Bayle gazed at him wonderingly, for all thought of his innocence had passed away.
“I will speak, Hallam,” he said. “Tell me the amount for which the deeds you have abstracted from that safe are pledged.”
“The deeds I have abstracted from that safe?” said Hallam, rising slowly, and standing at his full height, with his head thrown back.
“Yes; and in whose place you have installed forgeries, dummies—imitations, if you will.”
That blow was too straight—too heavy to be resisted. Hallam dropped back in his chair; while James Thickens, at his desk behind the bank counter, heard the shock, and then fidgeted in his seat, and rubbed his right ear, as he heard Hallam speak of him in a low voice, and say hoarsely:
“Thickens, then, has told you this?”
“Yes,” said Bayle in a lower tone. “He came to me for advice, and I bade him do his duty.”
“Hah!” said Hallam, and his eyes wandered about the room.
“This morning I begged him to wait.”
“Hah!” ejaculated Hallam again, and now there was a sharp twitching about his closely-shaven lips. “And you said that you came as our friend?”