in the words which rose to his lips. He took Barter by the
collar, and lifted him to his feet with an unsuspected strength, and put
the question to him quietly.

'How many of those stolen notes has Steinberg changed for you?'

It was a bold thing to do, it was perhaps a foolish thing to do, and yet
it was the game. Barter stared at him speechlessly. His lips moved, but
he said nothing. Then his jaw fell as a dead man's jaw falls, and being
released at that instant, he dropped into the chair like a sack.

'Now the best thing for you to do,' said Phil, sternly regarding him,
'will be to make a clean breast of it. I have been tracking you since
the second day of our acquaintance.'

Barter groaned, with a tremulous and hollow sound, but made no other
answer.

'How many of those notes are in Steinberg's hands?' Phil asked.

The rascal's wits had begun to work again, if only a little, and he
could by this time have answered if he would. But he knew that his
own cowardice, if nothing else, had given away the game. After such a
confession as his own terror had made, what was the use of bluster
or pretence? He could not guess how much was known. He was completely
cornered, and must fight or yield. His native instinct at any moment was
ready to teach him how much discretion was the better part of valour,
and now to fight seemed mere madness. In the very terror of the night
which thus suddenly enveloped him he saw one gleam of hope. There was
one stroke to be made which might save him, in part at least, from the
consequences of his own misdeed.

Philip gave these reflections but little time to grow distinct to
Barter's mind.

'How many of those notes?' he asked slowly, emphasising almost every
word by a tap of his knuckles upon the table, 'have passed into
Steinberg's hands?'

'All,' gasped Barter; 'every one of them!'

'That will do for the present,' said Philip, and at that instant there
came a loud summons at the door, whereat the miserable Barter started,
and clasped his hands in renewed terror. He fancied an officer of
justice there, his arrival accurately timed.

Philip, throwing a glance about the room, and assuring himself that
there was no means of unobserved exit, answered the summons in person.
He had until that moment kept perfect possession of himself except
for his obedience to that overmastering intuition, but beholding Mr.
Steinberg at the doorway he felt a great leap at his heart, and a sudden
drynes