What did it all mean? Isaac Hastings asked himself the question as he pursued his business in the Bank, amidst the other clerks. _He could not help asking it._ A mind, constituted as was that of Isaac Hastings, thoughtful, foreseeing, penetrating, cannot help entering upon these speculations, when surrounding circumstances call them forth. Could it be that George Godolphin had fallen into secret embarrassment?--that he had abstracted the deeds himself and _used_ them? Isaac felt his cheek flush with shame at the thought; with shame that he should allow himself to think such a thing of a Godolphin: and yet, he could not help it. No. Do as he would, he could not drive the thought away: it remained to haunt him. And, the longer it remained, the more vivid it grew. Ought he to give a hint of this to his father? He did not know. On the one hand there was sober reason, which told him George Godolphin was not likely to be guilty of such a thing on the other, lay his fancy, whispering that it _might_ be so. Things as strange had been enacted lately; as the public knew. Men, in an equally good position with George Godolphin, were proved to have been living upon fraud for years. Isaac was fond of newspapers, and knew all they could tell him. What if anything came wrong to _this_ Bank? Why then, Mr. Hastings would be a ruined man. It was not only the loss of his own life's savings, that were in the hands of Godolphin, Crosse, and Godolphin, but there was the larger sum he had placed there as trustee to the little Chisholms. Isaac Hastings lingered in the Bank till the last that evening. All had gone, except Mr. Hurde. The latter was preparing to leave, when Isaac went up to him, leaning his arms upon the desk. "It is a strange thing about those deeds, Mr. Hurde!" cried he, in a low tone. Mr. Hurde nodded. "It is troubling me amazingly," went on Isaac. This seemed to arouse the old clerk, and he looked up, speaking curtly. "Why should it trouble you? You didn't take them, I suppose?" "No, I didn't," said Isaac. "Very well, then. The loss won't fall upon you. There's no need for _your_ troubling." Isaac was silent. In truth, he was unable to give any reason for the "troubling," except on general grounds: he could not say that a doubt was haunting his mind as to the good faith of Mr. George Godolphin. "It is a loss which I suppose Mr. George will have to make good, as they were in his custody," he resumed. "My sister won't like it, I fear." The observation recalled Mr. Hurde's memory to the fact that Mrs. George Godolphin was the sister of Isaac Hastings. It afforded a sufficient excuse for the remarks in the mind of the clerk, and somewhat pacified him. "It is to be hoped they'll be found," said he. "_I_ don't see how they could have gone." "Nor I," returned Isaac. "The worst is, if they _have_ gone----" "What?" asked Mr. Hurde, for Isaac had stopped. "That perhaps money has been made of them."