“Yes, Darnell; I see you know what I have come for,” said Roy quietly. “It was certainly a very strange, a most extraordinary coincidence that Mr. Falck should, unknown to himself, have had another five-pound note in his pocket that day last June, but it has been fully explained. Now I want your explanation.” “Sir!” gasped Darnell; “I don’t understand you; I—I am at a loss—” “Come, don’t tell any more lies about it,” said Roy impatiently. “We knew now that you must have taken it, for no one else was present. Only confess the truth and you shall not be prosecuted; you shall not lose your situation here. What induced you to do it?” “Don’t be hard on me, sir,” stammered the man. “I assure you I’ve bitterly regretted it many a time.” “Then why did you not make a clean breast of it to my father?” said Roy. “You might have known that he would never be hard on you.” “I wish I had,” said Darnell, in great distress; “I wish to God I had, sir, for it’s been a miserable business from first to last. But I was in debt, and there was nothing but ruin before me, and I thought of my wife who was ill, and I knew that the disgrace would kill her.” “So you went and disgraced yourself still more,” said Roy hotly. “You tried to ruin another man instead of yourself.” “But he wasn’t turned off,” said Darnell. “And they put it all on his illness, and it seemed as if, after all, it would not hurt him so much. It was a great temptation, and when I had once given way to it there seemed no turning back.” “Tell me just how you took it,” said Roy, getting rather more calm and judicial in his manner. “I saw Mr. Horner give Signor Sardoni the change, sir, and I saw him put the note in the till; and I was just desperate with being in debt and not knowing how to get straight again.” “But wait a minute—how had you got into such difficulties?” interrupted Roy. “And how could a five-pound note help you out again?” “Well, sir, I had been unlucky in a betting transaction, but I thought I could right myself if only I could get something to try again with; but there wasn’t a soul I could borrow from. I thought I should get straight again at once if only I had five pounds in hand, and so I did, sir; I was on my feet again the very next day.” “I might have known it was betting that had ruined you,” said Roy. “Now go back and tell me when you took the note.”