"Then it will be done, and I'll tell you how. It is very simple. I am just now the talk of the town on account of the life I have been leading. People will not be surprised at anything reported of me, the directors least of all. You know they would have discharged me long ago but for your relation to me."
"I don't understand. I can't see what you are driving at," William stared with his bloodshot eyes. "You say you see a way. For God's sake, for God's sake—"
"Yes, but you are not listening. I am coming to it. I am going away to-night, Billy. I'm going away never to return. I am going out of your life as completely as if I'd never been in it. I'll never write back. You will never know whether I'm dead or alive."
"You are going away? Why are you going? I thought of it myself, but I couldn't stand it. No, there is no other way than to end it all."
"Don't you see what I mean, Billy? It is known that I have access to the vaults during business hours, and when I turn up missing to-morrow the examiner will logically couple me and my bad record with the money that is gone. Now you understand."
With his hands on the arms of his revolving-chair the banker drew himself to his feet. A wild look of hope was in his eyes and on his ghastly face. He groped his way to his brother, his hands outstretched as if to prevent himself from falling.
"You—you can't mean it, Charlie!" he said in his throat. "And if you do mean it I can't let you—I can't, I can't!"
"You must, because I wish it. I want to be of some use to you and to Lessie and the baby. Oh, I owe you a lot—a lot! Think how you have borne with me—how I have disgraced you."
"I can't let you—I can't," William cried, and yet he was panting with a vast new joy. His eyes bored into those of his brother. "What, let you do that? No, no. I could not permit it."
"Billy, you see, I want to do it as much for myself as you. I want to be absolutely free from old associations. You can replace the money. You can claim that you are doing it, you see, because you were responsible for my staying on when I ought to have been discharged. It will all seem so—so plausible—so very natural."