Charley’s features wore a ghastly smile.
His lips became bloodless and blue, and quivered with emotion as he attempted to speak.
He could not speak, however, for his voice faltered, and the words stuck in his throat.
Loosening his cravat to avoid a sense of strangulation, to which of late he had become sometimes subject, he seized the youth by the arm with an iron grip, and striding towards the Directors’ Council Room.
“Come with me,” he exclaimed, in a hoarse, hollow-toned voice, “come with me! You shall not suffer for the deeds of others! Gentlemen,” he began when he had shut the door and stood before the Board of Directors, “gentlemen, I wish to say a few words before this young man leaves the India House. I wish to inform you——”
He caught the eye of old Sir Richard Warbeck gazing intently at him, and his courage failed him.
Summoning all his energy, with a great effort he approached to lean upon the council-table, and, casting his eyes upon the ground, continued, amid a solemn silence,
“I wish to inform you that I alone am answerable for the charge brought against, or supposed to exist, against this young man. I lost the money, and replaced the amount with a packet of false notes—no one else. I acknowledge it was my intention to have confessed it all on the following day. I have never had or spent a single penny of the amount, but lost it all by some unaccountable means the same evening on which I neglected to return to the India House. Prosecute me, and I will suffer cheerfully; anything is better than the hellish remorse which I have already suffered. But do not—do not, I beg of you, harbour suspicions against this sinless youth, on whose labour and reputation a poor widowed mother depends for bread!”
Charley Warbeck sank into a chair, and wept like a child.
The Board of Directors were astonished at such an unexpected disclosure from one of their favourite and much-trusted clerks, and sat for many minutes in mute surprise and profound reflection.