"I have saved a little money, and that and my writings were in the bank. I withdrew everything. Cowardly? Dishonest? Perhaps it was; but I doubted, sir, and it was my little all. Then you'll say, if I had these doubts I ought to have spoken. If I had been sure perhaps I might; but I tell you, sir, they were doubts. I couldn't be false to my friends though, and where here and there they've consulted me about their little bits of money I've found out investments for them, or advised them to buy house property. A clergyman for whom I changed a cheque one day, said it would be convenient for him to have a little banking account with Dixons', and I said if I had an account with a good bank in London I wouldn't change it. Never change your banker, I said." "Yes, Thickens, you did," said the curate eagerly, "and I have followed your advice. But you are keeping me in suspense. Tell me, is there risk of Dixons' having to close their doors?" "No, no, sir; it's not so bad as that. Old Mr Dixon is very rich, and he'd give his last penny to put things straight. Sir Gordon Bourne is an honourable gentleman--one who would sacrifice his fortune so that he might hold up his head. But things are bad, sir, bad; how bad I don't know." "But, good heavens, man! your half-yearly balance-sheets--your books?" "All kept right, sir, and wonderfully correct. Everything looks well in the books." "Then how is it?" "The securities, sir," said Thickens, with his lip quivering. "I've done a scoundrelly thing." "You, Thickens? You? I thought you were as honest a man as ever trod this earth!" "Me, sir?" said the clerk grimly. "Oh, no! oh, no! _I'm_ a gambler, I am." The vague horror was dissolving fast into thin mist. "You astound me!" cried Bayle, as he thought of Sir Gordon's doubts of Hallam. "You, in your position of trust! What are you going to do?" The grim smile on James Thickens's lips grew more saturnine as he said: "Make a clean breast of it, sir. That's why I sent for you." "But, my good man!--oh, for heaven's sake! go with me at once to Sir Gordon and Mr Hallam. I ought not to listen to this alone." "You're going to hear it all alone," said James Thickens, growing still more grim of aspect; "and when I've done you're going to give me your advice." Bayle gazed at him sternly, but with the strange oppression gone, and the shadow of the vague horror fading into nothingness. "I'm confessing to you, sir, just as if I were a Roman Catholic, and you were a priest." "But I decline to receive your confession on such terms, James Thickens," cried Bayle sternly. "I warn you that, if you make me the recipient of your confidence, I must be free to lay the case before your employers." "Yes, of course," said Thickens with the same grim smile. "Hear me out, Mr Bayle, sir. You'd never think it of me, who came regularly to church, and never missed--you'd never think I had false keys made to our safe; but I did. Two months ago, in London."