicting circumstances were drawn about the accused man.

“Let us question him?” said Crane; and in his heart was not sorrow, nor hate, nor compassion, nor anything but just joy. Greater than the influence of money in his love ambition would be this degradation, this reducing to a felon a man he felt stood between him and Allis Porter.

Yesterday they had won; to-day victory, almost, to him had come. Yes, bring the deliverer in; he would feast his eyes, the narrow-lidded eyes, upon the man whose young love might have conquered over all his diplomacy, and who would go forth from his hands branded as a felon.

The probing of the already condemned man elicited nothing beyond a repeated denial of theft. With the precision of Mam'selle Guillotine, Cashier Lane lopped off everything that could possibly stand in Mortimer's defense, grafting into the cleaved places individual facts which confirmed his guilt. Mortimer contended nothing, threw suspicion upon no one. Was it Alan Porter? Was it Cass?—but that was impossible. Was it the cashier himself? Still more impossible. Mortimer answered nothing. He had not taken the money. Yes, he had replaced it—because he was responsible for its custody.

“Can't you see,” cried Crane, impatiently, “that this simple denial of yours is of no value as against so much that points to your—” he hesitated—“your implication?”