pparently prepared to obey his employer with
all the energy he possessed. He went down the dimly-lighted stairs
quickly, but he glanced nervously upwards, as if he fancied that
Isidore Bamberger might have silently opened the door again to look
over the banister and watch him from above. In the dark entry below he
paused a moment, and took a satisfactory pull at a stout flask before
going out into the yellowish gloom that had settled on Hare Court.

When he was in the narrow alley he stopped again and laughed, without
making any sound, so heartily that he had to stand still till the fit
passed; and the expression of his unhealthy face just then would have
disturbed even Mr. Bamberger, who knew him well.

But Mr. Bamberger was sitting in the easy-chair before the fireplace,
and his eyes were fixed on the bright point at which the shiny copper
kettle reflected the gaslight. His head had fallen slightly forward,
so that his bearded chin was out of sight below the collar of his
overcoat, leaving his eagle nose and piercing eyes above it. He was
like a bird of prey looking down over the edge of its nest. He had not
taken off his hat for Mr. Feist, and it was pushed back from his bony
forehead now, giving his face a look that would have been half comic
if it had not been almost terrifying: a tall hat set on a skull, a
little back or on one side, produces just such an effect.

There was no moisture in the keen eyes now. In the bright spot on the
copper kettle they saw the vision of the end towards which he was
striving with all his strength, and all his heart, and all his wealth.
It was a grim little picture, and the chief figure in it was a
thick-set man who had a queer cap drawn down over his face and his
hands tied; and the eyes that saw it were sure that under the cap
there were the stony features of a man who had stolen his friend's
wife and killed his friend's daughter, and was going to die for what
he had done.

Then Isidore Bamberger's right hand disappeared inside the breast of
his coat and closed lovingly upon a full pocket-book; but there was
only a little money in it, only a few banknotes folded flat against
a thick package of sheets of notepaper all covered with clear, close
writing, some in ink and some in pencil; and if what was written there
was all true, it was enough to hang Mr. Rufus Van Torp.

There were other matters, too, not written there, but carefully
entered in the memory of the injured man. Ther