"Whatever is the upshot of it all I can never be too thankful that I came over in the same ship with the Shermans," he muttered, "and for being brought up with a round turn by the knowledge that the one to bear the brunt of my iniquity would have been Leonie’s father. Why, the excellent Senator might have been suspected of having stolen the bonds himself. Funny that that view didn’t occur to me till I knew the people." The same gratitude had filled his simple soul twenty times during the last week, even when his enemies had pressed him most sorely; but it recurred with redoubled force now that he was within sight of the end. By noon on the morrow the Senator would have safely housed the securities at the Bank, and then his own responsibility would cease. Ziegler could kill him then, and welcome, if he still thought it worth while, though the chief of the organization was not, he imagined, the sort of person to waste time and energy on a purely sentimental revenge. If Ziegler carried on the feud after the bonds were safe from him it would be, as before, to secure silence about the attempt, and he could fling no stigma on the family name without divulging details that would incriminate his gang. And the family name was all that mattered. Beaumanoir had just rounded off his forecast in this satisfactory manner when he was suddenly startled back into the present by a faint sound far down the corridor on which the muniment room abutted. He knew perfectly well what the sound was—the "scroop" of the spring-driven swivel-roller that automatically closed a baize door shutting off the servants’ premises. He had half risen from his chair when another sound—the tinkle of a pebble cast against the window from outside—distracted his attention; but disregarding it in favor of the more pressing emergency, he made haste towards the door of the room. The room was at the extreme end of the corridor, looking along it lengthwise, and it was not therefore necessary for the Duke to disclose himself at the door, which he had purposely left partially open, in order to reconnoiter. Standing in the darkness a few feet from the door, he was able to see who was coming, and the sight sent a thrill of despair to his heart. All his pleasant anticipations of oblivion for his transgression were rudely shattered, for the old man who, white-bearded and with cat-like tread, came along the passage was Ziegler himself. Another figure was dimly discerned close behind, but of that the Duke took no heed. His eyes were riveted on the one in front—on the evil man who had the power to change his destiny. There was something curiously fantastic, something unreal, in the aged miscreant gliding towards him, framed in the gaping darkness of the doorway.