calm my nerves—for I was nervous, foolish
as it sounds. One cannot sit night after
night in a damp, dark kitchen, without getting
nervous! By degrees the day broke
fully, and I went up- stairs to do the house
work before my brother got up. For I
was the only servant we had; we could not
afford even a share in the drudge kept
for the house. When I went up- stairs I
found the door of our sitting-room open—
just ajar—as if it had been pulled to and
not shut. I went in. James was still
asleep behind the screen. I could hear his
breathing, poor fellow!—such a fast and
heavy sleeper as he was! I looked round
the room with a kind of dread, as if I
expected to see something terrible; on the
table, where the hanaper had stood last
night, lay the velvet-lined oaken case—open
and empty. The precious deposit which
the rich City merchant had left, not without
some half-insulting words of caution, and
which he was coming to reclaim to-day,
was gone.

I called my brother hurriedly, and he
woke up.

"James!" I said, "what has become of
the hanaper?''

"The hanaper? what? what do you
mean?" he answered.

"It is not here, James; it has been taken
out of the case—it has gone."

"Gone! nonsense!" he said. " Why,
who could have taken it, Rose?"

I did not speak—I could not. It was so
clear, and yet so dreadful.

"Call Ashley," said James, his thoughts
turning instinctively to the man he loved
and trusted most.

All this time James had been dressing
hastily behind the screen, and now he came
out into the room. Just as he did so, the
street-door opened by a latch-key, and Ashley
came up the stairs and straight into our
sitting-room. His coat was wet—it was
raining heavily—and he carried the latch-
key in his hand.

"Here, old fellow," he said to James,
quietly; " here is your latch-key. I took it
with me, as I went out so early."

"Ashley!" said James, in his scared way.

"Hey! what's the matter?" cried the
other.

"The hanaper!" was all my brother
could say.

"What about it, man?"

"It is gone!"

"By Jupiter! you don't say so," said
Ashley, turning pale.

"I can swear it was here last night," said
Jamie, excitedly, "Rose herself put it away
in the case."

"Yes, I saw it," answered Ashley,
gloomily.

Then he turned suddenly to me, and
looked at me as I thought suspiciously. I
reddened under his eyes, and he saw me
flush. It seemed to me as if he could read
my thoughts—as if he knew what I knew.
And how could he? Young people always
imagine that they are seen through, and I
thought I was seen through now.

Jamie saw nothing—suspected nothing.
He was sitting with his head resting on his
hands, and his elbows on his knees, feeling
as a man does when he is suddenly plunged
into destruction—when his name is tainted
and his career closed. As for me, the whole
world seemed to have crashed into ruin at
my feet; but the one I could not understand
was Ashley. If I might have died
before this moment! I could not believe
him guilty, and yet I could not doubt the
evidence of my senses. He had been out
in the early morning—so far indeed he confessed
honestly enough; no one else had
been out—that I could swear to; and certainly
no burglary had been committed.
And it was not to be supposed that we
harboured thieves in the house.

At that moment Mr. Thomson came
down-stairs, whistling as he passed our
door. He looked in and nodded, and his
great black eyes roved all about the place
and seemed to take in every inch and scrap
there was to be seen.

"A wet morning," he said, in his thick
oily voice, shaking his large loose cloak
about him as he gave a kind of growling
shiver. Then he strode down the stairs,
flung open the street-door, and slammed it
against him noisily: and so went on his
way, whistling. How I wished that we all
had as light a heart as this unpleasant bagman!
and that one among us had so clear
a conscience!

I was so sorry for poor James! He
seemed quite paralysed, and though Ashley
proposed sending for the police, and putting
the whole place under a kind of arrest—
and I wondered at his audacity—yet my
brother refused to adopt this or any other
suggestion, but sat, as I tell you, with his
head on his hands and his elbows resting
on his knees, more like a creature crazed
with dread than anything else. Meanwhile
time was drawing on, and it drew close to
the hour when Mr. Hawes had appointed
to come for his treasure.

"James," I said, " dear Jamie! you must