“And your vocation?” asked Gilead.
“I was cashier, sir, to a firm of law stationers.”
“Was?”
He noticed and emphasised the past tense.
“I was forced to leave, sir,” said the visitor scarce audibly.
“Forced?”
Again he accentuated the word, quietly, but significantly.
“No, not in that way, sir,” answered the other—“not, indeed. It was because I feared to be tempted to it that I left. I come to you with clean hands so far; indeed I do, sir.”
He put out his arms with an instinctive movement, and withdrew them as quickly. Miss Halifax, leaning over her table, shaded her eyes with her palm. But Gilead sat, to all appearance, as cold as judgment.
“You will forgive me,” he said; “it is necessary. You proposed, if I remember rightly, some indiscriminate form of service in return for this loan?”