Edward Hazeldine and Mr. Prestwich retired to a private room in the hotel, while John Brancker walked back to the Bank like a man utterly dazed and confounded. He could not help noticing how the crowd that lingered about the hotel divided and made way for him, nor how they stared at him and broke into eager whisperings the moment he had passed. To his excited fancy it seemed as if everybody shrank from him. How could Strong swear as he had sworn! And yet there seemed the ring of truth in all he said. And those mysterious blood-stains! It was all a terrible mystery at present, but one which a few days at the most would surely unravel.

John Brancker paused on the steps outside the Bank, feeling utterly sick at heart. Not again to-day could he set foot inside those walls. The man whom he had respected and looked up to for so many years lay there dead, and he, John Brancker, was actually suspected of---- Great heavens! could it be anything more than a horrible nightmare? He turned and set off homeward at a rapid pace. Awaiting him there were two loving hearts into which no vile breath of suspicion, not even if the evidence against him were an hundredfold stronger than it was, would ever find a moment's harborage. Never had his humble home seemed so sweet and dear to him as that afternoon.

It was in no very enviable frame of mind that Ephraim Judd quitted the jury-room and made his way towards the river-bank. He was in no mood for business; he felt the need of being alone. How he despised himself for what he had done! And yet he felt that, in similar circumstances, he should be driven to do the same again. How was it possible for him to tell the truth, when to do so meant ruin to himself? Not one day longer would Mr. Avison retain him in his service if he were to become aware of his practice of prying into other people's affairs, and, in that case, what would become of him and his widowed mother?

To do Ephraim justice, in giving his evidence as he had given it, he had thought only of screening himself, never dreaming that by so doing he would be strengthening the web of suspicion which seemed to be closing slowly round Mr. Brancker. With all his petty, tortuous ways and crooked modes of reasoning, he shrank from doing anyone a direct injury. If, in his dealings with others, however simple those dealings might be, a roundabout course was sweeter to him than a straightforward one--that was a little weakness which he shared in common with many men far more highly placed than himself.

Truth to tell, Ephraim was not framed in the mould out of which your more robust villains are turned out. It might be said of him that, while to serve his own ends he would not have shrunk from pricking anyone with a pin in the dark, had a dagger been thrust into his hand he would have dropped it in terror and slunk away.

He had perjured himself to save himself, but nothing had been further from his intention than to do John Brancker an injury. No one had been more surprised than he at the turn Strong's evidence had taken; he was utterly at a loss how to reconcile the statements of the two men.

As soon as Edward Hazeldine and Mr. Prestwich were alone, the latter said:

"I wish you had heard the evidence this afternoon; it has taken quite an unexpected turn."

"An unexpected turn! In what way?" asked Edward, with a quick, suspicious glance at his companion.

"As tending to fix a shadow of suspicion on Mr. Brancker."

"On Mr. Brancker! What nonsense that must be!" exclaimed Edward, impatiently.

"I should probably have been as sceptical as you are, had I not heard the evidence in question," remarked Mr. Prestwich dryly.

He then went on to enlighten his companion, detailing the different points of evidence as deposed to by each witness in turn. Edward listened with growing wonder and uneasiness.

"That man Strong must have sworn to a lie," he said impetuously, when Mr. Prestwich had done.

"I don't think so, and I watched him narrowly. The fellow may be something of a dunderhead, but he seemed very much in earnest in what he said."

"Then you mean to imply that John Brancker has not told the truth?"

"I imply nothing. I only take the evidence as it stands, and try to consider it dispassionately. It seems to be fully understood that Mr. Brancker called at the Bank about half-past ten last evening, and he himself admits that he did not get home till midnight. It would appear certain that Mr. Hazeldine came by his death within those two periods of time. The nightwatchman is positive that he did not hear Mr. Brancker enter the Bank, which is accounted for by the latter making use of his pass-key. Both the murder and robbery would seem to be the work of someone well acquainted with your father's habits, and who knew in which particular safe the bullion was kept, and where to find the key of it; and who also possessed the means of getting quietly away after the deed was done. Mr. Brancker says that he knocked several times at Strong's door; Strong says that no one knocked; Mr. Brancker has a contusion over his left eye, which he accounts for by saying that a woman hit him with a stone. Finally, how are we to account for the blood-smears with which Mr. Brancker's drawer is marked both inside and out, as well as the floor in front of it?"

"For all that you have said I do not care one jot," was Edward Hazeldine's answer. "I am perfectly convinced that John Brancker had no more to do with the death of my father than I had."

"I am not saying that he had. I am only showing you which way the evidence is tending. In all probability the researches of the police during the next few days will put an entirely different complexion on the affair."

Edward Hazeldine went his way, a thoroughly unhappy man. It is not too much to say that the horror with which he had first heard of his father's death was now to a certain extent overshadowed by the grief and shame caused him by the reading of his father's letter. Under his cold, practical, matter-of-fact exterior lay hidden a proud and, in some things, a very sensitive nature, which was far more easily wounded than anyone knew of, and very deep was the wound made in it today. He prided himself on being a thoroughly just man, and it was essential to his happiness that all his actions should meet with the approval of his own conscience. But still more essential was it that he should stan............