"Well, the boy must be punished!" said Mr, Forbes decidedly. "I cannot be accountable for what may follow."
"Do you mean that you will arrest my brother?" cried Mr. Watkins, "when you know that by doing so you will blast his character forever and drive a poor woman to her grave who has never wronged you?"
"The boy should have thought of that," answered Mr. Forbes, grimly. "I deal with my employees, not with their futures or their mothers."
"But if I return the money! See, I have a part of it here!"
Mr. Watkins almost cried with agony as he held out two hundred dollars.
Mr. Forbes took the money and counted it carefully.
"Let's see, Watkins, your salary is twelve dollars a week," he said slowly. "If I deduct five dollars a week to cover the balance of this, it will be just sixty weeks before I could get my money."
"If I could only find the rest," said Mr. Watkins, groaning; "but Sam says he lost it, and I think he tells the truth. If he hadn't lost it he would have given it all to mother."
Mr. Forbes was drumming lightly on a table by his side. It was evident that two emotions were struggling within him.
"Here is the evening paper, sir," said a maid at the door.