"You know it did," was the answer, and Roland turned his grieved face full on Hurst. "You know you wanted to bring up that miserable time when I stole the twenty-pound note from old Galloway, and let the blame of it fall on Arthur Channing. Because I took that, you think I have taken this!"
"Hush! You'll have them hear you, Yorke."
"That's what you want. Why don't you go and tell them?" demanded Roland, who was working into a passion. "Proclaim it aloud. Ring the bell, as the town-crier does at home on a market-day. Call Greatorex and Brown and Jenner up from their desks. Where's the good of taunting me in private?"
Hurst kept his head down and wrote on in silence, hoping to allay the storm he had inadvertently provoked. In spite of his protestations, he had spoken in reference to that past transaction, and the tone showed the truth to Roland; but still he had spoken thoughtlessly. Roland, as he believed, was no more guilty of this present loss than he himself was; and he felt inclined to clip his tongue out for its haste.
Pushing his hair from his hot face, biting his lips, drawing deep breaths in his anger and emotion, stood Roland. Presently the pen was dashed down on the parchment before him, blotting it and defacing it for use, but of course that went for nothing, and Roland stalked to the desk of Mr. Bede Greatorex.
"I wish to say, sir, that I did not steal the cheque."
The words took Mr. Bede Greatorex by surprise. But he had by this time become pretty well acquainted with Roland and his impulsive ways; he liked him in spite of his faults as a clerk; otherwise he would never have put up with them. A pleasant smile crossed his lips as he answered; answered in jest.
"You know the old French proverb, I dare say, Mr. Yorke: 'Qui s'excuse s'accuse'?"
Roland made nothing of French at the best of times: at such as these, every pulse within him agitated to pain, it was about as intelligible as Hebrew. But, had he understood every word of the joking implication, he could not have responded with more passionate earnestness.
"I did not touch the cheque, sir; I swear it. I never saw it after you took it from this room, or knew where you put it, or anything. It never once came into my thoughts."