I cannot describe to you the overpowering grief this announcement brought to the tender bachelor heart. It stunned him, crushed him, almost killed him; but he tried to bear up manfully under the weight of his grief. He tried, ah, so hard, not to show his suffering, and Maxwelton's braes, was sung all day and was played nearly all night; but the time had come to Billy when even music could not soothe him. There was a dry, hard anguish at his heart that all the music of heaven or of earth could not soften. Late in the night he shut his piano in disgust and sat before the fire during the long black hours without even the comfort of a tear. When Tom imparted the intelligence of Rita's wedding, he also asked Billy for a loan of four hundred dollars. As an inducement, he explained that he had forged the name of Mr. Wallace to a note calling for that sum, and had negotiated the note at an Indianapolis bank. Rita's marriage would settle the Williams theft, but the matter of the forgery called for immediate adjustment in cash. Billy refused the loan; but he gave Tom fifty dollars and advised him to leave the state. "If you don't go," said Billy, savagely, "you will be sent to the penitentiary. Rita can't marry every one you have stolen from. What did you do with the money you stole from me--Dic's money? Tell me, or I'll call an officer at once. I'll arrest you myself and commit you. I'm a justice of the peace. Now confess, you miserable thief." Tom turned pale, and, seeing that Billy was in dreadful earnest, began to cry: "There was five of us in that job," he whispered, "and, Mr. Little, I never got none of the money. Con Gagen and Mike Doles got it all. I give them the sacks to keep for a while after I left the store. They promised to divide, but they run away soon afterwards, and of course we others were afeared to peach. I didn't know you knowed it. Con Gagen put me up to it." "Well, I do know it. I recognized you when you climbed out the window, and did not shoot you because you were Rita's brother. I said nothing of the robbery for the same reason, but I made a mistake. Leave my store. Get out of the state at once. If you are here Christmas Day, I'll send you where you belong." Tom took the fifty dollars and the advice; and the next day--the day before Christmas, the day set for Rita's wedding--Sukey's father entered Billy's store, as I have already told you, in great agitation. After Yates had talked to Billy for three or four minutes, the latter hurriedly closed the store door, donned the Brummel coat, and went across the road to the inn where the Indianapolis coach was waiting, and took his place.