the moment he stood irresolute. "Tell me," she repeated, and moved
back, motioning him to a chair.

Usselex took out his watch. "I must hurry," he said again. "But there,"
he added tenderly, "since you wish it, a moment lost is small matter,
after all."

Again he glanced at her and hesitated as though expectant of a respite.
Eden had her everyday air; outwardly she was calm, but something in her
appearance, the twitch of an eyelid, the quiver of a nostril perhaps,
revealed her impatience.

Usselex shrugged his shoulders, and for a second, with a gesture that
was habitual to him, he plucked at his beard. "No," he repeated, "a
moment is small matter, after all. H'm. Eden, some years ago I went
abroad. During my absence a cashier whom I trusted, and whom I would
trust again, speculated with money that passed through his hands. It was
not until my return that I learned of the affair. But meanwhile, as is
usual in such cases, he was on the wrong side of the market. The money
which he had taken had to be accounted for. I had a partner then, and
the cashier confessed the defalcation to him; it was the only thing he
could do, and he promised, I believe, that if time were given him he
would make good the loss. The amount after all was not large--fifteen
thousand perhaps, or twenty at the outside. But my partner was not
lenient. He came of a line of New England divines, and had, if I
remember rightly, at one time contemplated studying for the ministry. In
any event he was then an elder in some up-town Presbyterian church. But
virtue is not amiable. Without so much as communicating with me he put
the matter in the hands of the authorities, and when I returned the
cashier was in Sing-Sing. Eden, you will hardly understand how sorry I
was. He had a wife dependent on him--he had children. He had been with
me longer than my partner had, and I liked him. Of the two I liked him
the better. What he took I have never been able to view as a theft. It
was what might be called a forced loan. Had I been here it would have
been different; but my partner was obdurate. You see, the fault, if
fault there were, was mine. The salary I gave him was small, and each
day I allowed temptation to pass between his hands. People say that we
should resist temptation. I agree with them; temptation should be
resisted; but when a rich man preaches that sermon to the poor, he
forgets that where temptation is vague to him it may be potent to his
hearer. Oh, I