They stood near each other, Bede Greatorex and his managing clerk, while Mr. Butterby paced the passage outside.

When interrupted, Bede had his elbow on the mantelpiece, his brow bent on his thin fingers. A good blazing fire here, the coal crackling and sparkling cheerily. Bede dropped his elbow.

"What is it, Mr. Brown?" he rather languidly asked.

Mr. Brown, closing the door, went straight up and said what it was: Alletha Rye had been apprehended. But he looked anywhere, as he spoke, rather than into the face of his master. A face that grew suddenly white and cold: and Mr. Brown, in his delicacy of mind, would not appear to see it.

"What a cursed meddler that Butterby is!" exclaimed Bede.

"I fancy he had no option in this, sir; that it was not left to his choice."

"Who did it, then?"

"Mr. Greatorex. This must be remedied at once, sir."

By the authoritative manner in which he spoke, it might have been thought that Bede Greatorex was the servant, Brown the master. Bede put his elbow on the shelf again, and pushed back his hair in unmistakable agitation. It was growing thin now, the once luxuriant crop; and silver threads were interwoven with the black ones.

"She must be saved," repeated Mr. Brown.

"I suppose so. Who is to do it?"

"I must, sir. If no one else does."

Bede raised his eyes to glance at his clerk; but it was not a full free glance, and they were instantly dropped again.

"You are the Godfrey Pitman, they tell me, who was in the house at the time."

"Yes, I am. But have you not known it all along, Mr. Bede Greatorex?"

"All along from when?"

Mr. Brown hesitated. "From the time I came here as clerk."

"No; certainly I have not."

"There were times, sir, when I fancied it."

A long silence. Even now, whatever secret, or association, there might be between these two men, neither was at ease with the other. Bede especially seemed to shrink from farther explanation.

"I have known but for a short while of your identity with Godfrey Pitman," he resumed. "And with George Winter. I have been waiting my own time to confer with you upon the subject. We have been very busy."

We have been very busy! If Bede put that forth as an excuse, it did not serve him: for his hearer knew it was not the true one. He simply answered that they had been very busy. Not by so much as a look or a syllable would George Winter--let us at last give him his true name--add to the terrible pain he knew his master to be suffering.

"About Miss Rye, sir? She must be extricated from her unpleasant position."

"Yes, of course."

"And her innocence proved."

"At the expense of another?" asked Bede, without lifting his eyes.

"No," answered the other in a low tone. "I do not think that need be."

Bede looked straight into the fire, his companion full at the window-blind, drawn half way down; neither of them at one another.

"How will you avoid it?" asked Bede.

"I think it may be avoided, sir. For a little while past, I have foreseen that some such a crisis as this would come: and I have dwelt and dwelt upon it until I seem to be able to track out my way in it perfectly clear."

Bede cracked the coal in the grate; which did not require cracking. "Do you mean that you have foreseen Miss Rye would be taken? Such a thought in regard to her never crossed my mind."

"Nor mine. I allude to myself, sir. If once I was discovered to be the so-called Godfrey Pitman--and some instinct told me the discovery was at last approaching--I knew that I should, in all probability, be charged with the murder of Mr. Ollivera. I--an innocent man--would not suffer for this, Mr. Greatorex; I should be obliged, in self-defence, to repel the accusation: and I have been considering how it might be done without compromising others. I think it can be."

"How?" repeated Bede shortly.

"By my not telling the whole truth. By not knowing--I mean not having recognized the--the one--who would be compromised if I did tell it. I think this is feasible, sir."

Just a momentary glance into each other\'s eyes; no more; and it spoke volumes. Bede, facing the fire again, stood several minutes in deep consideration. George Winter seemed occupied with one of his gloves that had a refractory button.

"In any case it must now be known who you are," said Bede.

"That will not signify. In throwing the onus of the----" he seemed to hesitate, as he had once hesitated in the last sentence--"the death off Miss Rye, I throw it equally off my own shoulders. I have for some months wished that I could declare myself."

"Why have you not done it?"

George Winter looked at his master, surprise in his eyes. "It is not for my own sake that I have kept it concealed, sir."

No. Bede Greatorex knew that it was for his; at least for his interests; and he felt the obligation in his heart. He did not speak it; pride and a variety of other unhappy feelings kept him silent. Of all the miserable moments that the death of John Ollivera had entailed upon him, this confidential interview with his clerk was not the least of them. Forced though he was to hold it, he hated it with his whole soul.

"You took that cheque from my desk," said Bede. "And wrote me the subsequent letter."

"I did not take it from the desk, sir. Your expressed and continuous belief--that you had put it in--was a mistaken one. It must have slipped from your hands when about to lock up the other papers you held, and fluttered under the desk table. Perhaps you will allow me to give you the explanation now."

Bede nodded.

"In the morning of the day that the cheque was lost, you may remember coming into the front room and seeing a stranger with me. His name was Foster; a farmer and corn-dealer near Birmingham. I had been out on an errand; and, on turning in again, a gentleman stopped me to enquire the way. While I was directing him there ensued a mutual recognition. In one sense I owed him some money: forty-four pounds. Samuel Teague, of whom you may have heard----"

"I know," interrupted Bede.

"Samuel Teague, just before he ran away, had got me to put my name to a bill for him; Mr. Foster, in all good faith, had let him have the money for it. It had never been repaid. But upon Mr. Foster\'s meeting me that morning, he gave me my choice--to find the money for him before he left London, or be denounced publicly as George Winter. I thought he would have denounced me then. He came into the office and would not be got rid of: saying that he had looked for me too long to let me go, now that I was found. What I was to do I did not know. I had no objection to resume my own name, for I had cleared myself with Johnson and Teague, but it must have involved the exposure relating to the affair at Helstonleigh. The thought occurred to me of declaring the dilemma to you, letting you decide whether that exposure should come, or whether you would lend me the forty-four pounds to avert it. But I shrank from doing that."

"Why?" again interposed Bede.

"Because I thought you would dislike my entering upon the subject, sir. I have shrunk from it always. Now that the necessity is forced upon me, I am shrinking from it as I speak."

Ah, but not so much as Bede was. "Go on."

"While I sat at my desk, inwardly deliberating, Mr. Frank came in, asking you to draw out a cheque for Sir Richard Yorke for forty-four pounds. The strange coincidence between the sum and the money demanded of me, struck me as being most singular. It strikes me so still. Later in the morning, I came into this room with some deeds, and saw a piece of paper lying under the table. Upon picking it up--which I did simply to replace it on the desk--I found it was the cheque. My first thought was that it must be a special, almost a supernatural, intervention in my favour; my second, that it was just possible you had left it there for me to take. Both ideas very far-fetched and imaginatory, as I saw at once. But I used the cheque, Mr. Bede Greatorex. I went home, put on the false hair I had worn as Godfrey Pitman, for I have it by me still, and got the cheque cashed in gold. It was not for my sake I did this; I hated it bitterly. And then I hesitated to use the money. At night I went to Mr. Foster\'s hotel, and told him that I would get the money for him by the following night if I could; if I could not, he must carry out his threat of denouncing me to the public and Mr. Greatorex. Foster consented to wait. I returned to my lodgings and wrote that anonymous note to you, sir, not telling you who had taken the cheque; merely saying that exposure was threatened of the private circumstances, known only to one or two, attendant on Mr. Ollivera\'s death at Helstonleigh; that the money had been taken to avert the exposure, and would be applied to that purpose, provided you were agreeable. If not, and you wished the money returned, you were requested to drop a note without loss of a moment to a certain address: if no such note were written, the money would be used in the course of the day, and things kept silent as heretofore. You sent no answer, and I paid it to Foster in the evening. I have never been able to decide whether you suspected me as the writer, or not."

"No. I fancied it might be Hurst."

"Hurst!" exclaimed George Winter in great surprise.

Bede looked up for a moment. "I felt sure the cheque must have been taken by one of you in the next room. Not knowing you then for Godfrey Pitman, my thoughts fell on Hurst. His father was the attendant surgeon, and might have made some critical discovery."

"I don\'t see how he could have done that, sir," was the dissenting answer.

"Nor did I. But it is the doubt in the............