Could Thickens be wrong? No: impossible. Too many little things, that had seemed unimportant before, now grew to a vast significance, and Bayle cast aside his hesitancy, and, taking a step forward, laid his hand upon the table. "Robert Hallam!" he said, in a low, deep voice, full of emotion, "are you aware of your position--how you stand?" The manager started slightly, but the spasm passed in a moment, and he said calmly, with a smile: "My position? How I stand? I do not comprehend you! My dear Bayle, what do you mean?" The curate gazed in his eyes, a calm, firm, judicial look in his countenance; but Hallam did not flinch. And again the idea flashed across the visitor's mind, "Suppose Thickens should be wrong!" Again, though, he cast off his hesitation, and spoke out firmly. "Let me be plain with you, Robert Hallam, and show you the precipice upon whose edge you stand." "Good heavens, Mr Bayle, are you ill?" said Hallam in the coolest manner. "Yes; sick at heart, to find of what treachery to employers, to wife and child, a man like you can be guilty. Hallam, your great sin is discovered! What have you to say?" "Say!" cried Hallam, laughing scornfully, "say, in words that you use so often, `Who made you a ruler and a judge?' What do you mean?" "I came neither as ruler nor judge, but as the friend of your wife and child. There--as your friend. Man, it is of no use to dissimulate!" "Dissimulate, sir!" "Am I to be plainer?" cried Bayle angrily, "and tell you that but for my interposition James Thickens would at this moment be with Sir Gordon and Mr Dixon, exposing your rascality." "My rascality! How dare--" "Dare!" cried Bayle sternly. "Cast off this contemptible mask, and be frank. Do I not tell you I come as a friend?" "Then explain yourself." "I will," said Bayle; and for a few minutes there was a silence almost appalling. The clock upon the mantelpiece ticked loudly; the stool upon which James Thickens sat in the outer office gave a loud scroop; and a large bluebottle fly shut in the room beat itself heavily against the panes in its efforts to escape. Bayle was alternately flushed and pale. Hallam, perfectly calm, paler than usual, but beyond seeming hurt and annoyed, there was nothing to indicate the truth of the terrible charge being brought against him. "Well, sir," he said at last, "why do you not speak?" Bayle gazed at him wonderingly, for all thought of his innocence had passed away. "I will speak, Hallam," he said. "Tell me the amount for which the deeds you have abstracted from that safe are pledged." "The deeds I have abstracted from that safe?" said Hallam, rising slowly, and standing at his full height, with his head thrown back. "Yes; and in whose place you have installed forgeries, dummies-- imitations, if you will."