"Quite right; that's it exactly," said Holcombe, with cheerful
alacrity. "I'm glad you have grasped the situation so soon. That makes
it easier for me. Now, what I have been trying to tell you is this. I
received a letter about you to-night. It seems that before leaving New
York you converted bonds and mortgages belonging to Miss Martha Field,
which she had intrusted to you, into ready money. And that you took
this money with you. Now, as this is the first place you have stopped
since leaving New York, except Gibraltar, where you could not have
banked it, you must have it with you now, here in this town, in this
hotel, possibly in this room. What else you have belonging to other
poor devils and corporations does not concern me. It's yours as far as
I mean to do anything about it. But this sixty thousand dollars which
belongs to Miss Field, who is the best, purest, and kindest woman I
have ever known, and who has given away more money than you ever
stole, is going back with me to-morrow to New York." Holcombe leaned
forward as he spoke, and rapped with his knuckles on the table. Allen
confronted him in amazement, in which there was not so much surprise
at what the other threatened to do as at the fact that it was he who
had proposed doing it.

"I don't understand," he said, slowly, with the air of a bewildered
child.

"It's plain enough," replied the other, impatiently. "I tell you I
want sixty thousand dollars of the money you have with you. You can
understand that, can't you?"

"But how?" expostulated Allen. "You don't mean to rob me, do you,
Harry?" he asked with a laugh.