“Yes, sir,” said the visitor. He looked up, his eyes shining; but there was a piteous tremor about his lips. “I succumbed, sir,” he said, “and to my everlasting shame. I want to put it before you quite plainly, without extenuation or self-defence. It was this way. Mr Lerroux had engaged to pay me a certain small salary, but, as a matter of fact, he did not keep to his promise, or only so scantily and fitfully that, at the time of my father’s death, I had been able to put by no more than a pound or two, which represented my entire savings. There was a reason for this, as I knew. My employer figured large before the world of critics, but he was not a popular artist, and his patrons were few. He was generally hard-pressed for cash, and I knew, and know now most bitterly to my cost, that he had recourse to the money-lenders. At the time of which I speak he was in a desperate state, and I must believe that he had no choice but to discharge me. Anyhow he did discharge me, I thought harshly and cruelly, and at twenty-two I found myself cast adrift without means or prospects.” He paused. “Come,” said Gilead, “we are no Pharisees here.” “At first,” said the young man, lowering his eyes, “I hardly realised my position. I was strong and hopeful, and foresaw no great difficulty in procuring a situation. I did not understand that, without especial attainments, my chance was almost nothing in the struggle for existence. But I was quickly disillusioned. In a few weeks’ time I was utterly destitute, and at my wits’ end to know what to do or where to turn.” “I was used to frequent a free library in the district where I lodged, to read the advertisements in the papers and answer such of them as I thought promising. One day the devil put it into my head that the walls of this room offered a resource to a starved and desperate man. There were hung on them a number of Japanese prints” (Gilead stirred and drew in his breath), “the gift of an eccentric patron, some of which my knowledge gained under Mr Lerroux told me were of considerable market value. What loss, moral or material, would their removal entail upon the frequenters of such a place? Christmas cartoons, I thought, would prove infinitely more to their taste. I dismissed the temptation, but it returned again and again, and each time more formidable. Presently, half involuntarily, I satisfied myself of the ease with which the room could be entered at night from the back, which abutted upon an empty yard. And then--and, then, sir, at last, I fell.” Trembling all over, he took from his breast a pocket-book, and from the book a number of papers, one of which he selected and, rising, carried across to Gilead. “Will you please to read it sir?” he said. “It is a damning witness, but a reminder and a warning which I can never make up my mind to part with.”