“There must of course be something between us that can never be quite blotted out, in spite of repentance on the one side and forgiveness on the other. I could never again put you in a position of trust, for that fatal weakness might come over you once more. But I would give you a post where temptation could not assail you. You have spoken of your mother, so dear to us both. I implore you by the memory of that beloved woman who, for aught we know, is even now watching us from afar, to quit this stubborn attitude and confess the truth.” No reply came from the accused man, and the hard, stern look came back to the banker’s face. At that moment the door of the room slowly opened, and the charming vision of Rosabelle, looking her sweetest and daintiest, stood framed in the opening. “May I come in?” she cried in her fresh, girlish voice. “Come in, my poor child,” was her uncle’s answer. “Come in; something has happened that you will have to know sooner or later, although I fear the knowledge may break your heart.” White as death at these ominous words, she advanced into the room, closing the door, her troubled glance changing from the stern, set face of her uncle to the pallid countenance of her lover, the two men who were the dearest to her in the world, loving the one with a filial devotion that could not have been surpassed by a daughter, the other with all the fervour of her ardent youth. It was a painful scene. In a few trenchant words, the more weighty from the cold, judicial tone in which they were uttered, Morrice explained to her what had happened. She learned to a certain extent the secret of that wonderful safe, about the protecting properties of which she had so often laughingly rallied its owner, this wretched safe which had worked the ruin of Richard, and now menaced her own happiness. She was too much dazed by the sudden and tragic happening to do much more than grasp a few salient facts. The safe was opened by two keys, one carried by each of the two men. They alone of all the inmates of the house knew of its mechanism. That safe had been opened, and certain valuable property extracted. “But how could it be opened by one person, if it requires two keys?” she cried, grasping at the first difficulty that presented itself to her in her distress. Mr. Morrice did not mince matters. “If I had a duplicate key of the one carried by the other man, I could open it alone, and vice versa,” he explained. She understood the horrible suggestion, but her heart refused to credit it. Of course she realized that her uncle would not steal his own property, that would be a surmise altogether too ridiculous. But it was equally impossible to believe that Richard, the man in whom the great financier had placed such implicit trust, to whom her whole soul went out in pity and yearning, should stoop to such a dastardly act, with all the long and sinister preparations for its execution.