"Nothing, except this," Mr. Bundercombe concluded: "Your two partners were so scared at the result of the Hammersmith affair and at your sentence that they turned over a new leaf. They went into business as outside stockbrokers--with your capital. The agreement as to a third profits was still in force. They had what I can describe only as the devil's own luck. I should say their total capital to-day is at least fifty thousand pounds. "The time came for you to be released. They had no idea of parting with a third of their money and taking you into the business. All the time they had deceived you. They continued the deception. Harding met you as a poor man. But for me you would have been on your way to South Africa by this time, with a hundred pounds in your pocket." "Is what you are telling me the truth?" Stanley demanded. "Absolutely!" Mr. Bundercombe declared. "I stumbled across the truth in making inquiries concerning you and your probable future. I had meant, as a matter of fact, to put up a little money of my own to give you a fresh start. In the course of these inquiries I happened to run across a young woman who had been a typist in Harding's office. It was from her I learned the truth. As he rose in the world Harding seems to have treated the girl badly. A little kindness and a little attention on my part, and I learned the truth. She placed me in possession of the whole story after we had lunched together to-day." Stanley at last took the chair he had so long refused. He sat with his arms folded. "And I kept my mouth closed!" he muttered. "It was their job. I would no more have pulled the trigger of my revolver than I would have shot myself --if I had known. It was they who put the cartridges there!" He sat for a moment quite still. Mr. Bundercombe rang the bell. "The gentlemen I am expecting," he said, "will be here in a moment. You can show them in directly they arrive." The man bowed and withdrew. Mr. Bundercombe turned to his visitor. "I have made the acquaintance," he continued, "of these two men, your late partners--sought them out and made it purposely. They are coming here to see me to-night. They fancy that it is just a friendly call. They know that I have money to invest. I have even made use of them, employed them to buy for me bonds of my own choosing. They think it is an affair of a little business chat, perhaps, and a restaurant supper. Pull yourself together, Stanley! Go into that corner, behind the curtain. Wait your time!" Stanley rose slowly to his feet. His face was drawn as though with pain. "It isn't so much the money," he muttered, "only I thought--I fancied they would have been there to meet me, to shake me by the hand, to stay with me! And they wanted to push me off out of the country!"