She looked at him, every tint of colour gone from her face, her eyes wide open, her lips trembling. It might have been supposed that she had done it. “Oh James, James!” she cried in a low voice of terror and dismay. Then there flashed before her eyes a whole panorama of moving scenes: the pale and lowering face of Archie; the lively one of Eddy Saumarez; the disreputable Johnson--all came and went like distracting shadows. In a second she went over a whole picture-gallery of visionary portraits. Her husband looked at her intently, as if to read the name of the culprit in her eyes; but she only repeated, “Oh James, James!” as if this appeal was all that she could say. “You see it,” he said with a sort of exasperated calm. “Though that young Farquhar--confound him, oh, confound him!----” Here he stopped again, as if the thought were too much. “He’s got a father and mother now, no doubt, who can trust him with everything they’ve got; who look forward to his becoming a director of the bank; whom he goes home to every night self-conceited--Oh, confound them every one!” “James,” she said, laying her hand doubtfully again upon his shoulder, “is it Mr. Farquhar who has got your money? Is it--? Whom do you--suspect?” He broke out into a loud, harsh laugh. “I haven’t much choice, have I?” he said, “there are not many that could have done it. There is only one, so far as I can judge. He’s been set on horseback and he’s ridden to the devil; and to make it up--though God knows how it’s gone, for he has nothing to show for it--he puts his father under a forced contribution--that’s about what it is.” “You mean Archie!--no, no, no,” cried Evelyn; “it is not Archie--it is not Archie! James, you are angry; you are letting prejudice lead you astray.” “Prejudice--against my only son! If it had been prejudice in his favour, prejudice to look over his faults, to think him better than he is----” “No, no, no,” said Evelyn, “that is not your way. You want perfection, and you can’t bear not to have it, James. There is nothing--nothing vicious about Archie. He must have been vicious to want that money? No, no, no. I am as sure that you are mistaken as that I’m alive.” He shook his head, but he was a little comforted for the moment. “You can send for him if you are so confident,” he said; and then there came to them in a sudden gust the sound of the music, the movement of the dancers, which made the floor thrill even where they were apart in that room full of trouble: and the horror of the combination brought from Evelyn a cry of pain, as she put up her hands to her face. “Oh, don’t send for him now! in the middle of all that, where he is doing his best, poor boy--where he has forgotten everything that’s been troubling him;--don’t, James, don’t, for your wife’s sake send for the poor boy now----” “For my wife’s sake!--It is you who are my wife, Evelyn.”