le. So
the temptation to drop the cards upon the table, to look his companion
in the face, and to ask simply, 'How about that eight thousand pounds?'
grew more and more upon him, and had to be more and more strenuously
resisted. It seemed worth while to resist it To begin with, if young
Barter should be innocent, the querist could evidently expect nothing
else than to be taken for a madman. To continue, if his name and the
likeness to his father had already set the thief upon his guard, and
had prepared him for accusation, the question would only reveal his own
suspicion, and thereby weaken the chances of discovery.

Philip combated his inward desire, but could not quell it. There seemed
a kind of intuition in it, a lurking certainty lay hidden behind all the
doubts he saw, and pushed him forward.

By and by young Mr. Barter tripped on the false cut, which he had
hitherto executed with a fair amateur dexterity.

'Excuse me,' said Phil, as he gathered the spilt cards together. 'You
should make the three separate motions look like one. Do the trick so.'

He performed the trick slowly, looking Barter in the face, and then went
through it swiftly.

'That is how the thing ought to be done, Mr. Barter,' he said, with a
placidity which his companion found singularly disquieting.

And now, that same unhappy want of self-command which had given
Steinberg so clear an insight into his young friend's mind, fell once
more upon Barter. He tried to look wondering, he tried to laugh. The
result of that frightened contortion of the features was nothing less
than ghastly. Unhappily for himself he knew it, and so he grew ghastlier
yet, and for the life of him could not tell where to set his eyes.

'So you're a sharper in a small way, are you, Mr. Barter?' Philip
inquired suavely.

'How dare you talk to me like that?' the detected rascal stammered. 'You
come into a gentleman's rooms, and lose an odd half-crown or two----'

When he had got as far as this he ventured to look his companion in the
face, and seeing there a very marked and readable prophecy of unpleasant
things, he backed, and in the act of doing so, tripped, and fell into a
chair. The intention in Phil's mind became simply unconquerable. He cast
rapidly about him for an instant, saw all the consequences of failure
which might follow if he denounced the trembling wretch at once, and set
him on his guard. And yet he could not help doing what he did, and could
not restra