that in a manner that is common
among thieves, and a sardonic smile curled his pale thin lip.

"It is my duty," said the sly rogue, demurely. Then, after a pause,
"But how?"

Then Mr. Bartley glanced at Bolton in the lobby, and not satisfied with
speaking under his breath, drew this ill-chosen confidant to the other
end of the office.

"Why, suspect everybody, and watch them. Now there's this clerk Bolton: I
know nothing about him; I was taken by his looks. Have your eye on
_him_."

"I will, sir," said Monckton, eagerly. He drew a long breath of
relief. For all that, he was glad when a voice in the little office
announced a visitor.

It was a clear, peremptory voice, short, sharp, incisive, and decisive.
The clerk called Bolton heard it in the lobby, and scuttled into the
street with a rapidity that contrasted drolly enough with the composure
and slowness with which he had been brushing his hair and titivating his
nascent whiskers.

A tall, stiff military figure literally marched into the middle of the
office, and there stood like a sentinel.

Mr. Bartley could hardly believe his senses.

"Colonel Clifford!" said he, roughly.

"You are surprised to see me here?"

"Of course I am. May I ask what brings you?"

"That which composes all quarrels and squares all accounts--Death."

Colonel Clifford said this solemnly, and with less asperity. He added,
with a glance at Monckton, "This is a very private matter."

Bartley took the hint, and asked Monckton to retire into the inner
office.

As soon as he and Colonel Clifford were alone, that warrior, still
standing straight as a dart, delivered himself of certain short
sentences, each of which seemed to be propelled, or indeed jerked out of
him, by some foreign power seated in his breast.

"My sister, your injured wife, is no more."

"Dead! This is very sudden. I am very, very sorry. I--"

Colonel Clifford looked the word "Humbug," and continued to expel short
sentences.

"On her death-bed she made me promise to give you my hand. There it is."

His hand was propelled out, caught flying by Bartley, released, and drawn
back again, all by machinery it seemed.

"She leaves you L20,000 in trust for the benefit of her child and
yours--Mary Bartley."

"Poor, dear Eliza."

The Colonel looked as less high-bred people do when they say "Gammon,"
but proceeded civilly though brusquely.

"In dealing with the funds you have a large discretion. Should the girl
die