“The watchman has been at his post every night up to the usual hour?” “Yes sir.” “There has been no carelessness in closing the vault doors after the departure of the clerks?” “No sir.” “And no trouble,” he continued, with a shade more of dignity, possibly because Hopgood’s tell-tale face was beginning to show signs of anxious confusion, “and no trouble in opening them at the proper time each morning?” “No sir.” “One question more—” But here Bertram was called out, and in the momentary stir occasioned by his departure, Hopgood allowed himself to glance at the box before him more intently than he had hitherto presumed to do. He saw it was unlocked, and his hands began to tremble. Mr. Sylvester’s voice recalled him to himself. “You are a faithful man,” said that gentleman, continuing his speech of a minute before, “and as such we are ready to acknowledge you; but the most conscientious amongst us are sometimes led into indiscretions. Now have you ever through carelessness or by means of any inadvertence, revealed to any one in or out of the bank, the particular combination by which the lock of the vault-door is at present opened?” “No sir, indeed no; I am much too anxious, and feel my own responsibility entirely too much, not to preserve so important a secret with the utmost care and jealousy.” Mr. Sylvester’s voice, careful as he was to modulate it, showed a secret discouragement. “The vaults then as far as you know, are safe when once they are closed for the night?” “Yes sir.” The janitor’s face expressed a slight degree of wonder, but his voice was emphatic. Mr. Sylvester’s eye travelled in the direction of the screen. “Very well,” said he; and paused to reflect. In the interim the door opened for a second time. “A gentleman to see Mr. Stuyvesant,” said a voice. With an air of relief the director hastily rose, and before Mr. Sylvester had realized his position, left the room and closed the door behind him. A knell seemed to ring its note in Mr. Sylvester’s breast. The janitor, released as he supposed from all constraint, stepped hastily forward. “That box has been found unlocked,” he cried with a wave of his hand towards the table; “some one has been to the vaults, and I—Oh, sir,” he hurriedly exclaimed, disregarding in his agitation the stern and forbidding look which Mr. Sylvester in his secret despair had made haste to assume, “you did not want me to say anything about the time you came down so early in the morning, and I went out and left you alone in the bank, and you went to the vaults and opened Mr. Stuyvesant’s box by mistake, with a tooth-pick as you remember?” The mirror that looked down upon that pair, showed one very white face at that moment, but the screen that had trembled a moment before, stood strangely still in the silence.