To return to the bank. Skinner came back from the Dodds’ that miserable afternoon in a state of genuine agitation and regret. He was human, and therefore mixed, and their desolation had shocked him.

The footman told him Mr. Hardie was not at home; gone to London, he believed. Skinner walked away dejected. What did this mean? Had he left the country?

He smiled at his fears, and felt positive Mr. Hardie had misled the servants, and was quietly waiting for him in the bank parlour.

It was now dusk: he went round to that little dark nook of the garden the parlour window opened on, and tapped: there was no reply; the room looked empty. He tried the sash: it yielded. Mr. Hardie had been too occupied with embezzling another’s property to take common precautions in defence of his own; never in his life before had he neglected to fasten the iron shutters with his own hand, and today he had left the very window unfastened. This augured ill. “He is off: he has done me along with the rest,” thought Skinner. He stepped into the room, found a lucifer-box, shut the shutters, lighted a candle, and went peering about amongst the banker’s papers, to see if he could find a clue to his intentions; and, as he pottered and peered, he quaked as well: a detector by dishonest means feels thief-like, and is what he feels. He made some little discoveries that guided him in his own conduct; he felt more and more sure his employer would outwit him if he could, and resolved it should be diamond cut diamond.

The church clock struck one.

He started at the hour, crept out and closed the window softly, then away by the garden gate.

A light was still burning in Alfred’s room, and at this Skinner had another touch of compunction. “There is one won’t sleep this night along of our work,” thought he.

At three next afternoon Mr. Hardie reappeared.

He had gone up to town to change the form of the deposit:— He took care to think of it as a deposit still, the act of deposit having been complete, th............