“But, tell me,” panted Bayle, with the horror vague no longer, but seeming to have assumed form and substance, and to be crushing him down, “who has done this thing?”
“Who had the care of them, sir?”
“Thickens,” cried Bayle, starting from his chair, and catching at the mantelpiece, for the room seemed to swim round, and he swept an ornament from the shelf, which fell with a crash, “Thickens, for heaven’s sake, don’t say that.”
“I must say it, sir. What am I to do? I’ve doubted him for years.”
“But the money—he has lived extravagantly; but, oh! it is impossible. It can’t be much.”
“Much, sir? It’s fifty thousand pounds if it’s a penny!”
“But, Thickens, it means felony, criminal prosecution, a trial.”
He spoke hoarsely, and his hands were trembling. “It means transportation for one-and-twenty years, sir—perhaps for life.”
Bayle’s face was ashy, and with lips apart he stood gazing at the grim, quiet clerk.
“Man, man!” he cried at last; “it can’t be true.”