No one had ever a moment's access to this desk at which he sat: even his confidential old clerk could not remember to have been sent to it for any paper or deed that might be wanted in the public rooms. The lid of the desk drew over and closed with a spring, so that in one instant its contents could be hidden from view and made safe and fast. The long table in the middle of the room was to-day more than usually covered with papers; a small marble slab between Mr. Peter Castlemaine's left hand and the wall held sundry open ledgers piled one upon another, to which he kept referring. Column after column of figures: the very sight of them enough to give an unfinancial man the nightmare: but the banker ran his fingers up and down the rows at railroad speed, for, to him, it was mere child's-play. Seldom has there existed a clearer head for his work than that of Peter Castlemaine. But for that fact he might not have been seated where he was to-day, the greatest banker for miles round. And yet, as he sat there, surrounded by these marks and tokens of wealth and power, his face presented a sad contrast to them and to the ease and luxury of the room. Sad, careworn, anxious, looked he; and, as he now and again paused in his work to pass his hand over his brow, a heavy sigh escaped him. The more he referred to his ledgers, and compared them with figures and papers on the desk before him, so much the more perplexed and harassed did his face become. In his eyes there was the look of a hunted animal, the look of a drowning man catching at a straw, the look that must have been in the eyes of poor Louis Dixhuit when they discovered him in his disguise and turned his horses' heads backwards. At last, throwing down his pen, he fell back in his chair, and hid his face in his hands. "No escape," he murmured, "no escape! Unless a miracle should supervene, I am undone." He remained in this attitude, that told so unmistakably of despair, for some minutes, revolving many things: problems working themselves in and out of his brain confusedly, as a man works in and out of a labyrinth, to which he has lost the clue. A small clock on the mantelpiece struck the hour, five, and then chimed an air once popular in France. It was a costly trifle that the banker had bought years ago. Paintings, articles of virtu, objets de luxe, had always possessed attractions for him. The chimes aroused him. "I must talk to Hill," he muttered: "no use putting it off till another day." And he touched the spring of his small hand-bell. In answer, the door opened, and there entered a little elderly man with snow-white hair worn long behind, and a good-looking, fair, and intellectual face, its eyes beaming with benevolence. He wore a black tail coat, according to the custom of clerks of that day, and a white cambric frilled shirt like that of his master. It was Thomas Hill; for many years Mr. Peter Castlemaine's confidential clerk and right hand.