Minute after minute went by, and each one seemed an age, till at length he began to think--"Is this man deceiving me?--Perhaps he is playing me false!--Perhaps even now he has sent for the officers of justice to seize their prey!" He started up and approached the door, intending to steal out if he found no one, and to say that he could not wait any longer, if he met with any of the servants in the passage. There was a footman within a few yards, however, and when he had repeated that which he had made up his mind to speak, the man answered, with the cold sauciness of a London lackey,--"My master said you were to wait for him, and so you must wait, if you please." The man stood directly in the way, and William Barham, re-entered the room, with a sinking heart. His thoughts, hurried and confused, first turned to flight, but flight, he soon saw, was impossible. The window was high--there was a fall of five-and-twenty feet, or more, into the area below. His next thought was, what else could give him safety? Where was there any other hope? "This man must want something," he thought. "He must have some object, some purpose, some end to answer!--What can it be?--I will do anything, everything, if he will but spare my life." It was at that moment that Lieberg, as if he had calculated it by a watch, sent to call the unfortunate William Barham to his presence; and when the youth appeared, he questioned him sternly and steadily, as to the whole transaction of the forgery, writing down his replies. Had William Barham been an old and wily offender, he might have refused to plead in this illegitimate sort of court; but fear now superseded everything: even natural cunning gave way before it, and he told all, though he saw Lieberg taking notes of each word he spoke. "Now," asked the interrogator, when he had finished, "will you sign that?" and he put the paper before him. "But will you promise me safety?" said the boy, torn by terrors of several kinds, and gazing upon the countenance of Lieberg with eyes that seemed as if they would start from their sockets--"will you promise me safety?" "Yes," answered Lieberg, "I will promise you--but on one condition, that you will help me with your whole heart and mind in something that I desire to accomplish." "Oh, that I will!" exclaimed the youth, "in anything that you like." "In _anything?_" said Lieberg, with emphasis, and at the same time holding up his finger, to mark more particularly, that he had some especial object. The blood rose slightly in William Barham's cheek, but the game was for life and death, and he had made up his mind. "Yes," he replied, nodding his bead significantly; "perhaps I understand what you mean. But I say, I will help you in anything you like." "That is right," answered Lieberg, "that is quite right; and if you do help me, instead of death, or exile, and poverty, and privation, and gnawing want, you shall have comfort, and respectability, and affluence, in your own land."