He might, perhaps, have inclined more effectually towards confession had not the petty-cash book appeared to him in the morning light as an admirably convincing piece of work. It had the most innocent air, and was markedly superior to his recollection of it. On many pages he himself could scarcely detect his own traces. He began to feel that he could rely pretty strongly on the cleverness of the petty-cash book. Only four blank pages remained in it. A few days more and it would be filled up, finished, labelled with a gummed white label showing its number and the dates of its first and last entries, shelved and forgotten. A pity that Horrocleave's suspicions had not been delayed for another month or so, for then the book might have been mislaid, lost, or even consumed in a conflagration! But never mind! A certain amount of ill luck fell to every man, and he would trust to his excellent handicraft in the petty-cash book. It was his only hope in the world, now that the mysterious and heavenly bank-notes were gone. His attitude towards the bank-notes was, quite naturally, illogical and self-contradictory. While the bank-notes were in his pocket he had in the end seen three things with clearness. First, the wickedness of appropriating them. Second, the danger of appropriating them--having regard to the prevalent habit of keeping the numbers of bank-notes. Third, the wild madness of attempting to utilize them in order to replace the stolen petty cash, for by no ingenuity could the presence of a hoard of over seventy pounds in the petty-cash box have been explained. He had perfectly grasped all that; and yet, the notes having vanished, he felt forlorn, alone, as one who has lost his best friend--a prop and firm succour in a universe of quicksands.