Presently the voices were quiet, and he heard footsteps come very slowly towards the window at which he stood, and then make for the little gate. On this he slipped into the kitchen, which faced the street and got to a window there, and listened. His only idea was to catch their intentions if possible, and meet them accordingly. He dared not open the window; for about him on the pavement he saw a female figure half standing, half crouching: but soon that figure rushed wildly out of his sight to meet the footsteps, and then he ventured to open the window, and listening, heard cries of despair, and a young heart-broken voice say her father was dead. “Ah!! that is all right,” muttered Hardie. Still, even this profound egotist was not yet so hardened but that he felt one chill of horror at himself for the thought--a passing chill. He listened and listened, and by-and-bye he heard the slow feet recommence their journey, amidst sobs and sights; and those sorrowful feet, and the sobs and sighs of his causing, got fainter, and fainter, retreated, and left him in quiet possession of the L. 14,000 he had brought down to give it up: two minutes ago it was not worth as many pence to him. He drew a long breath of relief. “It is mine; I am to keep it. It is the will of Heaven.” Poor Heaven! He went to his bed again, and by a resolute effort composed himself and determined to sheep. And in fact he was just dropping off, when suddenly he started wide awake again: for it recurred to him vividly that a window in his house had opened while David was cursing him and demanding his children's money. Whose window? Half-a-dozen people and more slept on that side of the house. Whose window could it be? He walked among fires. CHAPTER XXIV NOT many days after this a crowd of persons stood in front of the old bank, looking half stupefied at the shutters, and at a piece of paper pasted on them announcing a suspension, only for a months or so, and laying the blame on certain correspondents not specified. So great was the confidence inspired by the old bank, that many said it would come round, it must come round in a month: but other of Mr. Hardie's unfortunate clients recognised in the above a mere formula to let them down by degrees: they had seen many statements as hopeful end in a dividend of sixpence in the pound. Before the day closed, the scene at the bank door was heart-rending: respectable persons, reduced to pauperism in that day, kept arriving and telling their fellow-sufferers their little all was with Hardie, and nothing before them but the workhouse or the almshouse: ruined mothers came and held up their ruined children for the banker to see; and the doors were hammered at, and the house as well as the bank was beleaguered by a weeping, wailing, despairing crowd. But like an idle wave beating on a rock, all this human misery dashed itself in vain against the banker's brick walls and shutters, hard to them as his very heart.