r all that passed through the poor
fellow's mind as he paced up and down the bare office that morning. The
floodgates had suddenly been opened upon him, and he felt himself
overwhelmed in a deluge of doubt and shame and horror.

It was long before he could collect his thoughts sufficiently to see
anything clearly. Why Mr Medlock should take the trouble to prevent
his home letters reaching their destination was incomprehensible, and
indeed it weighed little with him beside the fact that the man who had
given him his situation, and on whom he was actually depending for his
living, was the same who could bribe his office-boy to steal his
letters. If he were capable of such a meanness, was he to be trusted in
anything else? How was Reginald to know whether the money he had
regularly remitted to him was properly accounted for, or whether the
orders were being conscientiously executed?

Then it occurred to him the whole business of the Corporation had been
done in his--Reginald's--name, that all the circulars had been signed by
him, and that all the money had come addressed to him. Then there was
that awkward mistake about his name, which, accidental or intentional,
was Mr Medlock's doing. And beyond all that was the fact that Mr
Medlock had taken away the only record Reginald possessed of the names
of those who had replied to the circulars and sent money.

He found himself confronted with a mountain of responsibility, of which
he had never before dreamed, and for the clearing of which he was
entirely dependent on the good faith of a man who had, not a week ago,
played him one of the meanest tricks imaginable.

What was he to make of it--what else could he make of it except that he
was a miserable dupe, with ruin staring him in the face?

His one grain of comfort was in the names of some of the directors.
Unless that list were fictitious, they would not be likely to allow a
concern with which they were identified to collapse in discredit. Was
it genuine or not?

His doubts on this question were very speedily resolved by a letter
which arrived that very afternoon.

It was dated London, and ran as follows:--

"Cruden Reginald, Esquire.

"Sir,--The attention of the Bishop of S-- having been called to the
unauthorised, and, as it would appear, fraudulent use of his name in
connection with a company styled the Select Agency Corporation, of which
you are secretary, I am instructed, before his lordship enters on leg