e inclined more to mercy than the others;
it was he who carried the vote which allowed Northwick three days'
grace, to look into his affairs, and lay before the directors the proof
that he had ample means, as he maintained, to meet the shortage in the
accounts. "I wish you well out of it, for your family's sake," he said
at parting; "but all the same, sir, you are a thief."

He put his hands ostentatiously in his pockets, when some others
meaninglessly shook hands with Northwick, at parting, as Northwick
himself might have shaken hands with another in his place; and he
brushed by him out of the door without looking at him. He came suddenly
back to say, "If it were a question of you alone, I would cheerfully
lose something more than you've robbed me of for the pleasure of seeing
you handcuffed in this room and led to jail through the street by a
constable. No honest man, no man who was not always a rogue at heart,
could have done what you've done; juggled with the books for years, and
bewitched the record so by your infernal craft, that it was never
suspected till now. You've given _mind_ to your scoundrelly work, sir;
all the mind you had; for if you hadn't been so anxious to steal
successfully, you'd have given more mind to the use of your stealings.
You _may_ have some of them left, but it looks as if you'd made ducks
and drakes of them, like any petty rascal in the hands of the Employees'
Insurance Company. Yes, sir, I believe you're of about the intellectual
calibre of that sort of thief. I can't respect you even on your own
ground. But I'm willing to give you the chance you ask, for your
daughter's sake. She's been in and out of my house with my girl like one
of my own children, and I won't send her father to jail if I can help
it. Understand! I haven't any sentiment for _you_, Northwick. You're the
kind of rogue I'd like to see in a convict's jacket, learning to make
shoe-brushes. But you shall have your chance to go home and see if you
can pay up somehow, and you sha'n't be shadowed while you're at it. You
shall keep your outside to the world three days longer, you whited
sepulchre; but if you want to know, I think the best thing that could
happen to you on your way home would be a good railroad accident."

The man's words and looks were burnt into Northwick's memory, which now
seemed to have the faculty of simultaneously reproducing them all.
Northwick remembered his purple face, with its prominent eyes, and the