“All kept right, sir, and wonderfully correct. Everything looks well in the books.”
“Then how is it?”
“The securities, sir,” said Thickens, with his lip quivering. “I’ve done a scoundrelly thing.”
“You, Thickens? You? I thought you were as honest a man as ever trod this earth!”
“Me, sir?” said the clerk grimly. “Oh, no! oh, no! I’m a gambler, I am.”
The vague horror was dissolving fast into thin mist. “You astound me!” cried Bayle, as he thought of Sir Gordon’s doubts of Hallam. “You, in your position of trust! What are you going to do?”
The grim smile on James Thickens’s lips grew more saturnine as he said:
“Make a clean breast of it, sir. That’s why I sent for you.”
“But, my good man!—oh, for heaven’s sake! go with me at once to Sir Gordon and Mr Hallam. I ought not to listen to this alone.”
“You’re going to hear it all alone,” said James Thickens, growing still more grim of aspect; “and when I’ve done you’re going to give me your advice.”