The calm eyes of the young plutocrat would yield at first, however, no ground to sentiment. Enough experience had taught him to safeguard his emotions. “You advertised for help,” he said. “May I ask, in the first instance, your name?” “Dobell, sir,” answered the stranger, in a low voice--“Felix Dobell.” He hung his head. He was patently in great mental suffering. His age appeared to be about that of his questioner’s; but some illness of life had lined his face prematurely. In appearance he might have stood--on that line of social demarcation which divides the accepted from the not quite acceptable--for a clerk on the lower grade. But his speech was educated and his dress quiet. “And your vocation?” asked Gilead. “I was cashier, sir, to a firm of law stationers.” “_Was?_” He noticed and emphasised the past tense. “I was forced to leave, sir,” said the visitor scarce audibly. “_Forced?_” Again he accentuated the word, quietly, but significantly. “No, not in that way, sir,” answered the other--“not, indeed. It was because I feared to be tempted to it that I left. I come to you with clean hands so far; indeed I do, sir.” He put out his arms with an instinctive movement, and withdrew them as quickly. Miss Halifax, leaning over her table, shaded her eyes with her palm. But Gilead sat, to all appearance, as cold as judgment. “You will forgive me,” he said; “it is necessary. You proposed, if I remember rightly, some indiscriminate form of service in return for this loan?” “I have trained my left hand, sir,” answered the visitor eagerly, “to do the work of my right, and better. Anything in my power I will do gladly.” “Fifty pounds is a large sum. For what purpose do you require it?” “To pay a debt.” Again the answer was hardly audible. “Very well,” said Gilead--“and if I accept your terms, and require you, in exchange for the gift, to pick a man’s pocket for me?” Miss Halifax rose in soft amazement. The stranger rose too. “I have come to the wrong place,” he said. “It is only a judgment, I suppose; but--O, let me go, sir! let me go before I make a fool of myself.” “You won’t do it?” “No.” The amanuensis forestalled him at the door. “Mr Balm!” she whispered, in a voice from which every expression but wonder was gone. Gilead rose, with a smile, and crossing the room swiftly, put a firm detaining hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Come,” he said, “tell us all about it from beginning to end.” His tone was unmistakable. With one amazed look at him, the young fellow dropped his face into his single palm, and bowed his shoulders as if quite broken with grief. “Come,” said Gilead a second time; “it was a test, no more. Don’t you know us, man?”