sharp look at the charwoman, who was going
on with her scouring with stolid indifference,
turned her out, and then asked Margaret
where Crawford came from,— how long he
had lived with them, and various other
questions, all showing the direction his
suspicions had taken. This shocked Margaret
extremely; but she quickly answered
every inquiry; and, at the end, watched the
inspector's face closely, and waited for the
avowal of the suspicion.

He led the way back to the other room
without a word, however. Crawford had left,
and Doctor Brown was trying to read the
morning's letters (which had just been
delivered), but his hands shook so much that
he could not see a line.

"Doctor Brown," said the inspector, "I
have little doubt that your man-servant has
committed this robbery.  I judge so from his
whole manner; and from his anxiety to tell
the story, and his way of trying to throw suspicion
on the chimney-sweeper, neither whose
name nor dwelling can he give; at least he says
not. Your wife says he has already been out of
the house this morning, even before he went
to summon a policeman; so there is little
doubt that he has found means for concealing
or disposing of the notes; and you
say you do not know the numbers.  However,
that can probably be ascertained."

At this moment Christie knocked at the
door, and, in a state of great agitation,
demanded to speak to Margaret. She brought
up an additional store of suspicious circumstances
none of them much in themselves,
but all tending to criminate her fellow-servant.
She had expected to find herself
blamed for starting the idea of Crawford's
guilt, and was rather surprised to find
herself listened to with attention by the
inspector.  This led her to tell many other
little things all bearing against Crawford,
which, a dread of being thought jealous and
quarrelsome, had led her to conceal before
from her master and mistress. At the end of
her story the inspector said:

"There can be no doubt of the course to
be taken.  You, sir, must give your
man-servant in charge.  He will be taken before
the sitting magistrate directly; and there is
already evidence enough to make him be
remanded for a week; during which time we
may trace the notes, and complete the
chain."

"Must I prosecute?" said Doctor Brown,
almost lividly pale. "It is, I own, a serious
loss of money to me; but there will be the
further expenses of the prosecution the loss
of time— the—"

He stopped.  He saw his wife's indignant
eyes fixed upon him; and shrank from their
look of unconscious reproach.

"Yes, inspector," he said, "I give him in
charge.  Do what you will.  Do what is right.
Of course I take the consequences. We take
the consequences.  Don't we, Margaret?"

He spoke in a kind of wild low voice; of
which Margaret thought it best to take no
notice.

"Tell us exactly what to do," she said,
very coldly and quietly, addressing herself to
the policeman.

He gave her the necessary directions as to
their attending at the police-office, and bringing
Christie as a witness, and then went away
to take measures for securing Crawford.

Margaret was surprised to find how little
hurry or violence needed to be used in
Crawford's arrest. She had expected to hear
sounds of commotion in the house, if indeed
Crawford himself had not taken the alarm
and escaped. But, when she had suggested
the latter apprehension to the inspector,
he smiled, and told her that when he had
first heard of the charge from the policeman
on the beat, he had stationed a detective
officer within sight of the house to watch all
ingress or egress; so that Crawford's
whereabouts would soon be discovered if he had
attempted to escape.

Margaret's attention was now directed to
her husband. He was making hurried
preparations for setting off on his round of
visits, and evidently did not wish to have
any conversation with her on the subject of
the morning's event. He promised to be
back by eleven o'clock;  before which time
the inspector had assured them their presence
would not be needed. Once or twice Doctor
Brown said, as if to himself,  "It is a
miserable business."  Indeed, Margaret felt
it to be so; and now that the necessity for
immediate speech and action was over, she
began to fancy that she must be very
hard-hearted —very deficient in common feeling;
inasmuch as she had not suffered like her
husband at the discovery that the servant—
whom they had been learning to consider as
a friend, and to look upon him as having
their interests so warmly at heart— was, in all
probability, a treacherous thief. She remembered
all his pretty marks of attention to her
from the day when he had welcomed her
arrival at her new home by his humble
present of flowers, until only the day before,
when, seeing her fatigued, he had, unasked,
made her a cup of coffee,— coffee such as none
but he could make. How often had he
thought of warm dry clothes for her husband;
how wakeful had he been at nights; how
diligent in the mornings! It was no wonder
that her husband felt this discovery of
domestic treason acutely. It was she who
was hard and selfish, and thinking more of the
recovery of the money than of the terrible
disappointment in character if the charge
against Crawford were true.

At eleven o'clock her husband returned
with a cab.  Christie had thought the occasion
of appearing at a police-office worthy of
her Sunday clothes, and was as smart as
her possessions could make her. But Margaret
and her husband looked as pale and