The reporter just behind him grinned and lifted his eyebrows as he took down these words _verbatim_. "For your mother's sake I deeply regret that 'the affair' as you mildly term it, must and has become known. As far as you are concerned, I have no compunctions. When a seeming man can commit a grave crime in the hope that a widowed mother--whose stay and pride he ought to be--will come to his rescue, and buy immunity from deserved punishment, he neither deserves, nor shall he receive, mercy at my hands. But were I capable of a maudlin sentiment of pity in the circumstances, the duty I owe my business would prevent any such expression as you desire. When any one in my employ takes advantage of my confidence, he must also, and with absolute certainty, take the consequences." "Bad luck ter yez!" mentally ejaculated Pat, whom curiosity and the fascination of his own impending fate had drawn within earshot. "What do you intend to do with me?" asked Haldane, his brow contracting, and his face growing sullen under Mr. Arnot's harsh, bitter words. "Do! What is done with clerks who steal their employers' money?" "I did not steal your money," said Haldane impetuously. "Where is it, then?" asked Mr. Arnot, with a cold sneer. "Be careful, now," said the policeman; "you are getting excited, and you may say what you'll wish you hadn't." "Mr. Arnot, do you mean to have it go abroad to all the world that I have deliberately stolen that thousand dollars?" asked the young man desperately. "Here are the empty envelopes. Where is the money?" said his employer, in the same cool, inexorable tone. "I met two sharpers from New York, who made a fool of me--" "Made a fool of you! that was impossible," interrupted Mr. Arnot with a harsh laugh. "Dastard that you are, to strike a man when he is down," thundered Haldane wrathfully. "Since everything must go abroad, the truth shall go, and not foul slander. I got to drinking with these men from New York, and missed the train--" "Be careful, now; think what you are saying," interrupted the policeman. "He charges me with what amounts to a bald theft, and in a way that all will hear of the charge, and shall I not defend my self?" "O, certainly, if you can prove that you did not take the money--only remember, what you say will appear in the evidence." "What evidence?" cried the bewildered and excited youth with an oath. "If you will only give me a chance, you shall have all the evidence there is in a sentence. These blacklegs from New York appeared like gentlemen. A friend in town introduced them to me, and, after losing the train, we agreed to spend the evening together. They called for cards, and they won the money." Mr. Arnot's dark cheek had grown more swarthy at the epithet of "dastard," but he coolly waited until Haldane had finished, and then asked in his former tone: "Did they take the money from your person and open the envelopes, one carefully, the other recklessly, before they won it?"