He faced Hurst as he spoke, waiting for a reply. All in a moment the proud countenance and bearing changed. The face fell, the clear eyes looked away, the brow became suffused with crimson. Hurst saw the signs, and felt sorry for what he had said; had said in thoughtlessness rather than in any real meaning. For he knew that it had recalled to Roland Yorke a terrible escapade of his earlier life. CHAPTER XIII. TAKING THE PLACE OF JELF. "It will stick in my gizzard for ever. I can see that. An awful clog, it is, when a fellow has dropped into mischief once in his life, and repented and atoned for it, that it must be cast in his teeth always; cropping up at any hour, like a dead donkey in the Thames; I might as well have stayed at Port Natal!" Such was the inward soliloquy of Mr. Roland Yorke as he bent over his writing after that overwhelming question of Hurst's, "Did you take it?" Hurst, really grieved at having hurt his feelings, strove to smooth away what he had said. "I beg your pardon, old fellow," he whispered. "On my honour I spoke without thought." "I dare say you did!" retorted Roland. "I meant no harm, Roland; I did not indeed. Nothing connected with the past occurred to me." "You know it _did_," was the answer, and Roland turned his grieved face full on Hurst. "You know you wanted to bring up that miserable time when I stole the twenty-pound note from old Galloway, and let the blame of it fall on Arthur Channing. Because I took that, you think I have taken this!" "Hush! You'll have them hear you, Yorke." "That's what you want. Why don't you go and tell them?" demanded Roland, who was working into a passion. "Proclaim it aloud. Ring the bell, as the town-crier does at home on a market-day. Call Greatorex and Brown and Jenner up from their desks. Where's the good of taunting me in private?" Hurst kept his head down and wrote on in silence, hoping to allay the storm he had inadvertently provoked. In spite of his protestations, he _had_ spoken in reference to that past transaction, and the tone showed the truth to Roland; but still he had spoken thoughtlessly. Roland, as he believed, was no more guilty of this present loss than he himself was; and he felt inclined to clip his tongue out for its haste. Pushing his hair from his hot face, biting his lips, drawing deep breaths in his anger and emotion, stood Roland. Presently the pen was dashed down on the parchment before him, blotting it and defacing it for use, but of course that went for nothing, and Roland stalked to the desk of Mr. Bede Greatorex. "I wish to say, sir, that I did not steal the cheque." The words took Mr. Bede Greatorex by surprise. But he had by this time become pretty well acquainted with Roland and his impulsive ways; he liked him in spite of his faults as a clerk; otherwise he would never have put up with them. A pleasant smile crossed his lips as he answered; answered in jest.