“Now I know that you are lying!” he cried: “don’t add blasphemy to your crime. You are the most irreligious fellow I ever came across—a man who, to my certain knowledge, never attends any place of public worship, and do you dare to call God to witness for you?”
Nothing but the strong consciousness of this new Presence kept Frithiof from making a sharp retort. But a great calmness had come over him, and his tone might have convinced even Mr. Horner had he not been so full of prejudice. “God knows I am innocent,” he repeated; “and only He can tell how the note got here; I can’t.”
“One word with you, if you please, Mr. Harris,” said Robert Boniface, suddenly pushing back his chair and rising to his feet, as though he could no longer tolerate the discussion.
He led the way back to the shop, where, in low tones, he briefly gave the detective his own opinion of the case. He was sure that Frithiof firmly believed he was telling the truth, but, unable to doubt the evidence of his own senses, he was obliged to take up the plausible theory of temporary aberration. The detective shrugged his shoulders a little, and said it might possibly be so, but the young man seemed to him remarkably clear-headed. However, he accepted his fee and went off, and Mr. Boniface returned sadly enough to his room.
“You can go back to the shop, Darnell,” he said.
The man bowed and withdrew, leaving Frithiof still standing half-bewildered where the detective had left him, the cause of all his misery lying on the writing-table before him, just as fresh and crisp-looking as when it had issued from the Bank of England.
“This has been a sad business, Frithiof,” said Mr. Boniface, leaning his elbow on the mantel-piece, and looking with his clear, kindly eyes at the young Norwegian. “But I am convinced that you had no idea what you were doing, and I should not dream of prosecuting you, or discharging you.”
Poor Frithiof was far too much stunned to be able to feel any gratitude for this. Mr. Horner, however, left him no time to reply.
“I think you have taken leave of your senses, Boniface,” he said vehemently. “Save yourself the annoyance of prosecuting, if you like; but it is grossly unfair to the rest of your employees to keep a thief in your house. Not only that, but it is altogether immoral; it is showing special favor to vice; it is admitting a principle which, if allowed, would ruin all business life. If there is one thing noticeable in all successful concerns it is that uncompromising severity is shown to even trifling errors—even to carelessness.”
“My business has hitherto been successful,” said Mr. Boniface quietly, “and I have never gone on that principle, and never will. Why are we to have a law of mercy and rigidly to exclude it from every-day life? But that is the way of the world. It manages, while calling itself Christian, to shirk most of Christ’s commands.”