And while Theodore obeyed the order, and appeared engrossed in the papers, he was really watching that closet door. It certainly moved, very slightly and noiselessly, and it certainly was not the wind, for the wind had no eyes, and at least one very sharp eye was distinctly discernible in the mirror, peering out at them from that door! The owner of the eyes seemed to have forgotten the long mirror, and Theodore's convenient position for seeing what passed behind him. Whose eye was it? and why was the possessor of it shut up in that closet? Theodore watched it stealthily and sharply. It grew bolder, and the door was pushed open a little more, a _very_ little, just enough to reveal the shape of the forehead and a few curls of black hair. Then suspicion became certainty--they belonged to the young man whom he had disliked and distrusted since the day in which he had first entered the employ of Mr. Stephens, six months before. Very strange and just a little unreasonable had seemed his distrust. Mr. Stephens had tried sober argument and good-humored raillery by turns to convince his confidential clerk that he was prejudiced. All to no purpose. Theodore could give no tangible reasons for his unwavering opinion; but his early living by his wits, among all sorts of people, had so sharpened his ideas that he felt almost hopelessly certain that a villain was being harbored among them. Now while he tried to answer coherently Mr. Stephens' questions, he was thinking hard and nervously what was to be done. What was the man's object in hiding at midnight in his employer's house? Was Mr. Stephens' life in danger? Was the man a murderer, or simply a thief? What did he know of their private affairs? What had Mr. Stephens in his house that proved a special temptation? How should he get all these questions answered? The hot blood surged to his very temples as he remembered Mr. Stephens' departure from the store that very afternoon with twenty thousand dollars for deposit. What if for some reason the deposit had not been made, and was still in Mr. Stephens' possession--in this very room perhaps! He remembered with a shiver that the young man in question was in the private office during the making up of the money package, and that Mr. Stephens talked freely before him, that they had gone out together, that Mr. Stephens had directed his clerk to walk down to the bank with him while he gave certain orders for the next day's business. Should he risk a bold question and so discover the truth in regard to the deposit, and perhaps at the same time discover to the thief its present whereabouts? He saw no other way, and feeling that he had little time to lose plunged into the question. "By the way, Mr. Stephens, was the deposit all right?" Mr. Stephens glanced up quickly. "What possessed you to ask that troublesome question?" he said, laughingly. "Natural curiosity, sir. Were you in time?"