And now, and now!--James Rowland had gone through the usual experiences of man--he had known sorrow, and he had known the pangs of repentance. He had not always been satisfied with himself, and he had been disappointed in others from time to time. But what were all these miseries to this? As he lay there with his face hidden, a hand was suddenly laid upon his shoulder. “James--what is the matter, what is the matter?” his wife said. He turned at first from her, with a thought that she was the last person who should hear--she who was not the mother, who had nothing to do with the boy; and then he turned towards her: for was not she bound to be his own comforter, to help him in everything? He raised himself up slowly, and lifted his face from his hands, which had left the mark of their pressure upon his ashy cheeks. “The matter!” he said; “the worst is the matter!--the worst that can happen. I am afraid of nothing more in this world!” “James!” she cried,--then with an attempt to smile--“You are trying to frighten me. What is it? A man has been here.--Dear James, it is not the loss of--your money?--for what is that! We will bear it together, and be just as happy.” Evelyn’s mind, in spite of herself, was moved by accounts in story-books of catastrophes which were announced in this way. I am not sure that he even heard her suggestion, much less was capable of comprehending the devotion to himself that was in it. He moved his hand to the pink paper which lay stretched upon the table in the full light of the lamp. “Look at that,” he said. She took it up perplexed. A cheque for a thousand pounds, which to Evelyn, unaccustomed to the possession of money, looked, as the bank clerk had said, like a large sum. She looked at it again, turning it over, as if any enlightenment was to be had in that way. Then it occurred to her in the midst of her alarm, that after all her husband’s great fortune could not be represented by a cheque for a thousand pounds. “What does it mean?” she said, still holding it vaguely in her hands. “Can’t you see?” He was almost harsh in his impatience, snatching it out of her hand and holding it up to the light “They were fools to pay it at the bank; and, as for that young Farquhar, I’ll---- Can’t you see? Look there, and there----” “I don’t know what you mean me to see, James. It is a little laboured, not quite like your hand. You must have been tired when you---- Ah!” said Evelyn breaking suddenly off, and beginning to examine, fascinated, the terrible document that looked so simple. She looked up in his face, quite pale, her lips dropping apart. “You don’t mean me to think----” “Think? See! look at it; it is forged--that is what it is.”