With a cry of horror he sprang forward to aid his now insensible employer.
“You here!” cried Vyce, turning on him with the rage and despair of a man detected in the commission of a desperate crime. “You shall never live to tell the story.”
In a moment they had grappled in a terrible struggle.
The boy, encumbered by his light overcoat, was at a disadvantage.
The bookkeeper was strong, agile and desperate.
They swayed to and fro within the brass railings near the safe, Vyce trying to get a grip on Vance’s throat.
At length the bookkeeper succeeded in tripping Thornton so that he fell across the railing, and then he began to pound the boy over the head and face with his fist.
The result was now no longer in doubt, for Vyce clearly had the upper hand.
He intended to kill the lad, for he hated him as only such a malignant nature can hate.
But fate willed it otherwise, else this story would not have been written.