And now this pestilent fellow Fairfax must need step in, bristling with suspicion, and evidently intending to have money or an inquiry. Of course, the latter was a thing which Mr. Shelf could not stand for one minute. At the first glance it would be shown that the trust property did not exist in its former state, and that the interest had been paid into the bank out of Mr. Shelf’s own pocket. And so there were only two things which could be done; either bolt forthwith, or pay the plundered trust out of some other fund, and hope that the Providence which guards knaves would pull things straight again. Mr. Shelf had chosen to take the latter course, and it was the money subscribed by the wretched shareholders of the Brothers Steamship Company which was alienated by him to make good the property of Miss Amy Rivers. It required not many strokes of the pen to do this; but, after restitution had been made, Mr. Theodore Shelf commenced coquetting with a more delicate piece of business. He desired to hide his tracks. It was his wish that, even if the worst came, and he had to fly the country as a detected swindler, no one should know that he had tampered with his own ward’s trust money. It seems almost laughable that the man should have put himself to this piece of pains. In the vast sweep of his other ponderous frauds, this very natural one might well pass without special obloquy from the great shorn public. But it was not for the general ruck of his victims that Shelf was working then. He had sacrificed a thousand (under compulsion) to repay one; and, having made repayment, he wanted to cancel the odium of robbery. Next to himself and his dog, he probably loved Amy Rivers better than anything in all the world; and, if the worst came, and he had to go, it would be pleasanter for him to think that she, at least, would have nothing but kind memories of him. She would know quite well that he might have included her fortune in his other robberies, because Fairfax would tell her that, if she did not guess it for herself; and she would feel a kindness towards him for his forbearance. Of course, he would be getting this genial sentiment under false pretenses, but that was a trifle which counted as nothing to Mr. Theodore Shelf. Your true hypocrite deludes no one more perfectly and artistically than himself when he sets squarely about it. The time was long past midnight when he had finished tampering with the last of the papers on his writing-table; and, as he passed the blotting-paper over his final forgery, he heard the clash of the front door in the hall below. Quickly bunching the papers together, he put them into the safe, locked it, threw himself into an easy chair, and picked up a quarto volume of his own published sermons. He was serenely reading these when his wife sailed majestically into the room, with Amy Rivers at her side.