The light grew stronger, and it was only by an effort that Dick was able to suppress his agitation. He recalled the conversation he had had with his uncle the previous night at the police station, and the remark that towards the elucidation of the mystery there were many doors open. Here was another door which seemed to furnish a pregnant clue, and it terrified him to think that it might lead to a discovery in which all hopes of Florence's happiness would be destroyed. "Yes," he said, "at ten o'clock, when Mr. Boyd would be sure to be alone." "Then my husband, remembering the caution given him by Mr. Boyd that nobody was to be allowed to enter the house during his absence, asked the young gentleman not to mention to his father that he had already paid one visit to the house. You see, sir, my husband feared that he would be blamed for it, and be turned away, as the other clerks had been, for Mr. Boyd is of that suspicious nature that he doesn't believe a word any man says. The young gentleman gave the promise and went away." "Did Mr. Reginald say why he wanted to see his father?" "Not directly, sir; but my husband gathered that the young gentleman had come down in the world, and was in need of money." "Ah! Go on, please." "When Mr. Boyd came back he asked if any one had called; my husband answered no. 'Then no person has been in the house while I was away?' he said, and my husband said no person had been there. Upon that my husband was surprised by his being asked to put his office slippers on the table, and was still more surprised to see Mr. Boyd examining the soles through a magnifying glass. Oh, but he is a cunning gentleman is Mr. Samuel Boyd! And when the examination was over he gave my poor husband his discharge, without a single word of warning. My husband was dumbfounded, and asked what he was being sent away in that manner for. Then the hardhearted gentleman said he had set a trap for him; that before he left the house he had put on the stairs eight little pieces of paper with bits of wax on the top of them, so that any one treading on them would be sure to take them up on the soles of his boots; and that when he came back six of the eight pieces were gone. It was an artful trick, wasn't it, sir? My poor husband did then what he ought to have done at first; he confessed the truth, that Mr. Reginald _had_ been there. When Mr. Boyd heard that his son had been in the house he got into a fearful rage, and said that Mr. Reginald and my husband were in a conspiracy to rob him, which, of course, my husband denied. He begged Mr. Boyd to take back the discharge, but he would not listen to him, and the end of it was that he came home brokenhearted. You see our home, sir; wasn't the prospect of not being able to earn bread for us enough to break any man's heart?" "Indeed it was," said Dick. "And that is all you can tell me?" "It is all I know, sir."