definite volition, marked down this man for a real account to be
settled.

"With _that_ man I shall have much to do," he said to himself, as he
noted the big face look up and meet his eye through the glass. "There is
something I cannot shirk--a vital relation out of the past of both of
us."

And he went to his desk trembling a little, and with shaking knees, as
though the memory of some terrible pain had suddenly laid its icy hand
upon his heart and touched the scar of a great horror. It was a moment
of genuine terror when their eyes had met through the glass door, and
he was conscious of an inward shrinking and loathing that seized upon
him with great violence and convinced him in a single second that the
settling of this account would be almost, perhaps, more than he could
manage.

The vision passed as swiftly as it came, dropping back again into the
submerged region of his consciousness; but he never forgot it, and
the whole of his life thereafter became a sort of natural though
undeliberate preparation for the fulfilment of the great duty when the
time should be ripe.

In those days--ten years ago--this man was the Assistant Manager,
but had since been promoted as Manager to one of the company's local
branches; and soon afterwards Jones had likewise found himself
transferred to this same branch. A little later, again, the branch
at Liverpool, one of the most important, had been in peril owing to
mismanagement and defalcation, and the man had gone to take charge of
it, and again, by mere chance apparently, Jones had been promoted to the