The young girl’s face changed suddenly. She looked so sad, so wistful, that he was touched. “I--I hope not; oh, I hope not!” “What do you mean?” “I mean that you have been so kind to my mother and me, that--that----” “Well, that what?” said he, not looking at her, and trying to speak as gruffly as ever. “That I shouldn’t like to think----” She paused again, and there was silence on both sides for a minute or two. Chris was looking with wide eyes at the back of his head, wondering with all her might whether it were possible for a man, a real man, one, too, by no means without the milk of human kindness as far as most people were concerned, to be guilty of the crimes which seemed to have been brought home to him. John Bradfield, for his part, had been flung, all in a moment, into a sentimental mood. He had truly loved this girl, in his own way, which was not, perhaps, the highest way, but still in a manner not to be altogether despised, except by a woman who was entirely absorbed in love for somebody else. Now he had got to lose her altogether; to lose even that faint hope of holding her some day in his arms, which he had nursed side by side with some particularly cruel and selfish designs upon her favoured lover. For a moment he felt as if he must break down in some sort of confession, perhaps some sort of appeal. Then the sterner stuff in him hardened, and saying only, “Go along with you,” he made way for her to pass him on her way upstairs. Then with one look after her, one sigh, he dismissed her absolutely from his mind, and gave himself up to the serious dangers of the moment, and the way to escape them. For he did not deceive himself; he knew that the cordon was closing round him, that before long the outposts would close in, and the chain of evidence, each link of which was now in the possession of a different person, would be complete against him. It only wanted the garrulous and untrustworthy Marrable to be questioned by either Stelfox, or Richard, or even Chris, for it to become known that the fortune that he, Bradfield, had been enjoying, was that left by Gilbert Wryde to him in trust for Richard, Gilbert’s son. If this had been all the story, John Bradfield might have got off lightly. But the comparing of notes would lead not only to the discovery of the fraud he had practised, but of the infamous means by which he had maintained it. Then there was that little matter of Richard’s disappearance at the time of the fire. What did Stelfox know? Bradfield, who had mistrusted the man for some time, but who had doubted the advisability of trying to “square” him, now wished that he had done so. However, it was too late to spend the time in regrets, and Mr. Bradfield went straight back to his study, and drawing down the blinds and locking the doors, proceeded to unlock a safe which had been built into the wall in one corner of the room.