"Remember that day!" broke in Gilbert. "Shall I ever forget it? It was on the evening of that day I proposed to Kitty, and she accepted me. I have more cause than ever now to remember it!"
"That was the day, Gilbert. It was also the day, you will remember, on which we heard that Mr. Thornton was coming back to England. The whole trouble begins with his letter," said Eversleigh, and stopped with a gulp and a choke.
"With Mr. Thornton's letter?"
"Yes," said Eversleigh, trying to fight down his emotion. "Gilbert," he went on more calmly, "I am very sorry to tell you that on the day we received the letter intimating Mr. Thornton's return, I received from Mr. Silwood a confession that he had been speculating with the funds and the property of our clients, and that all had been lost—Mr. Thornton's with the rest."
"What!" cried Gilbert, doubting his senses.
"It is true."
"Father, do you know what you are saying?"
"Alas, yes, only too well! Thornton's letter spoke of making a formal examination of the securities we held of his, and it was this which led Silwood to confess his embezzlements."
"But you had nothing to do with them, father!"
"No; but I need not tell you that in the eye of the law, I, as Silwood's partner, was equally guilty. What I have suffered, what I have endured from that moment, you can never guess; I have lived in a hell of torture. When I knew the truth, I did not know what to do; but I just let myself drift and drift and drift, hoping against hope that somehow or other there might be a way out of the difficulties that beset me. But there has been no way out. Things have gone from bad to worse. There was first Silwood's death, and then the death of Morris Thornton."