me, with the same result.

Then he went home.

From gloating over the prospective fortune he expected to share, he had
in a few hours become almost insane with a dread suspicion. His supper
was but half eaten; he wouldn't answer his patient wife's question; he
couldn't read, or think of but one thing, and that the horrible doubt
and suspicion consuming him.

That night his sleep was filled with fiendish dreams, and he saw Weston
running away and leering back at him over his shoulder.

When morning came, he hurried to his office an hour earlier than usual.
Only the office boy was there, sweeping out. Hill went to his desk,
where the morning mail was left. But one letter was there, and that from
Winn Hardy, dated in the city the night before and enclosing a check for
two hundred and thirty dollars, with the information that it belonged to
the firm and that he had severed his connection with them.

True to his nature, even in despair, Hill put it in his pocket,
resolving to say nothing to Weston about it. Then, to kill time till
Weston came, he opened the morning paper. On the front page was the
staring headlines:--

THE ROCKHAVEN GRANITE COMPANY
GONE TO SMASH
THE PRESIDENT, WESTON, SAID TO HAVE
SKIPPED

And then cold beads of sweat gathered on the face of Carlos B. Hill! All
the horrible suspicion of the day before was now proven true! He waited
to read no more, but with a groan of despair rushed, hatless, out of
the office and ran to that of Simmons. That icicle of a man was there,
calmly reading his mail.

"Where is Weston," almost screamed the half-insane Hill, "and what does
all this mean?"

"I haven't the least idea where Mr. Weston is," replied Simmons, calmly.
"Neither do I care. I balanced our account with him yesterday at the
close of business, at his request, and beyond that have no interest."

"But where is he? Tell me quick, for God's sake!" shouted Hill, now
trembling with excitement and fear. "I must know! Oh, what does this
mean!"

"You had better go back to your own office and read the papers,"
answered the imperturbable Simmons, in a tone of disgust. "And when you
go out again, put your hat on. As for Weston, I've done with him, and
good riddance. He made a mess of his scheme, an ass of me 'on 'change'
yesterday, and I hope I'll never see him again." And the always cool
Simmons turned to his mail. Nothing short of a panic on the street or an
eart