And as one hour and then another was ticked off by the office clock, he ceased computing his share of the coming gains, and an intuitive sense that all was not right came to him. He was naturally suspicious, and being a thief at heart himself, quick to suspect others. And now he suspected Weston! Little by little his distrust increased as Hill watched the office door and listened to the clock tick. Trifling remarks that Weston had made, half-concealed sneers he had let escape, returned to Hill as he watched and waited. Certainly he should come and divide, as any honorable thief ought to. But he did not! Never before had Weston failed to return at the close of the exchange, where he was usually closeted with Simmons. Why not now? And so the demon of suspicion grew. When another hour had passed and the daily workers in stores were hurrying homeward, Hill could stand the suspense no longer, and taking his hat almost ran to Simmons's office. As might be expected, it was closed. Then in a frenzy he hurried back to his own office and rang up Weston's home on the telephone. Weston was not there. Then he tried Simmons's home, with the same result. Then he went home. From gloating over the prospective fortune he expected to share, he had in a few hours become almost insane with a dread suspicion. His supper was but half eaten; he wouldn't answer his patient wife's question; he couldn't read, or think of but one thing, and that the horrible doubt and suspicion consuming him. That night his sleep was filled with fiendish dreams, and he saw Weston running away and leering back at him over his shoulder. When morning came, he hurried to his office an hour earlier than usual. Only the office boy was there, sweeping out. Hill went to his desk, where the morning mail was left. But one letter was there, and that from Winn Hardy, dated in the city the night before and enclosing a check for two hundred and thirty dollars, with the information that it belonged to the firm and that he had severed his connection with them. True to his nature, even in despair, Hill put it in his pocket, resolving to say nothing to Weston about it. Then, to kill time till Weston came, he opened the morning paper. On the front page was the staring headlines:-- THE ROCKHAVEN GRANITE COMPANY GONE TO SMASH THE PRESIDENT, WESTON, SAID TO HAVE SKIPPED And then cold beads of sweat gathered on the face of Carlos B. Hill! All the horrible suspicion of the day before was now proven true! He waited to read no more, but with a groan of despair rushed, hatless, out of the office and ran to that of Simmons. That icicle of a man was there, calmly reading his mail. "Where is Weston," almost screamed the half-insane Hill, "and what does all this mean?"