I tried to call after him, but my lips had
suddenly got dry, and the words seemed to
stick on them. I could not imagine why, but
there was something in the man's last words
which had more than half frightened me.

I looked at the clock. The minute hand
was on the quarter. My office was just far
enough from the bank to make it necessary
for me to decide on the instant. If I had had
time to think, I am perfectly certain that I
should not have profited by the extraordinary
warning that had just been addressed
to me. The suspicious appearance and
manners of the stranger; the outrageous
improbability of the inference against the
credit of the bank towards which his words
pointed; the chance that some underhand
attempt was being made, by some enemy of
mine, to frighten me into embroiling myself
with one of my best friends, through showing
an ignorant distrust of the firm with which
he was associated as partner, all these
considerations would unquestionably have
occurred to me if I could have found time for
reflection; and, as a necessary consequence,
not one farthing of my balance would have
been taken from the keeping of the bank on
that memorable day.

As it was, I had just time enough to act,
and not a spare moment for thinking. Some
heavy payments made at the beginning of
the week had so far decreased my balance,
that the sum to my credit in the banking-
book barely reached fifteen hundred pounds.
I snatched up my cheque-book, wrote a draft
for the whole amount, and ordered one of my
clerks to run to the bank and get it cashed
before the doors closed. What impulse
urged me on, except the blind impulse of
hurry and bewilderment, I can't say. I
acted mechanically, under the influence of
the vague, inexplicable fear which the
man's extraordinary parting words had
aroused in me, without stopping to analyse
my own sensations,—almost without knowing
what I was about. In three minutes from
the time when the stranger had closed my
door, the clerk had started for the bank;
and I was alone again in my room, with my
hands as cold as ice and my head all in a
whirl.

I did not recover my control over myself,
until the clerk came back with the notes in
his hand. He had just got to the bank in
the nick of time. As the cash for my draft
was handed to him over the counter, the
clock struck five, and he heard the order
given to close the doors.

When I had counted the bank-notes and
had locked them up in the safe, my better
sense seemed to come back to me on a
sudden. Never have I reproached myself
before or since, as I reproached myself at that
moment. What sort of return had I made
for Mr. Fauntleroy's fatherly kindness to
me? I had insulted him by the meanest,
the grossest distrust of the honour and the
credit of his house—and that on the word
of an absolute stranger, of a vagabond, if
ever there was one yet! It was madness,
downright madness in any man, to have acted
as I had done. I could not account for rny
own inconceivably thoughtless proceeding. I
could hardly believe in it myself. I opened
the safe, and looked at the bank-notes again.
I locked it once more, and flung the key
down on the table in a fury of vexation
against myself. There the money was,
upbraiding me with my own inconceivable folly;
telling me in the plainest terms that I had
risked depriving myself of my best and
kindest friend henceforth and for ever.

It was necessary to do something at once
towards making all the atonement that lay in
my power. I felt that, as soon as I began to
cool down a little. There was but one plain,
straightforward way left now out of the
scrape in which I had been mad enough to
involve myself. I took my hat, and, without
stopping an instant to hesitate, hurried off to
the bank to make a clean breast of it to
Mr. Fauntleroy.

When I knocked at the private door, and
asked for him, I was told that he had not
been at the bank for the last two days. One
of the other partners was there, however, and
was working at that moment in his own
room. I sent in my name, at once, and asked
to see him. He and I were little better than
strangers to each other; and the interview
was likely to be, on that account, unspeakably
embarrassing and humiliating on my side.
Still, I could not go home. I could not
endure the inaction of the next day, the
Sunday, without having done my best on the
spot, to repair the error into which my own
folly had led me. Uncomfortable as I felt
at the prospect of the approaching interview,
I should have been far more uneasy in my
mind if the partner had declined to see me.

To my relief, the bank-porter returned with
a message requesting me to walk in. What
particular form my explanations and apologies
took when I tried to offer them, is more than
I can tell now. I was so confused and
distressed that I hardly knew what I was talking
about at the time. The one circumstance
which I remember clearly is that I was
ashamed to refer to my interview with the
strange man; and that I tried to account for
my sudden withdrawal of my balance by
referring it to some inexplicable panic, caused
by mischievous reports which I was unable
to trace to their source, and which, for
anything I knew to the contrary, might, after
all, have been only started in jest. Greatly
to my surprise, the partner did not seem to
notice the lamentable lameness of my excuses,
and did not additionally confuse me by asking
any questions. A weary, absent look,
which I had observed on his face, when I came
in, remained on it, while I was speaking. It
seemed to be an effort to him, even to keep
up the appearance of listening to me. And