gon to attempt his escape, Mr. Clifford, the senior partner
in the firm, reached Riversborough by the last train from London. It was
too late for him to intrude on the household of his young partner, and
he spent the night at a hotel.

The old bank at Riversborough had been flourishing for the last hundred
years. It had the power of issuing its own notes; and until lately these
notes, bearing the familiar names of Clifford and Sefton, had been
preferred by the country people round to those of the Bank of England
itself. For nobody knew who were the managers of the Bank of England;
while one of the Seftons, either father or son, could be seen at any
time for the last fifty years. On ordinary days there were but few
customers to be seen in its handsome office, and a single clerk might
easily have transacted all the business. But on market-days and
fair-days the place was crowded by loud-voiced, red-faced country
gentlemen, and by awkward and burly farmers, from the moment its doors
were opened until they were closed at the last stroke of four sounding
from the church clock near at hand. The strong room of the Old Bank was
filled full with chests containing valuable securities and heirlooms,
belonging to most of the county families in the neighborhood.

For the last twenty years Mr. Clifford had left the management of the
bank entirely to the elder Sefton, and upon his death to his son, who
was already a partner. He had lived abroad, and had not visited England
for more than ten years. There was a report, somewhat more
circumstantial than a rumor, but the truth of which none but the elder
Sefton had ever known, that Mr. Clifford, offended by his only son, had
let him die of absolute starvation in Paris. Added to this rumor was a
vague story of some crime committed by the younger Clifford, which his
father would not overlook or forgive. That he was a hard man, austere to
utter pitilessness, everybody averred. No transgressor need look to him
for pardon.

When Roland Sefton had laid his hands upon the private personal
securities belonging to his senior partner, it was with no idea that he
would escape the most rigorous prosecution, should his proceedings ever
come to the light. But it was with the fixed conviction that Mr.
Clifford would never return to England, or certainly not to
Riversborough, where this hard report had been circulated and partly
accepted concerning him. The very bonds he had dealt with, first
borrowin