ted to
leave the vicinity of his hoard, the miser closed the various
compartments with more than his accustomed certitude and began to
prepare to respond to the lassitude of sleep which, for some
unaccountable reason, was unusually insistent.

With the easy partition of attire already noted, Raikes presently found
himself ready to tuck himself away for the night, which he did after
rolling his bedstead directly in front of the false radiator.

This unusual measure of precaution consummated, Raikes, with the first
sense of security he had felt for the last twenty-four hours, presently
succumbed to a sleep remarkable for its quick approach and its
subsequent soundness.

Until early dawn, with the relaxation which is commonly the reward of
innocence, Raikes slept away in unconscious travesty.

And when at last he opened his eyes he was as alertly awake as he had
been profoundly asleep.

With a promptness due to his retiring forebodings, his habitual unrest
and suspicion returned to him.

He was as vitally alive to the disturbing conditions of the day before
as if they had been the subjects of an all-night meditation.

But the confidence of his bolts and bars, the recollection of his
unusual measures of safety, reassured him somewhat.

It was, therefore, with a degree of composure he approached the door and
satisfied himself that the bar and the locks had been undisturbed.

With equal assurance he rolled the bedstead from the radiator and
pressed the button which operated the concealed spring, with a
deliberation in which no suggestion of uneasiness appeared.

A quick revolution or so and the inner recess was revealed.

To his rapid accounting the quantity of bags was the same, and their
relative positions, which he had so carefully arranged the night before,
were undisturbed--but this one, that within easiest reach! What was it
caused those sharp suggestions in its accustomed rotundity--those
angular points?

In a quiver the man was transformed.

With a cry such as must have been forced from the Jew of old, compelled
by the rough levies of his time to part at once with his teeth and his
treasure, Raikes grasped the bag, which came away in his clutch with the
agonizing lightness that had preceded his first loss.

Quickly he unfastened the mouth of the fateful packet and inverted it
over the table.

The next instant there rattled to view a soulless, sodden shower of
lack-luster, heart-breaking coals.

(T