"Yes," said Eversleigh, trying to fight down his emotion. "Gilbert," he went on more calmly, "I am very sorry to tell you that on the day we received the letter intimating Mr. Thornton's return, I received from Mr. Silwood a confession that he had been speculating with the funds and the property of our clients, and that all had been lost--Mr. Thornton's with the rest." "What!" cried Gilbert, doubting his senses. "It is true." "Father, do you know what you are saying?" "Alas, yes, only too well! Thornton's letter spoke of making a formal examination of the securities we held of his, and it was this which led Silwood to confess his embezzlements." "But you had nothing to do with them, father!" "No; but I need not tell you that in the eye of the law, I, as Silwood's partner, was equally guilty. What I have suffered, what I have endured from that moment, you can never guess; I have lived in a hell of torture. When I knew the truth, I did not know what to do; but I just let myself drift and drift and drift, hoping against hope that somehow or other there might be a way out of the difficulties that beset me. But there has been no way out. Things have gone from bad to worse. There was first Silwood's death, and then the death of Morris Thornton." Gilbert uttered a sharp cry. "You thought Silwood murdered Thornton because of the money?" he said. "Before the inquest I did, but not afterwards. I know no more about that mystery than you. Well, the effect of these two deaths was to give me a respite--I knew it could be at best but a short one, for at any moment some other client might make a demand which, owing to Silwood's defalcations, we should not be able to meet. And, by a devilish chance of fate, Bennet was the man to make that demand. He told us to sell a block of flats belonging to him, and asked us to advance him ten thousand pounds pending the sale." "And you couldn't!" exclaimed Gilbert, whose head was whirling with what he had heard. "There was no possibility of getting the money. But that was not the way in which Bennet came to know of our--embarrassments. He took it into his head to go and see the flats--out of a sort of bravado, I think, and there he discovered the flats had been sold a year ago. He came to me, and I was compelled to tell him the flats had been sold without my knowledge by Silwood. You see that placed me in his power; he could have denounced me at once, and I expected nothing else. But he did not act at once; instead, he said he would take a night to think over it. Next day he returned and announced he would not prosecute me, provided I brought about the breaking off the match between you and Kitty, and got Kitty to marry him." Eversleigh, who had spoken rapidly, now paused; while Gilbert, with swimming eyes, gazed at his father.